Posted on 04/21/2008 7:23:01 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
In Ben Stein's new film "Expelled," there is a great scene where Richard Dawkins is going on about how evolution explains everything. This is part of Dawkins' grand claim, which echoes through several of his books, that evolution by itself has refuted the argument from design. The argument from design hold that the design of the universe and of life are most likely the product of an intelligent designer. Dawkins thinks that Darwin has disproven this argument.
So Stein puts to Dawkins a simple question, "How did life begin?" One would think that this is a question that could be easily answered. Dawkins, however, frankly admits that he has no idea. One might expect Dawkins to invoke evolution as the all-purpose explanation. Evolution, however, only explains transitions from one life form to another. Evolution has no explanation for how life got started in the first place. Darwin was very clear about this.
In order for evolution to take place, there had to be a living cell. The difficulty for atheists is that even this original cell is a work of labyrinthine complexity. Franklin Harold writes in The Way of the Cell that even the simplest cells are more ingeniously complicated than man's most elaborate inventions: the factory system or the computer. Moreover, Harold writes that the various components of the cell do not function like random widgets; rather, they work purposefully together, as if cooperating in a planned organized venture. Dawkins himself has described the cell as the kind of supercomputer, noting that it functions through an information system that resembles the software code.
Is it possible that living cells somehow assembled themselves from nonliving things by chance? The probabilities here are so infinitesimal that they approach zero. Moreover, the earth has been around for some 4.5 billion years and the first traces of life have already been found at some 3.5 billion years ago. This is just what we have discovered: it's quite possible that life existed on earth even earlier. What this means is that, within the scope of evolutionary time, life appeared on earth very quickly after the earth itself was formed. Is it reasonable to posit that a chance combination of atoms and molecules, under those conditions, somehow generated a living thing? Could the random collision of molecules somehow produce a computer?
It is ridiculously implausible to think so. And the absurdity was recognized more than a decade ago by Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the DNA double helix. Yet Crick is a committed atheist. Unwilling to consider the possibility of divine or supernatural creation, Crick suggested that maybe aliens brought life to earth from another planet. And this is precisely the suggestion that Richard Dawkins makes in his response to Ben Stein. Perhaps, he notes, life was delivered to our planet by highly-evolved aliens. Let's call this the "ET" explanation.
Stein brilliantly responds that he had no idea Richard Dawkins believes in intelligent design! And indeed Dawkins does seem to be saying that alien intelligence is responsible for life arriving on earth. What are we to make of this? Basically Dawkins is surrendering on the claim that evolution can account for the origins of life. It can't. The issue now is simply whether a natural intelligence (ET) or a supernatural intelligence (God) created life. Dawkins can't bear the supernatural explanation and so he opts for ET. But doesn't it take as much, or more, faith to believe in extraterrestrial biology majors depositing life on earth than it does to believe in a transcendent creator?
I was just reading them--this is the first time I knew they were available. What strikes me is how hard they were working to try and be fair to this guy. The person who offered to sponsor him basically said, "He's got a 3-year contract; his sponsor died; he needs a sponsor; I'll do it if no one else will." They also several times discuss the fact that they need to keep the question of his scientific work separate from his actions with the article (which apparently did not follow procedure) and not restrict the former in retaliation for the latter.
As for the artifacts, one e-mail says, "I know that he kept hundreds of specimens from the USNM collection in his office for a couple of years despite repeated requests from the curator-in-charge and the Collection Manager to return the specimens to the collection....After six months of his absence from the museum, I returned all specimens back to the main collection and noted that 10-12% of them needed alcohol, so they were being not properly curated."
And yet they offered him another position. So unfair.
I don't buy the argument that if it looks the same, or has some of the same words then it is the same, and it doesn't matter at all whether it actually works or not. Horrible, isn't it?
Not required, but it pisses of everybody when you do it behind their backs.
You want intimidation? Okay, how about this from the Baylor newspaper back in 1999:
That debate intensified Tuesday, when an outgoing Baylor professor said President Robert Sloan is intimidating faculty into not commenting on the controversy.What? I thought it was only IDers who got intimidated by the establishment, their jobs threatened. Now we have IDers in powerful positions threatening scientists!"Faculty are not speaking out because Sloan can make their lives miserable," Dr. Lewis Barker, psychology and neuroscience professor, said. "They don't speak out for fear of their salaries and of being singled out by administration.
"I know you can't get many faculty responses, but the ones you have represent the majority of the faculty. The others are just too scared to speak out and want to hold on to their jobs."
I also liked later in the article, over the likes of the Discovery Institute linking to their center's web site:
"We have no control over who decides to link to our site. We do not endorse a connection to those sites at all. They didn't ask our permission. It would be better if they removed it,..."But Dembski had until then been pulling a $40,000 a year salary from the Discovery Institute!
Yes but you fail to mention that he notes.
Not quite. It was not all generosity.
From: [____] To: [____] Date: 9/1/2004 Subject: Re: Life on the West Wing 1st Floor [____] I believe [____] could have answered most of his questions by asking around IZ—there was no need to bother you as you no doubt appreciate. As you see, he is presuming most of this rather than asking … there is no space shortage, except insofar as [____] wants to deny him space. Anyway, the core point, I obviously am not going to be able to find a sponsor for Sternberg, yet his official status is as a research associate for the next three years. If you don’t want to make a martyr of him, I'll sponsor him. As he hasn’t (yet) been discovered to have done anything wrong, particularly compared to his peers, the sole reason to terminate his appt. seems to be that the host unit has suddenly changed its mind. If that’s OK w NMNH, let me know and I'll send him a letters stating so. However, as you decided originally, the political downside of that is costly. Outside of pique, [____]’s main legitimate concern seems to be a fear of guilt by association. In any case [____] isn’t going to be shut up about this until he wins (i.e. banishes Sternberg) or gets told to. I'm not going to get bit to death by daily emails. The access and key issues are trivial and can be fixed, if out of line. The only grounds I see is [____]’s lack of support. If that isn’t sufficient, then I basically have to tell [____] (again) to shut up (which I am willing to do). Which do you prefer?
In any case the OSC report and the Congressional report outline the shoddy treatment Sternberg received.
Oh just terrible. Horrors. Your record here on this thread speaks for itself.
Yep, using the tacticalogic methodology of science the Antikythera mechanism would still be sitting on a shelf.
This is what Sloan has to say about "behind their backs".
It has been suggested by some that the focus of this controversy should be on the procedures by which the Center was established and that the administration's failure to consult with the faculty in the creation of the Polanyi Center is the heart of the matter. Certainly those issues are important, but I do not believe they are the heart of the matter for two reasons: One, there was indeed some consultation with faculty. I do not recall or know all the details and all the individuals involved in the conversations, but I do know that some faculty both in the humanities and in the sciences conversed with Drs. William Dembski and Bruce Gordon, director and associate director of the Center, before it was established and later were aware of the creation of the Polanyi Center and its program charge. Unfortunately, it is now being commonly said, and repeated in the newspapers as if unqualified fact, that the Center was established without faculty consultation. The fact is, and I have readily admitted as much at the recent open forum sponsored by the Faculty Senate and elsewhere, that, in retrospect, there are some things the administration could have done to manage this process more effectively. There were some conversations with faculty and there could no doubt have been more. One can always do a better job of processing issues, but hindsight is 20/20.
You want intimidation? Okay, how about this from the Baylor newspaper back in 1999:
That debate intensified Tuesday, when an outgoing Baylor professor said President Robert Sloan is intimidating faculty into not commenting on the controversy.
Your date is wrong, the article was from April 12, 2000. The Center was established in Oct 1999. Intimidation? Two sentences below Barker's complaint is this.
The Michael Polanyi Center consists of two people: director William Dembski and associate director Bruce Gordon.
A committee has been established to evaluate the center's influence on Baylor's reputation.
They were so intimidated that a committee had been established to evaluate the Center which consisted of two people. Wow! what influence. BTW Apr 12 was when "The Nature of Nature" conference began. I think it was the first activity performed by the dangerous center. And the committee just mentioned above, evidently had not yet met before the faculty senate had passed a resolution on or before Apr 20, to dissolve the Polanyi center. "We don't need no stinkin report".
Sloan nixes decision to dissolve Polanyi
President says a committee will review center first
by John Drake
The Baylor Lariat
April 20, 2000
http://www.baylor.edu/~Lariat/Archives/2000/20000420/art-front03.html
President Robert B. Sloan Jr. rejected a faculty senate resolution to dissolve the Polanyi Center in Wednesday's State of the University address.
"We will not dissolve the Polanyi Center without going through the process that has been set forth." Sloan told the audience of primarily faculty members gathered in Barfield Drawing Room for the annual address. "We have utterly no intention of doing so."
I also liked later in the article, over the likes of the Discovery Institute linking to their center's web site
It is a fact, you can't control who links to your site in the sense that you can't prevent your url from being made available.
When did Dembski receive his last check from DI?
In any case, follow the link I gave and read the committee report which came out 6 months after the senate had first voted to have the center dissolved.
That sounds better than thinking we can give people trunsfusions of rehydrated dried blood.
Appropriate testing methodology depends on what it is you're testing. Testing what are believed to be tool or weapon artifacts by taking them, or replicas, and trying to use them for what is believed to be their intended purpose is considered good, valid and practical research. For some reason you have decided to rail at me as being unreasonable, irrational and disingenous for suggesting that we do this with you hypothetical arrowhead. And then you submit that I'm the one that's not interested in having a rational discussion.
Others say there wasn't.
Intimidation? Two sentences below Barker's complaint is this.
Your supposedly blacklisted and persecuted IDers seem to get through the alleged intimidation and keep working. The faculty can too. Yes, an IDer tried to intimidate scientists. I guess your alleged persecution is not a one-way street.
I do have to hand it to Sloan for not giving into their demands. The compromise reached was a good one.
It is a fact, you can't control who links to your site in the sense that you can't prevent your url from being made available. When did Dembski receive his last check from DI?
Not long before he started at Baylor. He was one of the first recipients of the Discovery Institute's funding of ID research. The director of the Center was a DI employee and maintained his links with the DI, so much that today he's a "Senior Fellow." Oh no, we don't want any association with the DI! I call BS.
This is very Michael Moorish -- state a fact (can't control links) but do it in a way so it is deceptive. Yes, they can't control links, but that doesn't mean they don't want to associate with those who link to them.
Wow, you can see here he was going to get special treatment just because they knew he would pull this victim stunt. In opposite to persecution, it seems we have an ID affirmative action program going, kind of like how you don't want to fire the black gay woman who mishandled artifacts for fear she'll pull the black/gay/gender card and ruin your day.
ID goes PC!
My only other concern is that your old IZ work area seems to contain specimens from other institutions (Univ. Miami?), but we have no records of an incoming loan in your name. For obvious reasons, we like to be aware of non-SI material in the building, so please clarify the status of these specimens with Marilyn and/or Vic. If they do belong to another institution, the transaction should be recorded in our transaction management system.Mismanaging specimens in a museum is how things get lost. Gross mismanagement such as this should have been grounds for immediate termination. The ID movement is not very good at picking its poster boys. You need someone with an exemplary record, no other reason for negative actions, to prove persecution.
Strawman.
So after ignoring prod after prod, You finally present hunting as a test without giving so much as a hint how that "test" would measure "arrowheadness" and then question why I state that you are unreasonable, irrational and disengenuous?
Are cabbages atheists? A simple yes or no will do.
That often happens in controversies. It's like Barker claiming fear from the faculty who within 6 days of that assertion voted to dissolve the center. Were they frightened or not?
Yes, an IDer tried to intimidate scientists.
Yes that is your opinion, which I presume was derived from a complaint given within days of an action which does not indicate fear.
I do have to hand it to Sloan for not giving into their demands. The compromise reached was a good one.
Here we disagree again. If I were in Dembski's shoes, I would have expressed my complete gratitude to the president and the others involved in the establishment of the center, and the members of the members of the group who came up with the compromise. I would then have explained the reasons for my resignation. Which would be essentially, that I feel the arrangement is a fox guarding the chicken house one and that I felt that the situation would end in more conflict than progress. Read the compromise, it seems good except for the "poison pill" aspect.
Oh no, we don't want any association with the DI! I call BS.
Where does the statement, not made by Dembski, state that they want no association with DI? After all DI was one of the sponsors of "The Nature of Nature" conference.
We have no control over who decides to link to our site. We do not endorse a connection to those sites at all. They didn't ask our permission. It would be better if they removed it
You might be confusing the internet connection with association.
The apparent outrage at the suggestion of testing functionality started in the first reply to the suggestion.
So's yours. I'm busy, so I figured we'd just let them beat on each other.
"Special treatment" is a strange view of not getting "fired". The emails clearly state no cause for that action. That Sternberg's sponsor died would have been the "crime".
And now you are paranoid. I clearly stated functional tests are sometimes a valid test. In this case, I feel that they are not. You have had every chance to produce your version of a valid functional test with rationale for the test of "arrowheadness". You have failed to do so.
Blood in the urine is still blood.
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