Posted on 09/30/2005 9:17:50 PM PDT by indcons
Four months ago, when evolution and "intelligent design" (ID) squared off in Kansas, I defended ID as a more evolved version of creationism. ID posits that complex systems in nature must have been designed by an intelligent agent. The crucial step forward is ID's concession that "observation, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument and theory building" not scriptural authority define science. Having acknowledged that standard, advocates of ID must now demonstrate how hypotheses based on it can be tested by experiment or observation. Otherwise, ID isn't science.
This week, ID is on trial again in Pennsylvania. And so far, its proponents aren't taking the experimental test they accepted in Kansas. They're ducking it.
The Pennsylvania case involves a policy, adopted by the board of the Dover Area School District, that requires ninth-grade biology teachers to tell students about ID. According to the policy, "A theory is defined as a well-tested explanation that unifies a broad range of observations." So far, so good.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
Consider the immune system, which, like retro-viruses, transcribes changes back onto the DNA. Consider the fact that human species have, simultaneously, blue, green, and gray eyes; yellow, black, and pink skin. 7 foot tall basketball players, and 4 feet tall jockeys; A, AB, B, and O blood types.
One of the big selling points of bi-sexuality, was that it capitalizes on the randomness you are finding so surprising by allowing a single species to take advantage of differing genetic strategies simultaneously. Since many changes in DNA turn out to be neutral in effect when they occur, they can sit around like time bombs, waiting for the environment to favor one variation or another, in a given situation.
There may very well be one or more, but it's not really as compelling to find a randomness generator, as to recognize that the genetic system is way more tolerant to most changes than the creationist's imagination suggests. There are certain parts of our operating systems that are more universally basic, like the ribosomes, and their transcription is insured by maintaining redundant copies. I don't know if we know the mechanism by which this redundancy is enforced, but it's obvious that it exists from the genome mapping projects. At any rate, the point is that mutation is not automatically a death sentence, handy as that would be for creationist arguments about entropy and loss of information.
How does one qualify as a "major league scientist"?
Well, randomly generated doesn't necessarily mean unusable. The fact that we can't predict any given quantum event, doesn't mean we can't build transistors whose operation depends on quantum events. You can't predict exactly what the queues will be in a bank at any given moment, but that doesn't stop bankers from opening banks wherever the demographics look right. Causality isn't a natural force, it's an idea people use to narrow down what they want to think about. There are other ideas humans can use to understand things, like statistical prediction, for example.
(1)Is he actually saying that, or am I misunderstanding him?
He's probably saying that. Radioactive decay is an unpredictable quantum process, and the ionizing radiation it produces causes mutations. It would also be impossible to predict whether a particular DNA base absorbed a UV photon and mutated, and probably impossible to predict whether a particular chemical mutagen reacted with a particular base at a particular time.
What I'm talking about is the many "spontaneous" mutations that seem to be happening without reference to radon gas in your basement and aflatoxins in your peanut butter... (I'm puzzled here and I hope somebody can straighten me out)
I'm not aware of these. You can get occasional copying errors. These might happen, for example, if the DNA copying enzyme happened to have a little too much thermal energy or happened to be in an odd conformation when it was catalyzing its reaction. All matter is in random thermal motion - sort of like a photocopier machine during an earthquake. Occasionally, things can get jogged in the wrong way at the wrong time, and something goes wrong. Most organic chemical reactions, for that reason, have yields of less than 100%. What's interesting about the DNA copying apparatus is that the yields are 99.999+%, probably because of the multiple layers of checking and copy-editing.
And if we push everyhting back to quantum physics, aren't we again saying, "This is beyond the universe as we know it" -- saying essentially that it's inexplicable? Doesn't that put us beyond the mechanistic cause-effect, hypothesis-test paradigm of naturalistic science again?
The key to understanding natural selection is that the mechanism of variation - the random or effectively random mutations - is unimportant. If, instead, there were a systematic mechanism for generating mutations, as there is in the development in the immune system, evolution would work just as well. The key to evolution is natural selection, the survival of the fittest. All mutation does is throw up a mix of possibilities to be selected.
Think of poker. The deal is random (hopefully), and without a random deal, poker would not be possible. But I can assure you as a poker player that poker is not a game of chance. Good poker players consistently win, and bad players consistently lose (probably because they think it's a game of chance).
Walking often.
"The problem is that evolution is taught to kids in public schools as a kind of faith without teaching the flaws and questions about it. I remember being taught it in junior high school as though it was a fact and that created a doubt about God in my very impressionable mind."
There is a problem related to the teaching of evolution in this regard. The problem needs to be solved from both sides, both the religious teaching and the science side.
Really though, evolution is a fact. That is to say, it is extremely well proven in a scientific sense. I think religious leaders need to be aware of this and think about what its implications are from a standpoint of their faith and their teachings of the Bible.
For example, when it was first discovered that the earth was millions of years old, many in the religious establishment, resisted these facts and opposed them on religious grounds. Now however, very few religious teachers oppose the geological theories that underlie our understanding of the earth.
Look at it this way. Whatever God's role was in the inspiration of the Bible, the fact is, it was actually written down by men. These men saw the world on a certain level, based on the overall level of the knowledge of their time. The Bible, to some extent, reflects the context of that knowledge.
These men would not have been able to understand the complex processes of geology, nor of biology. Knowledge was given to them in a form they were capable of understanding. This is reflected in the text of the Bible. In my opinion, children should not be taught that the Bible contradicts the basic findings of modern science. Nor should science teachers or textbooks (as they sometimes do)present the theory of evolution as if it were a refutation of the belief in God.
I think you really haven't looked into the many holes in evolution theory. That's the unfair part of the lesson plans, not teaching the whole picture with the many flaws and questions.
What specific flaws in the theory of evolution do you want included in the curriculum?
One big one is the lack of credible transitional life forms in the fossil record. With the millions of fossils found there should be alot of them discovered throughout. There are so many more flaws...please go to designeduniverse.com in the article section there's so much information that is scientific.
There are many transitional life forms in the fossil record. Here's one (Homo habilis):
Some information can be found at this site: http://www.wsu.edu:8001/vwsu/gened/learn-modules/top_longfor/timeline/habilis/habilis-a.html
You don't really get all of your scientific information from sites like designeduniverse.com do you? Human and dinosaur footprints together? Come on now.
Apparently here is another, throughly vetted by the peer review board /sarc>
Wolf
That's at least a two six-packer any day!
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Well, don't bank your career on it.
Wolf
i.e., the kind of thing one might see while fishing after having consumed two six-packs. Sorry if I was not clear.
ps. Is RunningWolf an Indian name?
"I think you really haven't looked into the many holes in evolution theory."
We disagree on that part. And that is where the controversy will be largely fought out.
From what I have been able to determine, these "holes" are non-existant. However, I will admit I am not an expert. I was a Biology major for a few years in college, but switched to English (worse luck!)
I've read several accounts from atheists and other nonChristians that describe a pleasant NDE. Are those accounts less valid than Mr. Storm's experience? Why wouldn't their NDEs be hellish?
I'm often... Running Behind.
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