Those Defensive Darwinists

The Seattle Times ^ | 11/21/05 | Jonathon Witt

[Michael_Michaelangelo]

THE first court trial over the theory of intelligent design is now over, with a ruling expected by the end of the year. What sparked the legal controversy? Before providing two weeks of training in modern evolutionary theory, the Dover, Pa., School District briefly informed students that if they wanted to learn about an alternative theory of biological origins, intelligent design, they could read a book about it in the school library.

In short order, the School District was dragged into court by a group insisting the school policy constituted an establishment of religion, this despite the fact that the unmentionable book bases its argument on strictly scientific evidence, without appealing to religious authority or attempting to identify the source of design.

The lawsuit is only the latest in a series of attempts to silence the growing controversy over contemporary Darwinian theory.

For instance, after The New York Times ran a series on Darwinism and design recently, prominent Darwinist Web sites excoriated the newspaper for even covering intelligent design, insulting its proponents with terms like Medievalist, Flat-Earther and "American Taliban."

University of Minnesota biologist P.Z. Myers argues that Darwinists should take an even harder line against their opponents: "Our only problem is that we aren't martial enough, or vigorous enough, or loud enough, or angry enough," he wrote. "The only appropriate responses should involve some form of righteous fury, much butt-kicking, and the public firing and humiliation of some teachers, many school board members, and vast numbers of sleazy far-right politicians."

This month, NPR reported on behavior seemingly right out of the P.Z. Myers playbook.

The most prominent victim in the story was Richard Sternberg, a scientist with two Ph.D.s in evolutionary biology and former editor of a journal published out of the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History. He sent out for peer review, then published, a paper arguing that intelligent design was the best explanation for the geologically sudden appearance of new animal forms 530 million years ago.

The U.S. Office of Special Counsel reported that Sternberg's colleagues immediately went on the attack, stripping Sternberg of his master key and access to research materials, spreading rumors that he wasn't really a scientist and, after determining that they didn't want to make a martyr out of him by firing him, deliberately creating a hostile work environment in the hope of driving him from the Smithsonian.

The NPR story appalled even die-hard skeptics of intelligent design, people like heavyweight blogger and law professor Glenn Reynolds, who referred to the Smithsonian's tactics as "scientific McCarthyism."

Also this month, the Kansas Board of Education adopted a policy to teach students the strengths and weaknesses of modern evolutionary theory. Darwinists responded by insisting that there are no weaknesses, that it's a plot to establish a national theocracy — despite the fact that the weaknesses that will be taught come right out of the peer-reviewed, mainstream scientific literature.

One cause for their insecurity may be the theory's largely metaphysical foundations. As evolutionary biologist A.S. Wilkins conceded, "Evolution would appear to be the indispensable unifying idea and, at the same time, a highly superfluous one."

And in the September issue of The Scientist, National Academy of Sciences member Philip Skell argued that his extensive investigations into the matter corroborated Wilkins' view. Biologist Roland Hirsch, a program manager in the U.S. Office of Biological and Environmental Research, goes even further, noting that Darwinism has made a series of incorrect predictions, later refashioning the paradigm to fit the results.

How different from scientific models that lead to things like microprocessors and satellites. Modern evolutionary theory is less a cornerstone and more the busybody aunt — into everyone's business and, all the while, very much insecure about her place in the home.

Moreover, a growing list of some 450 Ph.D. scientists are openly skeptical of Darwin's theory, and a recent poll by the Louis Finkelstein Institute found that only 40 percent of medical doctors accept Darwinism's idea that humans evolved strictly through unguided, material processes.

Increasingly, the Darwinists' response is to try to shut down debate, but their attempts are as ineffectual as they are misguided. When leaders in Colonial America attempted to ban certain books, people rushed out to buy them. It's the "Banned in Boston" syndrome.

Today, suppression of dissent remains the tactic least likely to succeed in the United States. The more the Darwinists try to prohibit discussion of intelligent design, the more they pique the curiosity of students, parents and the general public.

[Senator Bedfellow]

More specifically, they consist of organized matter that behaves consistently under consistent physical laws.

Everything that exists is designed by that standard, in which case you don't really need an empirical method for determining design, I suppose. I don't really see what that claim gets us, but there you go.

Consistency, intelligibility, non-randomness - these are all part of design.

I don't know how you'll show consistency, but the following passage is very much designed:

qANQR1DDDQQJAwLxeFFT1Q63omDSTAEDwf11pfcZBSq1TXbjXcb7hPCBsQn1dsqj
vseZfwN7IxgD8miKcz8DFQpcIZXGPYsVLPIfh6brX3itzVS4qBgxjgiQiKZ7swmG
pIU=
=iEu9

Good luck with the intelligible, non-random part.

[Ichneumon]

But be careful. Which random generator did you use?

I don't know, I got the data from someone else. But since the application is cryptography, it's a good bet that it's a very well made RNG.

You know there is no such thing as a truly random number generator?

Actually, there is. For example: HotBits: Genuine random numbers, generated by radioactive decay .

For a more fun example: Truly random numbers from lava lamps. Sadly, the latest incarnation of "LavaRnd" doesn't use Lava Lites(tm) anymore. But its FAQ file does describe the classic original.

[durasell]

Okay, that's pretty cool -- but not as cool as this:

http://members.surfeu.fi/kklaine/primebear.html

[restornu]

Darwinism is the foundation for Communism and Nazism. The law suit and all the comments on it prove it."

Well, I guess that just settles it then. lol

You have any clue into that? My brain kinda shut down when I read it.

The Historical Materialism

HOW COMMUNISM BEGAN

As this ancient dogma spread, there were attempts to adapt materialism to several branches of science:

1. To natural science, by the English naturalist Charles Darwin.

2. To social science, by the German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

Darwin's adaptation is called the theory of evolution, while Marx and Engel's is known as Communism.

Marx and Darwin
It's possible to say that Darwin's theory includes that of Marx and Engels, because Communism is also a theory of "evolution" adapted to history and sociology. Anton Pannekoek, a renowned Darwinist-Marxist thinker, sums this up in his book Marxism and Darwinism published at the beginning of the 20th century:

Engels (left) saw Darwin and Marx (right) as equals, from the point of view of Communist theory. According to Engels, Marx applied materialism to the social sciences, and Darwin applied it to biology.

The scientific importance of Marxism as well as of Darwinism consists in their following out the theory of evolution, the one upon the domain of the organic world, of things animate; the other, upon the domain of society… Thus, both teachings, the teachings of Darwin and of Marx, the one in the domain of the organic world and the other upon the field of human society, raised the theory of evolution to a positive science. In doing this they made the theory of evolution acceptable to the masses as the basic conception of social and biological development.1 Darwinism and Marxism are fully compatible in two basic arguments:

1. Darwinism proposed that all existing things consist of "matter in motion." This alleges that God neither created nor ordered matter and that therefore, all life arose by chance. Human beings are a species of animal, evolved from other, lesser animals. But these claims rest on no scientific proof and have been proven false be subsequent scientific discoveries. But Darwin's theory harmonizes with the views of Marx and Engels, who believed that only matter existed, and that the whole of human history can be explained in material terms. (For more information, please refer to Darwinism Refuted:How the Theory of Evolution Breaks Down in the Light of Modern Science by Harun Yahya, Goodword Books, 2002 and The Evolution Deceit by Harun Yahya, Ta-Ha Publishers, 2002)

READ ON...

[Ichneumon]

Ack, the link got lost somehow. Let's try that again:

For example: HotBits: Genuine random numbers, generated by radioactive decay.

[Ichneumon]

Darwinism and Marxism are fully compatible in two basic arguments:

1. Darwinism proposed that all existing things consist of "matter in motion."

Wrong! Thanks for playing, Don Pardo has some lovely parting gifts for you.

This alleges that God neither created nor ordered matter and that therefore, all life arose by chance.

Wrong again!

Perhaps you might want to *read* some Darwin before you start making up goofy stuff that he never said.

If you can't even get the *easy* stuff right, how can we trust your "analysis" on the more complicated conclusions you attempt to make?

Human beings are a species of animal, evolved from other, lesser animals. But these claims rest on no scientific proof and have been proven false be subsequent scientific discoveries.

Okay, I'll bite -- exactly when, where, and how was the observation that humans are animals "proven false be [sic] subsequent scientific discoveries"? Be specific. And what exactly *are* we, if not animals? Fungi, maybe?

READ ON...

No thanks, I've had my fill of nonsense and misinformation today.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

"It's possible to say that Darwin's theory includes that of Marx and Engels, because Communism is also a theory of "evolution" adapted to history and sociology."

Darwin's theory deals with the diversity of biological organisms. It has nothing to do with the fields of history or sociology. Darwin's never read Marx or Engels. The above quote is garbage.

"Darwinism proposed that all existing things consist of "matter in motion." This alleges that God neither created nor ordered matter and that therefore, all life arose by chance."

Horse manure. Evolution does not say anything about the origins of life, and says nothing about the existence or non-extence of God. Your source is a moron.

"But these claims rest on no scientific proof and have been proven false be subsequent scientific discoveries"

BS. What is this *proof* against evolution?

"But Darwin's theory harmonizes with the views of Marx and Engels, who believed that only matter existed, and that the whole of human history can be explained in material terms."

Why pick on Darwin? ALL science excludes supernatural, non-material causes and explanations. It's called methodological naturalism. It started at least as far back as Galileo and Newton.

[Liberal Classic]

For the love of all that is holy let someone come forward to say, "My faith prevents me from fully accepting evolution as presented by modern biology, but I'll stand with an evolutionist before a racist or anti-semite."

[Fester Chugabrew]

I'm sure the passage you mention is designed, not only because you say so, but also because it is open to observation. As far as its ultimate meaning goes, that would be a difficult thing to determine, but I hardly think it to be a matter of supernatural, or superstitious, nature to infer intelligent design as operative in its generation.

Doubtless if the code behind the screen you are looking at were placed in front of most people, it would appear as anything but intelligent design.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

You beat me to the post by about 20 seconds or so lol

" Perhaps you might want to *read* some Darwin before you start making up goofy stuff that he never said."

That's asking an awful lot of them.

[Right Wing Professor]

Darwinism proposed that all existing things consist of "matter in motion."

Bull. Darwin never proposed anything of the sort.

This alleges that God neither created nor ordered matter and that therefore, all life arose by chance.

More bull. Evolution says nothing about the creation of matter.

Human beings are a species of animal, evolved from other, lesser animals. But these claims rest on no scientific proof and have been proven false be subsequent scientific discoveries.

Still more bull. Evolution is one of the best substantiated of scientific theories.

(For more information, please refer to Darwinism Refuted:How the Theory of Evolution Breaks Down in the Light of Modern Science by Harun Yahya, Goodword Books, 2002 and The Evolution Deceit by Harun Yahya, Ta-Ha Publishers, 2002)

Oh great. Islamist nonsense.

This Thanksgiving, there are Americans giving their lives fighting extreme Islam. And meanwhile, on this supposedly conservative web site, we have a supposed Christian posting Islamist propaganda.

[Ichneumon]

you don't discuss your try to beat others over the head and belittle them to make them look like weenies

...says the guy who has been trying to smear evolutionary biology by claiming that it's equivalent to Communism...

or you try to undermind one education...

.... ..... Nah... Too easy.

[phantomworker]

The LavaRnd is still called pseudo random though.

[durasell]

This Thanksgiving, there are Americans giving their lives fighting extreme Islam. And meanwhile, on this supposedly conservative web site, we have a supposed Christian posting Islamist propaganda


Crazy world, in't it?

[CarolinaGuitarman]

http://www.harunyahya.com/

More on Harun Yahya.

[Right Wing Professor]

For the love of all that is holy let someone come forward to say, "My faith prevents me from fully accepting evolution as presented by modern biology, but I'll stand with an evolutionist before a racist or anti-semite."

Restornu's posting anti-evolution diatribes from Harun Yahya, a Holocaust revisionist . I think your appeal is likely to be in vain.

[balrog666]

[Fester Chugabrew]

. . . nobody asks that science be taken on faith . . .

Unless science is defined strictly by what can be directly experienced and observed, science indeed must be taken on faith.

[Liberal Classic]

After reading a long way through his posting history last night, I absolutely think he was a disruptor. Too many of his posts complained about assaults on "white culture" or alluded to Israel starting wars in the Middle East. That is simply not the sort of image any of us want to be associated with, whether we're creationist or evolutionist, support or oppose immigration, support or oppose trade tarriffs, what have you.

[durasell]

I knew about him. His name has cropped up before on these threads.

Do you know what worries me? It's not that science will be halted. Science will progress. It always does. There's always some geek asking "Why?"

The thing that disturbs me is that we're still living off a couple of guys hooking a set of alligator clips up to a hunk of rock half a century ago. Everything afterward has more or less been incremental. The next "big thing" is gonna be an offshoot of pure, theoretical science and the U.S. ain't gonna be the one to capture that lightning in a bottle.