Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Challenged by Creationists, Museums Answer Back
The New York Times ^ | 9/20/2005 | CORNELIA DEAN

Posted on 09/20/2005 7:02:45 AM PDT by Right Wing Professor

ITHACA, N.Y. - Lenore Durkee, a retired biology professor, was volunteering as a docent at the Museum of the Earth here when she was confronted by a group of seven or eight people, creationists eager to challenge the museum exhibitions on evolution.

They peppered Dr. Durkee with questions about everything from techniques for dating fossils to the second law of thermodynamics, their queries coming so thick and fast that she found it hard to reply.

After about 45 minutes, "I told them I needed to take a break," she recalled. "My mouth was dry."

That encounter and others like it provided the impetus for a training session here in August. Dr. Durkee and scores of other volunteers and staff members from the museum and elsewhere crowded into a meeting room to hear advice from the museum director, Warren D. Allmon, on ways to deal with visitors who reject settled precepts of science on religious grounds.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; US: Colorado; US: Nebraska; US: New York; US: North Carolina
KEYWORDS: creationuts; crevolist; crevorepublic; enoughalready; evobots; evonuts; museum
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 1,121-1,1401,141-1,1601,161-1,180 ... 1,261-1,272 next last
To: donh
ID is a theory--searching for ID would be equivalent to SETI.

Except with origin-of-species questions, the "search" has already yielded plenty of results; it's just how those results are interpreted that determines whether ID or Darwinism is the better way of accounting for them. SETI is not at that point yet. If SETI finds signals within the target frequency band, then it would be time to inquire as to whether those signals are natural or artificial, and that could very well involve the same types of questions that are currently engendered by the crevo debate.

1,141 posted on 09/24/2005 7:54:56 PM PDT by inquest (FTAA delenda est)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1138 | View Replies]

To: TaxRelief
80% of the "science" involved in Evolution theory is bunk

What an asinine statement, given (for example) the massive amount of genomic information available, and the fact it completely supports evolution

Why is there so much tolerance of this wanton destruction of the reputation of the field of science? There was a time when a successful challenge of a scientific observation or conclusion was all it took to send everyone back to the labs. These days, if even 55% say "It sounds reasonable", then any attempt to debunk the results is shut down by the loud majority.

There has been no successful challenge of evolution, nor is there likely to be.

Go rant at someone else, will you? I'm tired of angry people whose anger is based on nothing more than ignorance and delusion.

1,142 posted on 09/24/2005 8:03:53 PM PDT by Right Wing Professor
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1130 | View Replies]

To: Right Wing Professor

Projection, Sir Professor?


1,143 posted on 09/24/2005 8:21:11 PM PDT by TaxRelief (Protest discrimination against real scientists at the MSM!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1142 | View Replies]

To: TaxRelief

As I said, go rant at someone else. In the unlikely event you find something originaL intelligent or witty to say, ping me. Otherwise, go howl at the moon.


1,144 posted on 09/24/2005 8:37:19 PM PDT by Right Wing Professor
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1143 | View Replies]

To: Right Wing Professor
A thing is a science if enough scientists concede it is

Well I'm not mad at least not yet. I agree with TaxRelief that lots of the ‘science in evolution is bunk’, and one of the other posters here one your side just admitted that science is a 'closed shop'

What an asinine statement, given (for example) the massive amount of genomic information available, and the fact it completely supports evolution.

Your conclusion that the 'evidence completely supports evolution' reveals an attitude a bias of you and your ‘club’, and in fact diminishes you as a scientist, the surface has yet even begun to be scratched

Rather than see yet more evidence to fill in the gaps of your pre-ordained conclusion that evolution is the answer. I (and maybe others) see that we are beginning to see (within the limits of out perception) the makings of something great and wonderful & that’s beyond our comprehension.

Wolf
1,145 posted on 09/24/2005 8:45:29 PM PDT by RunningWolf (U.S. Army Veteran.....75-78)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1142 | View Replies]

To: Right Wing Professor

There's always hope, LWP. Don't give up yet.


1,146 posted on 09/24/2005 8:45:31 PM PDT by TaxRelief (Protest discrimination against real scientists at the MSM!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1144 | View Replies]

To: TaxRelief; RunningWolf

Man, those coyotes are loud tonight. Must be after the garbage.


1,147 posted on 09/24/2005 9:33:34 PM PDT by Right Wing Professor
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1146 | View Replies]

To: Right Wing Professor
COYOTE GUARDS YOU.. WOLF GUARDS COYOTE

Noble Coyote

1,148 posted on 09/24/2005 10:55:20 PM PDT by RunningWolf (U.S. Army Veteran.....75-78)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1147 | View Replies]

To: RunningWolf; Right Wing Professor
A thing is a science if enough scientists concede it is

Well I'm not mad at least not yet. I agree with TaxRelief that lots of the ‘science in evolution is bunk’, and one of the other posters here one your side just admitted that science is a 'closed shop'

So...your latest manipulative trick is to refuse to post to me, but instead, argue with me while posting to someone else. You're quite the little trickster.

You are absolutely right about science being a closed shop--it is only open to people who can and do read and publish in scientific journals, and the opinions of those who don't even try are not taken into any serious scientific account, unless they threaten scientists with bodily harm under color of law, as in Galileo's trial, or Bruno's burning.

1,149 posted on 09/24/2005 11:36:18 PM PDT by donh (A is </a>)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1145 | View Replies]

To: inquest
Except with origin-of-species questions, the "search" has already yielded plenty of results; it's just how those results are interpreted that determines whether ID or Darwinism is the better way of accounting for them.

ID and Darwinism are not at loggerheads, except in the overheated imaginations of strict creationist, as is the case with Odin-buried-the-giants-after-the-battle-of-the-horefrost-bridge theory of origins, and the natural panspermia theory. You can have an infinite number of theories to explain life's origins and major turnings, and when the evidence is only gaps in our understanding of the mundane naturalistic answer, all are equally valid, and equally entitled to claim a place at the scientific table. Doesn't that sound scientifically useful? Maybe we can conduct science like they did at the Nicene Council, and science-priests can have bloody pitched battles over questions framed like whether Jesus is of the essence or the substance of God.

SETI is not at that point yet. If SETI finds signals within the target frequency band, then it would be time to inquire as to whether those signals are natural or artificial, and that could very well involve the same types of questions that are currently engendered by the crevo debate.

SETI = "Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence". This search is clearly not driven or funded or cared about, because it might produce a modulated narrow band carrier, with the implications of that discovery left entirely as an abstract exercise for later. That is clearly not remotely the case. Like the Michaelson-Morley experiment, it is a search targeted on validating an hypothesis which is, in fact, at loggerheads with the alternative hypothesis. And if I may say so, it seems rather silly to argue against the title of the scientific endeavor.

1,150 posted on 09/25/2005 12:11:41 AM PDT by donh (A is </a>)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1141 | View Replies]

To: donh
Um...right, we fund SETI activity, because we hope to find a modulated narrow band transmission, and we have no pre-conceived notion whatsoever about what we hope that might mean if we find it. Did I mention that SETI stands for "Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence"?

The search is for a specific, well defined phenomenon. What happens if they find it will depend on the details of the find, which are currently unknown.

You might get back to the point, which is the question, "What specific phenomenon is ID searching for?"

1,151 posted on 09/25/2005 12:54:04 AM PDT by js1138 (Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1139 | View Replies]

To: donh
This search is clearly not driven or funded or cared about, because it might produce a modulated narrow band carrier, with the implications of that discovery left entirely as an abstract exercise for later. That is clearly not remotely the case. Like the Michaelson-Morley experiment, it is a search targeted on validating an hypothesis which is, in fact, at loggerheads with the alternative hypothesis. And if I may say so, it seems rather silly to argue against the title of the scientific endeavor.

Obviously SETI researchers are "motivated" by the hope of finding an exterrestrial signal from another civilization. but motive is irrelevant in research. To search for something, you have to define what you are searching for, and SETI is looking for a narrow band signal. Oddly enough, in science, not finding what you are looking for is useful information, even when it is personally disappointing.

In the case of ID, there is no definition at all of the signal being searched for.

1,152 posted on 09/25/2005 1:18:11 AM PDT by js1138 (Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1150 | View Replies]

To: js1138
The search is for a specific, well defined phenomenon. What happens if they find it will depend on the details of the find, which are currently unknown.

I'm having a hard time believing SETI's self-selected charter isn't broader than that, and pretty much encapsulated in it's name.

...the SETI Institute's Dr. Jill Tarter recently told 
Space.com that evidence of extraterrestrial activity might 
be present in our own solar system. 

"It's possible that there could be, in fact, within our 
solar system, some evidence of ET technology," said Dr. 
Tarter, the woman upon whom Jodie Foster's character in the 
movie "Contact" was largely based. "They may be here." 

If its big goal was a modulated narrow band radio signal, I'd think they'd have called it Narrowband Extra-terrestrial Radio Deep Search.

Interestingly, mainstream SETI astronomers have 
made no secret of their searches for "Bracewell 
probes," theoretical automatic devices left by 
visiting civilizations


1,153 posted on 09/25/2005 2:06:12 AM PDT by donh (A is </a>)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1151 | View Replies]

To: js1138
You might get back to the point, which is the question, "What specific phenomenon is ID searching for?"

Ok, I'll bite. Why is specificity of search a discriminating criteria as to whether something is a science or not? This seems like a puzzling argument to me: I'd have said, at first blush, that more powerful, abstract and generalized claims, are closer to being science than lab tinkering is.

1,154 posted on 09/25/2005 2:20:44 AM PDT by donh (A is </a>)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1151 | View Replies]

To: donh

Go back and read my last post. The motives and personal beliefs of scientists are unimportant to the product, as long as a rational methodology is employed.

I have nothing against SETI and nothing against the concept of ID. I do have something against ID advocates who ask for recognition before developing a rational research protocol.

The planetary probes are a separate issue from the radip astronomy search. I don't really understand biochemistry enough to comment on what is being done on planetary probes. I do follow them however, and I know that the results of the Viking probes are still not fully understood.

What this tells me is that you can't draw earth shaking conclusions from a single line of evidence. When you find something interesting you need to formulate hypoteheses about the cause, project expected data, and search for confirming or discomfirming evidence. If the hypothesis is out of the ordinary, it may take years or decades to build confidence in it.


1,155 posted on 09/25/2005 2:23:55 AM PDT by js1138 (Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1153 | View Replies]

To: donh
Why is specificity of search a discriminating criteria as to whether something is a science or not?

Because you can find patterns in anything, even random bit streams. Patterns have no meaning unless they conform to a theory of causation. In other words, a picture of Mickey Mouse formed by cumulus clouds is not scientifically significant unless you have a theory that predicts its occurrence. After the fact prediction is not very compelling.

Science is about formulating productive hypotheses, guesses that conform to current knowledge and which predict evidence yet to be found. The exact nature of these predictions depends on the subject matter, but without prediction, it isn't science.

I am not really into the details of SETI, but I would assume SETI is based on a null prediction, namely that no known natural phenomenon produces a narrow band radio signal at the frequencies being monitored. Null predictions are pretty common in science.

1,156 posted on 09/25/2005 2:37:37 AM PDT by js1138 (Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1154 | View Replies]

To: TaxRelief

The brainwashing has been going on for 75 years or so :-).

I don't understand why it should be so complicated. There are 4 or 5 books that an intelligent high-school student could read, and come to the conclusion that, "There is more than one reasonable interpretation of the observable scientific facts."

Once one accepts that the interpretation is driven by philosophy, not science, there not much ground for argument.


1,157 posted on 09/25/2005 5:20:31 AM PDT by Tax-chick (Start the revolution - I'll bring the tea and muffins!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1132 | View Replies]

To: js1138
Go back and read my last post. The motives and personal beliefs of scientists are unimportant to the product,

I'd suggest, contriwise, that without overweaning personal beliefs and motives,--and THEORIES. There'd hardly be any progress at all in science. The universe has a relatively infinite supply of data impinging on us all the time, all of which could be explained in an infinite number of ways. If experimentation wasn't directed by theories, we ought just as well look at the infinite supply of data to be had for free, instead of paying mega- bucks to chivvy it out from obscure corners of the universe.

as long as a rational methodology is employed.

Like, say, methodically looking for examples of unobtainable complexity, or gaps in fossil records in natural phenomenon?

I have nothing against SETI and nothing against the concept of ID.

I do. Not because I think either is wrong, but because I think both are highly likely to produce no useful experimental results in any timeframe I care about, and wasting terribly finite scientific resources in a world full of scientific problems with more potential bang for the buck, that presently are underfunded.

I do have something against ID advocates who ask for recognition before developing a rational research protocol.

Behe and Dembski aren't engaged in rational research? Their results may be flawed, but does that make them irrational? Were the scientists who accepted phrenology, fixsd continents, and the ether irrational? Or were they doing the best they could with what they had to look at, and the intellectual tools they were aware of?

The planetary probes are a separate issue from the radip astronomy search. I don't really understand biochemistry enough to comment on what is being done on planetary probes. I do follow them however, and I know that the results of the Viking probes are still not fully understood.

eh...? Just off hand, this doesn't seem responsive to what I wrote.

What this tells me is that you can't draw earth shaking conclusions from a single line of evidence. When you find something interesting you need to formulate hypoteheses about the cause, project expected data, and search for confirming or discomfirming evidence. If the hypothesis is out of the ordinary, it may take years or decades to build confidence in it.

So the new thesis is that longevity and variety of research makes ID not-science and SETI science? Now you're sneaking up on my thesis as to why SETI is a science and ID ain't.

1,158 posted on 09/25/2005 7:04:52 AM PDT by donh
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1155 | View Replies]

To: Tax-chick
Once one accepts that the interpretation is driven by philosophy, not science, there not much ground for argument.

Darned right. That's why we need to make sure students are aware of the healing crystal pyramid theory in physics, and the hollow earth theory in astronomy. Both of which have had thicker books with more diagrams published than is the case for ID.

1,159 posted on 09/25/2005 7:09:27 AM PDT by donh
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1157 | View Replies]

To: donh

A scientific hypothesis is a guess about future data points. ID is not even a guess. It doesn't have even the outline of a research plan. It doesn't offer anything in addition to the research that is already being done.


1,160 posted on 09/25/2005 7:27:14 AM PDT by js1138 (Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1158 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 1,121-1,1401,141-1,1601,161-1,180 ... 1,261-1,272 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson