Posted on 11/20/2007 10:27:07 AM PST by CottShop
PBS Airs False Facts in its "Inherit the Wind" Version of the Kitzmiller Trial (Updated)
UPDATE: A tenth PBS blunder is addressed, where PBS makes the false insinuation that intelligent design is no more scientific than astrology. Scroll down to read more.
More than 50 years ago two playwrights penned a fictionalized account of the 1920s Scopes Trial called "Inherit the Wind" that is now universally regarded by historians as inaccurate propaganda. Last night PBS aired its "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design" documentary, which similarly promotes propaganda about the 2005 Kitzmiller trial and intelligent design (ID). Most of the misinformation in "Judgment Day" was corrected by ID proponents long ago. To help readers sift the fact from the fiction, here are links to articles rebutting some of PBS's most blatant misrepresentations:
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2007/11/pbs_airs_its_inherit_the_wind.html
(Excerpt) Read more at evolutionnews.org ...
Wow, such a bitter materialist idealist. I don’t get frustrated with people who have philosophical differences with me, but I do like to point out to people that there are such things as philosophical underpinnings to things they take for granted. While facts tell a certain part of the story, the philosophical underpinnings cause people to interpret them one way or another. The best first step is to understand what your philosophical biases are and recognize that these are not facts.
>> Predictive value of evolutionary theory in this case: Negative. Predictive value of ID theory in this case: positive. <<
Don’t be silly. Evolutionists don’t have principles like vestigial structures, common embryo development, “junk” DNA, or infinite plasticity as any sort of core to their argument. Even if all supporting arguments for evolution were gone (which they are), but evolution could still theoretically have happened, evolutionists would cling to the theory. The reason of course is that they are wedded to naturalism and this is not a scientific battle, but a philosophical/quasi-religious one.
I know the type. They think they know it all. In my work in R&D, i deal with many on a daily basis and there are lots of 'discussions' about how they have their ideas on how things happen, and they don't like hearing the hard core scientific explanations that contradict their own ideas. They'd rather push buttons and pull levers until the problem goes away.
Don't worry, no one believed you.
I've seen the "philosophical underpinnings" from both sides. As a young-earth creationist I found that those underpinnings were secured embarrassingly poorly. You say both sides have the facts and the differences are in the interpretation. Why, then, is it impossible to find scholarly articles explaining the whole of the natural evidence from a young earth creationist viewpoint? Creationists can't even determine among themselves which strata were laid down by the Flood and which are post-Flood, and that's a rather critical point.
I discovered years ago as a creationist that creationism is not about examining the evidence and drawing conclusions from it. It's about concluding creationism based on faith, ignoring the evidence, and then attempting to poke holes in the theory of evolution as if debunking that would leave young earth creationism as the only alternative (it wouldn't).
There are as many lines of evidence as there are journal articles all pointing towards a universe about 13.7 billion years old with our solar system being 4.5 billion years old, life originating on earth over 3 billion years ago, metazoans (multicellular organisms) appearing about 600 million years ago, tetrapods colonizing land 365 million years ago, the sauropsids (leading to reptiles) and therapsids (leading to mammals) diverging about 340 million years ago, mammals appearing about 220 million years ago, primates 60 million years ago, apes diverging 25 million years ago, the human line diverging from the chimpanzee line between 5 and 7 million years ago, and anatomically modern humans appearing 130,000 years ago.
From an old earth, evolutionary perspective evidence from astronomy, physics, chemistry, and biology make perfect sense and repeatedly corroborate each other. From a young earth perspective none of this evidence lines up, explaining creation "scientists"' failure to provide a cohesive model of the history of the earth.
For some examples of evidence that young earth creationism cannot address:
And let's consider some other odd features of young earth creationism. Most creationists think that God made two animals of each kind, usually interpreted as genera, and then these evolved (!!) to produce all living organisms over a period of 4000-6000 years. This would require rates of evolution much faster than any evolutionist would suggest. So why do historical records not show new species popping into existence every few centuries? And why has this runaway creationist evolution apparently stopped? Then also creationists tend to think that only extant creatures would have to have been preserved on the ark, plus some that have gone extinct in the past 4000 years. In actuality 80% of the mammal genera that have ever lived are extinct. Major groups have come and gone--primitive tetrapods, primitive synapsids, primitive archosaurs, dinosaurs (with the exception of birds), all but two genera of monotremes, most of the marsupials, many placental mammals, and others. And that's just the tetrapods, which I am admittedly biased towards. Pull out a paleontology book--there will be placental mammals in it that you won't even recognize. Supposedly representatives of all of these genera were present at Creation, most lost at the Flood (goodbye dinosaurs (-birds)--not one creationist can explain why they all died off), others dying off in whole clades after the Flood--in between evolving at breakneck speed. The creationist God is massively incompetent. Creationists object to the process of evolution as wasteful, but the evolution of metazoans took place over the last half-billion plus years, and the creationist God managed to burn through the majority of all of the metazoans he ever made in only 6,000 years. Ouch.
These are just a few of the dilemmas that creationism is unable to address. Once I realized the complete lack of corroborating evidence I abandoned young earth creationism and determined God must have used evolution over billions of years to make living organisms.
I'll now leave you so you can adjust your underpinnings in privacy.
I'm schocked! Shocked I tell you!
I was doing some thinking about why it seems that nine times out of ten if you run across someone who’s a scientist and a creationist, they’re an engineer (whose rule is that?)
I think it’s because engineers are technologists. They work with human technology building human tools. With rare exceptions the natural world isn’t relevant to their area of expertise.
Because of this, people who have a creationist mindset and go into engineering tend to have the one-tool problem (”to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail”). They’re used to working with technology, so when they see a system that appears organized, they conclude an organizer must have organized it. Other people who go into the natural sciences and start out with a creationist mindset (like me) are confronted with evidence from the natural world that not everything that appears designed is designed, and that there are ways that organization can develop in a stepwise manner.
I think the ardent creationist engineer’s allergy to evidence is shared with all ardent creationists, and not related to their field of study. After all, they’re self-selected—creationists who look at the evidence soon become ex-creationists, leaving the creationist pot enriched with the evidence-blind.
so basically you’re saying “Nature dun it and that’s good enough for me,. no need to explain or even investigate”? Lol- 9 times out of ten eh? Got any stats on that?
Allergy to evidence eh? Lol- like the allergy to devestating evidence against Macroevolution? That kind of allergy?
When you can show that highly complex irreducible systems ARE infact “Nature dun doing it” then by all means, present it here- until then, it would appear you have an allergy to evidence that suggests that a designer is infact needed to assemble highly complex irreducible organsisms
Oh, and by the way, for htose that care about the truth- the ‘stepwise organizations’ Ahayes refers to are absolutely moot systems of overly simplistic elements that follow natural laws- not the highly complex irreducibly complex systems that supposedly broke every natural law known to man in order to assemble TRILLIONS of higher and higher ‘stepwise organizations’ to create ever increasing, ever law breaking highly complex systems.
Nice try Ahayes, but if you’re going to deride somethign you don’t agree with- at least be intellectually honest about it!
Salem's Law or Salem Hypothesis
Salem Hypothesis np.Conjecture that an education in the engineering disciplines forms a predisposition to Scientific Creationism viewpoints. Due to longtime t.o. regular Bruce Salem. New Creationist or Theistic Anti-Evolutionist posters whose credentials include EE, CSE, ME, or other brands of engineering are noted as "data points for the Salem Hypothesis". (My own personal experience indicates that of engineering disciplines, EE's are most often encountered in SciCre-ist postings. I don't believe that I have ever seen a chemical engineering SciCre-ist, on the other hand.)
Engineers are going to have to get over the idea that things can’t be designed by evolutionary algorithms.
Not many really complex problems remain for the lone gunman.
Ad hominems and misspellings do not make a logical argument.
My brand of agnosticism says "I do not know these things and I've seen no evidence yet to make me think otherwise."
I'm open to the possibility I could be wrong - and I think many agnostics are as well.
Even evolutionists have to assume an “ummoved mover,” which is the moment in which life appeared. Unless, of course, they wish to assert that everything can be reduced to the laws of biochemistry with which we are familiar. Then there is the “small” matter of the nature of these laws. Given so much change, how can we assume the constancy of these laws? There is also the question of their universality. How do we know that they are the same even in the next galaxy?
Give us a quote on that, and let us see if we agree with your interpretation.
ID is agnostic about the mechanisms that drive evolution: the neo-Darwinists are not. The extreme Darwinists approach to mystery is always: well, our methodology inevitably will eliminate that mystery. Why not admit the obvious. Just as Aristotle’s methodology proved inadequate because it explained TOO much, so might even our scientific methodology because it is not comprehensive enough. If we small beings can grasp the whole of the universe, we are claiming not just god-like powers but the very powers we might deny to THE GOD. Given that a wandering asteroid could wipe us out amost in an instance, whence comes this arrogance?
there’s no ad hominem in my post- the truth is the poster is infact quite ignorant about ID- plain and simple- end of story- And further more, the blind bias is quite evident in their post- I’ll tell you what isn’t a logicial argument- Pointing out someone elses mispellings in an attempt to cover the innacuracies, misrepresentations abnd blatant blind bias and ignorance of ID science. If you think the person I was responding to is not ingorant of ID science- then present your case- otherwise- you’ve added absolutely nothign to the topic
9 times out of 10 it’s because they don’t admit that scientisits actually are in the field of ID- There’s a whole list of 700+ scientists, teachers, profesors of all degrees, not to mention many many more all across the world- but heck- when one doesn’t even recognisze the obvious, then yes, 9 times out of ten they will get the results they want- but thanks for trying to childlishly further the wee wittle snobbery of evos, and slight of hand maligning of of ID’ers- posts like that are more appropriate over on “other sites’ known dfor such chiuldish tactics-
[[Engineers are going to have to get over the idea that things can’t be designed by evolutionary algorithms.
Not many really complex problems remain for the lone gunman.]]
Engineers know full well that simple things can be ‘designed’ following basic laws of nature- it’s the incredibly complex living systems however that can’t be and trying to insinuate that because simple designs can arise from chaos, then that must mean Macroevolution is a possibility is an incredibly naieve position to take scientifically- but then again incredibly naieve positions seem quite ocmmon concidering that some beleive that just because incredibly simplistic negative entropy situations can occure then it must mean that trillions of highly complex negative entropy situations could also occure- (this despite decades of experiments that failed to show anythign beyond the very basics) insinuating that snowflakes- simple geometric patterns governed by natural laws show that negative entropy could happen, and that incredibly complex organs and systems could possibly arise, is well- quite frankly naieve- And, misrepresenting what engineers beleive and don’t beleive is another little tactic that belongs on lesser forums as well-
Oh yeah, speaking of intellectual honesy, I’m willing to accept an apology for you calling me a blatant liar for quoting Behe any time you’re ready to offer it.
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