Discovery's Creation [The rise & fall of the Discovery Institute]

Seattle Weekly ^ | 01 February 2006 | Roger Downey

[Dimensio]

I did predict a narrow victory for the defendants; I am not disputing that.

So when you said "I did not predict that the school district would win", what did you mean?

[shuckmaster]

Were this case to ever get to the USSC, and it won't, roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito would vote to reverse Jones.

You really are delusional. No supreme will ever take the side of mythical superstition disguised as charlatan pseudo science. Forget it! You and the little clique of anti-science trolls infesting FR have a free forum in which you can post and pretend your little fantasy has merit but, in the real world, you have no credibility at all. None!!!

[dread78645]

"Nice hole. Just like it was designed to perfectly fit a puddle like me!"

[PatrickHenry]

Maybe he meant what he predicted the day before the ruling, in this detailed post (#34):
I think anyone who expects a clear cut victory is going to be disappointed. I think it will come down to something like this ....

[dread78645]

And what disclaimer should we put on the global flood?

[shuckmaster]

Just stating that it is really impossible to know what happened 100 million years ago on this planet is a good start. All historical sciences (evolution, big bang, continental drift, etc.) should have a big disclaimer on them since their results cannot be directly tested or verified.

Evolution is a present tense process occurring in real time. Because dishonest creationists constantly seek out extreme tangents in lieu of opening their eyes and seeing biology in the present doesn't demonstrate that your own extreme 100 million years ago tangents somehow casts doubts on the obvious.

[shuckmaster]

Deluges in the Bible may have been much smaller than they appear?

Or perhaps, deluges are a leading cause of delusions?

[plain talk]

If the evos would admit to/show the problems with evolution their sites would appear more scientific

They can't because they are lame partisans just like the democrats. There is no difference between the way many evo's post on these thread than partisan democrats. Condescending snide little comments etc. But who cares about them? I'm more worried about our children being schooled in an environment hostile to intellectual analysis and questioning about theories.

[Coyoteman]

Its been a while, so lets see some of the vast storehouse of evidence for evolution. (And this is just a fossil; the genetics folks have this beat six ways from Sunday.)

---

Herto skulls (Homo sapiens idaltu)

Some new fossils from Herto in Ethiopia, are the oldest known modern human fossils, at 160,000 yrs. The discoverers have assigned them to a new subspecies, Homo sapiens idaltu, and say that they are anatomically and chronologically intermediate between older archaic humans and more recent fully modern humans. Their age and anatomy is cited as strong evidence for the emergence of modern humans from Africa, and against the multiregional theory which argues that modern humans evolved in many places around the world.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/herto.html

[dread78645]

I did predict a narrow victory for the defendants ...

So -- what do you like for the ov/un on the Super Bowl?

[microgood]

Because dishonest creationists constantly seek out extreme tangents in lieu of opening their eyes and seeing biology in the present doesn't demonstrate that your own extreme 100 million years ago tangents somehow casts doubts on the obvious.

Could you please rewrite that in English?

[dread78645]

Tag line check.

[shuckmaster]

Could you please rewrite that in English?

Learn to read!

[Ken H]

I don't believe you have ever gotten around to stating the parties you think are bound by that decision, aside from the parties directly involved in the case.

The fact, the answer is 'no one else'.

He answered it in #103:

ctd: Jones decision in the dover case is not binding for any parties other than the ones directly involved in that case.

PH: That is true, as I have said more than once.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1569331/posts?page=103#103

[Coyoteman]

Tag line check.

???????? My tag line?

Beta decay is the process by which Carbon 14 decays back to Carbon 12. In standard radiocarbon counting, that's what is counted.

I figured it was a nice word play on an old line from Apocalypse Now.

[longshadow]

"Nice hole. Just like it was designed to perfectly fit a puddle like me!"

Aha!

The liquid-phase case of the same argument!

;-)

[Liberty Wins]

I find it fascinating that even though evolution has been around for 140 years, pretty much dominating the liberal intelligentsia, including academia and the mainstream media during the 20th century, most of the larger population still don't accept it. That may partly explain why ID caught on so fast, capturing the hearts and the imagination of so many. Frankly, why would anybody want to believe one's existence was an accidental, meaningless blob of cells doomed to ignominious extinction? Get a life.

[microgood]

Learn to read!

I think you mean Learn to read shuckmastics, a spinoff of ebonics. Thanks, but understanding that sentence might result in permanent damage.

[unlearner]

"The genetic codes of organisms make no sense unless there is common descent."

Then they are not subject to being falsified. You are unwilling to be wrong and therefore confuse dogma with science.

It would be reasonable to say that common descent is a good explanation for certain features or data. It is unreasonable to say that no other explanation can be considered.

"There would simply be a huge number of unexplained regularities and differences."

So it's the regularities that prove UCD... oh, except when there are irregularities, then that proves UCD.

"Without common descent, we couldn't predict the gene or protein sequence for a gene in an unsequenced organism."

The scientifically correct way to state this is that UCD leads us to predictions of gene and protein sequences which are confirmed by testing. The question is whether other possibilities are supported by the same predictions. A correlation between structure and gene sequences, or a correlation between function and gene sequences hardly amounts to UCD being essential. It could just as easily support common design.

"Common descent is the organizing and unifying principle that underlies the field of genomics."

It's even more amazing that taxonomic nomenclature fits so nicely with evolutionary theory. Oh, but wait a second, the theory played a role in it all along. Circular. Just because scientific institutions have become infatuated with the theory does not in any way support the contention that this makes it essential. You can use almost anything as an "organizing principle" in that sense. You can use the alphabet. You could use any arbitrary syllabus. You could even build mnemonics from nursery rhymes. The issue is that UCD is not essential to science, and nothing fails to work if UCD proves false.

"Yeah, yeah, we've heard the standard tales of brothers in law who are supergeniuses in a biological field and don't believe in evolution. If you seriously want this to be believed, have him post, and say for himself why he believes this."

I will suggest it, especially since he votes conservatively. But anyone can claim anything on a forum. The proof is in the pudding. You could claim to already have your doctorate in molecular biology. The difference is that I know my friend. I don't know you. (And you don't know me.) So what is claimed on this forum is reasonably taken with a grain of salt.

Someone can say that all scientists accept UCD. Maybe that is true of many scientists, including 100% of the ones you know. But those I know do not. But then again I am not in that profession. All this proves to me is that claims of all scientists buying UCD is not true from my experience. Your experience may be otherwise.

[highball]

connectthedots: I did not predict that the school district would win

connectthedots: I did pedict it would be a narrow ruling.

Dimensio:Stop pretending that your own words aren't available for everyone to see. You predicted that it would be a narrow ruling "in favor of the defendants".

LOL - pwned!

I love watching liars get hanged by their own words. They must think that nobody's paying attention, to deny that they said what they clearly said.