If the facts were to show such, then fine, but the probability math for successfully modifying simian DNA into a sapien genome would cast a bit of doubt on that sort of claim.
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.
If the facts were to show such, then fine, but the probability math for successfully modifying simian DNA into a sapien genome would cast a bit of doubt on that sort of claim.
Nobody said anything about probability. What does probability have to do with common descent? (Other than provide yet more evidence that you have but a weak grasp on the concept).
As I understand it, ID simply claims that the genetic modifications necessary to create a human from another primate were performed by an intelligent actor. That way, ID can avoid the most opbvious problems with young-Earth creationism.
Is that your theory? Or are you just a dishonest creationist trying to pretend you are scientific?
Please put your money where your mouth is: do you accept common descent, or not?
"I do not accept irreducible complexity as a given. Should you wish to use it as evidence for intelligent design, you'll have to detail how something can be proven to be irreducibly complex." - malakhi
In biological terms, irreducible complexity is a stage that must come with other simultaneous modifications in order to survive/replicate.
I'm not exactly sure how that you think that you can "not accept" such a term, stage, or phrase, however. Certain stages require several simultaneous changes from the prior state. Abiogenesis falls clearly into this range, as animating inanimate matter is an indisputable threshold for biological life to first begin (though due to the near constant cries and whines from Darwinists on numerous other threads, I'll throw in the obvious disclaimer that Evolutionary Theory, which I'm not talking about in the above comments in this post, doesn't apply to abiogenesis per them).
In that irreducibly complex stage, the first life form had to animate itself from inanimate matter **and** feed itself **and** replicate itself (otherwise, no survival of that species). So at a minimum, three simultaneous things had to happen before survival was possible for the very first life form.
There's precious little to debate there, too. That's an irreducibly complex stage, and it is a clear enough example to knock out most of the wishful guesses and straw men arguments typically thrown out by desperate Darwinists.
Young Earth and "creationism" are mere straw men that are easily knocked down. ID is neither. If you want to understand ID, read posts #515 and #517.
It is very sad to me that creationists have to resort to such dishonesty to get their supposedly Christian views into the schools. Do they really think that God needs them to lie for Him?
You are confusing yourself with assumptions galore such as acceptance of common descent is black or white, creationist, dishonesty, Christian, lying, that this debate is about God, etc.
Did you read posts #515 and 517 so that you would actually know ID? I see no evidence in your posts that you comprehended either post, from not reading or from not being intellectually capable I can't yet discern, however.
Here you go:
I further believe that these slow, intermittent results accord well with what geology tells us of the rate and manner at which the inhabitants of the world have changed." (Darwin, Ch. 4, "Natural Selection," pp. 140-141)But I must here remark that I do not suppose that the process ever goes on so regularly as is represented in the diagram, though in itself made somewhat irregular, nor that it goes on continuously; it is far more probable that each form remains for long periods unaltered, and then again undergoes modification. (Darwin, Ch. 4, "Natural Selection," pp. 152)
"It is a more important consideration ... that the period during which each species underwent modification, though long as measured by years, was probably short in comparison with that during which it remained without undergoing any change." (Darwin, Ch. 10, "On the imperfection of the geological record," p. 428)
"Widely ranging species vary most, and varieties are often at first local, -- both causes rendering the discovery of intermediate links less likely. Local varieties will not spread into other and distant regions until they are considerably modified and improved; and when they do spread, if discovered in a geological formation, they will appear as if suddenly created there, and will be simply classed as new species. [Charles Darwin, Origin of Species 1st Edition 1859, p.439]
[All quotes from Darwin's 1859 "On the Origin of Species"]
And the same could be said for many transgenic lab animals a century and a half after Darwin stated the above, too.
Eh? It is fully general to ALL systems. Including complex organisms, molecular structures, and planets. There is no escape hatch of limited scope here.
While most people learn about this using simple low-order examples on one dimensional spaces (e.g. a literal analysis of DNA sequences), it is by no means limited to it. The various 'tape equivalence' proofs for Turing machines are direct evidence of this. It can be applied to very high-order algorithmic patterns in n-dimensional systems. Though not the kind of thing one is likely to spend time working on unless one is a masochist -- it is a serious brain twister -- such things are entirely possible and have been done in implementation. People generally don't do it because it is very, very hard, not because it can't be done. It happens to be an integral part of my research; extremely interesting in many ways when taken to that level and poorly explored in implementation, but also enough to give even the brightest people headaches very quickly. But I digress.
So no, you cannot escape the grasp of this by saying it does not apply to biological systems. In theory there is nothing to prevent you from applying it to the structure of biological organisms, though in practice that would be ridiculously intractable, particularly for the purposes of proving irreducible complexity.
In summary: Kolmogorov complexity is universal to all dynamic systems of any dimensionality, and a general mechanism for measuring it in any system exists. In short, there is no system in the abstract it does not apply to, and there is no system for which it cannot be measured/proven by extracting the MDL.
"Eh? It is fully general to ALL systems. Including complex organisms, molecular structures, and planets. There is no escape hatch of limited scope here." - tortoise
As I said, I was impressed that you applied that computer information theory to biological systems.
But for this discussion, Kolmogorov's theory of IC would merely be the minimum DNA code necessary for any given stage of biological life...which isn't necessarily the same thing as what biologists want from Irreducible Complexity, which is the minimum simultaneous events or changes required for that stage to survive and be replicated.
Kolmogorov's theory of IC would be satisfied with the minimum amount of DNA code for a 3 chambered heart, for instance, whereas biologists want to know what events/modifications were required for the 3 chambered heart with reverse blood flow to appear after the 2 chambered heart.
So Kolmogorov's computer information theory of IC is a bit different than the biological IC.
google was there:
Q: How many penguins does it take to cover a doghouse?
A: Purple, because ice cream has no bones.
What Darwin actually wrote on the subject of gradualism was true then and true under punk eek. What Darwin argued against was not variable rates of change, but rather against evolution via the hopeful monster.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/CDgradualism.html
I have nothing against science. I am against a philosphy that sets itself up as science that then declares its premises to be above correction. Big difference.
Unfortunately, all the examples the Good Moonie Dr. Wells cites come from mainstream research. Dr. Wells suggests ID researchers could have improved on the preformance of traditional researchers.
I'll believe that just as soon as I see one of Stalin's five-year plans outperform a capitalist economy.
Is ID anything other than Monday morning quaterbacking? Will anyone in the ID movement actually propose research, or will they continue to assert they could have done existing research better?
I didn't assume they were. I asked how a geologist would scientifically date the geology in that area, and that specimen in particlar. One of them happened to date it at 500,000 years. What method did he use? As far as I am concerned, geological dating is right up there with astrology in its capacity to be arbitrary.
Bottom line: Evolutionism can explain away anomalies as easily as creationism. It deserves equal credibility as science.
Let's face it, a flippant derision of God tends to help one assume the writer doesn't put much stock in God - your words, not my omniscience prompted the reply.
He got it perfectly right; we just ain't as dang smart as some of us would like to think.
You overlook a few key points here. Prior to Galileo (and others), the universe was studied by ID scientists. They assumed that orbits were circulat because that's the way God would have designed them.
The new breed of astronomer insisted that theories had to be modified to fit the data, regardless of where this leads. Galileo was wrong to assume circular orbits, but his visualization of the solar system is nearly identical to ours today. It's clever of you to play the roll of disrespected visionary thinker. But you are in a crowd that includes Moonies, NewAge claptrap, Scientology and thousands of other crackpot ideas. Being ignored does not make you right. The most important aspect of a theory is its ability to inspire or generate research proposals. ID has been on the books since 1802 and has generated exactly no research ideas that are different from what is being done in the mainstream.
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