I.D. Rift Hits Baylor Again (Controversy surrounds University's Evolutionary Informatics Lab)

Baptist Press ^ | 09/05/2007 | Erin Roach

[allmendream]

“You have to understand, in the current academic climate, Intelligent Design is like leprosy or heresy in times past,” he said. “To be tagged as an ID supporter is to become an academic pariah, and this holds even at so-called Christian institutions that place a premium on respectability at the expense of truth and the offense of the Gospel.”
Dembski, in comments to the Southern Baptist Texan newsjournal Sept. 4

OFFENSE OF THE GOSPEL? Here is Dumbski’s trump card. Gospel. He thinks he is defending the revealed word of God against Science. He thinks that a Baptist University should ignore any fact that opposes his interpretation of the Bible, because to him it is an offense of the Gospel.

This is Science? Thanks. I needed the laugh.

[js1138]

Simple, I forgot ( I believe I said it before ).

I suggest that anyone interested in your claim that you "just forgot" click on the link and observe that you were immediately challenged to provide a link and a credit to Dembski. The thread went on for several days, and you never responded.

Let's face it, when you post a thread, you are required to post the author of the article and the the URL of the web page from which you are quoting. You can't "simply forget."

Assuming you can't read well enough to notice that you have filled out false information when posting, it is customary, when others point out your mistake, to post a correction or ask a moderator to make the correction.

So to answer your next question, I will not stop calling attention to this until you provide a plausible explanation or go back to the original thread and post a correction. I've given you the link.

[SirLinksalot]

This is Science? Thanks. I needed the laugh

Laugh away. But you have to understand the statement in CONTEXT. Baylor University is a BAPTIST university and Dembski is talking about persecution in a context THEY can understand.

This does little to detract from the actual science Dembski and Marks, et. al. are doing.

[SirLinksalot]

I suggest that anyone interested in your claim that you "just forgot" click on the link and observe that you were immediately challenged to provide a link and a credit to Dembski. The thread went on for several days, and you never responded.

OK, I credit the link to William Dembski.

What next ? are we going to go back and forth on this or are we going to discuss the issue on this thread ?

[js1138]

Back to the thread topic? Well here is where we let off:

ID proponents could put a rather rapid end to their persecution simply by publishing a testable hypothesis that is consistent with currently available data, and which projects data yet to be found.

One can only characterize as crank science, a conjecture that asserts an unspecified entity did something at some unspecified time using unspecified methods for unknown reasons.

It is difficult to argue against the proposition that a entity having infinite capabilities might have been the cause of everything we see. Perhaps gravity really is a manifestation of angels pushing and pulling things around. Prove otherwise.

Science, of course, does not attempt to prove otherwise. It simply asks the question, “Can we find regularities in nature that obviate the need for hypothesising demiurges having arbitrary means, methods and motives?” Anyone not asking this question is not engaging in science.

[SirLinksalot]

I have asked you a number of times a very simple question: Are you Bill Dembski, or do you contribute in any way to his website? You have never given a straight yes or no answer.

OK, I'll give you a straight answer since your interest is in getting personal and not addressing the more pressing issue of Intelligent Design vs. Neo-Dariwinism.

1) NO. I AM NOT WILLIAM DEMBSKI.

2) YES, I DO "CONTRIBUTE" TO HIS WEBSITE. Not in terms of posting articles ( because I do not have the privileges for that ), but as a poster IN RESPONSE to his articles and those written by other privileged contributors.

Now, let's get back to the issue at hand.

[Constantine XIII]

Genetic algorithms, what?

[SirLinksalot]

ID proponents could put a rather rapid end to their persecution simply by publishing a testable hypothesis that is consistent with currently available data, and which projects data yet to be found.

Nice to know that we're back on track.

Notice what Dembski and Marks are actually doing -- THEY ARE DOING WORK THAT *TESTS* their theories. Now how on earth can you publish something if the very *act* of working on it is being suppressed ?

*THAT* has always been the issue.

One can only characterize as crank science, a conjecture that asserts an unspecified entity did something at some unspecified time using unspecified methods for unknown reasons.

Well, since random mutation is an entity that has never been observed to produce the complexity that we see, then it looks like that qualifies as well....

It is difficult to argue against the proposition that a entity having infinite capabilities might have been the cause of everything we see.

As it is difficult to argue that a non-entity might have been the cause of everything. THAT is the reason why after over a hundred years of trying to convince the public ( including taking control of most of academia ), Darwinists aren't making any dent at all.

Perhaps gravity really is a manifestation of angels pushing and pulling things around. Prove otherwise.

Notice how you are equating an OBSERVED phenomenon with unobserved ones -- Random mutation.

Science, of course, does not attempt to prove otherwise. It simply asks the question, “Can we find regularities in nature that obviate the need for hypothesising demiurges having arbitrary means, methods and motives?” Anyone not asking this question is not engaging in science. Disagree. We can also ask a simple question --- When we find regularities and complexity in nature ( as we do ), is the phenomenon better explained by design or chance ?

[js1138]

Now, let's get back to the issue at hand.

That wasn't so difficult, was it? Consider it closed, at least by me.

[Hacksaw]

Threadcrap at # 3

[<1/1,000,000th%]

I remember working with Cantor sets.

Good times...

From his website.

Implications of Cantorian Transfinite Set Theory on Creation

[<1/1,000,000th%]

ID even makes certain predictions (if their hypothesis is true ):

(1) High information content machine-like irreducibly complex structures will be found.

(2) Forms will be found in the fossil record that appear suddenly and without any precursors.

(3) Genes and functional parts will be re-used in different unrelated organisms.

(4) The genetic code will NOT contain much discarded genetic baggage code or functionless "junk DNA".

Do you have a link to this?

Creationists used to say these were predictions of evolutionary biology, except for #1.

[allmendream]

It does everything to discredit Dumbski as a Scientist. It also discredits him as a theologists. When facts confront someone’s interpretation of the Bible it is their interpretation that is in error, not the facts.

“The truth of our faith becomes a matter of ridicule among the infidels if any Catholic, not gifted with the necessary scientific learning, presents as dogma what scientific scrutiny shows to be false.”

Saint Thomas Aquinas

[SirLinksalot]

It does everything to discredit Dumbski as a Scientist.

I notice from your arrogant remark how you deliberatly mis-spelled his name, as if doing so does anything to discredit him.

Also, it does nothing of that sort. Baylor is a Christian university whose administrators still believe in the gospel. Dembski was speaking to them on their own terms ( i.e. their own belief ).

There is nothing that says because a scientist is a Christian ( as Newton and Kepler were ) who uses language others can relate to, his work is therefore discredited.

If this were so, then Newton's treatise on eschatology would disqualify him as scientist.

It also discredits him as a theologists.

The correct term is Theologian. I guess using the wrong term disqualifies you from pronouncing judgment on other people's competence. BTW, Demski, aside from having taught at Northwestern University, the University of Notre Dame, and the University of Dallas, has done postdoctoral work in mathematics at MIT, in physics at the University of Chicago, and in computer science at Princeton University. Dr. Dembski is a graduate of the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he earned a B.A. in psychology, an M.S. in statistics, and a Ph.D. in philosophy. He He also received a doctorate in mathematics from the University of Chicago.

Now get this, he also happens to have a Master of Divinity from Princeton Thological Seminary. I'd like to know what degree you have in this area that qualifies you to say he is a discredited "theologist" (sic).

When facts confront someone’s interpretation of the Bible it is their interpretation that is in error, not the facts.

Facts, such as what ?

“The truth of our faith becomes a matter of ridicule among the infidels if any Catholic, not gifted with the necessary scientific learning, presents as dogma what scientific scrutiny shows to be false.”

Well thank you St. Thomas. Believing that mindless matter can itself create human beings and a habitable planet is probably one of those he had in mind. After all, he was the one who articulated the Cosmological argument.

[allmendream]

He thinks Baptists are too stupid to understand Science? He has to speak to them ‘in their own language’ about ‘offense of the gospel’ that would be committed by acceptance of Science?

He is obviously doing apologetics, not Science.

[SirLinksalot]

Do you have a link to this? Creationists used to say these were predictions of evolutionary biology, except for #1.

Yes, see here

People often confuse creationism with Intelligent Design because the two seem similar. But there are differences as well. Chief among them is this -- there are numerous ID proponents who don't subscribe to young earth creationism. Many ID proponents ( like Mathematician David Berlinski and Molecular Biologist Michael Denton ) are agnostic in fact. Michael Behe, one of the foremost proponents of ID and the one who popularized the term, Irreducible Complexity actually is on record as believing in common descent. This in itself separates him from the Biblical creationists.

Neither The Institute for Creation Research nor Answers In Genesis fully support or endorse Intelligent Design.

[allmendream]

theologist

noun
someone who is learned in theology or who speculates about theology [syn: theologian]

It is a perfectly cromulent word. ;)

[SirLinksalot]

He thinks Baptists are too stupid to understand Science? He has to speak to them ‘in their own language’ about ‘offense of the gospel’ that would be committed by acceptance of Science?

You are deliberately misunderstanding his point. He was not talking about science but likening what the school is doing to the powers that be in the first century suppresing the church'ws message for their "offense" of preaching the gospel.

I challenge you to read any one of Dembski's scientific papers and tell me whether you can find anything relating to God, the Bible or Jesus Christ in them. There is none.

So no, Dembski does not say that Baptists are too stupid to understand science. he is simply saying that what they are doing is akin to the powers that be in the early church age suppressing the message of the gospel.

[SirLinksalot]

It is a perfectly cromulent word. ;)

Uh huh, and what makes you more qualified than him so that his interpretation of the Bible or understanding of theology is wrong and yours is right ?

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Thanks for the link.