SMU profs protest intelligent design conference

Dallas Morning News ^ | 03/24/2007 | JEFFREY WEISS

[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.

[MHalblaub]

"Evolution is a design process. I think an intelligent one." - MHalblaub

Nope.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_algorithm

[Southack]

"You tried to prove with your linked math that abiogenesis is impossible."

No.

Abiogenesis is axiomatic; it had to happen because life is here now, but that wasn't always the case.

You're the 2nd Evolutionist poster on this very thread to make that same error of logic, by the way.

Shame that you made such a glaring error *after* your peer made his error and was already corrected on this thread.

[Southack]

No complaints. Just post the code and the results.

[Stingray]

Abiogenesis is axiomatic; it had to happen because life is here now, but that wasn't always the case.

Wow. Not only a fine example of circular reasoning, but so utterly unscientific it borders on blind religious fanaticism!

First, the conclusion of a premise cannot be used as proof of the premise. You cannot logically say that life exists because abiogenesis happens and we know abiogenesis happened because life exists." Circular reasoning 101 (something for which evolutionism's defenders are well-known).

Second, there is nothing "axiomatic" about abiogenesis especially when all real science (see the works of Francesco Redi and Louis Pasteur) says that abiogenesis is impossible. Life must come from existing life. Period. If you're going to posit that abiogenesis happened, you're going to have to prove it with something other than "because life exists."

Get back to us when you have something other than tautologies and junk science to spout.

[Stingray]

1) Start with something. (We will not look at abiogenesis of language)

You can prove anything if you're willing to assume everything

[Southack]

"Abiogenesis is axiomatic; it had to happen because life is here now, but that wasn't always the case." - Southack

"Wow. Not only a fine example of circular reasoning, but so utterly unscientific it borders on blind religious fanaticism!" - Stingray

That's incorrect.

"Abiogenesis" means the formation of life from inanimate matter.

Scientifically, we know that inanimate matter is older than animated matter.

Therefor, animated matter had to form from inanimate matter.

Thus, abiogenesis is axiomatic (perhaps the word "axiomatic" confused you; it means "taken as a given") because life is here today.

[kcvl]

What do you expect from them since the Dept. Chair came from Berkeley?!

ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICES

ROBERT V. KEMPER, Department Chair
Ph.D. 1971 University of California, Berkeley - urban studies; migration; tourism; global business; bilingual education; applied anthropology; Mexico, Latin America; United States.
Phone: 214-768-3513
Email: rkemper@mail.smu.edu

And brought 'friends'...

CONTACTING THE DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY

ROBERT V. KEMPER, Professor
Ph.D. 1971 University of California, Berkeley - urban studies; migration; tourism; global business; bilingual education; applied anthropology; Mexico, Latin America; United States.
Phone: 214-768-2928
Email: rkemper@smu.edu

http://www.smu.edu/anthro/SMU_Anthro/FacultyAndStaff.htm

[AndrewC]

No aiming allowed.

[ColdSteelTalon]

Wonder what John Wesley would think of this...

John Wesley would have them declared apsotates and they would be drummed out of the Church until they repented.

[ColdSteelTalon]

You know the Bible teaches that the earth is round a Sphere. And unless I miss my gues it says nothing about using leeches either.

[Southack]

"Selection criteria is the sum of the distances of a letter to the aimed one." - MHalblaub

First, you'll have to explain how "aiming" is within the purview of Evolution.

[kcvl]

http://www.smu.edu/cte/bios/images/ubelaker.jpg

“This is propaganda,” said Dr. John Ubelaker, former chairman of the biology department. “Using the campus for propaganda does not fit into anybody’s scheme of intellectual discussion.”

Other biologists compared the conference to a presentation by Holocaust deniers. Would the university allow that to happen?

Physics professor Randy Scalise (1994 graduate student), regularly teaches a class that is called “The Scientific Method,” but is generally referred to as “debunking pseudoscience.” He’s told his students to attend the conference – but he said he’s preparing them with material to put it into a scientific context.

But he wishes the conference wasn’t happening.

“I think that by having them on campus, we are giving them legitimacy,” he said.

[RobbyS]

And, after all, Isacc Newton believed in a form of design, as necessary to any explanation of the motions of the planets. That turned out not to be the case, but design in some form, is the basis of any realistic philosophy. The scientif method has almost never proceeded along the loutlines proposed by Francis Bacon. Virtually every major discovery has resulted from a special insight rather than plodding through the available data.

[oldbrowser]

HYPOTHESIS implies insufficient evidence to provide more than a tentative explanation.

ID is an attempt at a tentative explanation for phenomena that science cannot prove or disprove.

[RobbyS]

"Holocaust Deniers?" This sort of over the top stuff is not, as they in diplomatic circles, "Useful." If the professor is so sure that this is the case, then he should be happy that he has the opportunity to debunk ID.

[RobbyS]

Properly speaking, ID should be providing evidence that neo-Darwinian theory cannot account for, something like the Michelson-Morley experiment exploded the ether theory.

[Coyoteman]

ID is an attempt at a tentative explanation for phenomena that science cannot prove or disprove.

Sorry, I am not convinced that ID is any kind of science.

From what I see, ID is pure religion masquerading as science in an attempt to get back into the classrooms, and the modern iteration of ID was developed shortly after creation "science" was booted from the classrooms by the US Supreme Court. The whole sordid affair was spelled out in the Wedge Strategy.

(I have occasionally asked ID proponents how many IDers there were, and what their justification was for their answer. I have never received a reply.)

[kcvl]

Dr. Ubelaker, former Chairman of the Biology Department

Letter to the Editor

Issue date: 3/27/07 Section: Opinion

Oh my goodness...heaven forbid! I read in our local paper that the scientific minds at SMU are ALL up in arms about a conference on intelligent design that is scheduled to be held on the campus! "They have no place on an academic campus with their polemics hidden behind a deceptive mask!" said a rep from the Anthropology Department.

Dr. John Ubelaker was particularly agitated when he said "Using the campus for propanganda does not fit into anybody's scheme of intellectual discussion." Come now, Doc, you scientific minds have probably been lecturing on the PROPAGANDA of Darwin's THEORY of Evolution since the school was formed.

You and I both know no fossils have ever been found and proven to represent life moving from one form to another! Even Darwin himself had doubts!

If you REALLY want some scientific info, I challenge you ALL to read the comments by 38 SCIENTISTS, representing just about every scientific field, regarding the TRUTH about intelligent design. Library of Congress number 58-8903. "THE EVIDENCE OF GOD IN AN EXPANDING UNIVERSE" will give all of you something SOLID to think about.

-Bob McCathren

Abilene, TX

[Coyoteman]

You and I both know no fossils have ever been found and proven to represent life moving from one form to another! Even Darwin himself had doubts!

The person who wrote the letter you cited is relying on apologetics, not scientific knowledge.

There are many examples of transitionals known to science. That some people do not accept these findings for religious reasons does not make them go away. It just makes the science-denier look like they are talking nonsense. St. Augustine cautioned against this:

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the heavens, and the other elements of the world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and the moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to be certain from reason and experience. Now it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and they hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make confident assertions [quoting 1Ti. 1:7; emphasis added].

St. Augustine, The Literal Meaning of Genesis, 1:42-43.

[DennisR]

"Science favors about 4.5 billion years based on several lines of evidence."

This sentence makes no sense. "Science" is cold, hard, fact. As in water is H20; earth's atmosphere contains nitrogen; the earth revolves around the sun; when chlorine gas mixes with water you get hydrochloric acid; and so forth. For you to say "Science favors" is nothing more than a hypothesis - not science.