A lesson in the scientific method would be better for you than a hug.
Posted on 09/30/2005 2:09:51 PM PDT by truthfinder9
It's amazing that these Darwinian Fundamentalists claim they're for science only to turn around and try to destroy any contrary theories or evidence. They're really getting desperate, the ID movement really has them rattled.
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September 30, 2005
It’s happening again: another scientist, another academic institution, another attempt to stifle freedom of thought. The “Darwinist inquisition,” as a Discovery Institute press release calls it, is as predictable as it is relentless.
This time the setting is Iowa State University. One hundred twenty professors there have signed a statement denouncing the study of intelligent design and calling on all faculty members to reject it. The statement reads, in part, “We, the undersigned faculty members at Iowa State University, reject all attempts to represent Intelligent Design as a scientific endeavor. . . . Whether one believes in a creator or not, views regarding a supernatural creator are, by their very nature, claims of religious faith, and so not within the scope or abilities of science.”
I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that this thing is getting out of control. To begin with, the reasoning of the Iowa State professors is, frankly, some of the weakest I’ve ever seen. They give three reasons for rejecting intelligent design. The first is what they call “the arbitrary selection of features claimed to be engineered by a designer”—which, even if that were true, would prove nothing. If certain features were chosen arbitrarily for study, how does that prove that no other features showed evidence of design? The number two reason given is “unverifiable conclusions about the wishes and desires of that designer.” That is a dubious claim; most serious intelligent design theorists have made very few conclusions about any such “wishes and desires.”
But the third reason is my favorite: They say it is “an abandonment by science of methodological naturalism.” Now this gets to the heart of the matter. The statement goes so far as to claim, “Methodological naturalism, the view that natural phenomena can be explained without reference to supernatural beings or events, is the foundation of the sciences.” I’ll be the first to admit I’m not a scientist, but I thought that the heart of the sciences was the study of natural phenomena to gather knowledge of the universe. I thought we were supposed to start without any foregone conclusions about the supernatural at all, that is, if we wanted to be truly scientific.
It seems to me that the intelligent design theorists aren’t the ones trying to inject religion and philosophy into the debate—the Darwinists are, starting out with predetermined conclusions.
But it gets even better than that. The Iowa State fracas started because one astronomy professor there, Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez, has attracted attention with a book on intelligent design. It’s a little odd to accuse Gonzalez of being unscientific; he’s a widely published scientist whose work has made the cover of Scientific American. But that’s exactly what’s happening. And here’s the kicker: Gonzalez barely mentions intelligent design in the classroom. He wants to wait until the theory has more solid support among scientists. All he’s doing is researching and writing about it.
Now the lesson here for all of us is very clear: Don’t be intimidated when confronting school boards or biology teachers about teaching intelligent design. All we are asking is that science pursue all the evidence. That’s fair enough. But that’s what drives them into a frenzy, as we see in Iowa.
> Looks like it applies to you.
No, not really. I hardly ever take personally the ravings of drooling loonies.
Did so. Didn't get any better the fourth time around.
Now there's a deeply intellectual and rational "Scientific" approach.
I like you too.
Really.
But their descendants will continue to revert, will they not?
There is nothing inconsistent with domestic animals being the result of both selective breeding and mutation.
I didn't say there was. What I was wondering was whether the changes that happen on a timescale necessary to introduce new breeds can realistically come about entirely through mutations, or if they necessarily come about mostly through other factors that might alter the genotype.
See, then read post # 429, then try to read post # 485.
You seem, tense.
LOL!
I noticed that too. He's feeling backed into a corner, so he's hoping he can divert his way out of it with cartoons.
Domestic dogs are even more plastic because they don't have to feed themselves and have medical care. When the welfare system abandons them, most will die or fail to breed. The ones with the fewest handicapping traits will have the most offspring.
I mean that mutations are only going to occur at a certain rate, even with animals that have a high tolerance for them. So that led me to think that maybe breeding relies mostly on some other means of altering the genotype in order to result in changes that take place on a timescale that's a little shorter than geological.
Comic books are what I'd expect from Darwinian fundamentalists.
I don't think they literally mean between a parent and a child. As I understand it, it works like this:
A population of a given animal lives in an area. They can interbreed because, of course, they share enough DNA, being members of the same species. They experience genetic mutations, but since these are so gradual their interbreeding causes them to be spread around, preventing speciation. This crossbreeding serves as a "control" of sorts.
Then a subset of that population migrates away. Population A (the guys who stayed put) and population B (the guys who left) are then isolated by something -- a glacier, a sea, whatever. Pop A and pop B continue to experience genetic mutations as before, but now they can't "average" out their mutations with each other because they're physically separated. Since the mutations are chaotic, they each experience different types of mutations in different patterns.
Eventually, the DNA of one or both of these populations mutates so much that they no longer share enough genetic material to crossbreed. At this point, even if they were brought back into each other's physical location (the glacier retreats), they won't be able to re-merge into a single species. They've lost their "control." They're now genetically free to spiral off into completely different beasts, depending on which niche of the food chain they end up inhabiting.
It basically works just like language.
That sounds to me like a highly ordered state. Wouldn't that be zero entropy? Or am I misunderstanding you?
Sorry, you're right. I was thinking the "big whimper" would involve zero velocity, which would necessitate equidistant particles. If the particles were continuing to move away from each other, they wouldn't need to be equidistant.
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