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Posted by Nick Matzke on February 10, 2005 02:26 AM
Extra kudos to Ben Fulton of the Salt Lake City Weekly for his perceptive op-ed piece, “The E Word.” Many op-eds have pointed out that “intelligent design” is simply creationism with a new coat of paint, that ID proponents are trying to “cut in line” and get ID into the public schools before it gains scientific acceptance, that there is no ID research program, no “ID theory”, and that it is really all one big misguided exercise in conservative evangelical Christian apologetics.
However, Fulton puts his finger exactly on the point that really drives most of us science fans at PT:
Just imagine that, for every question you presented to someone in power, they answered with the words, “We don’t really know. It’s a mystery.” Now imagine if you or your child asked a question about the origin of the human species in a science class, only to have a learned instructor tell you, “We don’t really know. It’s a mystery.” Would anyone dare call that education?
(Ben Fulton, "The E Word," Salt Lake City Weekly)
The “intelligent design” movement takes scientific knowledge and substitutes ignorance. It’s not so much that ID takes unanswered questions and says, “Hey, maybe an intelligent designer did it!”, although that is fairly annoying since they never give means, motive or opportunity for the designer, which would be the bare minimum required to begin testing ID.
The biggest problem is that ID proponents take answered questions, and assert — usually through laziness or raw ignorance — that no answers exist, and then substitute their flaky, empty, non-explanation of “Poof, ID did it.” The origin of ‘information’ is one prominent example — this core ID argument, stretching back to Charles Thaxton in the 1980’s, is that evolution can’t create new information. “New information requires intelligence,” they say. But ID proponents have systematically ignored the actual explanations for how new genes with novel functions arise. They studiously ignore papers like this one that explain the various processes that give rise to new genes (this paper gives 20-odd examples where the origin of new genes has been reconstructed in detail — it was cited in the PT critique of Meyer’s ID paper, and the Discovery Institute promised they would reply back in October, but they stopped as soon as they got to this section).
In his conclusion, Fulton writes,
Those among the “Intelligent Design” movement, such as Pennsylvania’s Dover School Board, which succeeded recently in requiring that creationism be taught alongside Darwin, don’t care about the gaping problems of their explanations, which are far more complex and harder to swallow than evolution. “Intelligent designers,” as they’re called, can’t explain how their “designer” creates new species. “We don’t know,” a director of the Intelligent Design-oriented Discovery Institute’s Center for Science recently told Newsweek. “It’s a mystery.” And some people call talk like that “education.”
These same people would have countless American students’ heads wrapped in a similar veil of know-nothingness. Why ask questions about the origins of life? Indeed, let’s demolish the whole foundation of scientific discovery—questions—and leave the mind blank. Somewhere, for some unknown reason, some “designer” executed the whole scenario.
(Ben Fulton, "The E Word," Salt Lake City Weekly)
All you ID fans out there on the blogosphere: if you really want to address the core issues here, attempt to rebut Ben Fulton’s op-ed. Use the origin of information (please tell what is wrong with Long et al. 2003) or the common descent of humans and apes (please tell us where the gap is between human and ape) as test cases. Are you proposing an answer to an unanswered question, or are you taking the actual answers, ignoring them, and proposing magic as an alternative?
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Comment #15692
Posted by Jari Anttila on February 10, 2005 06:33 AM (e) (s)
…“We don’t know,” a director of the Intelligent Design-oriented Discovery Institute’s Center for Science recently told Newsweek. “It’s a mystery.” And some people call talk like that “education.”
Just in case FL will come into this thread, don’t forget to ask him if he still insists that ID is not mysticism.
Comment #15694
Posted by Soren K on February 10, 2005 07:08 AM (e) (s)
To David:
Now imagine if you or your child questioned the prevailing view in science class, only to have a learned instructor tell you, “We’re not even going to discuss that, what I am presenting is fact, not theory.” Would anyone dare call that education?
Firstly I cannot see the relevans to the op-ed. As I see it it argues the opposite - that we should try to find answers - and explain those to the children.
If a teacher for no reason refused to discuss a childs questions - it would be a bad teacher.
If the child said for instance - “why are there no intermediate fossils” the teacher should explain that there are - for a fact - plenty of intermediate fossils. That is answer the question - never refuse (unless they are silly og irrelevant).
Comment #15696
Posted by Jari Anttila on February 10, 2005 07:17 AM (e) (s)
“We’re not even going to discuss that, what I am presenting is fact, not theory.”
Maybe too rude. But how about this? :
“We’re not going to discuss that here on this level, because what I am presenting is the consensus of experts far more experienced than we are”.
Comment #15698
Posted by jonas on February 10, 2005 07:41 AM (e) (s)
Soren,
actually I was the witness of a positive example for a similar situation when I was at high school several decades ago. When a fellow student, who had obviously on the receiving end of a lot of nationalist rhetoric, complained he did not believe some sources on the terror of the Nazi regime we were reading, our teacher did not silence him with ‘Wise up, the facts say otherwise!’, although he would have been technically correct in doing so. Instead he walked his student through a good part of the evidence contradicting historic revisionism. This took quite some time but has definitely been worth the effort.
I can not imagine a scientist who would not wish for a similar reaction in a biology teacher teaching evolution, as scientists in general do believe that the current theories are the best available and are the accepted ones for good reasons - a view they would surely like to impress on pupils taking science classes. This of course will not spare students fom having pointed out to them that their criticism of a well founded theory is probably ludicrous, and the sources it is founded upon outdated and/or untrustworthy, as doing so just to comfort the children or their parents would be patently dishonset.
Comment #15705
Posted by David Heddle on February 10, 2005 09:25 AM (e) (s)
But you know, the “it’s a mystery” quip is an unfair shot at IDers. Until recently, in graduate level physics classes, if you asked what happened before the big-bang, you would get essentially the same answer. (Now you get something more sophisticated, but still untestable.) And I have been told several times in this blog that the origin of life is outside the province of evolution, so in effect there is a threshold that is not crossed even in a die-hard evolution course.
It seems to me that if I taught evolution I would want to tackle the predictions of ID head-on, rather than dismissing through Fulton’s tired caricature. For example, I would guess that ID predicts that the earliest life is already fairly complex. What does evolution say? What is the evidence? (I’m asking pedagogically/rhetorically – not looking for a debate.)
Or the irreducible complexity. What kind of answer is “the majority of respected scientists say it’s not so?” Why not charge into the fray? I can tell you, so far, in terms of this debate carried out at the level of intelligent non-experts, the IDers beat you hands down. Behe’s arguments, in my estimation, are much more compelling that the counter arguments I have read (again, at the popularized level). For example, on the evolution blog I once read:
The fact that every part in its current form is needed for the machine to function in its present context does not imply that every part has always been necessary in every ancestral organism in which it appeared. In other words, as biologist H. Allen Orr first pointed out, you could have the following scenario: Initially you have a simple system performing some function. Later a part gets added that improves the functioning of the system, but is not necessary. Later still, a change to the original system renders the added part essential. The result will be a system that formed gradually, yet satisfies Behe’s definition of irreducible complexity.
Not exactly a rebuttal that reeks of being on firm scientific footing.
I guess I am trying to say that you do a disservice to your own cause and to education in general if you demonize your opponent (even as they demonize you.) To me, the best way to respond would be to answer their criticisms about things like irreducible complexity, convergence, insufficient time, the complexity of the earliest life, reemergence of extinct species, etc., rather than making fun of them and then teaching the same-old same-old. After all, you’d be teaching the same science you want to teach anyway, and in a manner that would be engaging, and in a manner that would address the critics.
Comment #15706
Posted by Charlie Wagner on February 10, 2005 09:35 AM (e) (s)
Just imagine that, for every question you presented to someone in power, they answered with the words, “We don’t really know. It’s a mystery.” Now imagine if you or your child asked a question about the origin of the human species in a science class, only to have a learned instructor tell you, “We don’t really know. It’s a mystery.” Would anyone dare call that education?
This touches on what has always been a sore point with me, the reluctance of science to admit that they don’t know and the need to make up just-so stories or to offer unsupported explanations to fill in the missing information.
When I was a young teacher, I went to visit another school and I was talking to the science teacher. A little girl came up to us and showed the other teacher a rock she had found. “What kind of rock is this, Miss Smith?” the student asked. Miss Smith thought for a second and then replied “it’s an igneous rock”. The little girl skipped away to tell all her friends.
I turned to the teacher and I said “why did you tell her that? You have no idea what kind of rock that is, nor do I”. She replied (and I’ll never forget this) ” I had to tell her something. I’m her teacher and she expected me to have an answer”.
I also remember when I was a little boy in Catholic school in Brooklyn. I was a “W”, so I was always seated in the window row, last seat. I spent hours being fascinated by the pictures of the planets lined up along the walls depoicting what they looked like. And the very last one, right next to my seat, was Pluto, it’s surface covered with ice and there in the middle of the picture, a wooly mammoth, with icicles hanging off it’s tusks. Obviously, an accurate description of what could be found on a cold planet like Pluto.
These experiences shaped my skepticism about the proclamations of scientists. They constantly are making up these stories to explain what they don’t know because the public “expects them to have the answers”.
I posted my very first message on talk.origins on July 26, 2000. Here’s what I wrote:
I have been involved with this debate for nearly 40 years
and after millions of words read, spoken and written in a variety
of books, articles, forums and conversations I have reached the
conclusion that the horrible truth of the matter is that we just don’t
have a clue as to where the universe and the life that’s in it came
from.
It seems to me that it’s time to end this ridiculous bickering and
be brave enough to admit this simple truth. All we have is speculation,
your speculation and my speculation. That’s what makes the argument
interminable and absurd. It’s gotten to the point where I know in
advance, every argument that will be made by either side at almost any
time. Nothing really new is ever offered because there is nothing new.
The proof that we don’t really know is proven by the fact that the
argument continues on. If either side had convincing evidence, everyone
would have packed their bags, folded their tents and gone home long ago.
We also have to face the dismal possibility that we will never
really know. At least not in the forseeable future. Insofar as I can
see, there’s not a shred of credible evidence to support the idea that
mutation and natural selection are the mechanisms by which life
progresses from its beginning (if indeed it had a beginning) to its
present state. There’s also not a shred of credible evidence that there
exists a supernatural being that created the universe and all the life
in it.
So, we must analyze why the debate goes on. If it’s just to generate
discussion and thought provoking ideas, then it probably has some value.
So, newcomers on both sides come into the discussion fresh and full of
piss and vinegar, hoping to convince others of the truthfulness of their
thoughts on the matter. But they’re surely travelling down roads that
have already been traversed by countless others. All of the ideas have
been thought of before, all the arguments have been made and almost no
one has changed their minds.
But those of us who have been over and over and over these matters
countless time can clearly see that it will probably never be resolved.
That is, until science can clearly and definitively advance a believable
mechanism by which life has “evolved” or until God almighty himself
comes down from heaven and proclaims authorship. I’m not holding my
breath waiting :-)
So let’s be brave about this and admit (gasp!) the horrible truth. No
one alive today has a shred of credible evidence to support either of
these two paradigms. And I defy anyone to prove otherwise.
Comment #15712
Posted by Duane Wysynski on February 10, 2005 10:21 AM (e) (s)
David,
But you know, the “it’s a mystery” quip is an unfair shot at IDers. Until recently, in graduate level physics classes, if you asked what happened before the big-bang, you would get essentially the same answer.
The big difference is that ID is content to rest on that conclusion, while cosmology is not. In the former case, the real answer is not “it’s a mystery” but “a Creator did it.” Only the ‘hows’ are supposed to remain a mystery.
In the latter case, the follow up to “we don’t know” is “but we are trying to find out.” It does not invoke an entity that uses an unknowable process. Maybe, at some point, science may conclude that it simply cannot know certain things. But there is no branch of science content to proclaim “it’s magic” and feel satisfied that an answer has found.
Comment #15714
Posted by Colin on February 10, 2005 10:34 AM (e) (s)
This touches on what has always been a sore point with me, the reluctance of science to admit that they don’t know and the need to make up just-so stories or to offer unsupported explanations to fill in the missing information.
It shouldn’t be a sore point, because it’s not true. Scienctists don’t need to admit that “they don’t know” because they do know many of the things you are ignorant of; when they don’t know, the answer isn’t to wallow in ignorance but to find the answer. That, again, for the millionth time, is the failure with ID. It cherishes ignorance and denies knowledge for ideological reasons.
As for your first post, it seems that you haven’t taken the intervening time to educate yourself.
All we have is speculation, your speculation and my speculation. That’s what makes the argument interminable and absurd.
That’s not true. It’s extremely dishonest to pretend that “all we have is speculation.” All that creationism has is speculation; science has a massive quantity of evidence, available in almost any library. The evidence of evolution and the theory that explains it is verified constantly by scientists and researchers in both practical and theoretical applications. That evidence is not defeated by your ignorance of it, no matter how stubbornly you cling to it.
Nothing really new is ever offered because there is nothing new.
That is also patently untrue. I learn about new discoveries and theories just from this website alone, not to mention other sites, articles, and books. Even creationists, who cannot make new discoveries, refine their rhetoric and tactics. Something new is happening all the time, whether it’s in a laboratory or a Cobb County courtroom or a Kansas schoolboard meeting.
If either side had convincing evidence, everyone would have packed their bags, folded their tents and gone home long ago.
Again, that is untrue and ridiculous. Creationists are not interested in discovering scientific truth; evidence of evolution is at best meaningless to the devout. The point of creationism is to confirm the accepted teleology and theology, not to discover something new. There is no evidence that would convince the religious radicals who comprise the core of creationism. Similarly, since neither YEC nor ID make any attempt to provide actual evidence for their ideas, it would be strange to expect scientists to wallow in ignorance in deference to their rhetoric.
Insofar as I can see, there’s not a shred of credible evidence to support the idea that mutation and natural selection are the mechanisms by which life progresses from its beginning (if indeed it had a beginning) to its present state.
This, again, is your failure, and it is no excuse to ask other people to eschew reason or logic or the love of discovery. Your ignorance is not a compelling argument for anything.
That is, until science can clearly and definitively advance a believable mechanism by which life has “evolved” or until God almighty himself comes down from heaven and proclaims authorship.
One of those things has happened. There is no “or”; the fact that science has advanced the mechanism does not preclude God eventually proclaiming his authorship. The dichotomy you suggest simply does not exist. Most evolutionists are religious, in fact; they simply cleave to a less radical form of faith.
No one alive today has a shred of credible evidence to support either of these two paradigms. And I defy anyone to prove otherwise.
It has been proven. Exhaustively proven. Creationists refuse to accept the proof, however, for ideological reasons. I believe that they are the same reasons that lead creationists to insist that there are two seperate and exclusive paradigms. Unfortunately, the effect of this ideological commitment to dogma is to perpetuate ignorance. Insofar as creationists confine that ignorance to themselves, I am critical and disappointed but not about to do anything about it. The problem that exercises so many people here and elsewhere is that the ideology is outwardly-directed; the goal now is to foster ignorance on schoolchildren to perpetuate a narrow dogma. In other words, you aren’t defying someone to prove evolution to you, you are trying to prevent teachers from showing evolution to, for instance, Kansas school children.
I agree, the debate is tired and draining. It is deeply depressing that so many people so dearly cherish their refusal to learn that they are committed to spreading it; the evangelism of ignorance. What drives the debate on the part of the rest of us is that we believe that education and discovery are important, and we are unwilling to allow zealots and extremists to destroy the values of critical thinking and objectivity that empower those things.
Comment #15720
Posted by David Margolies on February 10, 2005 12:04 PM (e) (s)
David Heddle wrote
“But you know, the “it’s a mystery” quip is an unfair shot at IDers. Until recently, in graduate level physics classes, if you asked what happened before the big-bang, you would get essentially the same answer. (Now you get something more sophisticated, but still untestable.)”
The ID people would seem to say “It is a mystery and we have to accept that we can never know”. (Perhaps I am wrong about that but I have never heard anything else. I would be happy to see examples that differ — this is in regard to the nature of the designer, the motives of the designer, and the reason certain design choices were made. Indded, I would be happy to hear exactly what is designed and what not.) Contrast this with “we do not know because we have not figure out how to test hypotheses, but you can look here for speculation on the answer”, which seems to me to be the more likely scientific answer.
DH: “And I have been told several times in this blog that the origin of life is outside the province of evolution, so in effect there is a threshold that is not crossed even in a die-hard evolution course.”
This is just silly. Assuming this happens, the teacher is not covering material in a course because it is outside the scope of the course. “That is abiogenesis rather than evolution and this is an evolution course where it is assumed life exists and the focus is on how life developed after it can into existence. There is a great deal written about abiogenesis: look here and here etc. But we do not have time to discuss it in this course.”
DH: “It seems to me that if I taught evolution I would want to tackle the predictions of ID head-on, rather than dismissing through Fulton’s tired caricature. For example, I would guess that ID predicts that the earliest life is already fairly complex. What does evolution say? What is the evidence? (I’m asking pedagogically/rhetorically – not looking for a debate.)”
Yeah, but where are these exact predictions. You are “guessing” what ID predicts (and I gather there is not a paper by you on this subject 8-). But is there a paper with these predictions spelled out? ID material I am familiar with are either philosophical (how conceptually to recognize design) or how evolution fails, but nothing on “if ID were true, we would see this”. It is a bit much to expect the teacher to assume the role of an IDer and come up with predictions just to shoot them down. (We are talking high school here remember.)
DH: “Or the irreducible complexity. What kind of answer is “the majority of respected scientists say it’s not so?” Why not charge into the fray? I can tell you, so far, in terms of this debate carried out at the level of intelligent non-experts, the IDers beat you hands down. Behe’s arguments, in my estimation, are much more compelling that the counter arguments I have read (again, at the popularized level). For example, on the evolution blog I once read:”
[And a quote with no real link — the link is to evolution blog, not to a specific article, and I could not find the quote searching on the current display.]
I do think it is unfair to grab something someone once said about something — in who knows what context — and present it as the strongest statement available against a soundbite. One can say about IR: Behe asserts structures are IR, but presents no proof and ignores all research trying to answer the question he poses [one reference out of many Finding Darwin’s God by Kenneth Miller]. And say “In this high school course, let us start with what mainstream biologists believe. I will present a reading list for people interested in this question and if we have time after the material we need to cover has been done, we can discuss some of these issues…”
Comment #15722
Posted by Great White Wonder on February 10, 2005 12:32 PM (e) (s)
David Heddle pretends to forget what we are talking about (as he has done before)
But you know, the “it’s a mystery” quip is an unfair shot at IDers. Until recently, in graduate level physics classes, if you asked what happened before the big-bang, you would get essentially the same answer. (Now you get something more sophisticated, but still untestable.)
Graduate level physics classes, huh? How … irrelevant.
I thought were talking about middle school and high school biology classes. Are scientists advocating the teaching of pre-Big Bang theories in high school? Are pre-Big Bang theories relevant in any meaningful way to understanding and appreciating physics as its taught at the high school level?
We know the answers to my questions, David, and so do you.
Based on your comments to this blog in the past, I have zero reason to trust your opinion as to the scientific merits of any theory. My impression is that your religious beliefs (some sect of Christianity that you insist is not fundamentalist) cloud your judgment in this area. You speak as if the existence of your deity is a scientific fact.
You have never successfully articulated why “ID theory” is scientific and why it amounts to anything more than an argument from ignorance that invokes mysterious alien beings to explain phenomenon that you and others are “impressed” by (and which many primitive humans were also impressed by, hence their creation mythos, holy books, and “magical” rites, which some modern humans accept as scientific fact!).
Are you ready to do that today, David? Have you formulated your argument?
And I am betting that you want to avoid this issue (a losing one for you, as we have seen over and over again) and turn down the road and argue instead that theories for the origin of life are untestable. Take my advice: don’t waste your time.
100 years of awesome science under the critical eye of (admittedly not too sharp) folks like you, thousands upon thousands of research papers, predictions confirmed in the most profoundly beautiful ways, doesn’t lie. Evolution is a fact.
Stories about mysterious alien beings with awesome (but undefined) powers belong in comic books, not in public school science classes.
Comment #15723
Posted by David Heddle on February 10, 2005 12:44 PM (e) (s)
David Margolies, you completely missed the boat, assuming, I think, that I was being confrontational. Anyway, you wrote:
This is just silly. Assuming this happens, the teacher is not covering material in a course because it is outside the scope of the course. “That is abiogenesis rather than evolution and this is an evolution course where it is assumed life exists and the focus is on how life developed after it can into existence. There is a great deal written about abiogenesis: look here and here etc. But we do not have time to discuss it in this course.”
I agree it is not a perfect analogy, but the point stands, and has been made many times, that no matter how much you reject a inexplicable beginning ultimately all present theories encounter one. Why argue with the IDers on their basic premise?
Yeah, but where are these exact predictions. You are “guessing” what ID predicts (and I gather there is not a paper by you on this subject 8-). But is there a paper with these predictions spelled out?
No, no paper by me, I am not a biologist. But I have seen papers, for example, on Hugh Ross’s website. One was “Origin-of-Life Predictions Face Off: Evolution vs. Biblical Creation” by a Dr. Fazale Rana. It had a table of ID predictions. I can’t provide a link, because then my post gets rejected by some draconian PT filter. But you’ll find it via Google.
[quote] [And a quote with no real link — the link is to evolution blog, not to a specific article, and I could not find the quote searching on the current display.] You say it as if I am intentionally being disingenuous. But once again, the posting cyber-czar would not allow the permalink—I think because it has underscores. Anyway, it is from a post entitled Discovery Institute Responds to Derbyshire on Wednesday, 12 January, 2005.
I want to avoid yet another ID/evolution battle in this thread. My comment is that you can achieve your aims (assuming evolution is correct!) and win the political battle. Instead you choose to stand toe-to-toe with red-state America, a formidable foe.
Comment #15724
Posted by Mumon on February 10, 2005 12:48 PM (e) (s)
The biggest problem is that ID proponents take answered questions, and assert — usually through laziness or raw ignorance — that no answers exist, and then substitute their flaky, empty, non-explanation of “Poof, ID did it.” The origin of ‘information’ is one prominent example — this core ID argument, stretching back to Charles Thaxton in the 1980’s, is that evolution can’t create new information.
As an comm. systems engineer, I’ve always been shocked that these guys can repeat this canard.
I mean, I can create the model that refutes them in my sleep.
Comment #15725
Posted by David Heddle on February 10, 2005 12:51 PM (e) (s)
GWW,
Today I refuse to be dragged down to your level. I regret the level of sarcasm that I have sometimes used. If you continue to insult me, I will leave and never come back. No because it hurst ny feelings, but because it wastes my time. Do you think you can engage in a discussion without getting personal? Do you have in in you?
Comment #15727
Posted by Steve Reuland on February 10, 2005 12:54 PM (e) (s)
It seems to me that if I taught evolution I would want to tackle the predictions of ID head-on, rather than dismissing through Fulton’s tired caricature. For example, I would guess that ID predicts that the earliest life is already fairly complex.
ID doesn’t make any predictions. You cannot predict anything about living organisms or natural history if all you are saying is that “design occurred” without further elaboration. There is no reason to suspect that the earliest life would already be complex. It would be equally consistent with ID if it were simple and the designer added onto it from there. Or if there were no early life and it all appeared recently. Or anything else you can imagine.
What does evolution say? What is the evidence?
The evolutionary view is that complex organisms have arisen from simpler ones. We would therefore expect that simpler life forms occurred first followed by more complex ones. And that’s what we see. Prokaryotes appeared first, then about a billion years later the first eukaryotes appeared. Then after a billion or so more years the first multicellular life appeared, and so on. Of course there is some legitimate room for disagreement over what exactly “more complex” means, but the order of apperance fits evolutionary predictions.
Comment #15728
Posted by David Heddle on February 10, 2005 01:01 PM (e) (s)
Even if there are no predictions (I have referred to at least one paper) why not say, “The IDers say convergence is a problem for us. Let’s look at some of the examples they give (the salamander and some fish with the same type of eyes) and discuss how this happened via evolution.” You would still be teaching science but would be able to say that, like all good scientists, you are addressing criticisms of the theory. Where is the downside?
Comment #15729
Posted by David Margolies on February 10, 2005 01:11 PM (e) (s)
To David Heddle:
I do not know if you are being confrontational. I did not consider myself to be confrontational. I still think it is silly to suggest that material outside the scope of a course should be discusses in detail within a course.
I do not know how the filter works. Let us see if this one gets through. The “Origin-of-Life Predictions Face Off: Evolution vs. Biblical Creation” by a Dr. Fazale Rana link is on this web site:
www.reasons.org/
at this location:
resources/fff/2001issue06/index.shtml#origin_of_life_predictions_face_off
(i.e. concatenate those two locations.)
the explicitly creationist predictions are:
1. Life appeared early in Earth’s history.
2. Life appeared under harsh conditions.
3. Life miraculously persisted under harsh conditions.
4. Life arose quickly.
5. Life in its minimal form is complex.
I am not impressed. 1 seems to be wrong according most dating schemes I am familiar with. 2 is ill posed (harsh = what?). 3 is untestable absent creation of life in a modern lag. 4 is ill-posed (quickly = what, and also Life is well defined? — that is how if that different from naturalist explanation?). 5 is perhaps ok, though complex = what? and how could this be tested?
So no, considering these questions in a high school course is a waste of time (problems are a lot of knowledge is necessary for the answers to be meaningfully discussed even if the predictions were properly posed.)
Comment #15730
Posted by David Margolies on February 10, 2005 01:14 PM (e) (s)
Okay, now we know that you can add web addresses as text (requiring cutting and pasting to follow a link but that is easy enough) because I just did it (see my previous post).
Comment #15731
Posted by David Heddle on February 10, 2005 01:18 PM (e) (s)
I knew that would happen: (1) There are no predictions (2) Here are some predictions (3) Those predictions suck. It’s a cousin of (1) ID is not science because it doesn’t publish and (2) ID doesn’t publish because it is not science.
So okay, forget predictions, since you’ll never agree that what they call predictions are in fact predictions. As per my previous post, what’s wrong with putting, say, two weeks in the syllabus where you address criticisms of evolution? Think of the political capital, and, as I said, you’d be teaching science. And equipping the students to answer the criticisms.
Comment #15732
Posted by Great White Wonder on February 10, 2005 01:22 PM (e) (s)
David Heddle threatens
If you continue to insult me, I will leave and never come back. No because it hurst ny feelings, but because it wastes my time.
Just answer the questions, David.
If you can’t answer the questions, then just suck it up and ADMIT that I am right about the emptiness and comic book nature of “ID theory” and it’s inappropriateness for public school science classrooms.
Why can’t you admit that, David? Grow up and learn to admit that you are wrong. It’s not the end of the world if “ID theory” is unscientific garbage suitable for religious philosophy classes and not public school biology classes. Or do you disagree, David? Is it your view that if you admit that I am right that you are going to hell?
I’ll stop taking you to task for your dissembling here when you start facing the music. Unlike some trolls around here, I suspect (indeed, I HOPE) that you have the threshold intelligence to know the difference between a scientific fact and fantasy (whether religiously inspired or not).
Do you think you can engage in a discussion without getting personal?
If you want impersonal discussions than stay on your blog and sign all your posts with “STAFF” like the chicken-hearted liars at the Disclaimery Institute.
Recall that you wrote the following:
But you know, the “it’s a mystery” quip is an unfair shot at IDers.
I can think of very little in the way of responses to the “ID theory” peddlers that is “unfair” and certainly equating the claim that “the designers of all the life on earth are mysterious alien beings” with “it’s a mystery” is about as fair as it gets. If humans were spontaneously created out of nothing and the first one looked around at the animals and never saw a single one reproduce, that theory might be compelling.
That is not reality, though, is it David? Let me know if you disagree. Let me know if you think that you were spontaneously created, David. I’m guessing you were born, just like I was. And I’m guessing that you didn’t get all your DNA from your mom.
You talk about “wasting time” but read my previous two paragraphs. How pathetic is it that such things need to be pointed out to you? Is it impossible for you to anticipate these straightforward facile responses?
I doubt it. That’s why the term “dissembler” is an appropriate one to describe the rhetorical games that you enjoy playing.
The sleazy way in which those peddlers have pushed Johnsonite Christianity down the throats of your so-called “red staters” is as despicable as it is exhaustively documented. Or are you willing to deny that fact as well, David? Are you going to stand up for the integrity of the “Staff” at the Discovery Institute and the drones in their robot army (e.g., Casey Luskin)?
And if not, then what are you doing, as a self-described intelligent adult, sitting in the dugout with people who are demonstrably ignorant or dishonest? Is it because the peanuts are fresher or what?
Comment #15733
Posted by David Heddle on February 10, 2005 01:30 PM (e) (s)
GWW,
Ask me a question, I don’t know what question I am refusing to answer. Go ahead, if you ask (without insulting) I will do my best to answer.
Comment #15734
Posted by Emanuele Oriano on February 10, 2005 01:30 PM (e) (s)
Mr. Heddle:
Once again you show that, by leaving words undefined, one can pretty much make them say whatever one wants.
(1) There are no predictions. (2) Here are some “predictions”. (3) Those are NOT predictions. Try again.
Those are NOT predictions because they are chock full o’ undefined terms. What does “early” mean? What does “harsh” mean? what does “quickly” mean? What does “complex” mean?
Those sound suspiciosly like Nostradamus “prophecies”, which have many merits, including flexibility, but are definitely not science.
Comment #15735
Posted by RBH on February 10, 2005 01:35 PM (e) (s)
The best example I’ve seen of ID “predictions” was described by Salvador on ARN:
To clarify what “deal breaker” menas, and just so you know where I stand, IDist and creationists have had the following lines of argument:
1. hierarchies do NOT exist in molecular taxonamies therefore ID is true
2. hierarchies DO exist in molecular taxonamies therefore ID is true
3. hierarchies simultaneously DO and do NOT exist in molecular taxonomies therfore ID is true
How’s that for covering the territory?
RBH
Comment #15736
Posted by David Heddle on February 10, 2005 01:36 PM (e) (s)
Emanuele, go read the entire paper. Maybe the terms are defined. That was just one table from the article. I didn’t read the paper, just saw that it contained predictions. I just did a quick search for “intelligent design predictions” and found it.
Comment #15737
Posted by Joe Shelby on February 10, 2005 01:36 PM (e) (s)
” I had to tell her something. I’m her teacher and she expected me to have an answer”.
I agree that this was a rediculously lousy answer. The right answer would have been to teach the girl a little bit on how to research. Show her a book of rocks, let her describe the rock in terms of color, texture, etc, then flip through the pages with her to find all the ones that seem to come close. finally, start looking at the finer details and rule out option by option until only one answer remains, the right one.
*sigh*
something so simple, science…
Comment #15739
Posted by David Margolies on February 10, 2005 01:43 PM (e) (s)
David Heddle wrote:
“I knew that would happen: (1) There are no predictions (2) Here are some predictions (3) Those predictions suck. It’s a cousin of (1) ID is not science because it doesn’t publish and (2) ID doesn’t publish because it is not science.”
But those prediction DO suck. And they are not ID predictions: they say nothing at all about what we would see in living things today and essentially nothing at all about what the fossil record would show (modulo the meaning of “complex” but isn’t any organism with cells “complex”, because if so, no prediction about what the fossil record will look like).
Does evolution make predictions? Tons of them, many relating to life living today (how will frogs arrange themselves on the edge of a pond containing a predator, do certain members of a herd sacrifice themselves delibrately for the good of the herd, reproductive organs and behavior change more slowly than other organs and behavior, won’t find humans in same strata with dinosaurs, etc. etc.)
I just cannot believe you think the referenced predictions do not SUCK.
And if you read the rest of the referenced paper, well it is just not good biology. Why do we not have predictions about life today and the fossil record from Behe, Dembski, etc.?
DH: “So okay, forget predictions, since you’ll never agree that what they call predictions are in fact predictions. As per my previous post, what’s wrong with putting, say, two weeks in the syllabus where you address criticisms of evolution? Think of the political capital, and, as I said, you’d be teaching science. And equipping the students to answer the criticisms.”
First of all, I wish people would say “The purpose of this high school course is to make students familiar with the current theories of modern biology.” That is a worthwhile goal. Would that we did it.
The problem with two weeks on criticism is who would design it and what would it say. Where you have two real competing scientific theories (and just look at geology in the 20th century for a whole bunch of competing theories surviving simultaneously), you have deep, positive papers and deep counterarguments, and eventually one side or the other prevails (in the geology case, at least). In evolution you have deep positive papers, and deep counterarguments about details and aspects, but criticisms (if you mean ID theory) that amount to God of the gaps which do not acknowledge existing research and arguments about theories no longer widely subscribed to and misstated arguments based on misunderstanding (I am thinking of Wells’s book — embryo identity no longer subscribed to, moth coloration misunderstood).
I know this is confrontational and you do not want to get into another ID/evolution argument, but your proposal requires that someone design two weeks of criticism of evolution (more than Here is what we do not yet know variety, which would be a reasonable thing for a couple of days) and that requires the existence of serious criticism which has been fully argued.
Behe in his NYT article said there is no research on the origin of flagella. When confronted later, he admitted that there was but he felt it was inadequate. So why did he say there was none? He has been told about it repeatedly since DBB was published. And you want this guy’s ideas taught in High School?
Comment #15741
Posted by Emanuele Oriano on February 10, 2005 01:45 PM (e) (s)
Mr. Heddle:
I DID read the article. Some numbers are given, but no formal definition is there, as far as I can tell. This holds especially true for the “logical” derivation of the “predictions” from the premises.
By the way, said premises are the book of Genesis, not a scientific theory of any kind. Maybe it was written before the IDers decided to pretend ID was not religious in nature.
Comment #15742
Posted by David Heddle on February 10, 2005 01:46 PM (e) (s)
Actually, even if I were a die-hard IDer, I would rather have good evolution teachers than lousy teachers sympathetic to ID (unlike you guys, I am not worried about indoctrination.) At the moment, my son’s science class is horrible — read this chapter, answer these questions, etc., etc. No wonder so many kids hate science.
Comment #15743
Posted by plunge on February 10, 2005 01:46 PM (e) (s)
David H:
“Behe’s arguments, in my estimation, are much more compelling that the counter arguments I have read (again, at the popularized level). For example, on the evolution blog I once read:
The fact that every part in its current form is needed for the machine to function in its present context does not imply that every part has always been necessary in every ancestral organism in which it appeared. In other words, as biologist H. Allen Orr first pointed out, you could have the following scenario: Initially you have a simple system performing some function. Later a part gets added that improves the functioning of the system, but is not necessary. Later still, a change to the original system renders the added part essential. The result will be a system that formed gradually, yet satisfies Behe’s definition of irreducible complexity. Not exactly a rebuttal that reeks of being on firm scientific footing. “
Look, I’m trying to take you seriously here, but I’m going to have a hard time if you seriously think that Behe’s arguments are as compelling as the responses. Behe makes strong claims like that IC systems by definition cannot have functional intermediaries. Scientists demonstrate over and over that all the structures he complains about do, in fact, have functional intermediaries. So how is that not on good footing? He made a strong claim, one that can be refuted even in pure argument. Scientists do him one better: they refute the argument AND point to all the studies that Behe claims “don’t exist” discussing how biochemical systems evolve. How is that not a powerful rebuke of Behe’s core claims?
Comment #15744
Posted by Rupert Goodwins on February 10, 2005 01:46 PM (e) (s)
But you know, the “it’s a mystery” quip is an unfair shot at IDers. Until recently, in graduate level physics classes, if you asked what happened before the big-bang, you would get essentially the same answer. (Now you get something more sophisticated, but still untestable.) And I have been told several times in this blog that the origin of life is outside the province of evolution, so in effect there is a threshold that is not crossed even in a die-hard evolution course.
Biogenesis isn’t part of evolution, and neither is planetary formation or nuclear synthesis. You have to draw the line somewhere, and since evolution is the study of the nature of living things it makes a certain amount of sense to limit it thusly. As it happens, I don’t believe anyone has a problem with discussing naturalistic theories of biogenesis with creationists - just not in the context of defending evolution. “Evolution can’t explain the start of life” is a common battlecry. “No. That’s chemistry’s job” is the proper refrain. “Want to talk about chemistry?”.
As for the ‘it’s a mystery’ - you can then ask a scientist “how do you propose exploring it?” and expect a cogent answer. Even if it is massively impractical, there will be some approach to handling the problem through standard science that can at least be treated as a thought experiment - and who knows, next year it’ll be better than that. I’ve never, ever seen an ID’er who’ll even engage with the question “what does this tell us about the designer? How would you find out?”. That lots of people were thinking about the “what happens ‘before’ the Big Bang” issue is evidenced by the fact that now, there are some plausible ideas floating around. Testable comes later. That’s OK. They’re thinking about that, too.
The ID’ers are not doing science. It is impossible to pretend that they are just for the sake of arguing with them. Imagine you come across a man pouring concrete in a field: you ask him “What are you doing?”, to which he replies “Planting wheat to feed my family”. How do you explain to him that his family will go hungry if you’re not allowed to say that concrete isn’t cereal?
(Now imagine that this man is in charge of the State Department of Agriculture, and his friends - the ones with the concrete factories - are on the school boards. Still feel like going along with him?)
R
Comment #15746
Posted by DougT on February 10, 2005 01:57 PM (e) (s)
David H.: Mind if we don’t forget predictions for a moment? Consider your sequence of events:
(1) There are no predictions (2) Here are some predictions (3) Those predictions suck.
Do recall that #1 in your sequence initially referred specifically to ID, that completely secular, neutrally scientific theory that is silent on the nature of the designer(s). The paper presenting the predictions under discussion looks very traditionally creationist to me, and includes lots of references to Genesis. I have seen several references on various threads to the notion that traditional creationism has made predictions (though no vouching for their quality), whereas ID has not. I would suggest that the predictions that you have presented here are not predictions of ID.
Comment #15747
Posted by David Heddle on February 10, 2005 01:57 PM (e) (s)
Plunge,
Oh, like it or not, Behe’s arguments are packaged much more cleverly. The argument you just gave, at least in words, sounds like an ad-hoc house of cards. It may be just that their marketing is better—and of course I have some bias. (Being a Christian, I “want” to see design, and I do in cosmology— in biology I am ambivalent) But for what it is worth, Behe’s description of four-hundred proteins, etc. etc. is, to me, much more compelling.
Even the language renders your example weak, for it is steeped in the passive voice. “Later a part gets added” by what mechanism? “A change renders the added part essential” By what means? What caused the change?
This is independent of who is right.
Look, I have biases, and so do you. I don’t know if you can (I’m pretty sure I can’t) but try to imagine that you have no opinion and then look at the way Behe presents IR and your explanation—I don’t think there is even a contest.
Comment #15749
Posted by Great White Wonder on February 10, 2005 02:08 PM (e) (s)
As per my previous post, what’s wrong with putting, say, two weeks in the syllabus where you address criticisms of evolution?
Can anyone believe that a college-educated adult could sincerely ask such a question in 2005?
Remember, folks, David Heddle — an allegedly college-educated physicist who convinced himself in high school that the world’s biologists were deluded — vehemently claims that he is not a “fundamentalist” (fundamentlists don’t like him, he claims, because he’s not anti-gay bigot). Isn’t that interesting?
But I wonder if anyone can tell me how many weeks the Wahabis in the Middle East spend teaching evolutionary biology to their children? And how many weeks do they spend teaching that a awesomely powerful being for whom there is no scientific evidence created all the life on earth? And I wonder why religious people in the United States agree with the Taliban’s views on evolutionary biology? Do they find their agreement with the Taliban in this regard comforting and reassuring?
Many Christians in this country don’t find that agreement comforting. For example, Catholics don’t. Many Christians agree with what the experts have found after more than a century of some of the best scientific research ever conducted in the history of mankind. Catholics and many other Christians scoff at the notion that the teaching of evolutionary biology threatens their faith. Some so-called evangelicals also realize that the Johnsonite Christian sect and their followers have strayed far from the teachings of their number one prophet.
NEARLY EVERY ADULT HUMAN IN THIS COUNTRY rejects the idea that a myterious group of alien beings has visited the earth repeatedly during the course of the last several billion years and created all the earth’s life forms.
I would be very skeptical of any position shared by the Taliban and a tiny tiny group of loud-mouthed cranks inspired to play scientist by a sleazy fundamentalist lawyer (even it weren’t the case that the vast majority of the world’s scientists agreed that a contrary explanation was a scientific fact).
Does anyone have the guts to propose a possible explanation why Christian religious fundamentalists (who very rarely blow themselves up intentionally) and Islamic fundamentalists (who very rarely blow themselves up intentionally) might share the same dim view of evolutionary biology? Is it that the same genes which predispose people to be religious fundamentalist also endow them with superior scientific minds? Or did some mysterious alien being just make religious fundamentalists smarter than the vast majority of the world’s scientists?
Who is willing to step up to the plate?
It seems to me that the religious fundamentalists in Kansanistan and other parts of the US have a lot of catching up to do if they want to beat the Middle East education system with respect to biological science.
Comment #15751
Posted by David Heddle on February 10, 2005 02:13 PM (e) (s)
Rupert wrote:
That lots of people were thinking about the “what happens ‘before’ the Big Bang” issue is evidenced by the fact that now, there are some plausible ideas floating around. Testable comes later.
That [testablility] is not at all clear, in all the cases I know of one must first toss out General Relativity in order to come up with a possible (let alone practical) experiment. It may be that very sophisticated theories that cannot be falsified are still preferred over “God did it,” but they still represent a change in our view of what is science.
Doug T,
The paper presenting the predictions under discussion looks very traditionally creationist to me, and includes lots of references to Genesis.
Unlike many IDers on here, I acknowledge that ID is based on religion. To me it is absurd to say otherwise. So I would say they are ID predictions, but that Ross and his minions are more honest in that they don’t deny the religious underpinnings. Now, to be sure, Ross (and I’m guessing all his colleagues) are old-earthers, even though they make references to Genesis. Just like Ross (but on a smaller stage) I often do battle with the YEC types.
Comment #15754
Posted by David Heddle on February 10, 2005 02:30 PM (e) (s)
GWW,
If the ID position was really such a minority position, as I think you are implying, if I can extract from your nonsense the germ of what you are trying to say, (if anything,) then there would be no political battle. The problem is not that a vocal but tiny minority is against evolution, but rather a sizable fraction of voters and taxpayers.
Don’t yell at me about that, that’s just the way it is.
Comment #15757
Posted by Ed Darrell on February 10, 2005 02:40 PM (e) (s)
David Heddle said, many posts back:
But you know, the “it’s a mystery” quip is an unfair shot at IDers. Until recently, in graduate level physics classes, if you asked what happened before the big-bang, you would get essentially the same answer. (Now you get something more sophisticated, but still untestable.) And I have been told several times in this blog that the origin of life is outside the province of evolution, so in effect there is a threshold that is not crossed even in a die-hard evolution course.
It seems to me that if I taught evolution I would want to tackle the predictions of ID head-on, rather than dismissing through Fulton’s tired caricature. For example, I would guess that ID predicts that the earliest life is already fairly complex. What does evolution say? What is the evidence? (I’m asking pedagogically/rhetorically – not looking for a debate.)
No one in ID will make a claim that ID makes such a statement, though, David. That’s the problem. When exactly that scenario was laid out for the Texas State Board of Education, the ID press releases squealed that ID was being unfairly slammed, because ID does not predict that early life is already fairly complex. It doesn’t predict anything, because there is nothing there. But predicting nothing means that however your debating opponent characterizes your argument, you can claim he’s being unfair.
You’re saying, in effect, that ID DOES make some predictions, and that no ID advocate would be so low as to deny that.
You overestimate the ID advocates.
Comment #15760
Posted by Russell on February 10, 2005 02:44 PM (e) (s)
Even the language renders your example weak, for it is steeped in the passive voice. “Later a part gets added” by what mechanism? “A change renders the added part essential” By what means? What caused the change? [
I don’t think there’s any question that Behe has been a masterful salesman of his snake-oil. I concede that his arguments appear to be more persuasive to Joe Sixpack than do the tedious explanations required to debunk them. But the fact that more people read the National Enquirer than, say, Scientific American does not mean that the latter should try to emulate the former.
But now, specifically with respect to your example. Let’s be specific, if we can. Where is “later a part gets added” in any serious discussion of evolution? Isn’t it more typical to see discussion of gene duplication, exaption, that sort of thing? And as opposed to Behe’s “later a part gets added… By Magic!”
Comment #15761
Posted by David Heddle on February 10, 2005 02:49 PM (e) (s)
Ed,
No one in ID will make a claim that ID makes such a statement, though, David
What do you mean that nobody will make such a statement? It was in the paper I reffered to and is in the table of predictions (from that paper) that David Margolies posted above:
5) Life in its minimal form is complex.
I’ve seen variants on ID sites that do not mention Genesis, such as here:
http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/1156…
where a prediction is “rapid appearance of complexity in the fossil record.”
another prediction is, more or less, that there is no such thing as “junk” DNA.
Comment #15764
Posted by David Heddle on February 10, 2005 02:58 PM (e) (s)
Russel wrote:
Where is “later a part gets added” in any serious discussion of evolution?
I didn’t pull that phrase out of the air, it was in the blurb used by plunge (comment #15743 above) as an example of a rebuttal of Behe’s IC. It comes from your side of the aisle.
I don’t think there’s any question that Behe has been a masterful salesman of his snake-oil. I concede that his arguments appear to be more persuasive to Joe Sixpack than do the tedious explanations required to debunk them.
If you think it is only Joe Sixpack, meaning uneducated bumpkins, you are mistaken. And that is probably a large part of your PR problem, this assumption that any smart person would automatically agree with you. I would say that Behe’s IC is persuasive to many (what percentage, I have no clue) educated non-experts.
Comment #15765
Posted by Jari Anttila on February 10, 2005 03:07 PM (e) (s)
David Heddle:
But you know, the “it’s a mystery” quip is an unfair shot at IDers.
No it isn’t because IDers are ignoring the evolutionary explanations according to which the things they still call “mysteries” are not mysteries any longer.
Philip E. Johnson:
“In science, as in other fields, you can’t beat something with nothing”. How true.
Charlie Wagner:
(a lot of depressing and nihilistic rhetorics against the subject he teaches)
….The proof that we don’t really know is proven by the fact that the argument continues on. If either side had convincing evidence, everyone would have packed their bags, folded their tents and gone home long ago.
That’s exactly what the “controversy” -advocates are trying to make the public believe. Raise a controversy by protesting something and then say: “Hey, see how this topic is controversial; it wouldn’t be if they had convincing evidence”.
..there’s not a shred of credible evidence to …
until science can clearly and definitively advance a believable mechanism by which life has “evolved” or
Remember: never ever tell them what would qualify.
until God almighty himself comes down from heaven and proclaims authorship.
But this would be much easier, wouldn’t it? Scientists can never ever present to you any “credible, etc.” evidence, because nothing in empirical science is credible enough for a dedicated nihilist, but a divine revelation would close the case conclusively.
Comment #15766
Posted by Pete Dunkelberg on February 10, 2005 03:12 PM (e) (s)
Or the irreducible complexity. What kind of answer is “the majority of respected scientists say it’s not so?” Why not charge into the fray? I can tell you, so far, in terms of this debate carried out at the level of intelligent non-experts, the IDers beat you hands down. Behe’s arguments, in my estimation, are much more compelling that the counter arguments I have read (again, at the popularized level).
The Behe nonsense is the prime example of how ID is not just an argument from ignorance, but an argument from manufactured ignorance. Irreducible complexity is a normal expected result of evolution. Behe fails Biology I. Try talkdesign.org for starters.
So you find Behe’s rhetorical arguments convincing? This is a sound reason not to teach ID in school, except as something to debunk. Understanding that science is not rhetorical argument is a very important part of understanding what science is.
Comment #15767
Posted by David Heddle on February 10, 2005 03:19 PM (e) (s)
Jari,
You missed the boat too, and just regurgitated the same-old stuff. I have not been defending ID, and you’ll never win hard-core IDers. What I have been saying is stop wasting time arguing that their premise of miraculous creation and design is faulty. Don’t even argue that they are not science. Simply say (in the curriculum) here are the things that ID says are problems for evolution. Let’s take a couple weeks to examine them. You might put the political argument to rest, for the sides are fairly evenly drawn, as far as I can tell. Winning over, via accommodation, a few percentage points of popular opinion, while still teaching science, would seem to be a win-win.
Comment #15770
Posted by Frank J on February 10, 2005 03:24 PM (e) (s)
Nice article, but what we need to do is get rid of is the “D-word,” or “Darwinism.” Although the late Dr. Mayr is quoted as saying that he found nothing wrong with “Darwinism,” his definition is surely “Darwinian evolution.” Anti-evolutionists, however, have something else in mind, and are especially fond of the “ism” part because it suggests a philosophy. They use the D-word as a catch-all weasel word to avoid confronting the specifics, be it common descent, speciation, natural selection, even abiogenesis. No other word, not even “theory,” is so manipulated by anti-evolutionists. For 6 years now, I have been insisting that we’d be better off if we (all defenders of evolution) just stop using that word entirely. And from what I read, Charles Darwin would agree.
I know that it won’t be that simple, especially when dealing with skilled wordsmiths like William Dembski, but every now and then we could simply stop anti-evolutionists in their tracks with: “Say what you want about ‘Darwinism,’ and come back when you are tired of playing with the strawman and want to discuss evolutionary biology.”
Comment #15771
Posted by RBH on February 10, 2005 03:30 PM (e) (s)
David Heddle suggested
Simply say (in the curriculum) here are the things that ID says are problems for evolution. Let’s take a couple weeks to examine them.
And which part of the requirements enumerated in state science standards shall they not teach in order to do that? With school districts being graded on how well students perform on standardized tests constructed against those standards (with real and sometimes draconian consequences attached to that performance), the ID BS is a bloody waste of class time.
RBH
Comment #15772
Posted by Great White Wonder on February 10, 2005 03:36 PM (e) (s)
Heddle writes
If the ID position was really such a minority position, as I think you are implying,
Do you believe that most Americans agree that a group of mysterious alien beings have visited earth repeatedly over the last several billion years and dumped all of the earth’s life forms, which they designed and created?
Is that your belief, David? Don’t be as afraid to say yes or no to this as you are to answer all of the other questions I’ve asked you today. And please, no more weeping today about “insults”. We’ve used up the tissues on some Grade A trolls (who, uncoincidentally, share your views about evolution).
if I can extract from your nonsense the germ of what you are trying to say, (if anything,) then there would be no political battle.
Is this the same David Heddle who wept in his comment up above that he was tired of “wasting time”? And now it would seem that this allegedly college-educated adult is trying to convince me that political controversies only exist when large numbers of people on two sides of an issue have reasonable arguments.
Maybe you were created spontaneously, David. Maybe you were born yesterday.
If you think it is only Joe Sixpack, meaning uneducated bumpkins, you are mistaken.
Thanks for the reminder, David. We wouldn’t want to forget about all the “intelligent” college-educated religious nutcases who will Lie for Jesus, castrate themselves, and drink cyanide-laced kool-aid if their preachers tell them to do it.
Just so we’re clear David: is it your position that if a majority of religious people have a critical view about something, then scientists have to pretend that they might be right, or else?
That seems to be what you’re advocating.
Because, for the hundredth time, your arguments that the elementary principles of evolutionary biology are suspect,
and your arguments that “ID theory” is scientific have been shown OVER AND OVER AGAIN to be complete baloney.
One more time: your arguments have been debunked here over and over and over again. To the extent that you refuse to acknowledge this fact, you are by definition (1) deluded, (2) ignorant or (3) a lying creep who can’t admit he’s wrong.
It’s that simple, David, and whether you have 1 million or ten million or a 100 million fundamentalist Christians and Muslims on your side does not change the fact that you are wrong. What if Kansanistan schools decide to teach “ID theory” to children? You’re still wrong and “ID theory” is still a bunch of garbage and Behe and Demsbki and Johnson remain dishonest charlatans and you remain one of the disgustingly arrogant rubes who joined them as they wiped their rear ends on their own holy books and a centuries worth of solid scientific research.
I would say that Behe’s IC is persuasive to many .. educated non-experts.
As is John Edward’s ability to talk with departed loved ones. Just ask Larry King!
Of course, none of these people can defend “ID theory” as science without looking like jackasses, just like you can’t David.
Comment #15774
Posted by plunge on February 10, 2005 03:41 PM (e) (s)
Heedle
“The argument you just gave, at least in words, sounds like an ad-hoc house of cards. It may be just that their marketing is better—and of course I have some bias. (Being a Christian, I “want” to see design, and I do in cosmology— in biology I am ambivalent) But for what it is worth, Behe’s description of four-hundred proteins, etc. etc. is, to me, much more compelling.”
But this is exactly what makes me doubt your sincerity. Behe is making a STRONG case: one that he claims is true, BY DEFINITION. Strong cases are easily undone by simply pointing to single flaws in their reasoning, no matter how general. Even the simple, vague quote does that, and does it in such a way that Behe’s point collapses. This is not a matter of opinion, but one of logic.
And the fact is, that vague case has been made specific countless times in every one of the structures Behe claims is IC. What becomes obviously unfair is when you compare a critique of his general idea to one of his specific examples (i.e., whatever “400 proteins” reffers to).
“Even the language renders your example weak, for it is steeped in the passive voice. “Later a part gets added” by what mechanism? “A change renders the added part essential” By what means? What caused the change?”
But this is obvious. Each functional part then is subject to a range of variation. Natural selection weeds out all but those with similar or increased functionality, and so on. It DOESN’T pre-suppose any _particular_ overall goal (which is why Behe and Dembski’s probability calculations are so utterly bogus), just various steps of increasing functionality. It’s the exact same process everyone is familiar with. And we’ve watched it happen in the lab countless times. In fact, most papers that describe this happening can’t even get published in evolutionary journals because this result is so pedestrian.
Again, the main thing scientists don’t get is why anyone finds Behe compelling at all. In the case of blood clotting, for instance, Doolittle has not only worked out plausible ways that the system could have evolved step-by-step, but even done some amazing work in trying to show that it did, in fact, happen via those steps (which is not easy given that there are rarely any simple records of what the intermediate steps were). It’s only by totally denying the existence of such work that Behe even has any room to blather on about IC.
Comment #15775
Posted by Great White Wonder on February 10, 2005 03:44 PM (e) (s)
David Heddle, the master dissembly, talks out of both sides of his mouth again:
I have not been defending ID
and then
Simply say (in the curriculum) here are the things that ID says are problems for evolution.
If ID is pure garbage (which it is and now you claim that you are not even willing to defend it) then why should any time be spent on the “the things ID says are problems”?
This makes no sense at all. Again, do sincere humans with college educations write the kind of sentences that David Heddle writes?
Or do they look more like the sort of rhetoric you’d see from a dissembling liar trying to push a religious agenda?
Does David Heddle have a religious agenda that he’s trying to push? Of course we know he’s deeply religious and we know he belongs to some sort of ill-defined “Christian” sect which he is very very quick to point out is “not fundamentalist”.
Look, I have biases …
Oh look, he’s essentially already admitted that he can’t discuss the subject objectively. Could it be because, like all fundamntalist religious types, he considers his deity to be a scientific fact?
David, who do you think created and designed all the life forms that ever lived on earth and approximately when did that occur? Can you answer that question honestly for us?
Comment #15777
Posted by David Heddle on February 10, 2005 04:06 PM (e) (s)
Pete,
You are also missing the boat. This is not a thread about ID v. evolution, but rather, in effect, how terrible you guys are in dealing with the public. Your response is a thinly veiled “we are very smart, and if you don’t agree with us, you’re an idiot.” Not a good way to make your case. Because Behe comes across as smart, while you come across as petulant. You wrote
Irreducible complexity is a normal expected result of evolution.
Who would that convince? That is supposed to counter, to a non-expert, Behe’s arguments? You need to do better.
You can stomp your heals and say Behe is ignorant, (which only makes it sound as if you have no real argument,) but I see a tenured Ph.D. at a more-than-decent university. I don’t see someone who is likely to be stupid.
So you find Behe’s rhetorical arguments convincing? This is a sound reason not to teach ID in school, except as something to debunk. Understanding that science is not rhetorical argument is a very important part of understanding what science is.
Yes, I find them more convincing than anything that I have seen, as a scientific non-expert, in the popular literature. Much more convincing than a dogmatic statement “Irreducible complexity is a normal expected result of evolution”.
RBH
And which part of the requirements enumerated in state science standards shall they not teach in order to do that? With school districts being graded on how well students perform on standardized tests constructed against those standards (with real and sometimes draconian consequences attached to that performance), the ID BS is a bloody waste of class time.
I doubt any modifications would be required. If you started off a class by saying “IDers claim convergence is a problem for evolution” and then proceed (assuming you can) to show why it isn’t, you’d be teaching evolution, not ID. And even if it did require slight mods, your point is a red herring.
GWW’s questions
Do you believe that most Americans agree that a group of mysterious alien beings have visited earth repeatedly over the last several billion years and dumped all of the earth’s life forms, which they designed and created?
No, I don’t believe that most Americans believe that.
Just so we’re clear David: is it your position that if a majority of religious people have a critical view about something, then scientists have to pretend that they might be right, or else?
No, not a majority of “religious” people. But if a large number of taxpayers/voters believe something, then you’d be foolish (actually, you are being foolish) to cop an attitude that we scientists have inalienable rights to do our research with public funding. When I was on staff at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, we had to get up and leave a room if the public outreach people needed it for a demo for middle school kids. Some of the physicists would grumble that physics should come first. They were wrong. The public pays the bills and to treat them as morons is not a good strategy.
I think those were the only questions, the rest was just your usual bilge.
Plunge wrote
But this [being a Christian] is exactly what makes me doubt your sincerity
I love that argument too, and that will get you far in the red states. Are you saying it is impossible for a Christian to be an objective scientist?
Again, the main thing scientists don’t get is why anyone finds Behe compelling at all. In the case of blood clotting, for instance, Doolittle has not only worked out plausible ways that the system could have evolved step-by-step, but even done some amazing work in trying to show that it did, in fact, happen via those steps (which is not easy given that there are rarely any simple records of what the intermediate steps were).
(You need, at least, to say “most scientists” because I am a scientist and one exception disproves your generalization.) Well, okay, why not say, at just a few junctures, “Behe has used IC to argue that blood clotting could not have arisen through evolution, let’s see how he is wrong” and then smile and say to the public that you are addressing ID criticisms? No harm no foul.
GWW again
David, who do you think created and designed all the life forms that ever lived on earth and approximately when did that occur? Can you answer that question honestly for us?
Yes I can answer that. I believe God is the primary creator. I also believe that God uses secondary causes. For example, He doesn’t move the planets around micron by micron. Gravity does that. By why do we have the right law (inverse-square) of gravity? Because the universe has the correct number of expanding dimensions. God made that call. So I believe He created all things, including life, but I am not adverse to evolution as a secondary cause, like gravity. That would be so-called theistic evolution. When? Whenever the fossil record says so—what is it now, a few hundred million years after the earth formed?
By the way, GWW, you took my admission of biases as precluding me from being objective. In the strictest sense, that’s true. But I’d be amazed if even you were to claim that you bring no presuppositions to the table.
One more thing, GWW, a piece of advice I know you’ll ignore. Stop using the word “dissembler” and its derivatives in virtually all your posts. I think it must even be boring even your compatriots by now.
Comment #15778
Posted by Great White Wonder on February 10, 2005 04:14 PM (e) (s)
Here’s an article about a nice little editorial in the Washington Times, a Moonie-run paper. Remember Jonathan Wells, the sick liar for the Discovery Institute and notorious “ID theory” peddler? He’s a Moonie, too, and has admitted that his Moonie beliefs inspired him to take a dump on biologists.
Feb. 9, 2005 — Marian Kester Coombs is a woman who believes America has become a “den of iniquity” thanks to “its efforts to accommodate minorities.”
White men should “run, not walk” to wed “racially conscious” white women and avoid being out-bred by non-whites. Latinos are “rising to take this country away from those who made it,” the “Euroamericans.” Muslims are “human hyenas” who “smell blood” and are “closing in” on their “weakened prey,” meaning “the white race.” Blacks, Coombs sneers, are “saintly victims who can do no wrong.” Black solidarity and non-white immigration are imposing “racial revolution and decomposition” in America….
Marian Kester Coombs is married to Francis Booth Coombs, managing editor of the hard-right newspaper The Washington Times. Fran Coombs has published at least 35 of his wife’s news and opinion pieces for his paper, although his relationship to her is not acknowledged in her Times bylines.
Disgusting lying sickos. There is no other word for them. I guess a creationist might call their theories “controversial.” Calling them anything else would by hypocritical.
Remember, these are the people whom David Heddle and his fellow evolution-bashers at the Disclaimery Institute suggest we listen to. These are the people whose “scientific” criticism of evolutionary biology we are supposed to take seriously. Why? Because they outnumber us. That’s David Heddle’s reasoning, not mine. Or perhaps David is referring to some passage in his holy book where his deity said “tell as many lies as possible and they all will be forgiven as long as the number of worshippers is increased.” Which is it David?
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/news/item.jsp?aid=10
And before you reach for your tissues, David, ask yourself: why didn’t you post this first? When’s the last time you wrote a post deriding the disgusting dissembling of Jonathan Wells on behalf of his irrefutably bigoted Moonie cult? Why are the pro-science folks here more anxious than the deity-worshipping “ID” apologists to leap to defend good Christians from having their messiah smeared by bigoted religious jerks?
Comment #15779
Posted by David Heddle on February 10, 2005 04:21 PM (e) (s)
Question for all: Are you guys on the evolution side embarrassed by GWW? If I were on your side, I would suspect him of being a ID plant whose purpose was to make us look bad.
Comment #15780
Posted by Jari Anttila on February 10, 2005 04:24 PM (e) (s)
David:
What I have been saying is stop wasting time arguing that their premise of miraculous creation and design is faulty. Don’t even argue that they are not science. Simply say (in the curriculum) here are the things that ID says are problems for evolution. Let’s take a couple weeks to examine them.
So, in that context everything that has been said about ID’s premises, its scientific validity, or anything, is immaterial;
You might put the political argument to rest, for the sides are fairly evenly drawn
the material aspect being that because ID has so much popular (not scientific; sides are definitively not evenly drawn) support, we cannot ignore it. Sorry, but this is nothing but politics.
Comment #15781
Posted by Russell on February 10, 2005 04:28 PM (e) (s)
Russel wrote:
Where is “later a part gets added” in any serious discussion of evolution?
I didn’t pull that phrase out of the air, it was in the blurb used by plunge (comment #15743 above) as an example of a rebuttal of Behe’s IC. It comes from your side of the aisle.
No, I’m not comparing off-hand remarks to a weblog with carefully written and edited books. That’s what I meant by “serious”.
And “my” side of the aisle? Hey, I thought you were on our side: that ID is not science and should not be taught as such.
If you think it is only Joe Sixpack, meaning uneducated bumpkins, you are mistaken.
No, I don’t mean uneducated bumpkins. (We nonRepublicans don’t think of “Joe Sixpack” as a derogatory term ;) I mean folks who are the victims of bad science education. The push to make science education still worse seems designed (perhaps intelligently?) to accelerate that downward spiral.
Comment #15782
Posted by Aggie Nostic on February 10, 2005 04:29 PM (e) (s)
Just imagine that, for every question you presented to someone in power, they answered with the words, “We don’t really know. It’s a mystery.” Now imagine if you or your child asked a question about the origin of the human species in a science class, only to have a learned instructor tell you, “We don’t really know. It’s a mystery.” Would anyone dare call that education?
That sums up my concern — namely that by pre-judging whether something is “knowable” apriori, we necessarily pick and choose what to research. If someone believes that our understanding of the cell is complete and that the rest of it is “unknowable,” how likely is it that they are going to encourage (or fund) further research in that field?
It’s one thing to say something is “unknown.” That’s an observation on the current state of affairs. However, it’s an entirely different thing to assert that something is “unknowable.” From a philosophical perspective, it’s a universal statement that requires all knowledge. From a practical standpoint, it’s a recipe for discouraging inquiry.
Comment #15783
Posted by Aggie Nostic on February 10, 2005 04:34 PM (e) (s)
Just imagine that, for every question you presented to someone in power, they answered with the words, “We don’t really know. It’s a mystery.” Now imagine if you or your child asked a question about the origin of the human species in a science class, only to have a learned instructor tel
Comment #15689
Posted by David Heddle on February 10, 2005 04:52 AM (e) (s)
I have no problem with teaching evolution in school and am not an advocate of teaching ID (although I always had an optional lecture on cosmological ID when I was a prof.) However, I do not share your enthusiasm for Fulton’s journalistic skills. If he were on the other side, he just as easily could have written:
Now imagine if you or your child questioned the prevailing view in science class, only to have a learned instructor tell you, “We’re not even going to discuss that, what I am presenting is fact, not theory.” Would anyone dare call that education?