Intelligent Design Now Comes to Australia ( Issue is Going International)

Sydney Morning Heralkd ^ | Aug 11,2005 | AAP

[SirLinksalot]

Nelson brings intelligent design debate to Australia

August 10, 2005 - 7:47PM

Education Minister Brendan Nelson supports the teaching of a controversial new theory of creationism, but only if it is balanced by the instruction of established science.

President George Bush has started a debate in the United States over the teaching of evolution in school by suggesting a theory known as "intelligent design" should be taught in the classroom.

It proposes that life is too complex to have developed through evolution, and an unseen power must have had a hand.

Dr Nelson said he had met the proponents of intelligent design, in addition to watching a DVD on the subject.

"Do I think it should be a replacement for teaching the origins of mankind in a scientific sense? I most certainly don't think that it should be," he told the National Press Club in Canberra.

"In fact I would be quite concerned if it were to replace it.

"Do I think that parents in schools should have the opportunity if they wish to for students also to be exposed to this and be taught about it? Yes. I think that's fine."

Intelligent design differs from biblical creationism in that it is not tied to a literal interpretation of the biblical book of Genesis.

Nevertheless, intelligent design points to the role of a creator, and it has become increasingly influential in Christian circles.

AAP

[King Prout]

I did, thank you.
In response to your later reply: I know you well enough that I do not assume you are dodging. You will reply in full when you have time to marshall such a response.
I'm patient - no worries.

[King Prout]

Is the "research going on with NDE's" including what happens when folks black out in centrifuges?

If no, it is shoddy research.

[Gumlegs]

Agreed.

And I note that "I just don't see how that could be right," didn't have much force against the bacterial theory of ulcers.

[King Prout]

the word is "irreducible"

that word means "cannot be reduced"

Person A: this structure has an irreducible complexity of 40 proteins

Person B: well, this variant does the same job with 33 proteins

that knocks the "irrecucible" bit out the window... until the IDiots move their goalposts... AGAIN.

[Ready2go]

Howdy again Dimensio;

Dimensio said:
What "physical proof"? And what about the ones who didn't come back with any such thing?

Well you've got to remember that it's only been in recent years that folks have been able to share their experiences and started comparing notes with each other.

One of the strange after affects is they can't wear a watch...now this may or may not happen with everyone, but I think it would be very interesting to research it some more. Don't you?

And maybe there are other physicial side affects we aren't aware of yet?

One thing I noticed is everyone I've read about has had a positive life change after their NDE.

[Gumlegs]

You might want to read the first link I posted above.

There are numerous reports of bad NDE trips involving tortures by elves, giants, demons, etc. Some parapsychologists take these good and bad NDE trips as evidence of heaven and hell. They believe that some souls actually leave their bodies and go to the other world for a time before returning to their bodies. If so, then what is one to conclude from the fact that most people near death do not experience either the heavenly or the diabolical? Is that fact good evidence that there is no afterlife or that most people end up in some sort of limbo? Such reasoning is on par with supposing that dreams in which one appears to oneself to be outside of one’s bed are to be taken as evidence of the soul or mind actually leaving the body during sleep, as some New Age Gnostics believe.

[King Prout]

question: is anyone looking inside their brains for neurological changes?

[Chickensoup]

And I note that "I just don't see how that could be right," didn't have much force against the bacterial theory of ulcers.


Took darn close to 15 years in this time of lightening communications and advanced scientific environment.

[Gumlegs]

Actually, this part of the link doesn't address the results of the NDE, so I retract my comment.

[Gumlegs]

Fifteen years from when?

[Chickensoup]

the word is "irreducible"

that word means "cannot be reduced"

Person A: this structure has an irreducible complexity of 40 proteins

Person B: well, this variant does the same job with 33 proteins

that knocks the "irrecucible" bit out the window... until the IDiots move their goalposts... AGAIN.
.
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.
I apologize. My hands don't work very well...and I struck the incorrect key. I didn't see my error. I do understand the definition of irreducible.

So the issue is that it is stated that a structure has been postulated to be "irreducible" at 40 proteins and now it has been discovered exist at 33 proteins. So irreducible has become a moving target?

BTW...why are you so demeaning?

[King Prout]

because I am grown weary of seeing the same errors based on argumentum ad incredulum posted over and over and over as "scientific"

I am not "demeaning" - I am sarcastic and uncharitable.

IDiocy is itself demeaning.

[Ready2go]

King Prout said: Is the "research going on with NDE's" including what happens when folks black out in centrifuges? If no, it is shoddy research.

---

Howdy there King Prout;

Yes they are researching it.

The Trigger of Gravity

Dr. James Winnery's NDE research

The scientific method requires a phenomenon to be able to be reproducible under laboratory conditions for it to be declared a "real" phenomenon.

In the early days, near-death experiences were thought by some to be just "phantom" visions and nothing more than imagination. But then Dr. James E. Whinnery, a chemistry professor with West Texas A&M, became involved with research involving fighter pilots being subjected to extreme gravitational forces in a giant centrifuge to simulate the extreme conditions that can occur during aerial combat maneuvering.

Strangely enough, it turns out that under extreme g-forces, fighter pilots lose consciousness and have a near-death experience. Whinnery wrote a technical report for the National Institute for Discovery Science about the phenomenon and in doing so proved the near-death experience to be a real phenomenon.

The following is a summary of his technical report of how NDEs are triggered by severe gravitational forces.

---

Scientific research has tried to unlock the secrets of death and what happens to consciousness after death. Our scientific understanding of the mind / brain chemistry involved in the processes of death remains relatively limited.

In spite of the findings reported from these studies, little emphasis has been placed on the loss of consciousness. The results of the loss and recovery of consciousness experiments in healthy humans may provide insight into the normal processes in the brain that occurs in association with NDEs.

This report focuses on the mind/brain events associated with acceleration gravitationally-induced loss of consciousness, also known as G-LOC, in completely healthy individuals. Acceleration of gravitational stress is a unique aspect of flying fighter aircraft during aerial combat maneuvering. Modern fighter aircraft can attain high levels of gravitational forces that puts most humans at risk for G-LOC.

The gravitational-stress reduces blood flow to the head and causes pooling of blood in the abdomen and extremities which result in G-LOC. A solution for the G-LOC problem requires a thorough understanding of the alterations of consciousness. Although preventing further losses of aircrew and aircraft is the goal of fighter aviation medicine, the results from experiments involving G-LOC in completely healthy humans should be of interest to a broad range of scientific disciplines.

The results to be discussed represent data collected from over fifteen years of acceleration research and more than 700 episodes of G-LOC that occurred in fighter aircraft and during gravitational centrifuge exposure. The research subjects averaged in age of 32 years. All of them were healthy after having successfully completed a military physical examination. The G-LOC episodes from the centrifuge were all recorded on videotape for analysis.

When gravitational stress is applied well above tolerance, there is a short time period during which normal brain function persists, despite loss of adequate blood flow. At the end of this period, consciousness is lost, and the gravitational stress is reduced back to normal conditions. The length of the unconsciousness averaged 12 seconds with a -5 to +5 standard deviation and a range of 2 to 38 seconds. The estimated average length of time blood flow to the central nervous system was altered during the loss and recovery of consciousness was approximately 15 to 20 seconds.

Convulsive activity was observed in 70% of the G-LOC episodes. The convulsive activity began on the average 7.7 seconds after the onset of unconsciousness and lasted 3.9 seconds. The convulsions would cease with the return of consciousness. Upon recovery of consciousness, there is a period of relative incapacitation that lasts on the average about 12 seconds, in which there exists confusion/disorientation.

It is possible to classify the G-LOC episodes. The G-LOC experience includes specific visual symptoms (tunnel vision through blackout), convulsive activity, memory alterations, dreamlets, and other psychological symptoms. The major, overall G-LOC experience characteristics that have commonality with NDEs are shown below.

Tunnel vision / bright light
Floating
Automatic movement
Autoscopy
Out-of-body experience
Not wanting to be disturbed
Paralysis
Vivid dreamlets / beautiful places
a. Euphoria
b. Dissociation
Pleasurable
Psychologic state alteration
Friends/family inclusion
Prior memories/thoughts inclusion
Very memorable (when remembered)
Confabulation
Strong urge to understand

The G-LOC syndrome, however, suggests that loss of consciousness may be considered to be an evolutionarily developed protective mechanism that is evoked in a stepwise sequence in the face of excessive gravitational stress, well before any pathologic alterations of the nervous system occurs.

Specific states of consciousness, subconsciousness, and unconsciousness are induced during loss and recovery of consciousness. One additional state of consciousness, a state that corresponds to a critically low range of blood flow, is where death occurs. The magnitude and duration of the gravity induced reduction of activity in the cephalic nervous system determines just how near to the state of death the individual comes.

Conclusions

Altered brain states, whether resulting from G-LOC or the NDE, can produce vivid experiences to those who have them. Some differences between G-LOC and the NDE would be expected, if for no other reasons than the circumstances that cause them and the magnitude of the insults to the nervous system, which are different. The G-LOC syndrome symptoms are the normal responses of completely healthy individuals to relatively minimal periods of cephalic nervous system ischemia.

If there are unique characteristics associated with the NDE, then their isolation would appear to be facilitated by focusing on what the real differences are in the individuals, their physical states, the environmental situation, the type of insult, and the symptomology between G-LOC and the NDE.

The mind / brain events of the NDE may be at least partially open to experimental investigation in healthy humans and not solely upon clinical happenstance. The need to understand the states of consciousness, subconsciousness, and unconsciousness, along with the mechanisms that cause the transition between these states is shared by those investigating NDEs and G-LOC.

Loss-of-consciousness episodes of all types appear to have an explainable physiologic basis. They are, therefore, open for scientific investigation. At least the loss of consciousness aspect of the NDE, therefore, has a potentially explainable and experimentally explorable basis.

It would be odd if the symptoms associated with loss and recovery of consciousness were not part of the NDE. The fact that many of the NDE symptoms are very similar to those resulting from loss and recovery of consciousness suggests that individuals who report their NDEs have provided accurate symptom descriptions. This includes those symptoms beyond the scope of G-LOC experimentation, which are unique to the NDE.

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/triggers06.html

[King Prout]

Very good.
I asked, because my father did some of the preliminary research into this some 30 years ago.

GLOK simulates everything so-called NDE's produce... except the religious overtones.

one possible explanation: the pilots know they are in a centrifuge, whereas trauma victims are in reasonable certainty that their lives are in real peril.

Gives the oxygen-starved brain different bases for extrapolation and synthesis.

[Chickensoup]

Fifteen years from when?

From the initial publication to protocols if I recall correctly.


The part I wanted to adress is that the medical community first had one untested perspective on ulcers that didn't permit challange, and locked its practitionrs in a certain understanding of ulcers and of the GI tract....and I suspect, with broader ramifications on the understanding of the body's protective mechanisms.

But when a new possibility emerges, that restructures the understanding of the GI tract and the body, it was adopted after empirical testing.


There is no emperical testing of evolution nor of ID. There are only structures of understanding each theory. Evolution has held sway for many years...and it is a little bit like that stomach...no room for opposing theories. The gastro professor has spoken!

It would be interesting to see each aspect of Behe's presentation responded to...and not ridiculed.

One of the posters stated that IDs, not necessarily Behe, keep moving the goalposts. But in the example we are working with, a scientist states that Behe's irriducible complexity for a certain mechanism is 40 protiens and he has found the same mechanism functioning at 33. But this is trivial...for the bottom line issue is not the number of proteins, but rather that certain number..."x" ...is or is not irriducible.

I appreciate your civility.

[Chickensoup]

because I am grown weary of seeing the same errors based on argumentum ad incredulum posted over and over and over as "scientific"

I am not "demeaning" - I am sarcastic and uncharitable.

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So, why rise to the bait?

Sarcasm and lack of charity demeans the target.

[naturalman1975]

People reading this should probably be aware that though Australia has a provision in its Constitution concerning religion that is very similar to the provisions in the US First Amendment (mainly because those who wrote the Australian Constitution copied it), it's been interpreted quite differently by our courts, here, and as a result provided it is voluntary, and provided no public money is provided to pay for it, religious instruction is permitted in Australian state schools. Dr Nelson's comments should be viewed in light of that fact.

[Gumlegs]

I recall hearing about the change in ulcer treatment in the early nineties, so do you mean that the initial (medical), publication preceded that by 15 years? The change was pretty fast once the new theory got out, IIRC.

There is no emperical testing of evolution nor of ID. There are only structures of understanding each theory. Evolution has held sway for many years...and it is a little bit like that stomach...no room for opposing theories. The gastro professor has spoken!

Here we disagree. The theory of evolution is subject to constant testing. It's not always direct, but it's always going on, and includes pharmaceutical companies, university labs, and those guys out there in the field digging up the fossils. It's all got to point in the same direction, it's all got to agree and add up the same way, or someone's going to decide to get famous by pointing out the errors. We remember the names of the people who come up with break-throughs and new ideas, not the ones who don't.

The theory of evolution, in one form or another, has been "holding sway" for a long time. This fact, in and of itself, has no bearing on the correctness of the theory. (To argue either way would be a logical fallacy).

It would be interesting to see each aspect of Behe's presentation responded to...and not ridiculed.

They have been to a certain extent, although I admit that posters here rarely get into that level of detail (Ichneumon excepted). There are a lot of articles on Behe's work. The problem of the flagellum has been addressed, and the blood clotting cascade. Behe can spin out new "what about this!!!" problems ad infinitum, but they begin to engender a sneaking suspicion he's come up with just another argument from incredulity. Maybe that's just me.

One of the posters stated that IDs, not necessarily Behe, keep moving the goalposts. But in the example we are working with, a scientist states that Behe's irriducible complexity for a certain mechanism is 40 protiens and he has found the same mechanism functioning at 33. But this is trivial...for the bottom line issue is not the number of proteins, but rather that certain number..."x" ...is or is not irriducible.

I agree that the proteins number is trivial. The argument really isn't about proteins, per se, but the notion that a structure that must have all of its current component parts or it will fail, and that it therefore couldn't have evolved because any more primitive version would lack some vital part. Two of Behe's examples have been demonstrated to be false, not because someone found fewer proteins in another example, but because steps leading to the current composition have been pointed out.

I appreciate your civility.

Thank you. I appreciate yours. I tend to respond in kind. No doubt you can appreciate that this can also be a shortcoming.

But you should see the love-fest Alamo-Girl inspires in everyone.

[King Prout]

why rise to the bait?

because I cannot resist whack-a-mole.

sarcasm and lack of charity penalize the target.
buying into ID is what demeans them.

[js1138]

The people who have near death experiences are not having death experiences. Do you really think God is so stupid He doesn't know when someone is really dying?

Your anecdotes can be matched by any number of drug induced hallucinations, and are routinely reported in cases of oxygen deprivation.