Incorrect. In fact, I've given you not one, but TWO METHODS of determining intelligent design: one if the DNA code is properly read and understood, and two if conclusive evidence of irreducible complexity were found in the beast.
Posted on 08/18/2005 7:39:37 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
On August 1, 2005, a group of reporters from Texas met with President Bush in the Roosevelt room for a roundtable interview. The President’s remarks suggest that he believes that both intelligent design and evolution should be taught so that “people are exposed to different schools of thought.” There have been so many articles since his remarks that it’s useful to read the relevant portion of published interview:
“Q: I wanted to ask you about the -- what seems to be a growing debate over evolution versus intelligent design. What are your personal views on that, and do you think both should be taught in public schools?The reporter got it right: there is an ongoing debate over intelligent design vs. evolution, at least in the media and in politics. There is not a debate in the greater scientific community about the validity of evolution. Further, the vast majority of scientists do not consider intelligent design as a viable alternative to evolution.THE PRESIDENT: I think -- as I said, harking back to my days as my governor -- both you and Herman are doing a fine job of dragging me back to the past. (Laughter.) Then, I said that, first of all, that decision should be made to local school districts, but I felt like both sides ought to be properly taught.
Q: Both sides should be properly taught?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, people -- so people can understand what the debate is about.
Q: So the answer accepts the validity of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution?
THE PRESIDENT: I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought, and I'm not suggesting -- you're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, and the answer is yes.”
(Transcript released by the White House and published on August 2, 2005 at WashingtonPost.com)
Dr. John Marburger III, Presidential Science Advisor, tried to dispel the impact of the President’s comments. On Aug. 2, The New York Times quoted a telephone interview with Marburger in which he said, “evolution is the cornerstone of modern biology” and “intelligent design is not a scientific concept.” Certainly, no one doubts where Marburger stands. One might question whether the President takes Marbuger’s scientific advice seriously, or is simply more concerned about pleasing a portion of the electorate.
Marburger also spoke with Dr. Marvin Cohen, President of the American Physical Society, and recipient of the National Medal of Science from President Bush in 2002. In an Aug. 4 release, Cohen explains that the APS is “…happy that the President’s recent comments on the theory of intelligent design have been clarified. As Presidential Science Advisor John Marburger has explained, President Bush does not regard intelligent design as science. If such things are to be taught in the public schools, they belong in a course on comparative religion, which is a particularly appropriate subject for our children given the present state of the world.” It would be better to hear this directly from the President. Likely, the intelligent design advocates will ignore Marburger’s explanation. Like the fabled little Dutch boy, Marburger, stuck his finger in the dike in hopes of saving the day.
Unlike the brave boy, Marburger did not prevent the flood of print and electronic coverage that ensued. From August 2 to the present, Google-News tracked more than 1,800 articles, commentaries, and letters to the editor on intelligent design. That’s about 120 per day since the President’s remarks.
In the days following the interview, major educational and scientific organizations issued statements that criticized the President for considering intelligent design as a viable alternative to evolution, for confusing religion with science, and for advocating that intelligent design be taught in schools.
“President Bush, in advocating that the concept of ‘intelligent design’ be taught alongside the theory of evolution, puts America’s schoolchildren at risk,” says Fred Spilhaus, Executive Director of the American Geophysical Union. “Americans will need basic understanding of science in order to participate effectively in the 21 st century world. It is essential that students on every level learn what science is and how scientific knowledge progresses.” (AGU, Aug. 2, 2005) AGU is a scientific society comprising 43,000 Earth and space scientists.
Likewise, the American Institute of Biological Sciences criticized the President: “Intelligent design is not a scientific theory and must not be taught in science classes,” said AIBS president Dr. Marvalee Wake. “If we want our students to be able to compete in the global economy, if we want to attract the next generation into the sciences, we must make sure that we are teaching them science. We simply cannot begin to introduce non-scientific concepts into the science curriculum.” (AIBS, Aug. 5, 2005) The American Institute of Biological Sciences was established as a national umbrella organization for the biological sciences in 1947 by 11 scientific societies as part of the National Academy of Sciences. An independent non-profit organization since 1954, it has grown to represent more than 80 professional societies and organizations with a combined membership exceeding 240,000 scientists and educators. (AIBS website)
Science educators are equally dismayed. “The National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), the world’s largest organization of science educators, is stunned and disappointed that President Bush is endorsing the teaching of intelligent design – effectively opening the door for nonscientific ideas to be taught in the nation’s K-12 science classrooms. We stand with the nation’s leading scientific organizations and scientists, including Dr. John Marburger, the president’s top science advisor, in stating that intelligent design is not science. Intelligent design has no place in the science classroom, said Gerry Wheeler, NSTA Executive Director.” (NSTA, Aug. 3, 2005) NSTA has 55,000 members who teach science in elementary, middle and high schools as well as college and universities.
The American Federation of Teachers, which represents 1.3 million pre-K through 12 th grade teachers, was even harsher. “President Bush’s misinformed comments on ‘intelligent design’ signal a huge step backward for science education in the United States. The president’s endorsement of such a discredited, nonscientific view is akin to suggesting that students be taught the ‘alternative theory’ that the earth is flat or that the sun revolves around the earth. Intelligent design does not belong in the science classroom because it is not science.” (AFT, Aug. 4, 2005)
There is a problem here. Obviously, scientists and educators understand that intelligent design has no place in the classroom. Intelligent design is, simply, one of several varieties of creationism that offer religious explanations for the origin and current condition of the natural world. As such, it does not merit being taught alongside evolution as a “school of thought.” There’s significant legal precedent from US Supreme Court that creationism - in any clothing - does not belong in the American classrooms. Teaching creationism is in violation of the separation of church and state, and has been ruled illegal by the US Supreme Court in several cases. It’s unfortunate that the President apparently does not understand that science is not equivalent to a belief system but is description of how the natural world works. Creationism, including intelligent design, is a religious point of view, not science.
At a time when industrial, academic, and business leaders are calling for more American students to train in engineering, mathematics, science and technology, we need to teach science in science classrooms. Let’s teach the scientific ideas that are supported by overwhelming evidence such as gravitation, relativity, quantum mechanics, and evolution. Creationist ideas/beliefs, such as intelligent design, don’t belong in science classrooms. In our haste to leave no child behind, let’s not leave science behind either.
Well, um, yeah. :-)
Incorrect. The animal's and its decendents' modified DNA will almost always show the intelligent intervention...presuming that we are smart enough to know how to read the DNA code.
Finding a pig in the wild that produces human growth hormone, for instance, should set off alarm bells that this animal escaped from a lab (read: ID). Read the DNA and see if the DNA insertion was perfectly clean or a "random" hatchet job. Ditto for finding conclusive evidence of irreducable complexity (if such evidence exists).
If a pig had the gene showing up in different parts of their genome in different cells, then yeah, you could infer that that particular pig had escaped from the lab. (Given what technology the known intelligent designers use for injecting genes, each cell gets the gene inserted in a random part of its genome.) But that pig's offspring would have their HGH gene at the same point in their chromosomes in all their cells, since they descended from just one sperm cell.
I suppose each descendant of the lab pig might have their HGH genes at different locations than their siblings do, though. But if, after several generations, genetic drift caused one variant to dominate the gene pool, then all the pigs in the population would have the new gene at the same location as their cohorts, in every cell.
At that point I don't see how you could possibly prove that it was genetically engineered, absent the records from the local gene lab. (IOW, yet more prior knowledge about the Designers themselves would be needed.)
Would you care to substantiate this assertion?
and invalidate a lot of what we think we know.
In your view, besides the theory of evolution, what other scientific theories that "we think we know" are "invalid"?
Incorrect. In fact, I've given you not one, but TWO METHODS of determining intelligent design: one if the DNA code is properly read and understood, and two if conclusive evidence of irreducible complexity were found in the beast.
So you say. Feel free to demonstrate how it is incorrect and inapplicable, then.
It's your inference.
I simply stated facts (i.e. the opposite of inference) such as intelligent design is responsible for creating some new transgenic life forms.
To reach your inference, you are going beyond what I've said. That's fine, but don't attribute that to me.
"Check out posts over the last two days on the Panda's Thumb."
Now _there's_ an unbiased source of news. Here's a great gem from the discussion:
"Dembski’s demand that I discuss his mathematics is laughable."
Sooooo...... he wants to complain about Dembski's work without discussing his mathematics? Riiiiighhhhht. He tries to frame it in his response as being because Dembski has false assumptions, but the only real criticisms he gives are that (1) Dembski's critic disagrees that evolution can be modelled mathematically (now who is being unscientific?), and (2) Dembski's critic disagrees that there is a large search space. Hello? evolutionists themselves put the chance of any given amino acid sequence having _any_ reactivity with ATP, the energy of life, is 1 in 10^11. This is not _good_ or _beneficial_ reactions, just ANY REACTIVITY AT ALL. I would say that this is a large search space.
I haven't read this particular article of Dembski's, but I make the same basic arguments in this blog entry of mine:
http://crevobits.blogspot.com/2005/08/genetic-algorithms.html
And I expand on them in response to some comments attached to this entry:
http://crevo.blogspot.com/2005/06/evolution-chance-and-design-to-cb940.html
Again, you have asserted that two methods exist. You have not, in fact, provided them.
I assert that I know of two methods to turn lead into gold. Have I therefore demonstrated two methods of transmutation?
Please feel free to explain your methods, and show how they reliably determine intelligent design.
Lets give Evolutionary Theory and Intelligent Design the same test, and see which predicts the cause correctly.
Transgenic life form: pig now produces human growth hormone. Which theory correctly predicts the origin of that life form?
Not that this has not been measured many, many times in many ways. Not only it is it apparently a simple finite computer, but it actually behaves as such even though only simpler such systems can be trivially measured as such. There are mathematical measures that can be applied to the behaviors of computational black boxes to ascertain the probability of algorithmic finiteness, and the human mind unambiguously appears to be algorithmically finite to an extremely high probability.
Not proof (as that is not possible) of a simple finite Turing machine, but it would be hard to argue against it lacking a single contrary example next to a mountain of evidence for it.
Look at your #460 and #463. In 460 you allude to the possibility of non-human intelligent design as being a logical consequent to human intelligent design. In 463 you explicitly mention non-human intelligence.
So no, you are not, in fact, limiting yourself to statements about human design of new transgenic life forms. On the contrary, you are repeatedly trying to use human design as 'evidence' for non-human intelligent design. Why deny it?
I'm unconvinced that natural genetic insertions leave the same signature in the genome as do intelligent insertions. Reading the DNA properly should expose most, perhaps even all, GM animals. If not, then irreducible complexity should do it. If not that, then comparisons in DNA between the Gen1 animal and its descendents should do it.
If none of the above, then perhaps reading the REM comments in the DNA program would suffice! Ha!
It is flawed because there is no gap. Irreducible complexity, for instance, insures that the life form in question was intelligently designed.
Try more like 3-10 years. The state-of-the-art is very different than what people think it is, and operates in a new area of theoretical computer science that few people have ever heard of unless you a mathematics boffin in certain fields. Not idle speculation either, as these models were proven theoretically first and have already been verified in implementation.
As long as the mind is an algorithmically finite system, it can be implemented on vanilla silicon. As it happens, nothing in this universe appears to be anything but algorithmically finite, something we would expect if the fabric is discrete (Planck length) and there is a finite information propagation speed (speed of light). The problem has always been primitive computer science and until very recently literally no mathematical basis for intelligent systems, the latter being something that few people realize was the case. Hard to create something you can't define.
Another attempt to conflate human design with the broader concept of non-human 'Intelligent Design' as an explanation of the origin of species. Your constant repetition of the same logical error doesn't make it any more plausible. Please try to come up with an example which actually tests what ID purports to be true.
I'm not denying something so much as I am pointing out that you are the one doing the inferring (and drawing erroneous conclusions from your inferences and flawed analogy). Posts #460 and #463 stand on their own. Read what is said and extrapolate nothing further from them.
There is, as I have already proven.
Irreducible complexity, for instance, insures that the life form in question was intelligently designed.
Yes, that was one of your two 'methods'. Feel free to elaborate on how this 'method' works.
Very amusing. You protest that all you're saying is that "intelligent design is responsible for creating some new transgenic life forms". When I point out specific examples of where you went further, you say, "Oh, well, never mind those posts".
Are you, or are you not, trying to use human design as 'evidence' for non-human intelligent design? Be honest.
"Another attempt to conflate human design with the broader concept of non-human 'Intelligent Design' as an explanation of the origin of species." - malakhi
There is nothing to "conflate." Human, intelligent design literally *is* responsible for creating numerous transgenic life forms. That's a fact. That's science. The origin of *those* species is explained by human, intelligent design...and anything outside of those particular species would constitute an example of you inferring something that wasn't said.
"Your constant repetition of the same logical error doesn't make it any more plausible. Please try to come up with an example which actually tests what ID purports to be true." - malakhi
Irreducible complexity points to ID, not Darwinism. That's *another* example.
Moreover, my first example above isn't a "logical error" as you might wish. It's a fact. Human, intelligent design is the only explanation for numerous GM lab animals.
Thus, I've given you two tests: irreducible complexity and GM animals. Pick either test. Pick both tests. Apply Evolutionary theory. Apply Intelligent Design. Examine which theory gives the best predictions for those two tests.
That's science. That's what should be taught in our science classes.
Lets not quote what I didn't say. You'll just confuse yourself as well as lurkers.
Are you admitting that you are so confused about irreducible complexity that you require an explanation or lesson on the subject, or are you just being glib because you have no decent riposte?
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