Evolution Debate Led to Ouster, Official Says

Associated Press ^ | November 30, 2007 | The Associated Press

[freespirited]

Second, as far as "testable hypotheses" go, ID is testable and falsifiable

So give us some falsifiable hypotheses. Tell us how you would test them. I have seen a couple of so-called hypotheses from ID people but they were not in fact testable.

it is Evolutionary Theory that has no published, peer-reviewed falsification criteria.

Now that is an ignorant statement. You haven't a clue what you are talking about.

Here is a testable hypothesis for you. Working with Bacteria Strain XYZ, you hypothesize that there will be no change over time in its susceptibility to Drug ABC. That's the null hypothesis, SOP in biological science. But as you do your experiment, the data force you to reject the null hypothesis. The bacteria shows increasing resistance to the drug over time.

The logical interpretation? The bacteria have been evolving so as to adapt to the environment to which you have placed them. Evidence of evolution--of the falsifiable variety.

BTW, are you sure you know how natural selection is defined? I will take a wild guess that there is a good chance you might not.

[freespirited]

The problem here is that most people commonly refer to the conclusions of both a priori and a posteriori reasoning as theories.

The term "theory" has a specific meaning in science that differs from common usage.

Evolution can easily be proved false since it is based on evidence (i.e. find proof that dinosaurs and humans walked the Earth together).

Why that would be necessary to demonstrate evolution is completely lost on me.

ID is based on an axiom that is assumed to be true,

This demonstrates my point. In biology, we don't have axioms that are assumed to be true. We have the scientific method to test our ideas. Until ID proponents can frame their ideas in a manner that is testable, they will not make progress toward acceptability in the scientific community. They will also need to carry out the testing and publish the results.

[atlaw]

In this case, ID is the *only* theory that explains the origin of transgenic lab animals such as pigs that are genetically designed to grow human growth hormones.

Is it your contention that initial intelligent design of biological organisms is demonstrated by our ability to subsequently manipulate the component parts of biological organisms in a lab?

[atlaw]

Every scientist who has successfully created a new transgeneic species in the lab is an ID proponent at some level.

technetium (Tc), 43
promethium (Pm), 61
neptunium (Np), 93
plutonium (Pu), 94
americium (Am), 95
curium (Cm), 96
berkelium (Bk), 97
californium (Cf), 98
einsteinium (Es), 99
fermium (Fm), 100
mendelevium (Md), 101
nobelium (No), 102
lawrencium (Lr), 103
unnilquadium (Unq), 104
unnilpentium (Unp), 105
unnilhexium (Unh), 106
unnilseptium (Uns), 107
unniloctium (Uno), 108
unnilennium (Une), 109
unununium (Uun), 110

Proof of ID?

Intelligent Design *is* why pigs produce human growth hormones for pharmaceutical companies. They didn't evolve that way! They were designed.

Proof that an intelligent designer is responsible for diamonds?

[js1138]

Christians who believe Jesus died and rose from the dead would not be satisfied by an explanation that involved space aliens using advanced medical technology.

The central point of ID, from the 18th century on, is that intervention is required to explain the history and diversity of life.

I expect any moment now you will launch your code skipping hobby horse to prove intervention has occurred.

[Southack]

"Here is a testable hypothesis for you. Working with Bacteria Strain XYZ, you hypothesize that there will be no change over time in its susceptibility to Drug ABC. That's the null hypothesis, SOP in biological science. But as you do your experiment, the data force you to reject the null hypothesis. The bacteria shows increasing resistance to the drug over time. The logical interpretation? The bacteria have been evolving so as to adapt to the environment to which you have placed them. Evidence of evolution--of the falsifiable variety."

False logic. The bacteria aren't changing. There's no evolution. Bacteria in the superset that have better pre-existing resistance to Drug ABC survive and propagate better than their peers in the test. Eventually, only those with resistance are left.

But there was no metamorphis. DNA didn't change in the survivors from pre-test to post-test.

[Southack]

"The central point of ID, from the 18th century on, is that intervention is required to explain the history and diversity of life."

Without question, intervention explains the history and diversity of all transgenic life.

[jwalsh07]

Here is a testable hypothesis for you. Working with Bacteria Strain XYZ, you hypothesize that there will be no change over time in its susceptibility to Drug ABC. That's the null hypothesis, SOP in biological science. But as you do your experiment, the data force you to reject the null hypothesis. The bacteria shows increasing resistance to the drug over time.

The logical interpretation? The bacteria have been evolving so as to adapt to the environment to which you have placed them. Evidence of evolution--of the falsifiable variety.

What you've described is an excellent test for adaptation/natural selection of information already existing ina genome.

But extrapolating from that to account for "the grand sweep of evolution", from bacteria to man is not very good science.

How about a closed system test where bacteria are observed for 25 or 50,000 generations? Should we expect new information in the genome?

[Ha Ha Thats Very Logical]

I'm sorry, but I really don't understand the argument you're making. Are you under the impression that someone claimed that no intelligence-guided design existed anywhere, period? Are you arguing that because something can be done by man, it was done that way in nature? Please draw the line leading from your statement to your conclusion a little more vividly. Thanks.

[Southack]

There are those who claim that Intelligent Design isn’t scientific at all...that ID can’t be falsified...that ID doesn’t explain any life forms...that ID isn’t supported by any published scientists, etc.

All of those complaints are too broad.

Intelligent Design is provable and supported by published scientists (e.g. transgenic lab species) and falsifiable (e.g. bias in a system).

In contrast, it is Evolutionary Theory that has no published, peer-reviewed falsification criteria.

[atlaw]

All of those complaints are too broad.

As is your apparent assertion that man's intelligent ability to manipulate the molecular components of nature means that the molecular components of nature were themselves the product of intelligent design.

Such as contention is so broad as to be effectively meaningless.

[muawiyah]

OK, the scientists who've worked in recombinant DNA projects are dumb as a board.

Is that satisfactory?

They don't know anything, least of all philosophy.

Or, alternatively, you can think about it a tad and say "Hey, the scientists are intelligent and they designed something".

Did you know there are thousands of people in science who strongly suspect that many of the various organisms we encounter in Earth's oceans are simply parts of things that came in from "out there"?

[muawiyah]

The conclusion is that the bacteria in question has a sophisticated immune system with some very powerful tools not generally available to vertebrates (for example).

As you recover from your next head cold (caused by a virus) you will observe that the functioning of your immune system does not cause you to evolve.

Now, regarding "evolving" some parts of your genome clearly indicate that some of your ancestors were bacteria and viruses.

[muawiyah]

Real Christians would be glad to know Jesus had smart friends.

[atlaw]

Or, alternatively, you can think about it a tad and say "Hey, the scientists are intelligent and they designed something".

So what? I'm seriously at a loss to see the significance (or logic) in this line of reasoning. The reasoning seems to be that because scientists can intelligently manipulate a pig's genetic components to make human growth hormone, the pigs starting genetic components (or maybe the whole pig) must have been intelligently designed.

Extending this logic, because scientists can intelligently manipulate sand into silicon chips, does that mean sand was intelligently designed?

[muawiyah]

You are both in error ~ in whole or in part ~ bacteria have such sophisticated immune systems they can BORROW GENES from other bacterial strains to protect themselves.

Don't make the error of confounding the individual bacteria cells with the real entity which is the "bacterial mat". In the end, after all the cutting and pasting, the mat will still look the same and all your tests for verifying one or the other bacterial species (if that's even an appropriate term for a critter that can borrow genes from other species) will continue to tell you what kind of bacteria it is ~ albeit with some markers that may or may not identify the "strain".

[freespirited]

But there was no metamorphis. DNA didn't change in the survivors from pre-test to post-test.

Perhaps I wasn't clear. We're talking about over subsequent generations. To the contrary, the DNA of the gene pool does change over time.

[muawiyah]

You mean Brahma didn’t wake?

[muawiyah]

It was your mistake to define ID as being Creationism. Since ID can and does stand alone as a meaningful term, why don't you put it this way ~ that there are some Creationists who claim their process (false interpretation of Genesis) is actually ID.

I see no reason to give up all the good, short, concise terminology to the Creationists.

[freespirited]

Good lord, muawiyah. You’re not even talking about the same thing.

I am talking about the frequency of allelles in the total gene pool of future generations of the bacteria over time. I am not talking about my immune system or any characteristic of the initial bacteria.

If you want to argue against the notion of natural selection, perhaps you should consider the Postal Service as a case in point?

:-)