Posted on 11/18/2005 7:58:33 AM PST by Uncledave
Edited on 11/18/2005 6:57:43 PM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
WASHINGTON -- Because every few years this country, in its infinite tolerance, insists on hearing yet another appeal of the Scopes monkey trial, I feel obliged to point out what would otherwise be superfluous -- that the two greatest scientists in the history of our species were Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein, and they were both religious.
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
> They claim that they "will not," but the reality is that
> they "can not" scientifically rebut the paper.
No, it's "will not", because it should never have been published there in the first place. Publishing it was analagous to publishing a paper on "UFOs and Alien Influences on the Construction of the Pyramids" in Biblical Archaeology Review.
Steyn's paper was worked over in a number of places, as was the previous paper from which he cribbed most of the material. For a pretty thorough critique of why, in addition to being inappropriate in the Society's journal, it was not terribly good science, read on:
http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2004/08/meyers_hopeless_1.html
> Steyn's
Should be Meyer's.
Incorrect. The paper was successfully peer-reviewed. Your argument is that it shouldn't have been published *after* a successful peer review.
In effect, what you are doing is attempting to rebut a peer-reviewed paper without sending your rebuttal through the peer-review process.
...And the reason that you are attempting to avoid peer review yourself is as I stated above, that you can not find scientific flaws with the paper itself.
How can people "read on" if censors such as yourself are preventing competing peer-reviewed documents from being published?!
...and why, if the paper in question not such "good science," is a peer-reviewed rebuttal paper unavailable? It should have been easy (if your side was "right"). It wasn't.
You've got to jump through hoops, kid. You've got to **pretend** that the peer-review process failed, that the editorial review failed, and that it would be somehow inappropriate to even **discuss** the paper in question (in order to explain why no peer-reviewed rebuttal is on file).
Face it, your side has lost the entire Evolutionary argument, and you are reduced to using your positions of power to stifle publication and scientific debate.
You've become censors. You've become dogmatic. You've become unscientific. You've even resorted to becoming oppressive.
Nonsense. The peer-reviewed paper in question shows, exhaustively, that random mutation/selection is inferior to biased mutation/selection for explaining the Cambian Explosion of life.
Incorrect. It's the censors...you, for instance...who aren't "doing science."
ID is testable, by the way. ID exists only where there is a bias. No bias, no ID. Bias is a prerequisite.
And every process can be tested for bias.
Knock off the personal attacks. Thanks.
> Incorrect. It's the censors
No testable, potentially falsifiable hypothesis = Worse than "wrong" > USELESS.
> ID is testable, by the way.
Quickly, there's immense prize money to be gotten here!
> And every process can be tested for bias.
Presence of "bias" does not show intelligent design (dissipative structures, anyone?), so your "test" does not have the potential to falsify your "hypothesis". It is, therefore... drum roll please .... USELESS, like every other supposed "test" for "ID".
Flawed logic. Gong! You lose.
Bias is a prerequisite for ID. True, the presence of bias doesn't insure intelligence, but the *absence* of bias precludes it.
Thus, ID can be falsified with a test for bias that shows...none.
Ergo, ID is a testable, falsifiable, scientific theory.
Of course, this stands to reason, as ID already explains genetically altered pigs that are grown in the lab to produce human hormones.
Evolution didn't create those pigs.
> Ergo, ID is a testable, falsifiable, scientific theory.
"Someone, somewhere, somewhen did something we're not sure of, but then again maybe not."
That's a fair statement of this so-called "theory"?
The explanatory power is mind boggling(ly small).
> Thus, ID can be falsified with a test for bias that shows...none.
If that's the position you want to stake out, it is also falsified by the existence of "bias" where it is known there is no intelligent interposer, and again I say "Dissipative Structures".
End of ID.
Intriguing. You've managed to grasp that ID is testable and falsifiable. That's quite a leap from your earlier flailing about.
There's hope for you yet.
> You've managed to grasp that ID is testable and falsifiable.
To keep it in play, you have to come up with something that is falsifiable but NOT obviously false.
I won't hold my breath for an example.
No need to hold your breath waiting for an example, they're plentiful. For instance, simply muster the courage to honestly answer which theory, Evolution or ID, correctly explains the origin of these genetically altered pigs: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11042380&dopt=Abstract
Examples that intelligence is capable of doing something are not evidence that intelligence is required to accomplish it.
Were Watching you Mr. Krauthammer..
Examples that conclusively prove that ID created an animal rule out treating ID as unprovable, or unfalsifiable, or untestable, or unscientific.
ID works for some animals. That means that it can't be discarded flippantly.
> ID works for some animals. That means that it can't be
> discarded flippantly.
Intelligence **can** create any number of things.
For example, it can create a very passable random number series that appears to be a gaussian distribution.
Nobody would claim that all normal distributions are intelligently designed, though, would they?
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