Posted on 05/28/2007 5:44:20 PM PDT by SirLinksalot
There is evidence for intelligent design in the universe." This does not seem like an especially radical statement; many people believe that God has revealed himself through creation. Such beliefs, however, do not conform to politically correct notions in academia, as Professor Guillermo Gonzalez is learning the hard way. An astronomer at Iowa State University, Professor Gonzalez was recently denied tenure—despite his stellar academic record—and it is increasingly clear he was rejected for one reason: He wrote a book entitled The Privileged Planet which showed that there is evidence for design in the universe.& nbsp; Dr. Gonzalez's case has truly distressing implications for academic freedom in colleges and universities across the country, especially in science departments.
Dr. Gonzalez, who fled from Cuba to America as a child, earned his PhD in astronomy from the University of Washington. By academic standards, Dr. Gonzalez has had a remarkable career. Though still a young man, he has already authored sixty-eight peer-reviewed scientific papers. These papers have been featured in some of the world's most respected scientific journals, including Science and Nature. Dr. Gonzalez has also co-authored a college-level text book entitled Observational Astronomy, which was published by Cambridge Press.
According to the written requirements for tenure at the Iowa State University, a prospective candidate is required to have published at least fifteen peer-reviewed scientific papers. With sixty-eight papers to his name, Dr. Gonzalez has already exceeded that requirement by 350%. Ninety-one percent of professors who applied for tenure at Iowa State University this year were successful, implying that there has to be something seriously wrong with a candidate before they are rejected.
What's wrong with Dr. Gonzalez? So far as anyone can tell, this rejection had little to do with his scientific research, and everything to do with the fact that Dr. Gonzalez believes the scientific evidence points to the idea of an intelligent designer. In fact, as World Magazine has reported, at least two scientists in the Physics and Astronomy Department at the Iowa State University have admitted that intelligent design played a role in their decision. This despite the fact that Dr. Gonzalez does not teach intelligent design in any of his classes, and that none of his peer-reviewed papers deal with the subject. Nevertheless, simply because Gonzalez holds the view that there is intelligence behind the universe, and has written a book presenting scientific evidence for this fact, he is considered unsuitable at Iowa State.
What is the state of academic freedom when well qualified candidates are rejected simply because they see God's fingerprints on the cosmos? Isn't the Academy supposed to be a venue for diverse views? Aren't universities supposed to foster an atmosphere that allows for robust discussion and freedom of thought? Dr. Gonzalez's fate suggests that anyone who deigns to challenge conventional orthodoxy is not welcome in the club.
In the future, will scientists who are up for tenure be forced to deny that God could have played any role in the creation or design of the universe? Will Bible-believing astronomers be forced to repudiate Psalm 19, which begins, "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands"? Will faithful Catholics be required to reject the teaching of Vatican I, which said that God "can be known with certainty from the consideration of created things, by the natural power of human reason..." Just where will this witch hunt lead?
The amazing fact is that, even as many science departments are working overtime to forbid professors from positing that there is evidence for intelligent design in the universe, more and more scientists are coming to this conclusion. The Discovery Institute has compiled a list of over seven-hundred scientists who signed the following statement: "We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged." The list of scientists who find good reason to doubt the strictly materialistic Darwinism that is currently scientific orthodoxy is growing every day.
It seems that many scientists and academicians who hold views contrary to Dr. Gonzalez have concluded that the best way to avoid debate about the evidence for intelligent design is to simply deny jobs to those who will not affirm their atheistic worldview. The fact that these scientists, who are supposedly open to following the evidence wherever it leads, have resorted to blatant discrimination to avoid having this conversation speaks volumes about the weakness of their position. They realize their arguments are not sufficient to defeat the intelligent design movement and they must, therefore, shut their opponents out of the conversation. All the evidence suggests that it is unjust that Dr. Gonzalez was denied tenure and that this ruling should be overturned on appeal. Nevertheless, what happened to Dr. Gonzalez is a reflection of the growing strength of the intelligent design movement, not its weakness.
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Ken Connor is Chairman of the Center for a Just Society in Washington, DC and a nationally recognized trial lawyer who represented Governor Jeb Bush in the Terri Schiavo case.
[Believe what you want, but don’t try to pretend it is science.]
Thanks- I will- apparently you’ll beleive what you want and pretend it’s ‘science’ too- Hey- got a cynodont and a therapsid, gosh, they look similiar, despite being seperated by millions of years, why by golly, there’s the link we’ve all been waiting for to show the evolution of reptiles to mammals-
Woopsie- someone forgot to mention the Cynodont has no direct relative before it, and woopsie number 2, someone forgot to mention that the examples given were seperated by whole continents, and were found in layers that didn’t match the timelines, and that oceans seperated the species- Shall I go on coyote? Or are the scienctific FACTS too deep for you? Twisting the evidences Coyote? Who’s the one twisting again? Who’s the one NEGLECTING to FULLY inform the public about ALL the facts because they aren’t conducive to the accepted hypothesis of evolution? Pfffff- Accuse all you like- the only one pretending their science is sound are those who throw out easily refuted ‘evidences’ and pretend there aren’t serious problems, and those who prove exactly what I said, that when they got nothing, they resort to childish petty ad hominem attacks exactly you did- thatnks for proving me correct again!
Let’s just define whos being the apologist here coyote- As I said- you’re the pot calling the kettle black.
Us: The cambrian explosion shows an explosion of fully formed, fully functional highly complex species.
You (and other evolution apologists): Well, evolution ‘could have happened but the for some reason species weren’t fossilized before the Cambrian episode” Drum roll please...... Apologist! Is there any evidence to back this statement up? Why No, no there isn’t- it’s a leap of blind faith!
Us: It is biologically impossible for a species to gain NEW non species specific organs and systems through a series of random mutations.
You (and other evolution apologists): Well, Evolution “could have done created new organs IF given enough time, and IF enough benificial mutations accumulated” Do you or anyone else offer ANY proof that accumulations of mutations can produce the biologically impossible? Nope- not an iota of evidence. The best you can do is throw out examples of microevolution and assert that Macroevolution- something that has NEVER been proven to occure, is one in the same when infact it clearly isn’t. When htis is repeatedly brought to your attention, all we get is foot stomping insistence that micro and macro are the same, and we get petty little insults thrown our way. Drum roll please.... Apologist!!!
Us: It is both mathematically impossible for mutations to accumulate enough that even one minor functioning new system could evolve in a species that simply doesn’t have hte code for the new system, and irreducible complexity shows that without all the pieces in place, species specific systems could not function.
You (and other evolution apologists): Behe is a big poopie head and pseudoscientist. New organs that species aren’t coded for could happen, all you have to do is click your heels and believe that time cures all impossiblities. Drum roll please... Apologist!!!
Us: Interdependent chemicals within the body, such as seen in the eye in abundance, simply would have no functions if the other dchemicals that they rely on were not present and performing organ specific functions. We ask how long a time it would take for all the components of the eye to assemble while each interdependent part and chemical waited around for everythign to assemble BY CHANCE
You (and other evolution apologists): Light sensitive skin patches prove the eye evolved. Anyone that says different and doesn’t believe that and questions the science is ignorant. Some of the chemicals and parts COULD HAVE had otehr functions, although admittedly, we have no proof that they did. Drum roll please.... Apologist!!!
Us: There is no direct link between the Cynodont, the favorite species of ear evolution advocates, that could have preceeded the Cynodont, yet amazingly, the chart used to show the suppsoed ear evolution contains species that we’re told preceeded the Cynodont, because the chart would simply break down when trying to show a supposed ear evolution if species were not shown preceeding the Cynodont. Furthermore, what is hidden from the public is the fact that all the intermediary species that showed a VERY clear reversal of suppsoed jaw bone migration. Furthermore, we’re not told that the species in the supposed ear system evolution chart were found continents apart, and in the wrong layers which were simply explained away by ‘environmental phenomena’ (It would appear that if you wish hard enough, and twist hte evidence, hide refuting evidneces, and neglect to mention certain facts, that the impossible could then become the possible)
You (and other evolution apologists): Arrrrgh- you know nothing about how eovlution happens. There are branches on the tree of life, and although not perfect, and although there are missing links and gaps, ear evolution happened- you’re just being difficult. Drum roll please... Apologist!!!
Us: The supposed early earth conditions were absolutely non conducive and hostile to any beginnings of life, and furthermore, it is bioilogically impossible for the cell membranes needed for life to function on even the lowest levels to take place. Lab experiments have ignored many impossible facts in an effort to produce idealized membranes that ignore the natural supposed progressions of biologically possible membranes. The idealized membranes produced by lab technicians could not have happened. Fatty acids could not have survived in the environment needed for the miraculous evolution of fatty acids from chemicals, let alone the furhter problems associated with membranes that couldn’t transport waste or induce movements and transportation of material. The abolute minimum requirements for self replicating organisms was simply biologically impossible given the environment and hostile elements that would have annihilated any begginings of life on the molecular level. Provided though, that these impossibilities were somehow miraculously overcome, we then come to the impossiblities of amino acids surviving in a hostile enivironment long enough for evolution to miraculously morph them into protiens while the evolution of DNA miraculously took place from nothing.
Concidering that molecules can’t reproduce without the help of numerous other molecules critical to multiplying,, and concidering that it’s hard enough hypothesising about just one molecule evolving from chemicals, how is it possible that one cell, comprised of thousands of atoms, somehow got hundreds of amino acids to align in the precise order, all doing their specifc part by providing a cell membrane, synthesizing fats, providing energy, synthesizing the building blocks of DNA the nucleotides, and synthesizing proteins, worked to produce a viable cell membrane conducive to life advancement up through the hostile ladder of evolution in an effort to, in the words of one fella, climb mount improbable?
You (and other evolution apologists): Abiogenisis isn’t a part of the study of evolution. Besides, that’s not my field, so I don’t have to comment on that- Phew, dodged that bullet. Drum roll please... Apologist!!!
Us: What about the problem of the same genes in different species performing the same functions despite differing in their molecules being alined differently? How bout the same molecules performing different functions? How about the hemoglobin of yeast being nearly identical to human hemoglobin? How about the fact that the divergences were predicted, and show, not a nice smooth gradual progression from original species, but a ragged, divergent, unexplained pattern that defies the proposed evoltuion of species to higher orders. Proposed homologous systems are infact, non-homologous genetic systems.
You (and other evolution apologists): Um, divergence isn’t my field of expertise- hang on, I’ll find an article that ridicules.... er I mean proposes yet another impossible workaround to those problems that defy the laws of biological reality and rely on the age old notion that “Time + Mutations soles everything”. Yuo have terrible spelling, and thusly, noone should concider any of the facts you present and instead discount you because you don’;t take the time to correct your typing mistakes!!! (Brilliant refutation of the facts) Drum roll [please.... Apologist!!!
“”Even Ernst Mayr, the dean of living evolutionists, longtime professor of biology at Harvard, who has alleged that evolution is a “simple fact,” nevertheless agrees that it is an “historical science” for which “laws and experiments are inappropriate techniques” by which to explain it. One can never actually see evolution in action.” - The Scientific Case Against Evolution by Henry M. Morris, Ph.D. “”
But But, Wait a minute... I thought evolution science was strict science- testing, falsifying, experimenting? But what does my eye spy? An admission that laws and experiments can’t be performed? They are unverifiable and unfalsifiable? Gee- whoda thunk that the evolution proponents engage in the very thing that they accuse ID’ers of doing? Pots calling Kettles balck once again!
“”We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfil many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.” - Richard Lewontin, ‘Billions and billions of demons’, The New York Review, January 9, 1997, p. 31””
You’re right Coyote- I guess I didn’t know how evolution works. I assumed it sought truth. Apparently, to folks like you however, it works by wishing on a star, ignoring massive gaps, ignoring evidences that refute proposed hypotheses, and ignores biological impossibilities. Apparently the god called TIME is enough to overcome impossibilities and apparently placing dissimiliar species next to each other, and pointing out a few commonalities while ignoring the billions of genetic dissimilarities, is enough to convince those such as yourself who need for there to be no God in the equation. Apparently whining about opposing posts and calling the poster ignornat is enough to refute biological impossibilities. I guess I was in the dark about what ‘real science’ is all about - thanks for setting me straight- I was blind, but now I see. Onward evolution soldiers. So please, keep crying about how ID folk are ‘apologists’ - it’s quite funny.
The cambrian explosion shows an explosion of fully formed, fully functional highly complex species.
Your claim is false, as is so often the case.
The following information should help to clarify the actual facts of the matter. This is from Index to Creationist Claims, edited by Mark Isaak. In particular, this information is from Claim CC300. You see, there have been so many false claims made by creationists that they have been arranged and numbered, with detailed refutations.
I don't expect you to accept this, or much of anything else that science shows; I am posting this for the lurkers.
See the original article for the references.
Cripes- noone said it was the origin nor that there weren’t earlier MICROBIAL life- that’s your problem you twist what is said, ignore the important issue being discussed, and pretend there aren’t problems with the FACT that the cambrian explosion of FULLY FORMED species in the hundreds is a problem for the ‘molecule to man’ hypothesis. The claim that there was an explosion IS NOT false- You know, you keep throwing out petty little insults claiming we’re ignorant, but the fact that you can’t even follow a conversation honestly, and the fact thaT you make claims about what we say that are blatantly false shows once again that you’re either blatantly dishonest, or you simply have an issue with following conversations precisely.
[The evolution of active predators in the late Precambrian likely spurred the coevolution of hard parts on other animals. These hard parts fossilize much more easily than the previous soft-bodied animals, leading to many more fossils but not necessarily more animals.]
Lol- yeah- there’s such an abundance of fossils of predators in the ‘precambrian’ era.
[Early complex animals may have been nearly microscopic. Apparent fossil animals smaller than 0.2 mm have been found in the Doushantuo Formation, China, forty to fifty-five million years before the Cambrian (Chen et al. 2004). Much of the early evolution could have simply been too small to see.]
Oh this is getting funny- Yup- too small to see, yet the Cambrian explosion consits of fossils all not only visible to the naked eye, but much much larger than microbial finds that are reputed to be ‘precambrian’ nased on the highly *cough* reliable dating methods
[Cambrian life was still unlike almost everything alive today.]
BS- nearly every form found in the cambrian strata are near identicle to the species we have today- some species of the cambrian era went extinct, others- infact most, have survived today showing ONLY small MICROEVOLUTIONARY changes.
The rest is NOTHING but assumptions and speculations proposed as a means to prop up a hypothesis in trouble lol
pre cambrian- microbes microbes microbes, Cambrian- WHAM! Fully formed highly complex and functional species- Worms with legs? Egads- ya got us there with that stunning evidence-
Has anyone here who says ID is not science read anything written by these people in support of the theory and research plan of ID outside of some pop-sci article in a MSM newspaper? These folks are scientists with credentials, degrees and boxloads of letters after their names. The papers they write cite scientific literature: chapter, verse, and page number. They dream the molecular structure of mitochondria, the phase space of protein folding and the big numbers at the extent of the universe. They are not trailer park young-earthers with fabricated human/dinosaur fossils next to their King James Bibles. I don’t care what you think you learned in your undergrad Biology 101 class or how many Federal Megabucks you have spent cranking out interminable DNA-sequencing boilerplate, the universe remains unexplained and Reality/Truth will still every generation rise up and surprise the lethargic and comfortable academics who have papered their offices with back-patting certificates of achievement in MSS (mainstream science).
Science is not done. All is not discovered. Roger Penrose himself knows there are holes and if the name is unfamililar perhaps you aren’t as book-larned up as you might be.
The same people at FR who disdain Global Warming “science” because those scientist are distorting their science in pursuit of grant money get all warm and fuzzy about Darwinians like Richard Dawkins who are doing the same thing.
You cannot argue both that 1) ID is not science because it isn’t published and 2) that ID should not be published because it is not science.
(Hit and run posting)
[Major radiations of life forms have occurred at other times, too. One of the most extensive diversifications of life occurred in the Ordovician, for example ]
Oh this is precious- hypothesising about somethign with no evidence- ‘Major radiation’ occured causing an explosion of fully formed highly complex NEW species? lol- Yup- there’s just whole buildings right chock full of the mutant freaks that would have been caused by such massive radiation, and we know from radiation experiments that NEW species KINDS evolve rapidly and fully formed (sarcasm- all we got were mutated freaks of the SAME species)
You don’t expect me to accept it? Gee I wonder why.
Evos speculating on what happend with no evidences to back it up- Perfectly acceptable- ID’ers speculating about what happend- not acceptable. Why by golly we’re just swimming in a pre life soup of chemicals here aint we?
[Has anyone here who says ID is not science read anything written by these people in support of the theory and research plan of ID outside of some pop-sci article in a MSM newspaper?]
Oh, they read it, but they ignore the science and glom onto moot points like hte fact that a suggestion that anythign but the impossible model of evolution should be mentioned renders the science invaLID. Some here are obsessed with the scientists personal opinions or the fact that they sign statements of faith as though it would render the science FACTS discovered and examined by ID’ers invalid. The priori belief and dogmatic adherence to the god called mutations is just too strong to allow a focus on the science. Even supreme court judges aren’t imune to ignoring the science while focussing on NON issues that have NOTHING to do with hte science being presented.
It was my impression that science was attempting to make statements regarding reality. If science is merely about rules then you are correct, we have no argument.
You can sit with the rules committee making pronouncements about who can and cannot play your game while we will attempt to understand the universe and reality using mathematics, game theory, information theory, computer science or whatever else we can get our minds around.
You stand by your peer-reviewed journals and your accredited institutions chasing off anyone too ignorant to realize they are nilkultoorni and should remain silent in front of their betters.
There are no repeatable, laboratory experiments regarding the evolution of species either. Theories explain anomalies in data. Life is an anomaly. You cannot create it in a lab. Therefore all of your theories regarding life are unscientific.
Not to show up late to the party but the system that the simulation ran on was intelligantly designed (I hope). Many arguments regarding the efficacy of computer modeling neglect the fact that in the world although systems/algorithms may exhibit persistence and robustness some THING must preexist the system and that thing is the mechanism that runs the algorithm.
Excuse me if I am not clear, but the point is that even though your algorithm returns a result that looks like bird-flocking behavior, it only means you have discovered a bit of programming that imitates behavior. It doesn’t mean you have anything to say about the lving meat-machine that runs the natural algorithm.
Natural systems run on meat-machines. Computer programs run on human-designed electrical machines. The argument is about the nature of the machine. If you want to argue about algorithms you have joined the ID community in admitting that algorithms run on Designed Machines.
This is a true explanation of evolution of species if and only if all information regarding the construction of an offspring is contained in DNA coding. This is not establlished. In addition your statement “most of the mutations are lethal, but some are not” is inexact from a mathematical standpoint. The real numbers reflect a statement more like, “ mutations resulting in significant differences that do not actually kill the offspring are astronomically unlikely, while some trivial modifications do occur very rarely.”
Before you begin the infinite monkeys argument please be aware that I am aware that the time allotted for mutation to play its species game is 1 billion years more or less from the Cambrian explosion until now. Not much time at all for a stepwise approach to making a behemoth out of a multicelled bug.
This is a true explanation of evolution of species if and only if all information regarding the construction of an offspring is contained in DNA coding. This is not establlished. In addition your statement “most of the mutations are lethal, but some are not” is inexact from a mathematical standpoint. The real numbers reflect a statement more like, “ mutations resulting in significant differences that do not actually kill the offspring are astronomically unlikely, while some trivial modifications do occur very rarely.”
Before you begin the infinite monkeys argument please be aware that I am aware that the time allotted for mutation to play its species game is 1 billion years more or less from the Pre-cambrian explosion until now. Not much time at all for a stepwise approach to making a behemoth out of a multicelled bug.
“It was my impression that science was attempting to make statements regarding reality. If science is merely about rules then you are correct, we have no argument.”
More precisely, science is an abstract. Like mathematics or even painting a picture, the purpose of an abstract is not to define, but to describe. A picture of a flower is not the flower itself, it is just one way of describing the flower.
The problem happens when someone looks at the painting and says, “That is a flower.” It is not a flower, it is a picture of a flower.
And believe me, this is such an important distinction that JHVH Himself remarked on it, in a way, to Moses. When Moses asked God his name, he replied with the statement “I AM THAT I AM”. And that is a profoundly philosophical statement.
The Jewish philosopher Martin Buber wrote a thin book entitled “I and Thou”, which was a remarkably easy read for the profoundly deep thought that went in to his analysis of personal pronouns. It can be read in a few minutes, but only understood after days of slow and deliberate consideration.
In any event, the statement “I AM THAT I AM” defines reality as a product of God. But it also puts man in a quandary, namely that while God defines reality, He leaves it up to us to describe reality, through the use of abstracts.
This was a philosophical dilemma that was only finally met by Rene Descartes, when he pronounced the very similar “I think, therefore I am.” In effect, this arrogant statement said that man, not God, defines, not just describes reality. This caused a revolution in philosophy, allowing philosophers to “write God out of the equation.”
Since that time, however, people have been so confident of their abstracts that they assume they actually create reality. But this has never really been the case, to those who understand what abstracts really are.
If you ask them, people also say that “the sun comes up in the morning”, even though must of them know better, that the Earth turns.
[Since that time, however, people have been so confident of their abstracts that they assume they actually create reality.]
To go ALong with this idea, people have tried to argue that morals evolved and are subjective, andit is up to hte individual to define the morals that one abides by. Dawkins tried doing this when he argued for a ‘selfish gene’ and tried to assert that God was nothjing more than a delusion of the poor unfortunate lesser evolved folks who can’t escape the chains of mass hysteria that drives poor sheeple to think there is a God.
The depths of Dawkins arrogance and delusional self superiority know no bounds, but unfortunately for him, He’ll discover too late that genes don’t dictate what the Great I Am is.
Dawkins understood that morals were not subjective, and that the argument for subjective morals had failed, so he, in his bias against Christians, devised an unprovable, untestable hypothesis that religion was a result of genes (Which he amusingly suggested could be passed along as though they were a contagion- like catchign the common cold from others. lol)
There really is nothign new under the sun- The arguments for subjective morality have failed, and the ‘selfish gene’ and the ‘God gene’ are nothign more than an attempt to revive the old argument that there is no God, and that we, being god-like, could determine our own fortunes by controlling something like a God-Gene and erradicating it from our lives so that we can supposedly become absolutely free. The problem is that poor Dawkins doesn’t realize that ‘freeing’ oneself from a good and loving God only leads to a bondage that can only lead to eternal death. Freedom from God is no freedom at all, yet people like Dawkins will argue until their dying breath that we are mini-gods and can define our own existences how we like without a need for the great I AM. Trying to define morality by arguing that an evolving gene is to ‘blame’ for universal moral codes is nothing new- it’s just the same old tired out excuses that are just said in a different way.
As I understand Descartes’ program of radical doubt he came to the end of it when he realized that he could not doubt his own existence. The trouble is that in using the words “Cogito ergo sum” he used WORDS. The language he used came from outside himself. That language could only be maintained by something that transcended his existence. The concept of a private language is absurd.
We face a similar problem. Man may manipulate the language of science, but what we are calling attention to is the fact that the language itself, the universe itself, transcends science.
This science as defined has a limited aim. That is fine. The trouble is when science so-defined arrogates to itself the right to define reality. And usurps the responsibility of parents to convey their understanding of reality to their children.
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