Posted on 03/24/2007 10:28:12 PM PDT by SirLinksalot
Professors opposed to the Bush library aren't the only angry faculty members at Southern Methodist University this week.
Science professors upset about a presentation on "Intelligent Design" fired blistering letters to the administration, asking that the event be shut down.
The “Darwin vs. Design” conference, co-sponsored by the SMU law school’s Christian Legal Society, will say that a designer with the power to shape the cosmos is the best explanation for aspects of life and the universe. The event is produced by the Discovery Institute, the Seattle-based organization that says it has scientific evidence for its claims.
The anthropology department at SMU begged to differ:
"These are conferences of and for believers and their sympathetic recruits," said the letter sent to administrators by the department. "They have no place on an academic campus with their polemics hidden behind a deceptive mask."
Similar letters were sent by the biology and geology departments.
The university is not going to cancel the event, interim provost Tom Tunks said Friday. The official response is a statement that the event to be held in McFarlin Auditorium April 13-14 is not endorsed by the school:
"Although SMU makes its facilities available as a community service, and in support of the free marketplace of ideas, providing facilities for those programs does not imply SMU's endorsement of the presenters' views," the statement said.
The school also will review its policies about who is allowed to hold events on campus, Dr. Tunks said.
The size of the dispute reflects two ongoing battles about academic freedom and responsibility.
One is local: The concern that some SMU professors have that the proposed Bush library and an accompanying policy institute would create the impression that the school tilts politically toward the positions of the current administration.
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
Perhaps you think that one has external bias and the other doesn't. Who knows why you fail to see.
My questions have been addressed to the question of relevance. I'm not terribly interested in word games.
I want to know where your argument is leading. You have said the absence of bias would demonstrate the absence of design. You have followed up by asserting the electromagnetic forces are unbiased. The logical conclusion is that the electromagnetic forces are not designed.
Now could you relate this to the question of whether evolution occurs?
Poor logic.
EM forces at the atomic level do not typically have external bias. This means that the EM force itself can exist without any form of intelligent intervention (read: external bias) being required.
That does not mean that external bias is prohibited from an EM system...nor does it mean that the EM force itself could not be created via external bias.
They were wrong.
Instead of obscuring the issues with name-calling and strawman arguments, the ruling science elite will have to deal with Intelligent Design sooner or later in the time-honored way of science, because it is science.
It's your logic, so I'm not surprised. If the example is irrelevant, why bring it up when I'm asking for relevant examples?
Who knows? Given another 200 years, ID may do some actual science. Or at least suggest some that might be done.
Within science there are not two "opposing points of view" to debate. Rather there is science, which relies of evidence and theory, and the ability to make accurate predictions.
Still waiting for one of you evols to tell me how any prediction - accurate or otherwise - can be made from a "science" that says "things change".
Good question. The answer is that not all predictions are forward-looking. If you find a critter like, say, Australopithecus afarensis, and a much later critter like, say, Homo ergaster you can predict where intermediate critters might be found and what their characteristics might be.
The theory of evolution, and most other historical sciences, are becoming increasingly accurate at this type of prediction.
(Intelligent design, on the other hand, makes no testable predictions that I know about, forward or otherwise.)
Darwinists are little children, afraid of shadows and perplexed as to why their superstitious materialist conceit fails to answer the most important questions.
Ran out of arguments, did you?
Intelligent Design predicts that not all advances in species will be gradual; that some advances will be sudden (e.g. an irreducibly complex jump from the closest species).
An example of such a jump is the oft-mentioned pig that manufactures human growth hormone.
Pause...
In contrast, Evolutionary Theory suffers not from a lack of predictions, but from a dearth of falsifiability criteria.
For instance, how do *you* posit that Evolution can be falsified?
An example of such a jump is the oft-mentioned pig that manufactures human growth hormone.
Please cite a source for this.
In contrast, Evolutionary Theory suffers not from a lack of predictions, but from a dearth of falsifiability criteria.
For instance, how do *you* posit that Evolution can be falsified?
Easy. Find modern humans in Cambrian deposits. Find evidence of special creation such as the folks pushing baraminology posit.
These would call for a vast rethinking of the current theory of evolution.
Problem is, these things haven't been found. Creationists' religious beliefs seemingly do not lead to accurate scientific predictions.
You want an example? Where is the evidence for a global flood ca. 4300 years ago? If you can't provide scientific evidence for a global flood at that approximate date, all the rest of creationist belief separates from scientific data and theory. If such a major claim, with absolute worldwide ramifications, can't be supported, there go the tower of Babel and lesser claims. What else will fail the test? Genesis? DNA and other studies have contraindicated that too.
This is the risk you run when you claim that religious beliefs constitute scientific evidence. They are then subject to testing, and disproof.
You guys should have left well enough alone.
That's not falsifiability. Do you not understand scientific falsifiability criteria?
No more "Dr." for you, Mr. Coyoteman...
Religious Creationism is not Intelligent Design. God didn't make a pig manufacture human growth hormone, but that pig was created via intelligent intervention.
Confusing the two is fodder for simpletons.
Sorry I don't measure up to creationist's standards.
Religious Creationism is not Intelligent Design. God didn't make a pig manufacture human growth hormone, but that pig was created via intelligent intervention.
Confusing the two is fodder for simpletons.
What is this thing you have for pigs?
I provided you a stark challenge to creationists' religious beliefs and you're back riding your pet pig.
What about the supposed flood? What about the silly tower of Babel story. Can't stick to one subject?
You are having difficulty grasping that the intelligent design and creation, by Man, of a pig that produces human growth hormone, is *not* a religious matter.
Ergo, you are having difficulty grasping the fact that Intelligent Design is not a religious theory.
This leads to the obvious conclusion that this scientific debate is over your head and beyond your educational reach.
Ergo, you are having difficulty grasping the fact that Intelligent Design is not a religious theory.
Tell it to the Discovery Institute. They are the ones who are pushing this anti-science nonsense to circumvent the US Supreme Court decision back in the late '80s. That's the decision that blew creation "science" out of the schools for being religion masquerading as science. Dover did the same for ID, but they are still flogging the same tired horse (or is it "pig").
Evidence? Checked out the Wedge Strategy lately? They laid out the whole dishonest strategy in that fund-raising document, but unfortunately it leaked out. Whoops!!!
And you are still ducking my challenge on the "global" flood and the tower of Babel. Short attention span, or were you hoping I wouldn't notice? Or, have you no answer?
My answer is that you are off topic. I could give a list of likely motivations for *why* you are off topic, but that would amount to further digressions.
If you want to further pester me with plebian rants about religion in your confusion over the scientific aspects of Intelligent Design (after ironically pleading with me to not "bother" you at the start of this thread), then do be so kind as to stay on topic.
...and no, ranting about some flood or some ancient religious text is not staying on topic.
You can start by posting that you know:
#1 scientific falsifiability criteria by definition, and
#2 the specific falsifiability criteria for Evolutionary Theory.
Christopher Morbey: Dear Professor [Freeman] Dyson: Thanks for taking time to answer questions! I’m wondering if you have an opinion regarding the new interest in “intelligent design” as an independent mode of explaining an event. Typically, pervading opinion demands that events occur only by chance and/or necessity.
What strikes me as strange is that many scientists are so willing to discard ideas that may offer help to overcome significant difficulties in evolution hypotheses. Instead, they tend to make alarmist comments that ID is merely a creationist ploy, that Darwinian claims should be assumptions, not conclusions.
Global warming skeptics point to fundamental temperature and CO2 data, then ask pertinent questions. In a similar way, ID proponents look at fundamental, complex biological and cosmological data, then ask pertinent questions. As you might point out, asking questions could be perceived as rebellion.
But it would appear that most scientists these days are not rebels at all; each is but one case of an emotional-contagion pandemic. It is interesting that war and peace and religion all require a certain discipline of obedience rather than too many questions. Each would offer the chance for freedom yet each would demand necessity for devotion.
Freeman Dyson: My opinion is that most people believe in intelligent design as a reasonable explanation of the universe, and this belief is entirely compatible with science [emphasis added]. So it is unwise for scientists to make a big fight against the idea of intelligent design. The fight should be only for the freedom of teachers to teach science as they see fit, independent of political or religious control. It should be a fight for intellectual freedom, not a fight for science against religion.
Easy. The supposed global flood is a perfect example. Falsified long ago. The only support for it is from religious belief.
You're boring me; I have better things to do. Good night.
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