Comment #13538

Posted by Mike Walker on January 13, 2005 11:25 AM (e) (s)

Congratulations to the judge for seeing through all the obfuscations and half-truths used by the defenders of the stickers in attempting to hide their religious intent.

That’s going to stir the right-wing pundits into a frenzy for sure.

Comment #13541

Posted by Nick (Matzke) on January 13, 2005 11:44 AM (e) (s)

That pdf appears to be damaged and won’t open.  If someone finds a working version of the file, please post the link.

Comment #13543

Posted by RBH on January 13, 2005 11:50 AM (e) (s)

The URL for the decision has two dots preceding the “pdf”, but eliminating one of them gets a “Page not found” error.  Hmmm.

Comment #13545

Posted by Joel on January 13, 2005 12:01 PM (e) (s)

Just go here to access the PDF.

http://www.gand.uscourts.gov…

Comment #13548

Posted by RBH on January 13, 2005 12:12 PM (e) (s)

Here’s a good URL for the decision.  I just got it there.

RBH

Comment #13554

Posted by Bayesian Bouffant on January 13, 2005 12:34 PM (e) (s)

Yay!

Comment #13556

Posted by RBH on January 13, 2005 12:39 PM (e) (s)

On first rapid reading, the Court’s decision decided that the sticker did not violate the first prong of the Lemon test (it has a secular purpose), but does violate the second “effects” prong (excessive entanglement of the state in religion).  The Court also ruled that the sticker violates the Georgia Constitution.  (REmember, I’m not a lawyer!)

Comment #13564

Posted by Chet on January 13, 2005 01:19 PM (e) (s)

Just got off the ‘blog’ at the DI.  They don’t have an entry regarding this decision.  Funny, don’t-cha think? - Yea right.  Maybe it just takes longer to get news out to the west coast.  Yeah I’ll wipe that smirk off my face - someday.

Comment #13572

Posted by Great White Wonder on January 13, 2005 01:42 PM (e) (s)

The system works.

Comment #13580

Posted by Bayesian Bouffant on January 13, 2005 02:28 PM (e) (s)

If you want to see a hefty dose of spin, here’s the report by Agape Press. Note that over half the space is given to “Brian Fahling, an attorney with a Mississippi-based pro-family organization” to comment on how he disagrees with the judge’s decision.

…
“Really what’s going on here is there’s this oppressive orthodoxy that has been institutionalized in the academy and now in our public schools with respect to evolution. You can’t question it,” he says in reference to the theory of evolution, “and if anybody does question it, then they’re crushed, both in the science community and the academic community.”
…

That’s rich, since IDC propopents have tried to circumvent the scientific community and take it straight to school boards.

Comment #13581

Posted by Jeff on January 13, 2005 02:40 PM (e) (s)

While this is certainly good news from a Constitutional perspective, I’m not sure it’s good news from an intellectual perspective - broadly speaking. I see the inclusion of Creation “Science” in the public schools as an opportunity for sound science to shine. For the competent instructor, making the case for evolution in contrast to Creation “Science” is child’s play. Let’s call their bluff and put this nonsense to rest. What better way to teach the value of science than to put it up against the religious ramblings of fanatics - there’s no contest here.

Comment #13583

Posted by David Heddle on January 13, 2005 02:49 PM (e) (s)

As an IDer, the ruling doesn’t bother me at all, inasmuch as it applies to ID. (It bothers me a great deal that the judge can tell the school system what to do, but that is independent of ID. And if it doesn’t bother you, it should, because the next judge might decree the opposite.)

I don’t think the stickers would have any effect on any young mind, one way or the other. I never understood why you guys got so upset about them.

I would have simply laughed if we had “Relativity is a theory not a fact.” stickers in our physics books.

At some level, “X is a theory not a fact” is manifestly true, unless you claim that X is complete, accurate, not subject to modification, and thoroughly tested to arbitrary accuracy.

When you teach science, it either stands or falls on its own merits, not some silly sticker.

Comment #13586

Posted by Great White Wonder on January 13, 2005 02:57 PM (e) (s)

I’m not too enthusiastic about the first 30 or so pages of the Judge’s opinion, in spite of the fact I agree with the final result.

The opinion seems to me to approve of double-speak by religious people to some extent, at least with respect to the first two prongs of the Lemon test.

Moreover, as School Board member Laura Searcy  pointed out at trial, evolution was the only topic in the curriculum, scientific or  otherwise, that was creating controversy at the time of the adopt-ion of the textbooks  and Sticker.  The School Board’s singling out of evolution is understandable in this  context, and the undisputed fact that there are other scientific theories with religious  implications that are not mentioned in this Sticker or in others supports the Court’s  conclusion that the Board was not seeking to endorse or advance religion.

I draw the exact opposite conclusion: the Board was seeking to endorse the religious beliefs of those parents who created controversy.  Evolution didn’t create the controversy.  Fundamentalist religious types created the controversy.  The Court appears to be saying that the fact that the religious folks objecting to evolution didn’t object to the earth-centered solar system is crucial, that somehow this “proves” that the objections to evolution are not religiously motivated but “sincerely” about “thinking critically.”

For it’s analaysis of the second prong of the Lemon test, the Court ignores the demonstrable fact that the pitch of the evolution “controversy” has nothing to do with the alleged “weakness” of the theory and everything to do with the fact that the objectors are engaging in a traditional recitation from a century-old script, an activity that religious conservative donors are eager to promote.

Similarly, this paragraph

There is no evidence in this ease that the School Board included the statement  in the Sticker that “evolution is a theory, not a fact” to promote or advance religion.  Indeed, the testimony of the School Board members and the documents 1n the record  all indicate that the School Board relied on counsel to draft language for the sticker  that would pass constitutional muster

seems illogical to me.  Of course any parent with reasonable knowledge of the law who wanted to endorse his or her religious beliefs in class would try to do so in a way that wasn’t blatantly unconstitutional.  How can consultation with a lawyer possibly be cited as evidence against a motivation to endorse religion?  Weird.

As the Fifth Circuit  stated in Freiler, “local school boards need not turn a blind eye to the concerns of  students and parents troubled by the teaching of evolution in public classrooms.”  185 F 3d at 346

The solution to the concerns of religious parents is as obvious as it is distasteful from an educational perspective: students whose parents fear that their religion is threatened by scientific facts should put their children in private schools or be allowed to pull their children from the particular classes which they deem offsensive.  That is a Constitutional accomodation. Why should they be treated any differently than the children of non-religious parents?

The final dozen pages of the opinion are spot-on, of course.  And if I find the analysis somewhat contradictory along the way, I am certain is more likely due to the overlapping nature of the Lemon test prongs than to incompetence by Judge Cooper, who saw through all the baloney at the end of the day.

Following the Court’s reasoning, it would seem difficult for the creationist types to get a special sticker in a particular science textbook without violating the Constitution.  I wonder if they would be satisfied with a general disclaimer, spoken to all the students on the first day of school: “To those students with religious faiths: if your religious faith is genuine, nothing you will be asked to understand in your classrooms can shake that faith.”

Seems reasonable to me.

Comment #13588

Posted by Wesley R. Elsberry on January 13, 2005 03:00 PM (e) (s)

Jeff,

If every high school science teacher were also an advocate of good science instruction, your proposal might have merit. But we know from polls and the like that between one quarter and one third of high school science teachers are antievolutionists themselves. Do you think that they would take the opportunity to expose students to critiques of antievolution, or just present “evidence against evolution”?

Comment #13589

Posted by Great White Wonder on January 13, 2005 03:01 PM (e) (s)

While this is certainly good news from a Constitutional perspective, I’m not sure it’s good news from an intellectual perspective - broadly speaking. I see the inclusion of Creation “Science” in the public schools as an opportunity for sound science to shine. For the competent instructor, making the case for evolution in contrast to Creation “Science” is child’s play. Let’s call their bluff and put this nonsense to rest. What better way to teach the value of science than to put it up against the religious ramblings of fanatics - there’s no contest here.

Other than time limitations, I don’t see any reason why a teacher couldn’t explain why arguments from ignorance, e.g., theories that invoke mysterious intelligent alien beings to explain phenomenon, are scientifically useless.

Comment #13590

Posted by Great White Wonder on January 13, 2005 03:06 PM (e) (s)

Heddle writes

I don’t think the stickers would have any effect on any young mind, one way or the other. I never understood why you guys got so upset about them.

I would have simply laughed if we had “Relativity is a theory not a fact.” stickers in our physics books.

Sure, David, but not everyone is such a child prodigy like you who was able to deduce in high school that all of the world’s biologists were wrong about evolution, but you were right.

Rather than resurrect your opinions about “young minds”, why not go back into the archives and address the questions that were asked of you the first time you voiced that viewpoint here.  I recall that your answers were woefully incomplete and contradictory.  And then you ran away for a while.

Comment #13594

Posted by David Heddle on January 13, 2005 03:14 PM (e) (s)

GWW,

In a sense I agree with you. I reached my conclusions without the help of the sticker—so obviously the sticker would have had no effect on me. If I recall correctly, you said the sticker would not have affected you, because you were smarter than most kids. I recall expressing admiration for your moxie.

So, are there readers here who admit that the sticker would have influenced them?

Comment #13595

Posted by Nick (Matzke) on January 13, 2005 03:17 PM (e) (s)

Posted by RBH on January 13, 2005 12:39 PM

On first rapid reading, the Court’s decision decided that the sticker did not violate the first prong of the Lemon test (it has a secular purpose), but does violate the second “effects” prong (excessive entanglement of the state in religion).  The Court also ruled that the sticker violates the Georgia Constitution.  (REmember, I’m not a lawyer!)

Well, we knew the judge’s decision on the purpose prong ahead of time, because he ruled on that on during the motion to dismiss last year.  He said then that the issue was with the effect prong.  And boy, did he do it — looked at the history of creationism, “theory not fact,” and everything.

Comment #13596

Posted by Jeff on January 13, 2005 03:18 PM (e) (s)

Wesley,

That’s why I qualified my statement with “competent.” If the figures you give are true (I don’t doubt them), then there’s a much bigger problem here than simply religious fanatics encroaching our public schools systems. Biology teachers who take an anti-evolutionary stance are not qualified to teach biology in any possible world. I guess the problem here runs much deeper - oh my.

Comment #13599

Posted by steve on January 13, 2005 03:31 PM (e) (s)

This part of the decision:

Therefore, the Court continues to believe that the School Board sincerely sought to
promote critical thinking in adopting the Sticker to go in the textbooks.

Is indeed wrong, but perhaps the judge was just giving the defendants the benefit of the doubt, since he knew they were going to lose for at least one other reason.

Comment #13601

Posted by C.E. Petit on January 13, 2005 03:34 PM (e) (s)

Mr Heddle, I think you ran precisely into the point that Judge Cooper actually made: that only evolution had been singled out for treatment as “only a [note that the word scientific does not appear here] theory, not a fact.” That is precisely why the secular purpose that he found — which, under the incoherent reasoning he was constrained to follow, he was obligated to find — can’t overcome the so-called “results prong[s].” Had the school board issued a sticker more like this, it might have passed muster under the bizarre standards of review that apply:

This book contains many scientific theories that must be carefully considered. Scientific theories attempt to explain the operation of the universe based upon provable facts, and are constantly revised and refined. This introductory textbook may not describe every possible tangential exception to or variant upon scientific theories.

But it didn’t. And, thus, the sticker fails… because by attempting to isolate the matter from context, it actually allowed/forced Judge Cooper to consider the whole context. Unfortunately, I can’t provide a link directly to my blawg entry of today that goes into considerably greater detail, because the link appears to include language that is offending the anti-vicious-spam system.

Comment #13602

Posted by Joel on January 13, 2005 03:39 PM (e) (s)

In the hope of realizing liberal ideals of toleration and neutrality, this decision will bolster the idea of parental
choice through vouchers or homeschooling.

Comment #13604

Posted by Keanus on January 13, 2005 03:42 PM (e) (s)

The salient paragraph is found on page 42 of the decision. To wit…

In sum, the Sticker in dispute violates the effects prang of the Lemon test and justice O’Connor’s endorsement test, which the Court has incorporated into its Lemon analysis Adopted by the school board, funded by the money of taxpayers, and inserted by school personnel, the Sticker conveys an impermissible message of endorsement and tells some citizens that they are political outsiders while telling others that they are political insiders. Regardless of whether teachers comply with the Cobb County School District’s regulation on theories of origin and regardless of the discussions that actually take place m the Cobb County science classrooms, the Sticker has already sent a message that the School Board agrees with the beliefs of Christian fundamentalists and creationists. The School Board has effectively improperly entangled itself whiz religion by appearing to take a position Therefore, the Sticker must be removed from all of the textbooks into which it has been placed.

And then there is the rest. Having skimmed the first 41 pages, I think the decision is quite narrow, but then it so was the case as argues by the ACLU’s attorney. The issues to be examined in Dover, given the specific mention if ID in the board’s policy, are likely to be very different with the prospect of a broader decision. But that’s an opinion of a voyeur, not a lawyer versed in Constitutional law.

Comment #13605

Posted by Bayesian Bouffant on January 13, 2005 03:50 PM (e) (s)

David Heddle wrote:

I would have simply laughed if we had “Relativity is a theory not a fact.” stickers in our physics books.

At some level, “X is a theory not a fact” is manifestly true, unless you claim that X is complete, accurate, not subject to modification, and thoroughly tested to arbitrary accuracy.

No such stickers were stuck for any other scientific theory: relativity, electromagnetism, atomic theory, etc. So evolution was being singled out for some reason. I don’t imagine the school board would acknowledge encouraging close-mindedness about other theories besides evolution.

That evolution is a theory is true, but as noted by the judge, the word “theory” is used differently in science and in general usage, and the stickers sought to make use of that double usage to cast doubt on evolution, and this was done for reasons that were religious, not scientific.

Comment #13606

Posted by Great White Wonder on January 13, 2005 03:51 PM (e) (s)

I reached my conclusions without the help of the sticker—so obviously the sticker would have had no effect on me.

You have never articulated how you reached your conclusion as a high school student that the world’s biologists were wrong about evolution and you were right.

I suspect you encountered a text that was indistinguishable from the sticker and, given your naivety and predisposition to being a gadfly, you took the ball and ran.

Again, I urge you to revisit the archives and examine your previous statements.  You were all over the place with your assertions about “worldviews” and other nonsense.

Bottom line, though: the claim that disclaimers can not influence anyone’s position on a subject is indefensible.  You might as well argue that humans don’t need oxygen to survive.  It’s that stupid.

Comment #13609

Posted by Keanus on January 13, 2005 04:02 PM (e) (s)

The specific of the decision, that is where the sticker violated the Establishment Clause, are found in the paragraph that bridges pages 33-34. It’s as follows…

The critical language in the Sticker that supports the conclusion that the Sucker runs afoul of the Establishment Clause is the statement that “[e]volution is a theory, not a fact, concerning the origin of living things” This statement as not problematic because of its truth or falsity, although testimony from various witnesses at trial and the amicus brief submitted by the Colorado Citizens for Science, et al , suggest that the statement is not entirely accurate. Rather, the first problem with this language is that there has been a lengthy debate between advocates of evolution and proponents of religious theories of origin specifically concerning whether evolution should be taught as a fact or as a theory, and the School Board appears to have sided with the proponents of religious theories of origin in violation of the Establishment Clause. As the Supreme Court stated in County of Allegheny v. American Civil Liberties Union, 492 U S 573,593-94,109 S Ct 3086, 106 L Ed 2d 472 (1989), “[t]he Establishment Clause, at the very least, prohibits government from appearing to take a position on questions of religious belief,” and this is exactly what the School Board appears to have done.

Comment #13610

Posted by David Heddle on January 13, 2005 04:05 PM (e) (s)

GWW,

Well, I am waiting for someone to admit they were feeble minded enough that a stupid sticker would have turned them into a Fallwellian fundamentalist.

I think you are referring to why I did not buy evolution in high school? What’s the point, you won’t accept any answer. It was not because of religion, because I wasn’t a Christian in high school.

I mostly remember thinking there wasn’t enough time—a criticism that I still believe is valid. However, my decision may have also had a large “gut feeling” component.

Our books were perfectly orthodox—no stickers, no reference to creationism, it was a public school. They probably had falsified embryonic sequences, but I don’t think that would have played a part in my decision.

Comment #13611

Posted by Keanus on January 13, 2005 04:08 PM (e) (s)

The specific of the decision, that is where the sticker violated the Establishment Clause, are found in the paragraph that bridges pages 33-34. It’s as follows…

The critical language in the Sticker that supports the conclusion that the Sucker runs afoul of the Establishment Clause is the statement that “[e]volution is a theory, not a fact, concerning the origin of living things” This statement as not problematic because of its truth or falsity, although testimony from various witnesses at trial and the amicus brief submitted by the Colorado Citizens for Science, et al , suggest that the statement is not entirely accurate. Rather, the first problem with this language is that there has been a lengthy debate between advocates of evolution and proponents of religious theories of origin specifically concerning whether evolution should be taught as a fact or as a theory, and the School Board appears to have sided with the proponents of religious theories of origin in violation of the Establishment Clause. As the Supreme Court stated in County of Allegheny v. American Civil Liberties Union, 492 U S 573,593-94,109 S Ct 3086, 106 L Ed 2d 472 (1989), “[t]he Establishment Clause, at the very least, prohibits government from appearing to take a position on questions of religious belief,” and this is exactly what the School Board appears to have done.

Note the judge’s citation of the amicus brief from the Colorado Citizens for Science. The judge gives that brief a somewhat of a back hand in the decision, I suspect it was influential to some degree in bringing him to his conclusion. I trust those of you associated with other groups who would consider filing  brief in the Dover case will certainly put them in contact with the plaintiffs’ attorneys. Amicus briefs in cases like this are always important (an amicus brief is conidered to have turned the tide in Aquillar vs. Edwards, if I remember correctly.

Comment #13614

Posted by Aggie Nostic on January 13, 2005 04:21 PM (e) (s)

I have to be honest here and question the use of the “Establishment Cause” as a rationale for doing the right thing. I’ve read the text of the debates that occurred in the various states, which submitted amendments to the new U.S. Constitution.

Those states that were interested in inserting language, which would become our First Amendment, offered the amendment because they did not want the federal government to intrude in their space since they had state religions to defend. Their intent was to prevent the federal government from establishing a national religion that would supersede their own state’s religion.

Now, while one can argue the wisdom (or lack thereof) of an individual state having an official religion, it doesn’t undermine the original rationale for inserting language into the Constitution in the first place, which was to prevent the establishment of an official national religion.

While the language of the stickers was surely religiously-motivated, I’m not sure leaving them in place would have established a national religion.

Comment #13615

Posted by Aggie Nostic on January 13, 2005 04:32 PM (e) (s)

I don’t think the stickers would have any effect on any young mind, one way or the other. I never understood why you guys got so upset about them. I would have simply laughed if we had “Relativity is a theory not a fact.” stickers in our physics books.

Obviously, the leaders of the ID movement think differently. Otherwise (presumably?) they wouldn’t have wasted people’s time and money advocating the stickers.

You do bring up a good point, though. If ID leaders are interested in students knowing fact from theory, why didn’t they advocate a sticker for all science disciplines? I’ll tell you why: Because evolutionary science is the only one that forces them to confront a contradiction between reality and their worship of the Protestant Bible as without error.

Comment #13616

Posted by Mike Hopkins on January 13, 2005 04:36 PM (e) (s)

I am converting the PDF into HTML for the Archive.  Due to the quality of the scan, copying the PDF document into a text document results in word “sticker” sometimes being rendered as “sucker”. 

It is sort of appropriate….

—
Anti-spam: Replace “user” with “harlequin2”

Comment #13617

Posted by Bayesian Bouffant on January 13, 2005 04:38 PM (e) (s)

Aggie Nostic wrote:

I have to be honest here and question the use of the “Establishment Cause” as a rationale for doing the right thing. I’ve read the text of the debates that occurred in the various states, which submitted amendments to the new U.S. Constitution.
…
While the language of the stickers was surely religiously-motivated, I’m not sure leaving them in place would have established a national religion.

For context, you need to look at the 14th amendment as well, which spreads constitutional limits to the state governments as well as the national government, and look at the history of judicial interpretation of the first amendment.

Comment #13618

Posted by Aggie Nostic on January 13, 2005 04:38 PM (e) (s)

I don’t think the stickers would have any effect on any young mind, one way or the other. I never understood why you guys got so upset about them. I would have simply laughed if we had “Relativity is a theory not a fact.” stickers in our physics books.

Obviously, the leaders of the ID movement think differently. Otherwise (presumably?) they wouldn’t have wasted people’s time and money advocating the stickers.

You do bring up a good point, though. If ID leaders are interested in students knowing fact from theory, why didn’t they advocate a sticker for all science disciplines? I’ll tell you why: Because evolutionary science is the only one that forces them to confront a contradiction between reality and their worship of the Protestant Bible as without error.

Comment #13619

Posted by Jan Theodore Galkowski on January 13, 2005 04:45 PM (e) (s)

I would have simply laughed if we had “Relativity is a theory not a fact.” stickers in our physics books.

At some level, “X is a theory not a fact” is manifestly true, unless you claim that X is complete, accurate, not subject to modification, and thoroughly tested to arbitrary accuracy.

When you teach science, it either stands or falls on its own merits, not some silly sticker.

Well if someone did question physical relativity as being in dispute, they would be on far firmer ground than anyone is on evolution.

Besides, things don’t get accepted in science because someone can dream them up, even if they spend a lot of time, sincere effort, and money doing it.  They need concurrence of the scientific community and experimental tests.  Wolfram has this idea that physical reality is best described as discrete automata.  He even has a couple of people working on the hypothesis as well.  Does that make it a candidate worthy for teaching in schools?  Of course not.  Do you see Wolfram protesting like IDers and creationists do?  Of course not.  He knows what’s needed.  Should he continuing pursuing his hypothesis?  Of course he should.  And he has class.  Unlike …

Comment #13620

Posted by Aggie Nostic on January 13, 2005 04:49 PM (e) (s)

For context, you need to look at the 14th amendment as well, which spreads constitutional limits to the state governments as well as the national government, and look at the history of judicial interpretation of the first amendment.

That’s true, if I was interested in “context” related to how post-ratification interpretations were made. However, I was interested in the original motivations behind the First Amendment.

Comment #13622

Posted by Colin on January 13, 2005 05:10 PM (e) (s)

That’s great, Aggie (Texas A&M?), but it ignores the fact that incorporation is the law of the land.  Like it or not, the bill of rights applies to state governments.  If you’re purely interested in restoring the 18th century vision of government that the intervening interpretations have modified, that’s great, but then textbook disclaimers are going to be the very least of your issues.

Comment #13623

Posted by Jan Theodore Galkowski on January 13, 2005 05:17 PM (e) (s)

The system works.

GWW, before we get all misty-eyed, recall what possible-Chief-Justice-of-SCOTUS wrote in his dissent on Edwards v Aguillard:

Witnesses had informed the legislators that, because of the hostility of most scientists and educators to creation science, the topic had been censored from or badly misrepresented in elementary [p631] and secondary school texts. In light of the unavailability of works on creation science suitable for classroom use (a fact appellees concede, see Brief for Appellees 27, 40) and the existence of ample materials on evolution, it was entirely reasonable for the legislature to conclude that science teachers attempting to implement the Act would need a curriculum guide on creation science, but not on evolution, and that those charged with developing the guide would need an easily accessible group of creation scientists. …
The people of Louisiana, including those who are Christian fundamentalists, are quite entitled, as a secular matter, to have whatever scientific evidence there may be against evolution presented in their schools, just as Mr. Scopes was entitled to present whatever scientific evidence there was for it. Perhaps what the Louisiana Legislature has done is unconstitutional because there is no such evidence, and the scheme they have established will amount to no more than a presentation of the Book of Genesis. But we cannot say that on the evidence before us in this summary judgment context, which includes ample uncontradicted testimony that “creation science” is a body of scientific knowledge, rather than revealed belief. Infinitely less can we say (or should we say) that the scientific evidence for evolution is so conclusive that no one could be gullible enough to believe that there is any real scientific evidence to the contrary, so that the legislation’s stated purpose must be a lie. Yet that illiberal judgment, that Scopes-in-reverse, is ultimately the basis on which the Court’s facile rejection of the Louisiana Legislature’s purpose must rest.

Winning one case is not the war, and even if SCOTUS were to enshrine creationism or ID on equal terms with scientific fact, it would not make them right and science wrong.  It would be a very, very sad day for the United States, but it would not make the Court or creationism or ID right.

Alas, it may come to this.  I do not see the public caring enough about reality to come to science’s defense.  Remember, once upon a time, it was not only school where people learned science.  People were curious.  Today they are busy trying to win the lottery.

But your spirit was right, and this surely is a victory, as was Edwards v Aguillard.  And the SCOTUS is the least predictable branch of the Federal.  Scalia may not get the roost.  And, even if he does, he might change.  It what jurists do.

Comment #13624

Posted by Great White Wonder on January 13, 2005 05:28 PM (e) (s)

Aggie

While the language of the stickers was surely religiously-motivated, I’m not sure leaving them in place would have established a national religion.

I am grateful that the test for violating the Establishment Clause is not based on a determination as to whether a Federally funded activity is certain to “establish a national religion.”

Being in the majority, Christians in this country love to pretend that the framers wanted Christianity to be extolled by governments on a daily basis as the source of all that is good about Amurikkka.

I don’t buy it and neither do a majority of the Supremes.  It’ll be a sad day for religious minorities and non-religious people in this country if that ever changes.  Of course, it’s sad that we have to defend science from being redefined by Christians in 2005 but until they realize that this country wasn’t created to coddle Biblical literalism and willful ignorance,  I don’t expect much to change.  And if were Judge Cooper, I would have added some comments to that effect to my opinion.

Comment #13625

Posted by Reed A. Cartwright on January 13, 2005 05:30 PM (e) (s)

Man, I finally get a good chunk of sleep and this is what I miss.

Comment #13626

Posted by Longhorn on January 13, 2005 05:32 PM (e) (s)

According to David Heddle: “As an IDer, the ruling doesn’t bother me at all, inasmuch as it applies to ID. (It bothers me a great deal that the judge can tell the school system what to do, but that is independent of ID. And if it doesn’t bother you, it should, because the next judge might decree the opposite.)”

David, what do you think the designer did?  Specifically, what event(s) do you believe the designer proximately caused?  Did it turn inert matter — poof! — directly into two elephants (one male and one female)?  What evidence, if any, suggests that this happened?  I ask because no person I’ve seen identify him or herself as an “IDer” has offered a clear hypothesis on what he or she thinks the designer did.  It would be good to have such a hypothesis.

Comment #13628

Posted by Great White Wonder on January 13, 2005 05:41 PM (e) (s)

Jan,

My post went around one side of the barn while yours came around the other.  Of course, we both agree on the essentials.

Scalia’s dissent includes quite a few caveats that underscore the weakness of his position, most significantly his discusion of the lack of “evidence before us” regarding the bogusness of “creation science.”  I don’t know all the details of the posture of that case but it appears to me that the lack of credibility and pseudoscientific natures of “creation science” is now documented beyond a reasonable doubt.

It takes only a few minutes for a reasonable person to deduce that apparently credible (i.e., educated) apologists like David Heddle or David Springer are, in fact, non-expert cranks reciting arguments from incredulity from the ancient creationist playbook.

Comment #13633

Posted by Air Bear on January 13, 2005 06:03 PM (e) (s)

And the SCOTUS is the least predictable branch of the Federal.  Scalia may not get the roost.  And, even if he does, he might change.  It what jurists do.

I hope you’re right, but frankly I doubt it.  Given the general political climate in this country right now, you can expect Chief Justice Scalia to make sure that this decision will be overturned in a big way.

Comment #13639

Posted by DaveScot on January 13, 2005 06:32 PM (e) (s)

David Heddle,

I don’t wonder why the evolutionists are so upset.  You shouldn’t either.

You and I have physical laws of nature in our professions.  We don’t rely on inference.  The law of gravity, the laws of thermodynamics, Ohm’s law, boolean algebra, etc.  All of these are based on empirical observation and are called laws for a reason.  Evolutionists do not have the equivalent.  There’re no laws of evolution.  It’s called a theory and that’s for good reason too.  Aside from empirical observation of trivial adaptations that may or may not result in speciation (biologists can’t even agree on what a species is) they have nothing but inference about the mechanism or mechanisms that created non-trivial differentiation in the remote past. Macro-evolution is a bunch of forensic guesswork and it will probably never be more than that.  It’s as much science as the study of how the pyramids were constructed.  I’d call it history, not science.  If I was an evolutionist I too would be damned awful touchy when someone pointed out what a soft science it is.

That’s not to say the study of contemporaneous living things isn’t hard science.  That study is based on empirical evidence.  It’s a hard science.  Evolutionists obviously want to be accepted as hard scientists and they’re afraid of the public finding out they are not after all the decades of indoctrinating children in their dogmatic beliefs.  It’s quite understanable.  Intellectually dishonest but understandable.

Comment #13642

Posted by Mike on January 13, 2005 06:39 PM (e) (s)

Hilarious.  I finally figured out Dave is nothing more than a troll.  Shouldn’t you be on usenet?  Or under a bridge somewhere?

Comment #13644

Posted by noob on January 13, 2005 06:47 PM (e) (s)

If there’s a cosmologist who specializes in Intelligent Design Cosmology around, please answer the following question for me:

We can talk about how improbable something is only if we have information about the number of other possibilities, and their likelihood. We can say that rolling a 3 on a regular dice twice in a row is a little unlikely, or we could say there’s a 1 in 36 chance, because we know that there are 5 other equally likely possibilities with each roll, and that the two rolls are independent. The info about other probabilities doesn’t always have to be perfect, but at least semi-quantitative info is necessary to get an idea about the odds.

We don’t even have to be within an order of magnitude to say something’s unlikely, provided we have at least some info about those other probabilities. We could say that the odds of flipping a coin 43 times in a row and getting heads is really unlikely without using a calculator at all. We just have to have a little bit of knowledge, in this case that heads on each flip is about 50% likely, and .5^43 is a really really high number.

So my question is, you ID Cosmologists say (for instance) that it’s really unlikely some constant has some particular value, where’s your information about what other values the constant could have, and how likely those are?

Obviously, you can’t just suppose that any Real number is equally likely, because the probabilities have to normalize to 1. If you want to say—to make up an example—that it’s really unlikely that we live in a universe where some constant = 137, you have to have at least a vague idea what other values the constant could have had. In other words, you have to have some idea of the probability distribution to estimate the probability of a particular outcome.
  This is basic, undergrad statistics stuff. You can say how unlikely it is that a human is between 6’7” and 6’8” because we have approximate that height is ‘normally distributed’ with a mean of this and a variance of that. We can say how unlikely it is that a roll of a dice gives the result 2 because we know that the results are distributed equally over 6 possibilities. So when you say such and such a constant is unlikely, what’s your info about the distribution of the alternatives? How likely is it that in a randomly given universe the constant is 139.34? or 8.939 +/- 0.2? What’s the distribution of possibilities?  If you don’t have some reliable info about the probability distribution, you can’t say an outcome is likely or unlikely. So what’s the probability distribution for, say, the fine structure constant? Please provide me with a function which cosmologists agree even approximates the probability distribution for the fine structure constant. Or any constant in the standard model. And if you can’t, please stop talking about how probable this or that value is.

Comment #13645

Posted by DaveScot on January 13, 2005 06:50 PM (e) (s)

Here’s a very good, concise description of hard vs. soft sciences.

http://silvert.home.sapo.pt/notions/ecology/hardsoft.htm…

It’s written by an ecologist which is by his own admission a soft science.  Here’s some apt excerpts:

The strict school will have none of this - what matters is being scientific, not doing science. That is how they keep the soft sciences soft. By setting absurd standards that discourage creative thinking they inhibit our ability to understand the natural world, and thus maintain a sterile respectability.

This brings to mind standards like falsification and dogmatic clinging to materialism.

Even so, the followers of Karl Popper have an impact and their ability to impede the progress of science should not be underestimated. Whenever a potentially useful principle raises its head in the soft sciences there will be those ready to smack it into the ground, as criticisms of the Competitive Exclusion Principle show.

Smack it into the ground like the smacking down of the principle that complex machines performing an identifiable, useful purpose have design input before they are materially realized.  This is the case for EVERY machine where the origin of the machine can be determined.  Materialists discount purpose and design in nature out of hand because purpose implies intelligence and intelligence is anathema to a materialist universe.

Comment #13647

Posted by Mike on January 13, 2005 06:54 PM (e) (s)

Dave, what did this intelligence actually do?  Because it sure doesn’t seem like it did anything.  Where and how did “it” get involved?

Comment #13648

Posted by Mike on January 13, 2005 07:02 PM (e) (s)

I also imagine the courts that are executing people based on forensic evidence might be interested to learn that it’s also soft science.

Comment #13651

Posted by caerbannog on January 13, 2005 07:08 PM (e) (s)

DaveScot said:

Smack it into the ground like the smacking down of the principle that complex machines performing an identifiable, useful purpose have design input before they are materially realized.  This is the case for EVERY machine where the origin of the machine can be determined.  Materialists discount purpose and design in nature out of hand because purpose implies intelligence and intelligence is anathema to a materialist universe.

Most complex machines with identifiable, useful purposes are *not* products of a single designer, but instead are products of teams of designers — designers with human limitations, designers who make mistakes, designers who are not always very competent.  Thus the notion of intelligent design is totally incompatible with the Judeo-Christian notion of an omnipotent, onniscient deity; however, it *is* entirely compatible with the limited, imperfect gods of ancient Greek and Roman paganism.

“Intelligent Design Theory” isn’t science, and it isn’t monotheism; it’s nothing more than old-fashioned paganism. 

Why do you insist on rubbing your paganism in everyone else’s face here?

Comment #13652

Posted by Pete on January 13, 2005 07:26 PM (e) (s)

GWW wrote:

Other than time limitations, I don’t see any reason why a teacher couldn’t explain why arguments from ignorance, e.g., theories that invoke mysterious intelligent alien beings to explain phenomenon, are scientifically useless.

Here’s a thriller.

The whole thing is about grown ups driven nuts by anti-science propaganda.  The kids are just an excuse.

Comment #13653

Posted by David Heddle on January 13, 2005 07:32 PM (e) (s)

Aggie Nostic wrote, on why IDers don’t advocate stickers for all disciplines:

Because evolutionary science is the only one that forces them to confront a contradiction between reality and their worship of the Protestant Bible as without error.

No, I fight with fundamentalists all the time who think my old earth cosmology contradicts an inerrant bible.

Regarding my comment that the stickers can’t change minds, Aggie wrote:

Obviously, the leaders of the ID movement think differently. Otherwise (presumably?) they wouldn’t have wasted people’s time and money advocating the stickers.

So true, and so is this statement: Obviously, the leaders of evolutionary science think differently. Otherwise (presumably?) they wouldn’t have wasted people’s time and money advocating the removal of the stickers.

Jan wrote:

Well if someone did question physical relativity as being in dispute, they would be on far firmer ground than anyone is on evolution.

That is crazy—relativity has been tested to something like twenty decimal places—there is no way evolution can compare favorably to such precision. That is a bad argument for your side. With the rest of your comment, you seem to have made the false assumption that I advocated teaching ID in school.

Longhorn wrote:

David, what do you think the designer did?  Specifically, what event(s) do you believe the designer proximately caused?

Very fair question. I think He caused the big bang, with just the right parameters so that the universe was created with the ability to support life.

DaveScot: biologists do have an inferiority complex when it comes to comparisons with physics. But they’ll never admit it!

Noob asks:

So my question is, you ID Cosmologists say (for instance) that it’s really unlikely some constant has some particular value, where’s your information about what other values the constant could have, and how likely those are?

(Do you guys have a set of questions you ask? This is the n’th time I’ve seen this one) Okay, we don’t have to be able to calculate precise probabilities nor do we need a large sample of universes to see how unlikely ours is. Here is the example I used before. Compare these two imaginary cosmological discoveries:

(1) Only if the expansion rate is anywhere within a factor of 1000 can the universe produce galaxies

(2) Only if the expansion rate does not vary within one part in 10⁶⁰ can the universe produce galaxies

Then it should be obvious that if (2) is true then we are much “luckier” than if (1) is true. Thus you can say something qualitative about the likelihood of the universe without assigning probabilities.

As for constants, i.e. coupling constants, there is no present theory that says why they should have the values they have. No big deal, unless it is shown (as it has been, by non-ID scientists) that if they varied just a little then poof— no life. Now that says something about our “luck.” (And, by the way, it says something about our luck independent of ID.)

Noob also wrote

And if you can’t, please stop talking about how probable this or that value is.

That’s an easy request for me to comply with, since I never said anything about how probable this or that value is. Can you point out where I provided a numerical probability for something?

Comment #13654

Posted by Longhorm on January 13, 2005 07:32 PM (e) (s)

According to Dave Scott:

“You and I have physical laws of nature in our professions.  We don’t rely on inference.  The law of gravity, the laws of thermodynamics, Ohm’s law, boolean algebra, etc.  All of these are based on empirical observation and are called laws for a reason.  Evolutionists do not have the equivalent.  There’re no laws of evolution.  It’s called a theory and that’s for good reason too.  Aside from empirical observation of trivial adaptations that may or may not result in speciation (biologists can’t even agree on what a species is) they have nothing but inference about the mechanism or mechanisms that created non-trivial differentiation in the remote past. Macro-evolution is a bunch of forensic guesswork and it will probably never be more than that.  It’s as much science as the study of how the pyramids were constructed.  I’d call it history, not science.  If I was an evolutionist I too would be damned awful touchy when someone pointed out what a soft science it is.”

Dave, no person has witnessed a rodent-like mammal evolve into a human.  But that no person has witnessed an alleged event does not enable one to justifiably believe that the event did not occur.  No person has seen a living T-Rex, and I’m quite sure that some T-Rexes ate other animals.  No person has seen planet earth 65 million years ago, and I’m quite sure that planet earth existed 65 million years ago.  No person saw the universe 10 billion years ago, and I’m quite sure it existed 10 billion years ago.  No person has seen the core of planet earth, and I’m quite sure it’s not made of cream-cheese.  So that no person has seen a rodent-like mammal evolve into a human does not enable one to justifiably believe that it didn’t happen.

In fact, the other day I was walking my dog.  I made sure no person was around.  We walked up to a fire hydrant.  As soon as my dog lifted its leg, I closed my eyes.  One minute later, I opened my eyes.  My dog looked relieved.  The fire hydrant was covered in dog pee.  I’m justified in believing that my dog peed on it. 

Dave, what did the designer do?  What event(s) did it proximately cause?  Did it turn inert matter directly into two T-Rexes?  Two hippopotamuses?  Two brontosauruses?  Two aardvarks?  Two ferrets?  Two humans?  And what evidence, if any, suggests that this happened?

I’m overwhelmingly justified in believing that the first two organisms that I would identify as humans were born in the same way that I was born.  Interesting things get born.  That’s how I got here. 

As for evolution being “history” or a “soft science.”  Whatever you call evolution, it is clear that it happened.  Here is an article that includes some of the data that supports common descent: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/…

I recommend Ernst Mayr’s book What Evolution Is.  It is fairly clear and fairly comprehensive, and it’s digestible for most readers. 

There is the issue of certainty.  I don’t know much, if anything, for certain.  But I’m very justified in believing that all organisms to have lived on earth descended from single-celled microorganisms.  And it is very clear that reproductive success and time have played huge roles in bringing about the diversity of life on planet earth.

Comment #13655

Posted by Mike on January 13, 2005 07:33 PM (e) (s)

…after reading that link, it appears we should be driven nuts by the pitiful state of the education system.

Comment #13656

Posted by Longhorm on January 13, 2005 07:43 PM (e) (s)

According to David Heddle, “Very fair question. I think He caused the big bang, with just the right parameters so that the universe was created with the ability to support life.”

David, thanks. 

It’s important to note that if a being caused the Big Bang, then that being is *a* cause of my existence.  It’s obviously not the *only* cause of my existence.  My parents having sex is another cause.  But it’s a cause; I wouldn’t exist if the Big Bang had not occurred.

However, it seems that some people who refer to themselves as “proponents of intelligent design” are saying that evolution didn’t happen.  If that is what they think, I want to know what they think happened *instead* of evolution.  In other words, the idea that a being caused the Big Bang is logically consistent with the theory of evolution.  However, the idea that a being turned inert matter directly into two elephants it not logically consistent with the theory of evolution.  Also, we are overwhelmingly justified in believing that a being did not turn inert matter directly into two elephants.  In fact, it is, for lack of a better word, absurd.

Comment #13658

Posted by David Heddle on January 13, 2005 08:06 PM (e) (s)

Longhorn,

You’ll have to ask someone who, unlike myself, is not ambivalent about evolution. My gut inclines me toward theistic evolution—but I can also accept that God simply created species ex-nihilo — afterall once you believe in God it makes little sense to deny him the ability to act supernaturally. 

What I don’t accept, mostly from a theological standpoint, is natural selection by random mutations. For that surely is inconsistent with a sovereign god.

Comment #13660

Posted by noob on January 13, 2005 08:16 PM (e) (s)

Some guy said  “(1) Only if the expansion rate is anywhere within a factor of 1000 can the universe produce galaxies

(2) Only if the expansion rate does not vary within one part in 10^60 can the universe produce galaxies

Then it should be obvious that if (2) is true then we are much “luckier” than if (1) is true. Thus you can say something qualitative about the likelihood of the universe without assigning probabilities.”

You should learn some statistics. Depending on what the range of possible expansion rates are, (1) and (2) could be anything from astronomically different probabilities, to approximately the same. In order to know which it is, you have to know the distribution. And you have no idea what the distribution is. For example, suppose the distribution is normal with a mean where ours is, and a variance of 1, where 1 is equivalent to a factor of 2 higher on whatever scale your value is. Under your scenario (1), the probability of having galaxies would be almost 1. Under your scenario (2), the probability of having galaxies would be almost 0. Now say the distribution is normal with a mean where ours is, and a variance of 10^-100. Now under scenario (1), the  the probability of having galaxies would be almost 1, and under scenario (2)  the probability of having galaxies would be almost 1. Without knowing what the distribution of expansion rates is, you can’t tell how lucky you are in either situation, or as I just showed, even how relatively lucky you are between the two situations. So unless you have even a faint idea of a distribution, you can’t say a particular outcome is likely or unlikely.

Now if someone’s already showed you that, and you still don’t get it, let me give you a simpler example.

You go into a casino. There’s a new game. The rules are, you lay $5 down, roll some dice, and then if your dice give a total of 12 you win a million dollars. They won’t tell you how many dice they make you roll, though. The dealer says, are you in? What would you do? The question is, how lucky do you have to be to get the right value? The answer is, you don’t know, because you don’t know the distribution. You don’t know if getting the right value is not that hard (two 6-sided dice) or worthlessly small (twelve 6-sided dice).

If you don’t know the distribution, you don’t know the probability. Saying that the value of the expansion rate can only vary by oh such a tiny amount is worthless for estimating its likelihood, because you don’t know how many dice the universe gets on that roll. You don’t know if the distribution varies much more or much less than your oh so tiny amount, so you have no idea how likely it is.

I can’t make it any simpler than that. That’s high-school-level stuff. If you don’t get it now, I’ve got better things to do.

Comment #13661

Posted by Great White Wonder on January 13, 2005 08:22 PM (e) (s)

Heddle sends a love note to his bro’:

DaveScot: biologists do have an inferiority complex when it comes to comparisons with physics. But they’ll never admit it!

But by all means go ahead and try to put that before a court of law as evidence that your bogus  “ID” theories are scientific.

Both of you guys are stinking up this place.  Why not answer some of the questions that have been posed directly to you?

For example, Heddle, how about some proof that there isn’t enough time for life on earth to have evolved?  You figured that out in high school.  You should be able to explain it to us in no uncertain terms now that you are, allegedly, an educated adult.

And David Scott Springer, proud owner of “waterfront property”, you asserted something else.  You said that based on your understanding of the amount of time it took humans to “design” a poliovirus, that it should be no problem for a group of “mysterious” intelligent aliens to have designed and created all of the life on earth.  So when did that happen, exactly (or even approximately?)?  And how long did it actually take?

You two have some enormous mouths and egos to match.  But it’s rather pathetic watching you cower in the corner whenever your asked to provide the most straightforward details for your “alternate” “theories” for explaining diversity of life on earth, “theories” which you obviously desperately wish us all to accept.

Keep prayin’ for us, boys.  As far as either of you know, that works.  Your lame-ass arguments don’t, that’s for sure.

Comment #13662

Posted by Rilke's Grand-daughter on January 13, 2005 08:22 PM (e) (s)

In some ways, the presence of such individuals as DaveScot is valuable: it enables us to keep the fundamentally vacuous nature of ID thinking available for inspection.

Consider, for example, the various logic flaws, erroneous remarks, and scientific ignorance exemplified by the following,

This is the case for EVERY machine where the origin of the machine can be determined.

Logic flaw: all examined members of set M have property D (that they are designed) and property F (that they function).  Given an entity B with property F, he asserts that is must necessarily have property D.

Apparently basic algebra, along with set theory and logic are prohibited studies for ID advocates.

Materialists discount purpose and design in nature out of hand because purpose implies intelligence and intelligence is anathema to a materialist universe.

Ah, another demonstration of ingorance and false generalization: not all advocates of evolution are materialists.  Not all opponents of ID are materialists.  Therefore his statement is factually incorrect.

Keep up the good work, DaveScot!  You remind us that victory over the forces of ignorance will be quite simple….

Comment #13663

Posted by DaveScot on January 13, 2005 08:26 PM (e) (s)

But the judge disagreed: “While evolution is subject to criticism, particularly with respect to the mechanism by which it occurred, the sticker misleads students regarding the significance and value of evolution in the scientific community.”

I don’t see how the “significance and value” of evolution is a matter of constitutionality. 

Am I to take it from this district judge that the establishment clause is now the guardian of scientific significance and value? 

I can hear the founders spinning in their graves. 

Fortunately a decision from a podunk north Georgia district judge isn’t binding outside his district.  It’ll be interesting to see what a circuit court with a panel of much more qualified judges has to say about it if the school board appeals.

What’s even more interesting is whether the school obeys the order.  They haven’t said they haven’t decided to obey it or not yet.  We might be treated to a little civil disobedience over this.  Then it’ll really make the news.

Comment #13666

Posted by Great White Wonder on January 13, 2005 08:34 PM (e) (s)

Am I to take it from this district judge that the establishment clause is now the guardian of scientific significance and value?

You’ve got more important to questions to answer, little man.

The answer to your question is: no, you are to take it that the establishment cause is the guardian of scientific significance and value when said significance and value are attacked by ignorant religious zealots.

How could you possibly have missed that?

Oh yeah, I forgot.  You’re a creationist with the ol’ creatonist blinders on.

By the way, have you alerted your children yet that you are trolling here? I’d be really curious to see what they think about their old man making an jackass out of himself.  Or perhaps they are used to that by now.

Comment #13668

Posted by Rilke's Grand-daughter on January 13, 2005 08:37 PM (e) (s)

Mr. Heddle, in order for your arguments to have any validity whatever (though it has been demonstrated that they do not), you must be able to calculate the probability that the various relevant cosmological constants have the values that they do.

So, you should be able to answer this simple question:

What is the probability that the graviational constant is 6.67300 × 10-11 m3 kg-1 s-2?

Unless you can provide an answer, your entire line of argument is meaningless.

Remember: be precise - your immortal soul may depend upon your answer!

Comment #13670

Posted by Jack Krebs on January 13, 2005 08:59 PM (e) (s)

As the opening poster, and hence nominal owner of this thread, I am asking for more politeness here.  In particular, Great White Wonder, I would like you to be more civil.  Your last post was out-of-line and uncalled for, and some of the comments from Rilke’s Granddaughter have contained unnecessary personal attacks also.  Here at the Panda’s Thumb we would like people to address the arguments and not abuse the persons holding the arguments.

Thanks.

Comment #13671

Posted by David Heddle on January 13, 2005 09:07 PM (e) (s)

noob, I’ve taught statistics at the college level, I think I know a bit about the subject.

The assumption, based on our present knowledge of cosmology, is, that among all possible universes, there is a distribution of expansion rates, whose sigma is larger than the tight constraint that we see.

Oh you say, that’s not fair — maybe the distribution is centered near our expansion rate and the sigma is within the constraint.

In that case, we face a problem, for that would effectively make the expansion rate of universes something like a fundamental constant. And there is no theory that suggests that.

In other words, there is nothing we know that would restrict the distribution of expansion rates, so we assume that, in effect, a distribution, uniform over a range huge compared to the constraint that we see, is possible.

And this can’t be dismissed as ID crap, for the remarkable constraint on the expansion rate is acknowledged by non ID scientists. Unless you think they don’t understand statistics either.

GWH: I told you one of the reasons I didn’t buy evolution in high school. Neither then nor now am I neutral about things unless I can prove them. I have lots of gut feelings. And, unlike you guys, who conveniently sweep it under the rug, it was probably the abiogenesis time problem that bugged me more than evolution. And that has only gotten worse since high school, the time between the earth being ready and the appearance of single celled oraganisms having decreased by an order of magnitude, not to mention an increase in the appreciated complexity of said creatures. No, I can’t prove that there wasn’t enough time, nor can you prove that there was.

Grand Daughter: because you decree what I must do otherwise everything is meaningless does not make it so. There is nothing that I said that requires me to assign a value to the probablility that G has its value.

You guys don’t like that I claim that, to keep using the same example, the constraint on the expansion rate says something about our “luck.” But you fail to explain why non ID cosmologists AGREE that our rate is highly fortuitous. They do not, as you want to do, deny our good fortune. They explain it differently than I do, but they do not deny it. So why is that?

Comment #13674

Posted by noob on January 13, 2005 09:28 PM (e) (s)

where is that sigma in the standard model? It’s not there, is where it is. So then you assume whatever you want, and then find that it’s proof of god?

Very convincing argument. Jesus christ. I’m done here.

Comment #13676

Posted by Longhorm on January 13, 2005 09:41 PM (e) (s)

According to David: “I can also accept that God simply created species ex-nihilo — afterall once you believe in God it makes little sense to deny him the ability to act supernaturally.”

David, it is logically possible that God is *capable* of “simply creat[ing] species ex-nihilo” AND that God *decided* not to create an organism “ex-nihilo.”  What evidence is there that “God simply created species ex-nihilo?”  And what do you mean by “ex-nihilo?”  How would that work? 

According to David: “What I don’t accept, mostly from a theological standpoint, is natural selection by random mutations. For that surely is inconsistent with a sovereign god.”

Could you elaborate on that?  As you may know, “mutation” isn’t the only kind of event that proximately causes genetic variation.  Another kind of event that does so is sexual reproduction.  Some call this process “genetic recombination.”  Some people use the word “meiosis.”

Also, events cause the events that scientists call “mutations.”  Exposure to radiation is one such event.  Also, it is quite  clear that particular mutation rates have enabled certain populations of organisms to have reproductive success.

Comment #13677

Posted by Jan Theodore Galkowski on January 13, 2005 09:44 PM (e) (s)

Mr Heddle opined:

That is crazy—relativity has been tested to something like twenty decimal places—there is no way evolution can compare favorably to such precision. That is a bad argument for your side. With the rest of your comment, you seem to have made the false assumption that I advocated teaching ID in school.

Let’s see: twenty decimal places, or one part in ten-to-the-twentieth.  The best hydrogen maser clocks today are accurate to no more than 3 parts in ten-to-the-fifteenth.  Given a factor of at least fifty for accumulation of errors in the experiment, no experiment having to do with special relativity can possibly be measured let alone verified to an accuracy of greater than one part in ten-to-the-thirteenth.  Your estimate of the accuracy of verification is off by a factor of ten million but what the heck.

Then there’s the question of which feature of special relativity is being verified.  Do you mean dilation, which is associated with special relativity but predates it?  Time dilation is known to a cruder standard than mass dilation, and length dilation is measurable cruder still, because the typical subjects are small particles and quantum effects play a role.  Technically, by your apparent standard, for special relativity to be The Truth all these must be comparably verified, lest there be room for doubt and the Divine Hand.  Do you mean the absence of an Aether?  Alas, if you do mean that, a feature of the original special relativity, you’re out of luck and special relativity is false, as something very like the original Aether is back into our current best understanding.  Hopefully you don’t mean to refer to non-point objects…  The complexity there is that special relativity affects the appearance of an object by seeming to rotate it, and this effect just happens to match the length dilation so there is no apparent length dilation. A definitive reference to original sources on tests of special relativity exists, including some experiments which appear to dispute it.

Or do you mean general relativity?  Einstein even doubted his formulation in his lifetime and, if you mean light bending as a phenomenon, the complexities involved in calculating what the degree of bending ought to be have never given a definitive confirmation of whether Einstein was right, apart from the qualitative occurrence of it.

I agree that the typical and original formulation of evolution and natural selection in qualitative terms makes comparisons with a quantitative theory like relativity cumbersome, but the problem is shrinking every day.  First of all, there are straight analogies.  The overwhelming number of verifying SR experiments are done using subatomic and atomic particles.  The overwhelming number of verifying experiments for evolution are done using microorganisms, notably bacteria, and using gene maps of many organisms.  These are entirely quantitative.

The process of evolution has characteristically been described in qualitative terms.  This, in my view, is a shortcoming, but is also one which is rapidly being remedied.  The primary problem is that most biologists learnt and were tested in their expertise in qualitative terms.  The quantitative formulations, indeed, the biochemical formulations have not been broadly accepted in schools as yet.  This is not because they are doubted, but because people need time to develop ways to formulate and teach these things.  My botany prof from senior year college told us our taxonomies of plants were going to be obsolete in twenty years because biochemistry and gene maps were going to replace them all.  He was a bit optimistic, but that’s where it is heading.

But theories are fundamentally qualitative stories with well-understood quantitative elements conducive to prediction.  The original Michelson-Morley experiments posing the problem which special relativity answered were trying to measure Earth’s motion with respect to the posited Aether. That series of experiments determined not that the Aether did not exist but that motion with respect to it could not be measured.  Science then decided it was simpler to disgard the Aether as a useful concept, post-Einstein, of course. 

What’s important to note is that both ID and creationism are incapable of being formulated in mathematical terms which are scientifically useful.  ID might be posed in terms of a reduction in entropy, but the measure would depend upon formulation.  Morphological measures are useless across genuses, often species.  It would have to be in terms of the gene.  I know of no measures which show that in any sense there’s an ordering of genetically related species which demonstrate a progression in terms of a measure of entropy reduction, particularly in, say, orangutans compared to humans.  That’s not surprising.  Two computer programs which produce similar behavior may differ vastly in their codes.

And, no, I did not assume Mr Heddle supported ID taught in schools, it was quite sufficient to know he supported ID as a hypothesis, and that he made a comment about “stickering out” special relativity in school textbooks as a supposition.

Comment #13679

Posted by Rilke's Grand-daughter on January 13, 2005 09:56 PM (e) (s)

Jack, consider your point made - it shall not happen again.

Comment #13682

Posted by Longhorm on January 13, 2005 10:00 PM (e) (s)

According to David Heddle: “What I don’t accept, mostly from a theological standpoint, is natural selection by random mutations. For that surely is inconsistent with a sovereign god.”

David, here is my question: Could you give me a specific hypothesis?  In other words, what event(s) did God cause?  I know that is putting you on the spot.  And maybe it’s not a fair question.  But my point is that some people aren’t being specific enough.  It is not fair to the community of inquirers.  What am I supposed to do?  It helps other people when those trying to dethrone a well-supported theory offer crisp, clear hypotheses that are logically inconsistent with that theory. 

I don’t know the exact series of events that resulted in the first cell(s) on earth.  I don’t think anyone knows.  We should keep working on the issue. 

But we shouldn’t teach kids that an extraterrestrial turned inert matter (or “nothingness”) directly into two grown elephants (and male and one female).  That is just not supported by the evidence.  There is very good reason to believe that the first organisms that you and I would recognize as elephants were born.

Comment #13683

Posted by Jack Krebs on January 13, 2005 10:02 PM (e) (s)

We’ll this thread has moved right along today. :)

Since we’ve wandered all over the place, let me add this point.  David Heddle wrote,

My gut inclines me toward theistic evolution  … What I don’t accept, mostly from a theological standpoint, is natural selection by random mutations. For that surely is inconsistent with a sovereign god.

It should be clear that to a sovereign God, what appears as “random” to us is not truly random - what is chance to us is not chance to God.  This is in fact how the theistic evolutionist reconciles his theology with science - by understanding that God is omni-everything and his truly sovereign over all events, including those that look like chance, contingency, or random to us.

Human beings, being embedded in time (which God is not) and having a limited perspective, necessarily see cause-and-effect relationships as well as contingent events, but this is not God’s perspective.  Science cannot see the world as it is to God.

So scientist who are theists see God’s omnipotent and mysteriously present hand in everything they study, and the materialist don’t.  So yes, the perspective of the materialist is “inconsistent with a sovereign god.”  But the perspective of the scientist concerning random mutations is not inconsistent with a sovereign God, because the scientist is looking at the world in a specifically limited way.

And by the way, there are other metaphysical beliefs systems that are neither theistic nor materialistic, and they all have different ways of understanding the nature of science in a broader metaphysical context.

Comment #13688

Posted by Jan Theodore Galkowski on January 13, 2005 10:52 PM (e) (s)

It should be clear that to a sovereign God, what appears as “random” to us is not truly random - what is chance to us is not chance to God.  This is in fact how the theistic evolutionist reconciles his theology with science - by understanding that God is omni-everything and his truly sovereign over all events, including those that look like chance, contingency, or random to us.

Jack, I by no means disagree with you, I simply want to amplify that there are religious traditions where the attempt to claim some understanding of God’s perspective or motivation is in itself blasphemy.  I do not mean you did.  What I mean is that both the creationist and ID projects presume greatly to know and understand what ways this universe are consistent with God’s thoughts, methods, and purposes and what ways it is not and cannot be.  I have always therefore considered them the most irreligious and distasteful folk, particularly when they try to foist their arrogant notions upon the rest of us.

Comment #13691

Posted by Wayne Francis on January 13, 2005 11:37 PM (e) (s)

David, when I was a child I believed that they found Noah’s arc because of a show that was on TV.  The sticker may have influenced my thinking.  Does this make me stupid?  No, it means I can be influenced even by false statements when false statements are endorsed as truth but actually have no real evidence to support them and I am not allow to “critically analyze” all possibilities.

David Heddle wrote:

it was probably the abiogenesis time problem that bugged me more than evolution. And that has only gotten worse since high school, the time between the earth being ready and the appearance of single celled organisms having decreased by an order of magnitude, not to mention an increase in the appreciated complexity of said creatures

So your problem is that the time period between the cooling of the mantle of the earth and the appearance of life is to short?

David Heddle wrote:

My gut inclines me toward theistic evolution

So you accept that life started out as one celled organisms (or even less considering self replicating organic compounds) but that with every change that occurred “God” is doing it actively?

David Heddle wrote:

What I don’t accept, mostly from a theological standpoint, is natural selection by random mutations. For that surely is inconsistent with a sovereign god

You seem to be limiting the power of “God”.  In a sense you are making “God” less sovereign by saying “What I don’t accept… is natural selection by random mutations.”
Which I assume you meant to say “What I don’t accept …. is evolutions via random mutations and natural selection.”  Evolutions is not “natural selection by random mutations” 
Mutations is the cause of change in an organism
Natural/Sexual Selection is the mechanism by which said mutations become fixed within a population.

If “God” is “sovereign”