Posted on 09/30/2005 2:09:51 PM PDT by truthfinder9
It's amazing that these Darwinian Fundamentalists claim they're for science only to turn around and try to destroy any contrary theories or evidence. They're really getting desperate, the ID movement really has them rattled.
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September 30, 2005
It’s happening again: another scientist, another academic institution, another attempt to stifle freedom of thought. The “Darwinist inquisition,” as a Discovery Institute press release calls it, is as predictable as it is relentless.
This time the setting is Iowa State University. One hundred twenty professors there have signed a statement denouncing the study of intelligent design and calling on all faculty members to reject it. The statement reads, in part, “We, the undersigned faculty members at Iowa State University, reject all attempts to represent Intelligent Design as a scientific endeavor. . . . Whether one believes in a creator or not, views regarding a supernatural creator are, by their very nature, claims of religious faith, and so not within the scope or abilities of science.”
I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that this thing is getting out of control. To begin with, the reasoning of the Iowa State professors is, frankly, some of the weakest I’ve ever seen. They give three reasons for rejecting intelligent design. The first is what they call “the arbitrary selection of features claimed to be engineered by a designer”—which, even if that were true, would prove nothing. If certain features were chosen arbitrarily for study, how does that prove that no other features showed evidence of design? The number two reason given is “unverifiable conclusions about the wishes and desires of that designer.” That is a dubious claim; most serious intelligent design theorists have made very few conclusions about any such “wishes and desires.”
But the third reason is my favorite: They say it is “an abandonment by science of methodological naturalism.” Now this gets to the heart of the matter. The statement goes so far as to claim, “Methodological naturalism, the view that natural phenomena can be explained without reference to supernatural beings or events, is the foundation of the sciences.” I’ll be the first to admit I’m not a scientist, but I thought that the heart of the sciences was the study of natural phenomena to gather knowledge of the universe. I thought we were supposed to start without any foregone conclusions about the supernatural at all, that is, if we wanted to be truly scientific.
It seems to me that the intelligent design theorists aren’t the ones trying to inject religion and philosophy into the debate—the Darwinists are, starting out with predetermined conclusions.
But it gets even better than that. The Iowa State fracas started because one astronomy professor there, Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez, has attracted attention with a book on intelligent design. It’s a little odd to accuse Gonzalez of being unscientific; he’s a widely published scientist whose work has made the cover of Scientific American. But that’s exactly what’s happening. And here’s the kicker: Gonzalez barely mentions intelligent design in the classroom. He wants to wait until the theory has more solid support among scientists. All he’s doing is researching and writing about it.
Now the lesson here for all of us is very clear: Don’t be intimidated when confronting school boards or biology teachers about teaching intelligent design. All we are asking is that science pursue all the evidence. That’s fair enough. But that’s what drives them into a frenzy, as we see in Iowa.
Ping me when anything like that gets authorized by any school board in the country. And in the meantime, your low opinion of your fellow citizens continues to be noted.
That wasn't the assumption I'd make. What I was saying in that hypothetical example is that a "supernatural" force actually was causing this to happen. That's not an assumption, it's a fact (something I have the luxury of imposing when coming up with hypothetical examples). So my question is that given that fact, would science be capable of recognizing it (regardless of what assumptions it starts out with initially)?
FR represents a pool of barefoot snakehandlers upon which they project their disdain, and to strike Superior Intellectual Poses Among the Unwashed.
Not that I'm complaning--they proide a respite from the more important matters of war, elections, and taxes.
"Photosynthesis"
Yes, once again this is a living organism effecting a change in entropy. I specifically asked for examples devoid of l living mechanisms.
Actually your request was: So please show me an example of reverse entropy occuring in nature comparable to the act of animating the inanimate? You do understand that you must show me a natural example, i.e. devoid of intelligent, living, input.
A plant has no intelligence, and the inputs to the process, CO2, water, and sunlight are non-living. The plant through photosynthesis "animates the inanimate," the water, CO2, and sunlight.
The plant as it grows will exhibit an increase in complexity i.e. a reduction in entropy, though the level of entropy of the entire Solar System is increasing.
Photosynthesis is a perfectly appropriate response to your request in the context of this thread, where MHalblaub stated (and you quoted him): "This statement of yours shows you have no idea what you are talking about. Inside a closed system the entropy is increasing but that says nothing how parts of that system behave. Please go and read some science books about that before repeating such nonsense."
Earth and the biosphere are not "closed systems," they are part of the Solar System. If a single plant can use the energy of the Sun to increase its complexity, (and in a sense reduce its entropy) than so can the Earth's biosphere as a whole, and so can the "Tree of Life."
By your response you seem to have totally moved the goal posts, what you seem to asking for is a demonstration of abiogenisis; the initial creation of life itself; by asking for this you have in effect conceded that "entropy" is not a barrior to biological evolution after life's initial start.
How long did it take for you to come up with that one.
About one second.
Why not simply use your response as an example of reverse entropy? Or do you consider yourself inanimate?
??????
In the context of your hypothetical, you are presuming exhaustion of all possible physical explanations (you suggest, after all, that the supernatural explanation was not the assumption you started with). Indeed, to reach your conclusion that the supernatural explanation is a fact, it is a necessary prerequisite that you exhaust all scientifically plausible, physical explanations.
And (staying with your hypo), since science is the vehicle by which the exhausted physical explanations were necessarily explored and discarded, science would also be the vehicle by which the ultimate supernatural explanation was reached. So certainly -- science would be "capable of recognizing" (and indeed be the vehicle for recognizing) this supernatural explanation.
This, of course, renders your parenthetical meaningless. The starting assumption must be that there exists a physical explanation. If the starting assumption is the supernatural, you will never rule out or even examine the physical, and consequently your supernatural explanation will be inherently implausible.
Now, are you suggesting that science, as of today, has examined and ruled out all possible physical explanations for either biological diversification and development or for the genesis of the first reproducing organisms?
A lot of physicists speculate about an intelligent designer for the universe itself. The remarkable necessary precision of the various fundamental constants to give rise to an interesting universe can be dismissed by the strong anthropic principle or by assuming a designer, maybe even our distant progeny. Then of course, conjuring our universe would be child's play for a 4 dimensional being, we being a mere projection of images on a flat screen in time.
What word would you prefer me to use in describing the process of creating order from disorder?
Entropy increases in any spontaneous process. And your point is? Are you denying reverse entropy? Your existence seems to refute this absurd claim.
Science proposed the big bang to explain the cosmic microwave background and the observed expansion of the universe.
Could the Big Bang have produced any of an infinite variety of universes? Not according to any serious astrophysicist.
Since I take it you're not a serious astrophysicist, please provide a source for this.
You're still misunderstanding me. What I'm saying is that if I had been confronted with the situation I described, a supernatural explanation is not the assumption I'd start with. However, since I'm the one coming up with the hypothesis, I can posit any initial facts I like, and the initial fact I'm positing is that the cause of the phenomenon I'm describing is indeed what would be termed supernatural. It's not a "conclusion" I've reached; it's merely the initial conditions set out in the scenario.
So given those initial conditions (which the scientists conducting the investigation wouldn't be aware of at the beginning), would the scientists be capable of figuring it out? That is, would they be able to determine that it wasn't, or in all likelihood wasn't, the result of a non-"supernatural" cause?
Ping this one out too even the party's over.
Those of us who aren't evo-fundies are lucky that there are no long iron torture devices for heretics.
I think you need to think more carefully about what order and disorder mean. The terms as you want to use them are anthropomorphic, and not scientifically useful. Dembski has run into the same problem with his attempt to define 'complex specified information'. He wants to define something he can give a numerical value to, but anything he can come up with doesn't correspond particularly closely to the purpose he wants it to serve.
The difference in entropy between a 200 pound chimp and a 200 pound human is negligible, and I couldn't begin to speculate whether the chimp is higher or lower. Entropy has nothing to do with evolution. That's worth repeating: entropy has nothing to do with evolution.
What do you mean by 'reverse entropy'? A decrease in entropy? The total entropy in any spontaneous process must increase; a local decrease must be matched by a larger increase somewhere else.
Sorry, I should have addressed this in the same post.
To answer your question, no, I'm not taking a position on that. What I'm arguing against is the notion that such an exercise is inherently unscientific.
Not since the Holy Inquisition gave that up. Your hyperbole is funny. Gonzalez's complaint seems to be that a lot of his colleagues think and are now saying openly that what he's doing is nonsensical and harmful to the scientific enerprise. You think our exercise of our free speech rights is equivalent to torture?
I'm not a self-acknowledged member of a group of serial killers. I am pure and blameless as the driven snow.
Not so Professor. A Catholic Monk, Georges LeMaitre, psoted BBT prior to the observations of CMB and Hubble during the period of time when Einstein held fast to a static universe. Dang creationists.
I'm sorry, no. It is not that the cause is unknown, there is no cause. Causality is simply not a universal requirement, regardless of how much that offends our sensibilities or our requirements for consistency.
> Ping me when anything like that gets authorized by any school board in the country.
Well, a few school boards *have* authorized ID/Creationism, which is the intellectual equivalent. And what with school boards going ga-ga over homosexual studies, and "let's be a Muslim for a month," and similar such nonsense...
The redshift arising from the recession of spiral galaxies was actually detected by Wirtz in the 1910s. Freidmann found the 'expanding universe' solution to the GR field equations in 1922. Le Maitre published in 1927. Hubble interpreted the redshift in terms of recession in 1929.
Not unless they fully understood every aspect of how it formed and worked. Otherwise I don't see how they could be certain that a natural explaination won't turn up tommorow.
For example long ago the prospect of a rainbow or thunder storm having a natural explaination would have been ridiculous. There was just no fathomable natural explaination for those things. Yet that was clearly not a good reason to assume a lack of natural cause.
Thank you, you've told me all I need to know about your reasoning capabilities.
Regarding your tagline, you're the poster child for what public schools have turned out since local school systems became run more and more by federal bureaucrats and judges.
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