Posted on 09/27/2005 7:22:58 PM PDT by gobucks
Thus, Orthodox Darwinism is important to "mainstream" biologist Douglas Futuyma. Maybe this scientist has a motive:
"The biggest problem gay and lesbian people face is a consequence of their invisibility," says Douglas Futuyma, a professor in the department of ecology and evolution at the State University of New York, Stony Brook. "People in heterosexual society may not be aware that they ever met a gay or lesbian." To help counteract this problem within his own institution, Futuyma says, "I try to present myself as a visible model of a respectable scientist and teacher, to stand as an example of gays and lesbians who are otherwise invisible." from Gay And Lesbian Scientists Seek Workplace Equality.
Phillip Johnson reported that Dr. Futuyma's college Evolutionary Biology (3rd Edition!) textbook is the number one used in the nation's colleges.
ping ... interesting, and unsurprising, intersection.
All we have to do is look at, and listen to, the LIBERAL DEMS...and we know INTELLIGENT design is a flawed concept.
The MSM gay agenda is overt .... and covert. Funny how different an attack on I.D. efforts sounds when one finds out the attacker, and his MSM helpers, have a unmentioned side agenda...
LOL!!
Not necessarily a slum dunk for the MSM against I.D. I would say....
Ping worthy?
So the author's managed to fish out a few fringe scientists who are ID proponents - just how he could probably find a couple of "scientists" who believe in a flat Earth.
There is still virtually no debate within the mainstream scientific community over whether evolution exists or not.
No.
No evidence? What do you call this?
Way back in time all men emerged from a single hole in the earth. There was a mockingbird there at the entrance to the hole. He gave each a name and a language. To one he would say, "You shall be a Hopi and speak that tongue." To another, "You shall be an Apache and speak that language." And so it went for all who came from the hole, including the White People. The earth was still covered in darkness in those days so the peoples came together and decided to change things. They made the sun and the moon and placed them in the sky. With light and warmth things got easier for the people so the chiefs of all the races and tribes got together and decided to break up and go to different places. They decided to go eastward to where the sun rises and that whoever got there first was to cause a shower of stars to fall from the sky, and then everyone would see this and stop where they were. The Whites, always impatient, soon grew tired. Their women rubbed flakes of skin from their bodies and molded them into horses. Thus, mounted on these speedy animals, the Whites were first to arrive in the east. Thereupon a shower of stars fell to the ground and all remained where they were at the time.
As one who believes in the superiority of the theory of evolution, I dont have much problem in teaching ID. Why? Because it would take me all of 5 minutes. I'd discuss it once in class, and that would be it.
Just do it ~ and no cheating by misrepresenting bacterial immunological defense techniques.
Well, that certainly is scientific. And the rest of his rebuttal is nothing but a statement of faith. Got to do better than that to convince them down in Peoria.
I think this is an interesting article and I have 3 immediate thoughts on it.
1. The structure of argument and rebuttal is well laid out and illustrates the way that presenting both views could be conducted in science classrooms. The case is made and rebutted in scientific terms with no reference to religious material. Make the case. Rebut the case. You'll have informed students.
2. The case for ID is well represented, but as fully and robustly as has been done in ID literature. This article illustrates a good, simple example of the pro/con discussion.
3. The rebuttals are not robust as well, and are in fact lame. For example, the rebuttal on the question of the Cambrian Explosian appears to be: hey it's really not an explosian and not really a big deal. Lame.
My favorite lame response is in the rebuttal section on the question of the Origin of Life, which is:
"In response, Robert Hazen, a geologist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, said, 'We don't have all the answers right now, but there is no evidence that the origin of life is other than a natural process.'"
I would paraphrase that as - we don't have any evidence but neither do they, so I'm sticking to my a priori assumption of naturalism. Lame.
Interesting article.
By the way, I'm currently reading published literature about ID written by the proponents (Johnson, Dembski, Behe), as well as Richard Dawkin's "The Blind Watchmaker" on evolution. There's no reason that students in school couldn't do the same.
Thanks - I'll read it and ping it out tomorrow.
Is it kind of like what happens when the "gay" agenda meets the evo-fundies? Just add Wiccans and it's perfect! With a little dollop of Islamic jihad on the top for variety.
And none either within 99% of people involved with the serious study of Intelligent Design. But stretching Darwinian evolution to cover abiogenesis is far from settled science, and in fact is probably flat out wrong. The early, and critical phases of abiogenesis are really about chemistry and the probability of certain reactions occurring - namely those that make complex, replicating biologically interesting molecules. There's no evolution at that stage, just chemistry.
Unfortunately a lot of the public discussion of studies related to intelligent design has been pretty shallow, or as you noted "lame".
Actually there is quite a bit to be learned by thinking about the questions raised by an effort to determine if something you observe was created by an "intelligent" process. Just defining what that means is a challenge, and it is central to efforts like the SETI project.
We have lots of intelligently designed organisms around us today - cows, corn, fruit trees, etc. I doubt even the most stringent Darwinians would claim that Monsanto bio-engineered corn was a result of natural selection. So an interesting question is how do you determine if an organism was designed? How can you tell if the apple tree in the woods was created by breeding 100 years ago?
I actually trust high school and college students to do the reading and come to conclusions on what does and does not represent "errors in logic". You seem to have already determined that for them.
You are being disingenious to lump ID in with the other items that you cited. That in itself is an error in logic.
Just curious, how much reading have you personally done regarding theory?
Good point. I'm currently reading the works by William Dembski, which focus on desing inference.
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