Posted on 11/01/2005 6:27:26 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
A president who consults religious lunatics about who should be on the Supreme Court... Judges who want prayer in school and the "ten commandments" in the courtroom… Born-Again fanatics who bomb abortion clinics… bible thumpers who condemn homosexuality as "sin"... and all the other Christian fascists who want a U.S. theocracy….
This is the force behind the assault on evolution going on right now in a courtroom in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Last year, the Dover city school board instituted a policy that requires high school biology teachers to read a statement to students that says Darwin's theory of evolution is "not a fact" and then notes that intelligent design offers an alternative theory for the origin and evolution of life--namely, that life in all of its complexity could not have arisen without the help of an "intelligent hand." Some teachers refused to read the statement, citing the Pennsylvania teacher code of ethics, which says, "I will never knowingly present false information to a student." Eleven parents who brought this case to court contend that the directive amounted to an attempt to inject religion into the curriculum in violation of the First Amendment. Their case has been joined by the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
The school board is being defended pro bono by the Thomas More Law Center, a Christian law firm in Ann Arbor, Mich. The case is being heard without a jury in Harrisburg by U.S. District Judge John Jones III, whom George W. Bush appointed to the bench in 2002.
In 1987, the Supreme Court ruled that public schools could not teach the biblical account of creation instead of evolution, because doing so would violate the constitutional ban on establishment of an official religion. Since then Intelligent Design has been promoted by Christian fundamentalists as the way to get the Bible and creationism into the schools.
"This clever tactical repackaging of creationism does not merit consideration," Witold Walczak, legal director of the Pennsylvania American Civil Liberties Union and a lawyer for the parents, told U.S. District Judge John E. Jones in opening arguments. "Intelligent design admits that it is not science unless science is redefined to include the supernatural." This is, he added, "a 21st-century version of creationism."
This is the first time a federal court has been asked to rule on the question of whether Intelligent Design is religion or science. Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, which opposes challenges to the standard model of teaching evolution in the schools, said the Pennsylvania case "is probably the most important legal situation of creation and evolution in the last 18 years," and that "it will have quite a significant impact on what happens in American public school education."
Proponents of Intelligent Design don’t say in the courtroom that they want to replace science with religion. But their strategy papers, speeches, and discussions with each other make it clear this is their agenda.
Intelligent Design (ID) is basically a re-packaged version of creationism--the view that the world can be explained, not by science, but by a strict, literal reading of the Bible. ID doesn’t bring up ridiculous biblical claims like the earth is only a few thousand years old or that the world was created in seven days. Instead it claims to be scientific--it acknowledges the complexity and diversity of life, but then says this all comes from some "intelligent" force. ID advocates don’t always openly argue this "intelligent force" is GOD--they even say it could be some alien from outer space! But Christian fundamentalists are the driving force behind the whole Intelligent Design movement and it’s clear… these people aren’t praying every night to little green men from another planet.
Phillip Johnson, considered the father and guiding light behind Intelligent Design, is the architect of the "wedge strategy" which focuses on attacking evolution and promoting intelligent design to ultimately, as Johnson says, "affirm the reality of God." Johnson has made it clear that the whole point of "shifting the debate from creationism vs. evolution to the existence of God vs. the non-existence of God" is to get people "introduced to the truth of the Bible," then "the question of sin" and finally "introduced to Jesus."
Intelligent Design and its theocratic program has been openly endorsed by George W. Bush. Earlier this year W stated that Intelligent Design should be taught in the schools. When he was governor of Texas, Bush said students should be exposed to both creationism and evolution. And he has made the incredibly unscientific, untrue statement that "the jury is still out" on evolution.
For the Christian fascists, the fight around evolution and teaching Intelligent Design is part of a whole agenda that encompasses reconfiguring all kinds of cultural, social, and political "norms" in society. This is a movement that is fueled by a religious vision which varies among its members but is predicated on the shared conviction that the United States is in need of drastic changes--which can only be accomplished by instituting religion as its cultural foundation.
The Christian fascists really do want--and are working for--a society where everything is run according to the Bible. They have been working for decades to infiltrate school boards to be in a position to mandate things like school prayer. Now, in the schools, they might not be able to impose a literal reading of the Bible’s explanation for how the universe was created. But Intelligent Design, thinly disguised as some kind of "science," is getting a lot more than just a foot in the door.
The strategy for promoting intelligent design includes an aggressive and systematic agenda of promoting the whole religious worldview that is the basis for ID. And this assault on evolution is linked up with other questions in how society should be run.
Marc Looy of the creationist group Answers in Genesis has said that evolution being taught in the schools,
"creates a sense of purposelessness and hopelessness, which I think leads to things like pain, murder, and suicide."
Ken Cumming, dean of the Institute for Creation Research's (ICR) graduate school, who believes the earth is only thousands of years old, attacked a PBS special seven-part series on evolution, suggesting that the series had "much in common" with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks against the United States. He said,
"[W]hile the public now understands from President Bush that 'we're at war' with religious fanatics around the world, they don't have a clue that America is being attacked from within through its public schools by a militant religious movement called Darwinists...."
After the 1999 school shooting in Littleton, Colorado, Tom DeLay, Christian fascist representative from Texas, gave a speech on the floor of the House of Representatives, blaming the incident in part on the teaching of evolution. He said,
"Our school systems teach the children that they are nothing but glorified apes who are evolutionized out of some primordial soup of mud."
The ID movement attacks the very notion of science itself and the philosophical concept of materialism--the very idea that there is a material world that human beings can examine, learn about, and change.
Johnson says in his "The Wedge Strategy" paper,
"The social consequences of materialism have been devastating…we are convinced that in order to defeat materialism, we must cut it off at its source. Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist world view, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions."
Dr. Eugenie C. Scott, the Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education, points out:
"Evolution is a concept that applies to all sciences, from astronomy to chemistry to geology to biology to anthropology. Attacking evolution means attacking much of what we know of the natural world, that we have amassed through the application of scientific principles and methods. Second, creationist attacks on evolution are attacks on science itself, because the creationist approach does violence to how we conduct science: science as a way of knowing."
The Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture (another Christian think tank) says that it "seeks nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies."
Teaching Intelligent Design in the schools is part of a whole Christian Fascist movement in the United States that has power and prominence in the government, from the Bush regime on down. And if anyone isn’t clear about what "cultural legacies" the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture wants to overthrow--take a look at the larger Christian fascist agenda that the intelligent design movement is part of: asserting patriarchy in the home, condemning homosexuality, taking away the right to abortion, banning sex education, enforcing the death penalty with the biblical vengeance of an "eye for an eye," and launching a war because "God told me [Bush] to invade Iraq."
"Nothing you have said by way of criticsm is relevant or meaningful."
Yeah right. I wrote a sentence by sentence critique of your post. You just ignored it completely.
That's called a win in debate. The battle you eagerly anticipate, you just fought and lost big time. That is the battle my friend, produce real ideas and defend them, even if the people bashing them aren't nice about it. This isn't kindergarten, we aren't all equally right about things. Some people are wtrong. Period. You are one of them. And no matter how much you shout that you are right, it doesn't change things.
Why? There is this thing called reality, and it exists outside you. You can't make it into what you want just by saying it is so. You can't just repeat over and over that I am wrong and you are right. Which is what you're doing, only each time you're trying to use bigger words. Like when Betty Boop said explicate and she meant explain; she just wanted us to think she was smart by using a rarer word. That's you, except when you use the big words, (predicate) you tend to use them incorrectly.
Sorry, just saying I didn't substantivly address your hypothesis up there doesn't cut it. I did, everyone here saw it, and then they see you close your eyes and start repeating over and over "no no no no!"
Everyone here can see that your emporer is naked.
I think I saw Amos wearing a sandwich board on the street corner proclaiming the End of Days.
One more quickie.
"You use the sun as an illustration of increasing entropy. The sun's breakdown, however, is in the direction of another generation of suns. These increase the periodic table thus increase order and complexity. Our disagreement is a difference of perspective. A sort of chicken and the egg discussion. Where you see, if I understand you correctly, a balance I see an increase of orderliness. Stars may explode and energy dissipate but order follows these events."
No. Wrong.
Please don't use entropy, you have no idea what it really is. In science, as I said about, entropy is energy in space. So if space increases, as it is all the time, then entropy increases. Because the universe is expanding so fast ENTROPY IS ALWAYS INCREASE on the universal, level. What you said above pegs you as someone who really is ignorant about science. It is not a matter perspective or opinion, you don't know what your talking about... sentrences like this...
"These increase the periodic table thus increase order and complexity."
Are like wearing a sign that says "I don't know what these words mean" in letters big enough to read from ORBIT!
Scientific concepts like entropy are not fuzzy relativitic ideas that you can see any way you ant. They have a cold hard meaning that eludes you.
Stop. Please. Go read what entropy really is. Not the AiG summary, read it in a real science publication, from a REAL SCIENTIST.
Well, they ARE getting shorter for us Northern Hemisphere types.
I’m coming in late to the discussion but here are some points I’d like to raise in defense of Amos the Prophet and perhaps pave the way for a more helpful debate for the Lurkers:
For instance, an additional time-like dimension would allow for all particles in 4D space/time to be multiply imaged up to 1080 times from as little as a single particle in the fifth dimension. Here’s a recent discussion for more on the mysteries of mass.
Cellular Automata = beginning with an infinite grid of cells, each in a finite number of states with any finite number of dimensions – rules are applied within the cells such that a whole new grid results from each generation of rules being applied
Self-organizing Complexity = emphasis on self (in biological systems) – the system structures itself over time without explicit external pressure or involvement from outside the system. As the system evolves, it exhibits a hierarchy of emergent system properties. Hence, the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts, perhaps even something “new” requiring new language to describe it. Intelligence is often seen as an emergent property.
Functional complexity = for a system function, an assessment for which the environmental (input) variables have a complexity of C(e), and the actions of the system have a complexity of C(a), then the complexity of specification of the function of the system is: C(f)=C(a) 2 C(e)
Time complexity or the algorithmic complexity of a discrete function = O(n) where n is the size of the input to a function. It is a statement of linear complexity, like mowing a lawn – the bigger the lawn, the longer it takes to mow it. An example of a logarithmic form would be looking for a number in the phone book. You’d open it in the middle, and then open one side or the other and so forth to narrow the search to the name of the party you want to call.
Irreducible Complexity = “a single system which is composed of several interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, and where the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning”
Specified Complexity = based on the notion that life is both complex and specified. “A single letter of the alphabet is specified without being complex (i.e., it conforms to an independently given pattern but is simple). A long sequence of random letters is complex without being specified (i.e., it requires a complicated instruction-set to characterize but conforms to no independently given pattern). A Shakespearean sonnet is both complex and specified.”
Metatransition = “Consider a system S of any kind. Suppose that there is a way to make some number of copies from it, possibly with variations. Suppose that these systems are united into a new system S' which has the systems of the S type as its subsystems, and includes also an additional mechanism which controls the behavior and production of the S-subsystems. Then we call S' a metasystem with respect to S, and the creation of S' a metasystem transition. As a result of consecutive metasystem transitions a multilevel structure of control arises, which allows complicated forms of behavior. “
Correspondents on both sides tend to use some “sleight of hand” when discussing probability by asserting combinations when it suits their prejudice.
An atheist for instance would lean heavily on a combination - 1 in 1080 as the probability of this particular universe in a chaotic inflation or multi-verse model.
A theist for instance would lean heavily on a combination – 10390 as the probability of a typical protein (300 amino acids with 20 common amino acids in life).
Phenomenon would include both emergent properties of self-organizing complexity as well as fractal intelligence (self-similar).
Agents would include God, aliens, collective consciousness, Gaia, etc.
That we notice a bunch of storks in a town at the same time a bunch of babies are born does not establish a causal link.
Likewise we cannot say that intelligent design is a Christian theory because of the correlation. Likewise we cannot say that evolution is an atheist theory because of the correlation.
Except when cause is correlated with effect. Perhaps we should say, not all correlations are causally related.
Great reply, AG.
I will agree with you definitions of IC and specified complexity, provided you affirm that neither of those concept have met their burden of proof, and therefore are fictional.
As you your hypothesis, I will agree with you that that is the formulated ID hypothesis, provided you agree that it is not a real scientific hypothesis. It provides no specificity of designer, mechanism, or features too complex. It contains an irelevant caluse about randomness, irrelevant because proving randomness as capable or incapable is not the same as proving ID. You must prove ID to meet the burden of proof and not disproved the modern synthesis. Finally it has zero expanatory power. Ben Franklin could have used you hypothesis to study lightening, and we would still be reading by candle light.
Of course you didn't come up with that hypothesis, which is fine. But is recycling it, you must also have encountered the fact that it has been dismissed by every serious researcher who has examinied, save its own authors (and I'm calling them serious researchers out of deference to you).
I'll agree with these terms, provided that you agree that what the terms describe, is fictional. Otherwise, get out there and prove the things... or in the case of the hypothesis, formulate one that can be proven, and when proven, has some kind of explanatory value.
Here is a test by which you can easily prove me wrong. List one instance of IC or come up with one new scientific discovery that is a result of ID.
However, thank's for a civil post, and one that has substance. Please don't duck the hard questions though.
" Except when cause is correlated with effect. Perhaps we should say, not all correlations are causally related."
Saying cause is correlated with effect, is the same as saying cause. That is what cause means. The idea of correlation exists prior to the idea of causation. Ergo, if you are trying to determine causeation, you can not use correlation as the indicator.
Correlation is not causation is what we should say.
The challenge though is for all of the correspondents to choose one for our debate. The mathematicians around here usually lean to Kolmogorov or Cellular Automata. The mathematicians who work in biology (Rocha, Kauffman, etc.) usually lean to self-organizing complexity.
Some of the punctuated equilibrium school prefer metatransition. Some physicists prefer algorithmic complexity of a discrete function (time complexity). And a lot of the non-technical types prefer irreducible complexity, specified complexity and functional complexity.
I would suggest however that self-organizing complexity is probably the best pick if anyone wishes to assert advances being made at Santa Fe. However, it doesn't matter to me as long as we are communicating. So please just let us know which one you prefer.
A hypothesis (foundation from ancient Greek hupothesis where hupo = under and thesis = placing) is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. A scientific hypothesis must be testable and based on previous observations or extensions of scientific theories.
In early usage, a hypothesis was usually a clever idea or convenient mathematical approach that simplified cumbersome calculations; it did not necessarily have any real meaning. A famous example of the older sense is the warning which Cardinal Bellarmine issued to Galileo, that he must not treat the motion of the Earth as a reality, but merely as a hypothesis.
In common usage at present, a hypothesis is a provisional idea whose merit is to be evaluated. A hypothesis requires more work by the researcher in order to either confirm or disprove it. In the hypothetico-deductive method, a hypothesis should be falsifiable, meaning that it is possible that it be shown false, usually by observation. Note that, if confirmed, the hypothesis is not necessarily proven, but remains provisional.
The term hypothesis was misused in the Riemann hypothesis, which should be properly called a conjecture. As an example, someone who enters a new country and observes only white sheep, might form the hypothesis that all sheep in that country are white. It can be considered a hypothesis, as it is falsifiable. It can be falsified by observing a single black sheep. Provided that the experimental uncertainties are small (for example that it is a sheep, instead of a goat) and that the experimenter has correctly interpreted the statement of the hypothesis (for example, does the meaning of "sheep" include rams?), the hypothesis is falsified.
I see this as a strength, not a weakness, of the hypothesis - because it will hold regardless of the origin of intelligent cause. The theory of evolution does not address origins either, nor does it ask or answer the root question: what is life v non-life/death in nature.
The hypothesis does not however, as you suggest, contain a clause about randomness. It says that “certain features of the universe and life are best explained by intelligent cause rather than an undirected process such as natural selection.”
It does not dispute evolution theory nor does it replace it – it only speaks to “certain features”. Thus, neither apparent randomness nor mutation are addressed even indirectly in the hypothesis.
If it spoke to "all features" it would be a substitute for evolution theory and/or philosophy/theology.
Also, contrary to your assertion, the intelligent design hypothesis does have considerable explanatory power. For instance, intelligent cause (choice of mates based on color or plumage) might be a better explanation for variation among tropical birds. Swarm intelligence might be a better explanation for survival advantage of army ants, etc.
Many hypotheses were not initially well-received in the science community, e.g. Heliocentricity, Big Bang, String Theory
Also, the Intelligent Design hypothesis can be (and most likely will be) vindicated by further research in autonomous biological self-organizing complexity – since intelligence is an emergent property in that model and creatures are known to choose their mates, thus effecting variation, survival advantages (or disadvantages) etc.
That the investigators do not consider themselves to be intelligent design theorists is moot.
I must have missed it, where did any of that have anything to do with the idiocy that Amos spouted?
And, to be picky, what is wrong with the definitions that science already uses?
The definitions I've posted are all in the mainstream. And concerning Amos, I protest strongly your use of the pejorative "idiocy" to describe his posts. Neither he nor I will be dismissed by such statements.
My above post is supportive of Amos’ hypothesis as stated at post 127 as follows:
Why is it that the notion of higher and lower orders is predicated? On what basis is this apparent natural phenomenon determined? This is an area of research that has gone unexamined.
I propose that it be examined to determine laws of nature which seem to impose order on existence. Why should there be order? Why not rampant disorder?
If order, then, and more so, if processional - lower to higher - order there must be determinative dynamics that make it so. What is the nature of these dynamics?
This line of reasoning from natural observation must necessarily discard random selection or random processes as not capable of explaining phenomenon.
If I may jump to a possible conclusion, ID is a perfectly legitimate proposition to explain the phenomenological issues raised above.
It follows that randomness cannot be a primary causation in evolution, etc. – indeed, as my point #1 avers:
If you want to try to defeat me on either statement, please go right ahead. You'll find that science is not on your side.
To defeat the first, find any physical system wherein order can arise from chaos without a guide. You will have to show how order (or anything for that matter) could arise without space/time, physical laws, physical constants, energy/matter and especially physical causation.
To defeat the second, disclose which of all the geometric physics models and cosmology models has been selected by all of science as the one which tells us what the system "is" - complete with all dimensions, cosmology, energy/matter, etc.
The challenge though is for all of the correspondents to choose one for our debate It's impossible to work in and through an infinity, so its good to set them out in order a basic order. Some of the discussion hinges on difference of perspective, as you describe. Concerning correlation, for example, if speaking with curiosity he says "I don't know about causality, but there is only one kind of correlation, and I defined it above." Of course, this is one of the drawbacks of an open forum, where the good and bad is in the mix.
As has been pointed out several times, this is false. As such, nothing derived from such a statement is valid. Likewise, posting such incorrect comments (when the correct comments are easily available) casts doubt on the poster's integrity.
No. Tapeworms are descended from free-living platyhelminthes, and are less complex. Mycoplasmas are descended from free-living gram positive bacteria, and are considerably less complex. Cave fish lose eyes; birds on islands with no predators lose the ability to fly; humans and the great apes lost the ability to synthesize vitamin C.
Negations by the dozen. It's a logical feat.
Something ought to explain it.
This is nonsense. Thus everything that he states based on this is nonsense.
To paraphrase, the heart of his observation is that order cannot rise out of chaos in an unguided physical system. That is an unequivocal statement.
It also utterly wrong. Order always arises out of chaos.
You snipped out the vital conditional... If this, or some version of this, is true then there must be some principle that allows it to be so.
It isn't true. Under some circumstances, complexity leads to reproductive success. Not under all circumstances. In fact, you could argue that some extremely successful self-replicating entitites have decreased their complexity so much they aren't generally recognized as living entities: example, transposons.
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