Cerritos profs weigh in on intelligent design

PvM posted Entry 1428 on August 31, 2005 11:16 PM.
Trackback URL: http://www.pandasthumb.org/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.fcgi/1424

Diona Carrillo reports on four Cerritos College science instructors who are bravely standing up against intelligent design.

“Intelligent design is a philosophy, it is not a theory, it’s not a scientific theory, it’s not even a scientific hypothesis; it’s a belief,” Constance Boardman, biology instructor said.

The instructors have realized that ID is nothing more than a gap theory

An emphasis on weaknesses or “holes” and gaps in evolution, is the heart of the intelligent-design movement.

And they point out how being a Christian and a scientist who accepts evolutionary theory are not contradictory

“Many people believe that one cannot be a both a scientist and a Christian. I always get questions from my students about how I can subscribe to the theory of evolution and still be a Christian. Science and religion are not mutually exclusive – they are simply two ways of looking at how the world works. One is not better than the other; they’re just different. I think it would truly astonish the general public if they knew how many scientists do hold religious beliefs,” Bellas said.

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Comment #45994

Posted by Creationist Troll (don't feed me) on August 31, 2005 11:36 PM (e)

If God is not observable then we have to assume he doesn’t exist…It doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist, that just means as long as we’re in the science laboratory we cannot use God as part of our empirical study,” Lewellen said.

If evolution is not observable then we have to assume that it doesn’t exist…It doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist, that just means as long as we’re in the science laboratory we cannot use evolution as part of our empirical study,” Lewellen said.

Comment #45997

Posted by darwinfinch on August 31, 2005 11:58 PM (e)

Translation of CT “heh,heh> But this is eleven.”

Comment #45999

Posted by delphi_ote on September 1, 2005 12:09 AM (e)

If evolution is observable then we have to assume it does exist…It does mean it exists, and that just means as long as we’re in the science laboratory we may use evolution as part of our empirical study.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html

Comment #46002

Posted by steve on September 1, 2005 12:53 AM (e)

NIGEL: Don’t touch it! Don’t touch it! No one…no one…no! Don’t

touch it.

MARTY: Well uh I wasn’t…uh I wasn’t gonna touch it…I was just pointing

at it…I….

NIGEL: Well don’t point, even.

MARTY: Don’t even point?

NIGEL: No. It can’t be played…never…I mean I….

MARTY: Can I look at it?

NIGEL: No. No you’ve seen enough of that one.

MARTY: Don’t look at it.

NIGEL: This is a top to a, you know, what we use on stage, but it’s

very…very special because if you can see…

MARTY: Yeah…

NIGEL: …the numbers all go to eleven. Look…right across the board.

MARTY: Ahh…oh, I see….

NIGEL: Eleven…eleven…eleven….

MARTY: …and most of these amps go up to ten….

NIGEL: Exactly.

MARTY: Does that mean it’s…louder? Is it any louder?

NIGEL: Well, it’s one louder, isn’t it? It’s not ten. You see,

most…most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You’re on ten

here…all the way up…all the way up….

MARTY: Yeah….

NIGEL: …all the way up. You’re on ten on your guitar…where can you go

from there? Where?

MARTY: I don’t know….

NIGEL: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is if we need that extra…push over

the cliff…you know what we do?

MARTY: Put it up to eleven.

NIGEL: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.

MARTY: Why don’t you just make ten louder and make ten be the top…

number…and make that a little louder?

NIGEL: …these go to eleven.

Comment #46023

Posted by Moses on September 1, 2005 7:09 AM (e)

Oh! Oh! Me too! Me too! Let’s see if I can use ignorance and fallacies to contribute to the dumbing down of science and bring back the flat-earth!:

If gravity is not observable then we have to assume that it doesn’t exist…It doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist, that just means as long as we’re in the science laboratory we cannot use gravity as part of our empirical study,” Lewellen said.

Comment #46026

Posted by mattitude on September 1, 2005 7:41 AM (e)

“He died in a bizarre gardening accident some years back…”

“It’s really one of those things…it was…you know the authorities said…best leave it… unsolved, really.”

Can we put Deaths of Spinal Tap drummers in the category of the unobservable too?

Comment #46046

Posted by Josh Narins on September 1, 2005 9:00 AM (e)

Novel genes and functions have evolved.

I suspect some people won’t be happy until an amoeba grows an eye, and there will be some nutcase going “God put that eye on that amoeba to test our faith!”

Comment #46051

Posted by Bayesian Bouffant, FCD on September 1, 2005 9:26 AM (e)

Wow, Cerritos is a small community college. They don’t even have any departments with “bio” in the name. Brave.

Comment #46063

Posted by Dave on September 1, 2005 10:39 AM (e)

Nice summary of the ID affair at the Grauniad by Richard Dawkins and Jerry Coyne. Haven’t seen it linked anywhere here yet.

Look! A link!

Comment #46070

Posted by Katarina on September 1, 2005 11:06 AM (e)

Dave,

Wonderful article! Thanks!

Comment #46076

Posted by Ken Shackleton on September 1, 2005 11:44 AM (e)

[quote]

If God is not observable then we have to assume he doesn’t exist…It doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist, that just means as long as we’re in the science laboratory we cannot use God as part of our empirical study,” Lewellen said.

[/quote]

This would be better stated if it was changed as follows:

If God is not observable, then His existence [or lack thereof] must be ignored for the purposes of scientific investigation.

Comment #46103

Posted by Chris on September 1, 2005 4:32 PM (e)

I would go a bit further… instead of “God” use the word “Supernatural” – because it is this aspect of God (being outside of that which is observable through nature) that takes God out of the scientific equation. I think God wants it that way. Otherwise, there would be all sorts of measurable phenomena with no otherwise “natural” explanation :)

Comment #46122

Posted by Ron Okimoto on September 1, 2005 9:13 PM (e)

Wow, Cerritos is a small community college. They don’t even have any departments with “bio” in the name. Brave.

As a high school student I took Fortran at Cerritos and the enrollment was 13,000 students in 1973. The University of Arkansas only had around 15,000 students when I got a position there in 1996. Cerritos was only a two year junior college. I don’t know what it is today, but I bet you can’t call it small.