Posted on 05/09/2005 11:35:25 PM PDT by Crackingham
While Kansas State Board of Education members spent three days soaking up from critics of evolution about how the theory should be taught in public schools, many scientists refused to participate in the board's public hearings. But evolution's defenders were hardly silent last week, nor are they likely to be Thursday, when the hearings are set to conclude. They have offered public rebuttals after each day's testimony. Their tactics led the intelligent design advocates -- hoping to expose Kansas students to more criticism of evolution -- to accuse them of ducking the debate over the theory. But Kansas scientists who defend evolution said the hearings were rigged against the theory. They also said they don't see the need to cram their arguments into a few days of testimony, like out-of-state witnesses called by intelligent design advocates.
"They're in, they do their schtick, and they're out," said Keith Miller, a Kansas State University geologist. "I'm going to be here, and I'm not going to be quiet. We'll have the rest of our lives to make our points."
The scientists' boycott, led by the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Kansas Citizens for Science, frustrated board members who viewed their hearings as an educational forum.
"I am profoundly disappointed that they've chosen to present their case in the shadows," said board member Connie Morris, of St. Francis. "I would have enjoyed hearing what they have to say in a professional, ethical manner."
Intelligent design advocates challenge evolutionary theory that natural chemical processes can create life, that all life on Earth had a common origin and that man and apes had a common ancestor. Intelligent design says some features of the natural world are best explained by an intelligent cause because they are well ordered and complex. The science groups' leaders said Morris and the other two members of the board subcommittee presiding at the hearings already have decided to support language backed by intelligent design advocates. All three are part of a conservative board majority receptive to criticism of evolution. The entire board plans to consider changes this summer in standards that determine how students will be tested statewide in science.
Alan Leshner, AAAS chief executive officer, dismissed the hearings as "political theater."
"There is no cause for debate, so why are they having them?" he said. "They're trying to imply that evolution is a controversial concept in science, and that's absolutely not true."
I should also be more careful creating those links, too.
Godel only has to do with DISCRETE systems, such as integer arithmetic, or tabular systems of proof relying on symbols in a row, or quantum orbit calculations. Some continuous systems, like the Calculus, or classic geometry, are known to be theoretically complete, or closed, and do not suffer from the Godel limit. However, much of the universe, and the universe of mathematical discourse in particular is, in fact, discrete, with no obvious escape clause. Are you proposing that any mathematics can escape from the Godelian limit through some form of mathematics as yet undreamed of?
"When I was in college I was involved in ... the Italian war machine. ... I ...killed ... every possible ethnic group."
That's a real nice way of saying you couldn't care less for what I think. Well, thanks. If I hadn't of cared what you thought I wouldn't have taken the time to write to you.
It's right here.
And ...
As Matchett-PI has posted, ALL quotes are "taken out of context".
Jeez ... the truth will out.
But I don't think you understand the role of proof and conjecture. When a proof is found to be wrong, it's wrong forever and it's definitive.
Really? So the proof of a thing can be wrong. But the disproof is incapable of being wrong? Don't you detect a small assymetry in this argument?
When a biology experiment interpretation is "believed" to be "wrong" it takes a good century to get the bad interpretation out of the zeitgeist. Until it makes a comeback.
Which would be about on par with astro-physics, where the either reigned for at least 100 years, Ptolomaic astronomy reigned for 1000, and the Newtonian time-space invariant framework of the universe reigned for 400.
Should we dismiss astrophysics as beneath consideration as a scientific endeavor as well?
I've tried to be...utterly ridiculous. I have...been...calling you a cultist or idolater. Personally, I...look foolish.
I curious what theory or paradigm in biology took a hundred years to get out of the zeitgeist after being proved wrong.
I know that ID has survived for over 200 years, but I'm hard pressed to think of another example.
In a recent volume of the Vienna Series in a Theoretical Biology (2003), Gerd B. Muller and Stuart Newman argue that what they call the “origination of organismal form” remains an unsolved problem. In making this claim, Muller and Newman (2003:3-10) distinguish two distinct issues, namely, (1) the causes of form generation in the individual organism during embryological development and (2) the causes responsible for the production of novel organismal forms in the first place during the history of life. To distinguish the latter case (phylogeny) from the former (ontogeny), Muller and Newman use the term “origination” to designate the causal processes by which biological form first arose during the evolution of life. They insist that “the molecular mechanisms that bring about biological form in modern day embryos should not be confused” with the causes responsible for the origin (or “origination”) of novel biological forms during the history of life (p.3). They further argue that we know more about the causes of ontogenesis, due to advances in molecular biology, molecular genetics and developmental biology, than we do about the causes of phylogenesis--the ultimate origination of new biological forms during the remote past.
In making this claim, Muller and Newman are careful to affirm that evolutionary biology has succeeded in explaining how preexisting forms diversify under the twin influences of natural selection and variation of genetic traits. Sophisticated mathematically-based models of population genetics have proven adequate for mapping and understanding quantitative variability and populational changes in organisms. Yet Muller and Newman insist that population genetics, and thus evolutionary biology, has not identified a specifically causal explanation for the origin of true morphological novelty during the history of life. Central to their concern is what they see as the inadequacy of the variation of genetic traits as a source of new form and structure. They note, following Darwin himself, that the sources of new form and structure must precede the action of natural selection (2003:3)--that selection must act on what already exists. Yet, in their view, the “genocentricity” and “incrementalism” of the neo-Darwinian mechanism has meant that an adequate source of new form and structure has yet to be identified by theoretical biologists. Instead, Muller and Newman see the need to identify epigenetic sources of morphological innovation during the evolution of life. In the meantime, however, they insist neo-Darwinism lacks any “theory of the generative” (p. 7).
As it happens, Muller and Newman are not alone in this judgment. In the last decade or so a host of scientific essays and books have questioned the efficacy of selection and mutation as a mechanism for generating morphological novelty, as even a brief literature survey will establish. Thomson (1992:107) expressed doubt that large-scale morphological changes could accumulate via minor phenotypic changes at the population genetic level. Miklos (1993:29) argued that neo-Darwinism fails to provide a mechanism that can produce large-scale innovations in form and complexity. Gilbert et al. (1996) attempted to develop a new theory of evolutionary mechanisms to supplement classical neo-Darwinism, which, they argued, could not adequately explain macroevolution. As they put it in a memorable summary of the situation: “starting in the 1970s, many biologists began questioning its (neo-Darwinism's) adequacy in explaining evolution. Genetics might be adequate for explaining microevolution, but microevolutionary changes in gene frequency were not seen as able to turn a reptile into a mammal or to convert a fish into an amphibian. Microevolution looks at adaptations that concern the survival of the fittest, not the arrival of the fittest. As Goodwin (1995) points out, 'the origin of species--Darwin's problem--remains unsolved'“ (p. 361). Though Gilbert et al. (1996) attempted to solve the problem of the origin of form by proposing a greater role for developmental genetics within an otherwise neo-Darwinian framework,1 numerous recent authors have continued to raise questions about the adequacy of that framework itself or about the problem of the origination of form generally (Webster & Goodwin 1996; Shubin & Marshall 2000; Erwin 2000; Conway Morris 2000, 2003b; Carroll 2000; Wagner 2001; Becker & Lonnig 2001; Stadler et al. 2001; Lonnig & Saedler 2002; Wagner & Stadler 2003; Valentine 2004:189-194).
What lies behind this skepticism? Is it warranted? Is a new and specifically causal theory needed to explain the origination of biological form?
I asked you to resolve c, not to solve the equations. I will recast the problem in a more classic form so as to avoid this interpretation:
b = 1 a = f1(b) - 1 f1(b) = f1(a) + 1 solve for a, providing a proof of your answerPlease note that I can write a useful program that looks exactly like this--so there's no traction in claiming that it doesn't really exist.
I'm searching for the part where a researchable question is forbidden. What line of research is forbidden?
And could you describe a line of research capable of demonstrating a negative -- that Darwinian evolution cannot work -- and not just asserting that everything isn't yet known?
That seems obvious to me, Dr. Shapiro, and many others. It is addressed by the paper which caused the editor to who allowed it to be peer-reviewed and published to be vilified.
If you cannot demonstrate a negative, how can anything be falsifiable?
No, people can submit a wrong proof.
What is your point? I don't understand the underlying algebraic structure.
But what about the situation where the "revelation of God" for one person is diametrically opposed to the "revelation of God" for another?
This is one of the reasons I think attacking evolution can be damaging to faith. The crevo argument brings out such questions, and for someone who is not solid in their faith, they may be tempted to abandon it. I think that would be a tragedy.
I hate to sound "liberal", but I think a little tolerance on the part of creationists would be a positive for them. If they taught their children that "we believe X, but if they teach you something else in school, fine". Their children should be encuraged to learn the material, pass the test, but leave their dogma at home and church. And that's baring the idea that they might ought to rethink whether their dogma is valid in the first place, if that fits with the Bible.
Thanks for the reply A-G. I always notice it when you thank PatrickHenry for pinging you. You're a very polite Freeper.
What is your point? I don't understand the underlying algebraic structure. But I still don't see your point. You're not refuting the fraudulent, alchemaic nature of biological research.
Not heaping praise just to heap praise. But... That is a very good, and very compact description of the what this country should be.
I babble on too much. Sometimes true gems only take a few words/sentences.
600?
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