Posted on 06/23/2007 12:21:46 PM PDT by GodGunsGuts
Pro-Darwin Biology Professor Laments Academia's "Intolerance" and Supports Teaching Intelligent Design
Charles Darwin famously said, "A fair result can be obtained only by fully balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question." According to a recent article by J. Scott Turner, a pro-Darwin biology professor at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, New York, modern Neo-Darwinists are failing to heed Darwin's advice. (We blogged about a similar article by Turner in The Chronicle of Higher Education in January, 2007.) Turner is up front with his skepticism of intelligent design (ID), which will hopefully allow his criticisms to strike a chord with other Darwinists.
Turner starts by observing that the real threat to education today is not ID itself, but the attitude of scientists towards ID: "Unlike most of my colleagues, however, I don't see ID as a threat to biology, public education or the ideals of the republic. To the contrary, what worries me more is the way that many of my colleagues have responded to the challenge." He describes the "modern academy" as "a tedious intellectual monoculture where conformity and not contention is the norm." Turner explains that the "[r]eflexive hostility to ID is largely cut from that cloth: some ID critics are not so much worried about a hurtful climate as they are about a climate in which people are free to disagree with them." He then recounts and laments the hostility faced by Richard Sternberg at the Smithsonian:
It would be comforting if one could dismiss such incidents as the actions of a misguided few. But the intolerance that gave rise to the Sternberg debacle is all too common: you can see it in its unfiltered glory by taking a look at Web sites like pandasthumb.org or recursed.blogspot.com [Jeffry Shallit's blog] and following a few of the threads on ID. The attitudes on display there, which at the extreme verge on antireligious hysteria, can hardly be squared with the relatively innocuous (even if wrong-headed) ideas that sit at ID's core.
(J. Scott Turner, Signs of Design, The Christian Century, June 12, 2007.)
Turner on the Kitzmiller v. Dover Case
Turner sees the Kitzmiller v. Dover case as the dangerous real-world expression of the intolerance common in the academy: "My blood chills ... when these essentially harmless hypocrisies are joined with the all-American tradition of litigiousness, for it is in the hand of courts and lawyers that real damage to cherished academic ideas is likely to be done." He laments the fact that "courts are where many of my colleagues seem determined to go with the ID issue” and predicts, “I believe we will ultimately come to regret this."
Turner justifies his reasonable foresight by explaining that Kitzmiller only provided a pyrrhic victory for the pro-Darwin lobby:
Although there was general jubilation at the ruling, I think the joy will be short-lived, for we have affirmed the principle that a federal judge, not scientists or teachers, can dictate what is and what is not science, and what may or may not be taught in the classroom. Forgive me if I do not feel more free.
(J. Scott Turner, Signs of Design, The Christian Century, June 12, 2007.)
Turner on Education
Turner explains, quite accurately, that ID remains popular not because of some vast conspiracy or religious fanaticism, but because it deals with an evidentiary fact that resonates with many people, and Darwinian scientists do not respond to ID's arguments effectively:
[I]ntelligent design … is one of multiple emerging critiques of materialism in science and evolution. Unfortunately, many scientists fail to see this, preferring the gross caricature that ID is simply "stealth creationism." But this strategy fails to meet the challenge. Rather than simply lament that so many people take ID seriously, scientists would do better to ask why so many take it seriously. The answer would be hard for us to bear: ID is not popular because the stupid or ignorant like it, but because neo-Darwinism's principled banishment of purpose seems less defensible each passing day.
(J. Scott Turner, Signs of Design, The Christian Century, June 12, 2007.)
Turner asks, “What, then, is the harm in allowing teachers to deal with the subject as each sees fit?” ID can't be taught, he explains, because most scientists believe that "normal standards of tolerance and academic freedom should not apply in the case of ID." He says that the mere suggestion that ID could be taught brings out "all manner of evasions and prevarications that are quite out of character for otherwise balanced, intelligent and reasonable people."
As we noted earlier, hopefully Turner’s criticisms will strike a chord with Darwinists who might otherwise close their ears to the argument for academic freedom for ID-proponents. Given the intolerance towards ID-sympathy that Turner describes, let us also hope that the chord is heard but the strummer is not harmed.
Matter is some predicate, perhaps categoreal, perhaps generic, perhaps specific. It might be interesting to note that matrix, matter, and mother all spring from the same root word. As such we constantly misuse the term. At least don’t ask if matter is, because that would hardly be a complete assertion.
Tension only comes into existence in the attempt at reconciliation. If that tension is sufficient, then the attempt will be shattered, and the two will remain unreconciled - and it will will become a choice of rejecting dogma or denying observation.
The tension works both ways. Observation is sometimes spurred like a dog pulling the leash and then breaking free. Untethered observation would be something that an over-extended hypothesis, holding true in one area, and misapplied in another. Dogma is potentially right or wrong. Observation, too, can go right or wrong.
At the Dover trial, Behe was asked if he had done experiments similar to this to demonstrate that evolution didn't work, and he said such research would be nonproductive.
This is, of course, the primary flaw in ID: not that it's wrong, but that it's used as an excuse not to do research.
Geez, narby, where have you been?
Observations can be tested. How do you test dogma?
Explaining why I'm not really interested in questions that have no answer. Or if they're "answered", then they require mind bending logic that I'm just not going to attempt. I might break something.
Evolution "produces information" all the time
You really should start at the beginning. When Margaret Mitchell wrote "Gone With The Wind" she did not begin writing page 456. Start at the beginning. You have not even accounted for the first purine/pyrimidine base. How can we discuss the fact that the DNA strand in a single human cell is 1.6 meters in length unles we account for the first cause?
I don’t see an investigation about the mechanism of mutation. Is it an internal or external process? Seeing how it appears to be regulated (”In all 12 lines the speed of adaptation was greatest in the first few months of the experiment and has since been tapering off.”) it would be useful to know what changed externally or internally to cause the tapering off.
I bring this up because the “magic” of evolution is in mutation, but most common sources of mutation are harmful to the point of sterility or death. Without mutation, the reshuffling of alleles becomes the “microevolution” that even the most diehard creationists believe to be true.
Because there is no reason to believe that the origin of the universe and the beginning of life coincided or has any relationship to each other whatever. How the universe came to exist is irrelevant to the question of whether evolution occurs, or whether an intelligence created every species.
An equivalent question would be "if there was no beginning of the universe, please explain the process of virtual memory in the Windows OS". There is simply no connection between the two issues.
please tell me what is first cause was. Life on this planet depends upon that first cause.
No it doesn't. Unless you accept a faith based explanation wherein God created both. Unfortunately, there is no evidence of that, and the timing of the beginning of the universe, whether you accept a steady state universe or the big bang, is separated in time by billions of years at best, with no reason to believe the two are dependent on one another.
You really should start at the beginning. When Margaret Mitchell wrote "Gone With The Wind" she did not begin writing page 456.
Mitchell didn't begin at the beginning of the universe. She began her story in 1860 something. Not even the beginning of humanity.
However the universe came to be, I am convinced that life began around 2-3 billion years ago, at least 10 or more billion years after the earliest of any possible "beginning" of the universe. The two are not related, except for the fact that the universe must have existed first.
You keep bringing up God. I have not yet brought Him up.
Actually Margaret Mitchell was not born until 1900. She began writing the novel in 1935 and published in 1937. The movie 'evolved' without intelligent design in 1939.
You seem not to want to discover the truth, so I will sign off, unless you adress me again in this thread. But let me ask you to think about it. Good luck.
Acutally, for the record, most secular scientist believe the universe began with a Big BAng about 15 - 20 billion years ago and after a considerable period of time the galaxies formed and the earth some 4.5 -5.5 billion years ago and they assert that the first primal life forms began on earth, not 2 -3 billion years ago as you say, but about 4.5 billion. There is no proof for any of that, but that is secular concensus.
But the fact is it occured as demonstrated by the DNA sequence changes. Rest assured that whether the NYTimes wrote of studies of the DNA changes or not, these scientists didn't spend years doing this without *some* research into the subject.
Seeing how it appears to be regulated (”In all 12 lines the speed of adaptation was greatest in the first few months of the experiment and has since been tapering off.”)
That would seem to me to fit evolution theory pretty well. The bacteria were given a new environment at the beginning of the experiment, they adjusted rapidly, then when they became best suited to the new environment the evolution tapered off because it was unneeded.
Creationists ridicule "punctuated equilibrium", but this is a good example of how it can work. If the environment changes radically, say by an asteroid strike or something, life quickly changes to adapt to the new environment, then stops adapting when an equilibrium develops.
but most common sources of mutation are harmful to the point of sterility or death.
I'm sorry, but the people doing the experimenting and study of DNA changes disagree.
Without mutation, the reshuffling of alleles becomes ... “microevolution”
The DNA sequences are not "reshuffled". That word implies simple moving around. In fact actual changes in the sequences occur. In many cases, there are multiple copies of a particular gene in the genome, so a mutation in one will not necessarily remove a necessary gene function. Also, quite a bit of the genome is not used, so a mutation can create a new functioning gene where there was nothing useful before. Also, DNA can be "turned on and off" by mutations in nearby sequences that do not directly change the gene itself (there is one description of this at the link).
In fact, I am a walking example of a mutation that is, if not deadly, is a genuine change from normal. I have an inherited disease called "Thallisemia" that is a mutation in the gene that operates the blood cells. There are even two variations of the mutation and one can inherit one or both errors. Another example of mutation of the human genome is a particular family in Italy that received a mutated gene from a grandfather about a hundred years ago that gives them a third type of cholesterol that allows them to eat all the saturated fat they want with zero plaque accumulation in their veins. No heart disease! Cool. And the DNA mutation was traced back to a specific human that was alive recently enough to verify his DNA.
“microevolution” that even the most diehard creationists believe to be true.
No. The most diehard creationists think the universe was created 4000 years ago and no evolution of any kind exists.
Huh, yeah. Which is one reason out of many that I don't think He exists.
Yeah, that one sentence I forgot to tie two points together. Oops.
Noone on this thread ever said the origin of the universe and the beginning of life coincided.
Then why are you insisting on tying the two together. Sure, the universe must have existed before life. But the universe had to exist before we could have this conversation as well. So what?
Actually Margaret Mitchell was not born until 1900. She began writing the novel in 1935 and published in 1937.
And Gone With The Wind is about the Civil War. The civil war began in 1860....
There is no proof for any of that, but that is secular concensus.
There are fossils, and lots more. Let me know when you've got anything you can hold in your hand that demonstrates the existence of God, except for empty philosophy.
Since the discussion went into a sidebar on matter, I wanted to add a few points from our own book:
Energy is the amount of work required to change the state of a system. Adding to the confusion, energy is also used as a substitute term for relativistic mass.
Relativistic mass is the observed or apparent mass as an object approaches the speed of light and thereby increases mass. To the observer, the relativistic mass increases as the velocity of the object increases. The invariant mass is the rest mass — the unobserved or intrinsic mass — of the object itself.
Inertial mass is the resistance of an object to changing its state of motion when a force is applied to it. In relativity theory, inertial mass is equal to energy divided by the speed of light squared. In other words, E=MC2 transforms to M=E/C2.
Massless particles such as light (photons) cause confusion. In relativity, the energy of a massless particle is its momentum (p) times the speed of light: E=pc. Massive objects, on the other hand, are described as E2/c2 = m2c2 + p2 (where E = energy, c = speed of light, m = mass, and p = momentum).
Because massless particles do not have a rest frame, they are always moving at the speed of light regardless of frame of reference; hence the “m” is dropped in the previous equation, and for massless particles, it reduces to E=pc.
Matter constitutes the observed universe (space/time). Matter density (mass relative to volume) in the universe is called the critical density.
Antimatter is matter composed of the antiparticles of the particles that compose matter. The Standard Model of physics shows that every particle has a corresponding antiparticle in which each additive quantum number (properties other than mass, such as charge) has a value negative to that of the corresponding “normal” particle. Thus the antiquark is the antiparticle of the quark, the positron the antiparticle of the electron, etc.
When matter and antimatter collide, they are mutually annihilated, and energy is released in a burst of radiation. Matter is also created by energy in pairs, as in the case where two or more photons interact so to create a new fermion/antifermion pair.
We infer our weight from the bathroom scales and are able to calculate the escape velocity necessary to get an object into space. Nevertheless, even though we are able to use these measurements every day, ordinary matter itself has neither yet been created by humans nor directly observed by them (Higgs field/boson). All matter’s properties are therefore inferences from indirect observations and indirect empirical tests. And even if directly observed at last, Higgs would account for only 5 percent of the critical density of the universe. The other 95 percent (25 percent dark matter, 70 percent dark energy) would remain yet to be explained.
Only God can be the uncaused cause of causation.
Causation requires geometry as does every thing and every one else - including physical laws, mathematics, etc.
Likewise, according to Pattee, physicists and mathematicians show more interest in the question "what is life v. non-life/death in nature" than the biologists. LOL!
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