Posted on 11/13/2005 6:07:54 AM PST by NYer
CBN.com – SEATTLE, Washington - The Dover, Pennsylvania school board is on trial in the state capitol. Their crime? They wanted to tell high school students once a year that evolution is only a theory. They also wanted to mention an alternate theory: Intelligent Design, or ID.
That was too much for some parents. They sued, claiming ID is religious and therefore illegal in school. The judge will decide the case in the next few weeks.
So is ID really just religion in disguise? Do both biology and astronomy support ID? And who are these people promoting ID?
To answer those questions, we went to the Discovery Institute in Seattle, the major proponents of ID.
Dr. Stephen Meyer is the head of Discovery's Center for Science and Culture. He says to ban design theory as mere religion is wrong.
"And in fact,” Meyer said, “it's a science-based argument that may have implications that are favorable to a theistic worldview, but the argument is based on scientific evidence."
But perhaps these ID experts are not really reputable?
Mayer stated, "These are people with serious academic training. They are Ph.D.s from very, not just reputable -- but elite -- institutions. And they are people doing research on the key pressure points in biology and physics, and so their arguments are based on cutting-edge knowledge of developments in science."
So what is the evidence from researchers like biochemist Dr. Michael Behe, a Ph.D. graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute?
He is an expert on a special kind of bacteria called flagella. Inside the bacteria are exquisitely engineered ‘inboard motors’ that spin at an amazing 100,000 revolutions per minute.
Darwin said that such complexity must have developed piece by piece. Behe said that is bunk. All the pieces must be in place at the same time or the motorized tails would never work.
Darwin's gradual theory has no good explanation for that -- ID does.
Behe makes the case for ID in a video called "Unlocking the Mystery of Life." The video’s narrator declares, “A thimbleful of liquid can contain four million single-celled bacteria, each packed with circuits, assembly instructions, and molecular machines..."
"There are little molecular trucks that carry supplies from one end of the cell to the other,” Behe explained. “There are machines that capture the energy from sunlight, and turn it into usable energy."
ID experts say the more you know about biology -- and some of the weird creatures like this island lizard -- the worse it gets for Darwinism.
Consider the workings of the genetic code. That code produces all kinds of molecular machines, plus all the other components of life. ID advocates say that to believe those components are just Darwinian accidents takes a blind faith in the creativity of dumb molecules.
So with growing evidence of ID, isn't Lehigh University proud of this cutting-edge scientist who teaches there—and wrote the 1996 bestseller "Darwin's Black Box?" Hardly.
In August, all the other (22) biology faculty members came out with a political statement on the department's Web site. They stated that "Intelligent design has no basis in science."
But they cited no evidence, and made no references to any scientific research.
Dr. John West, a political scientist at Seattle Pacific University, is senior fellow at Discovery Institute. He says these political responses to scientific issues are getting nasty.
West remarked that "hate speech, speech codes, outright persecution, and discrimination is taking place on our college campuses, in our school districts, against both students and teachers and faculty members."
In fact, universities are evolving into centers for censorship. Five years ago, Baylor University dismissed mathematician Dr. William Dembski from his position, primarily because he headed a center for ID there.
This September, the University of Idaho banned any dissent against evolution from science classes -- a slam on university biologist Dr. Scott Minnich, a noted supporter of ID.
"The school seems to be confusing where it's at,” West said. “Is it in Moscow, Idaho, or the old Moscow, Russia? ...in issuing this edict that…no view differing form evolution can be taught in any science class."
And at Iowa State University, more than 100 faculty members have signed a petition against ID -- an apparent political attempt to intimidate ISU astronomer Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez because he writes about ID.
Gonalez is, in fact, co-author with philosopher Dr. Jay Richards of "The Privileged Planet." Both scholars are also connected with the Discovery Institute.
The book and related video argue that astronomy also shows evidence of design. For instance, the earth has numerous aspects just right for our existence.
Gonzalez explained, "...We find that we need to be at the right location in the galaxy...that we're in the circumstellar habitable zone of our star (correct distance from the sun)...that we're in a planetary system with giant planets that can shield the inner planets from too many comet impacts...that we're orbiting the right kind of star -- it's not too cool and not too hot.”
These are just four of 20 some characteristics of earth that make our planet unique -- right for life, right for discovery by human science.
Richards said, "So you have life and the conditions for discovery happening at the same places. That, to us, suggests that there is something more than a cosmic lottery going on. That sounds like a conspiracy rather than a mere coincidence. So that to me is a tie-breaker in the question."
And there is more -- the finely-tuned underlying rules of the universe-- or physical constants. One of them is gravity. But what if gravity were not constant?
A film clip from Privileged Planet says: "Imagine a machine able to control the strength of each of the physical constants. If you changed even slightly from its current setting, the strength of any of these fundamental forces -- such as gravity -- the impact on life would be catastrophic."
In plain terms, a bit more gravity would mean any creature larger than the size of a pea would be crushed into nothing. And a little less gravity would mean that the Earth would come unglued and fly off into space.
But Darwinism has been maintaining that advanced life is easy to produce all over the universe.
"Almost everything we've learned in the area of astrobiology suggests that, 'Look, this is just not going to happen very often' -- now that might be sort of depressing for script writers for sci-fi movies, but that's where the evidence is taking us," Richards said.
Despite the attacks on ID, Meyer said the design interpretation of the evidence is exposing Darwinism as a theory in crisis:
"I think we're reaching the critical point where Darwinism is going be seen as simply inadequate,” Meyer asserted, “ -- and therefore the question of (intelligent) design is back on the table."
Just as this city of Seattle has all the earmarks of ID, so does nature, except that nature is infinitely more intricate.
The testimony during the Dover trial was to the contrary:
"Intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John's Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory," William Dembski, one of the movement's chief proponents, said in a 1999 interview in Touchstone, a Christian magazine that Forrest cited in her testimony.[emphasis added] source: http://ydr.com/story/doverbiology/88606/
"amny things make monkeys of men"
I think I can orang that. After all, I'm a "chimp" off the old block as are some gorilla friends I've had. If you gibbon a while, he or she often becomes one anyway.
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| 1 | You have no evidence | Stalin, Pol Pot, etc. | Darwinism is dogma! | I never said that! |
| 2 | Hillary | homosexual | Piltdown Man | You're no Christian! |
| 3 | liberal science | God-hater | government grants | What are you afraid of? |
| 4 | Hitler, nazi, etc. | You have no proof | communist tactics | 2nd Law of Thermodynamics |
| 5 | atheist, materialist, etc. | What made the Big Bang? | evolution causes immorality | gaps in fossil record |
| 6 | Prove the origin of life! | You're Christian-bashing | Darwin worship | I'm not [.....], you are! |
| 7 | arrogant jerk | Take your meds | [quote any scripture passage] | You're foaming at the mouth |
| 8 | It's only a theory! | Were you there? | Noah's Ark | Macro-evolution is impossible |
| 9 | It's all speculation! | [quote any creationist website] | Darwin leads to Marxism | My granddaddy was no ape |
| 10 | Stop the censorship! | That's a "just so" story! | Darwin was a racist | The odds are against evolution |
| 11 | Cambrian explosion | No transitionals! | All mutations are harmful | Speciation is never observed |
Bring on the last days, Armageddon tired of these puns! (I do like the gibbon-take though.)
There's nothing there resembling an actual "theory of ID", perhaps you could quote it for us.
It contains their idea of what testing a scientific theory means:
Yes, indeed it does, but the problem is that "their idea of what testing a scientific theory means" is completely flawed. You can't make something scientific by "redefining" science in a way that makes your bogus proposition look valid for a change. But the IDer's keep trying. Case in point:
TestingNo, sorry, thanks for playing. I'm tempted to dismantle that poppycock myself, but someone has already done so in enormous detail, and far better than I could:
Any good scientific theory is subjectable to testing. Theories that cannot be tested are merely speculation or wishful thinking. In testing for design, three things must be established, contingency, complexity and specification. The flow chart below shows how the testing process works. It is called the explanatory filter:1. Is it contingent? If No, then it is produced by necessity. If Yes, go to 2.
2. Is it complex? If No, then it is produced by chance. If Yes, go to 3.
3, Is it specified? If No, then it is produced by chance. If Yes, go to 4.
4. It is designed.
The advantages of theft over toil: the design inference and arguing from ignoranceAbstract: Intelligent design theorist William Dembski has proposed an "explanatory filter" for distinguishing between events due to chance, lawful regularity or design. We show that if Dembski's filter were adopted as a scientific heuristic, some classical developments in science would not be rational, and that Dembski's assertion that the filter reliably identifies rarefied design requires ignoring the state of background knowledge. If background information changes even slightly, the filter's conclusion will vary wildly. Dembski fails to overcome Hume's objections to arguments from design.
Read it and weep. The authors examine this "design inference" from every angle and show why it's enormously fallacious from start to finish. It's a magnificent example of utterly demolishing the dishonesty of the "ID filter", and demonstrates why it's piss-poor epistemology (i.e., pseudoscience).
A few additional observations: The flowchart has "Is it complex?" as one of its decision nodes. This is utterly vacuous. Things are not either/or, complex-or-not-complex, they have varying *degrees* of complexity. Just how "complex" is the precise breakpoint on that goofy "Is it complex, yes or no?" decision node? What retarded gradeschooler thought up this nonsense? Oh, right, Dembski.
Furthermore, how do you determine "Is it contingent or not, yes or no?" Answering such a question for any non-trivial case would require complete ominiscience -- is Dembski claiming the IDers to be God himself now? Because that's the only way you could confidently answer "no" and move on down the flowchart for any moderately complex subject.
And so on. As usual, the ID "science" is found to be a mish-mash of fallacy, snake oil, hand-waving, and embarrassingly elementary errors which most junior-high students wouldn't be ignorant enough to make.
As you can see, they do not believe God could have created a universe where all that was, is, and will be is necessary.
They don't think God could do that? Fascinating.
They believe that anything that is simple can be produced by chance, but complex things, e.g., Penrose Tiles can't.
And they're wrong in that conjecture. If they learned more about actual science, instead of just repeating age-old creationist fallacies dressed up in fancy language, they'd know this already. In any case, evolution doesn't proceed "by chance" alone, as you falsely imply.
From this starting point, it doesn't seem like sce to me.
Could we have that in English?
Ahh well there goes my theory, back to the drawing board.
Armageddon tired of these puns! (I do like the gibbon-take though.)
Thank you. :) All of these ape puns must make me a howler. Or maybe I can troll the dice....
Well done.
The Grand Master (may he evolve forever) should reward his scribes who produced that work.
No one's stopping them.
Most are areas that real scientists (as opposed to the "ID scientists") are already exploring, and have been for quite some time. And unfortunately for the ID folks, the results to date overwhelmingly support evolution.
And I'll bet fifty bucks that the actual scientists achieve more results and breakthroughs in these fields than the "ID gang" does in their thousand-year-old fruitless game of, "I know there must be evidence of design in here *somewhere*, if we just keep looking hard enough..."
But as usual, the ID folks manage to misunderstand even basic science -- I love the goofy screwup in this one on your list:
7. Cambrian explosion (sudden appearance of most species during same time period)
Um, no, sorry. "Most species" have appeared in the 500+ million years *AFTER* the Cambrian. Like 99+% of the ones which have lived on the Earth. There are a few hundred species which appeared in the Cambrian. There are over THREE MILLION currently living on Earth (none of which existed during the Cambrian), and countless more which have existed in between (like at least tens of thousands of dinosaur species, etc).
If the IDers can't even get the *easy* stuff right, how can we trust them with the hard stuff?
I find it perfectly reasonable that they should be able to follow whatever lines of inquiry shows promise. Anybody disagree?
Not at all. They're perfectly free to go chasing whatever they like. No one would dream of stopping them.
All we ask is that they stop lying about real science, and stop trying to dishonestly pretend that their half-assed efforts to date are actual science. Is *that* too much to ask?
"half-assed efforts"
the right cheek or the left one?
Hey! Are you Stuck on Stupid! We are on your side!
Maybe a more precise term would be explosion of "phyla."
You might be interested in the description given by Dr. Paul Chien, Chairman of the biology department at the University of San Francisco, after returning from studying the Cambrian-era discoveries in China:
"The general impression people get is that we began with micro-organisms, then came lowly animals that don't amount to much, and then came the birds, mammals and man.
"Scientists were looking at a very small branch of the whole animal kingdom, and they saw more complexity and advanced features in that group. But it turns out that this concept does not apply to the entire spectrum of animals or to the appearance or creation of different groups. Take all the different body plans of roundworms, flatworms, coral, jellyfish and whateverall those appeared at the very first instant.
"Most textbooks will show a live tree of evolution with the groups evolving through a long period of time. If you take that tree and chop off 99 percent of it, [what is left] is closer to reality; it's the true beginning of every group of animals, all represented at the very beginning.
"Since the Cambrian period, we have only die-off and no new groups coming about, ever. There's only one little exception citedthe group known as bryozoans, which are found in the fossil record a little later. However, most people think we just haven't found it yet; that group was probably also present in the Cambrian explosion."
What you call the very beginning happens to be three billion years into a three and a half billion year history.
Did I mention that things without bones or hard shells don't leave many fossils?
Billion, shmillion, does it matter to us?
I think that what this argument is really about is adherents to mainstream science are upset with what they perceive as heretics making waves in established fields. Happens a lot.
Mainstream media is being challenged, so are the mainstream Protestant denominations, etc. Mainstream education has had a cross to bear with all those pesky home-schoolers. I can even remember when mainstream Rockefeller Republicans were challenged by young conservatives, but that's another time, another thread.
The world turns and changes. Guess we'll have to live with it.
Interesting that you should mention this. Here's what Dr. Chien had to say on that subject:
"When an opportunity came up to talk with Chinese paleontologists and to visit them and the original site of fossil discovery, it became something I had to do. So last March I organized an international group to make a visit there.
"In some ways there are similarities between the China site and the other famous site, the Burgess Shale fauna in Canada. But it turns out that the China site is much older, and the preservation of the specimens is much, much finer. Even nerves, internal organs and other details can be seen that are not present in fossils in any other place.
(Interviewer): And I suppose many of these are probably soft-tissue marine-type animals?
Chien: "Yes, including jellyfish-like organisms. They can even see water ducts in the jellyfish. They are all marine. That part of western China was under a shallow sea at the time."
But they cited no evidence, and made no references to any scientific research.
Dr. John West, a political scientist at Seattle Pacific University, is senior fellow at Discovery Institute. He says these political responses to scientific issues are getting nasty.
Indeed, there is a lot of antagonism and condescension on campuses against ID, and students are disparaged and degraded upon the basis that they espouse a different theory, but it's also taking place all around us including FR. The fear of learning something which might jeopardize the existence of the current notion isn't new. We all know about past persecutions, and as Dr. West pointed out, "hate speech, speech codes, outright persecution, and discrimination is taking place on our college campuses, in our school districts, against both students and teachers and faculty members.”
Silence your opponent not with evidence or scientific facts, but with a paradigm of insults and smarmy remarks. I, on the other hand, want to learn as much as I can, especially when:
Consider the workings of the genetic code. That code produces all kinds of molecular machines, plus all the other components of life. ID advocates say that to believe those components are just Darwinian accidents takes a blind faith in the creativity of dumb molecules.
Darwin said that such complexity must have developed piece by piece. Behe said that is bunk. All the pieces must be in place at the same time or the motorized tails would never work.
Darwin's gradual theory has no good explanation for that -- ID does.
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