Evolution's Grip On Schools May Be Loosening
A. Carlson
For Jack Chick's read on this issue:
http://www.chick.com/bc/2002/evolution.asp
Although he is clearly biased and his 'facts' are highly
selective, I still wonder how much truth there is in his
ultimate conclusion, particularly:
"The theory of intelligent design is becoming more widely accepted.
Christian parents have an excellent chance of breaking evolution's
grip on their local school if they will stand up and be counted."
The above statement can be 100% true even if the pseudo-
science behind ID isn't :(
TomS
<3de87c8a...@news.supernews.com>, amca...@hotmail.com stated..."
I wonder what would happen if the political grass-roots
support for ID were to find out that ID does *not* deny evolution.
As far as I can tell, ID only suggests that evolution does
not account for developments at the Cambrian (about 500 million
years ago), or that common ancestry is limited to within ...
(oh, let's say, to be very conservative about it) the biological
level of Class. So that humans are, on the basis of ID, related
to bats, cats, rats, and wombats; but not to gnats and kumquats.
Or, what would be the reaction if it were pointed out that ID
does *not* exclude ... and probably suggests ... that there were
multiple designers, which could have been Space Aliens? (Note the
recent statement of support for ID from the Raelians.)
Tom S.
David Jensen
TomS <TomS_...@newsguy.com> wrote in <as7um...@drn.newsguy.com>:
>"On Fri, 29 Nov 2002 08:50:56 +0000 (UTC), in article
><3de87c8a...@news.supernews.com>, amca...@hotmail.com stated..."
>>
>>
>>For Jack Chick's read on this issue:
>>
>>http://www.chick.com/bc/2002/evolution.asp
>>
>>Although he is clearly biased and his 'facts' are highly
>>selective, I still wonder how much truth there is in his
>>ultimate conclusion, particularly:
>>
>>"The theory of intelligent design is becoming more widely accepted.
>>Christian parents have an excellent chance of breaking evolution's
>>grip on their local school if they will stand up and be counted."
>>
>>The above statement can be 100% true even if the pseudo-
>>science behind ID isn't :(
>>
>
> I wonder what would happen if the political grass-roots
>support for ID were to find out that ID does *not* deny evolution.
Fundamentalists tend to be very credulous people if they think that the
person telling them something agrees with them. Once you are perceived
to be a good guy, they will buy anything. Con men, like those in the ID
racket, take advantage of this inability to evaluate claims.
> As far as I can tell, ID only suggests that evolution does
>not account for developments at the Cambrian (about 500 million
>years ago), or that common ancestry is limited to within ...
>(oh, let's say, to be very conservative about it) the biological
>level of Class. So that humans are, on the basis of ID, related
>to bats, cats, rats, and wombats; but not to gnats and kumquats.
Maybe, but Philip Johnson never admits a thing and the DI never admits a
thing. Johnson may have been a professor at one time, but in ID, he's
just Prof. Harold Hill.
> Or, what would be the reaction if it were pointed out that ID
>does *not* exclude ... and probably suggests ... that there were
>multiple designers, which could have been Space Aliens? (Note the
>recent statement of support for ID from the Raelians.)
There you go again, twisting things by offering evidence. It just isn't
fair.
A. Carlson
<TomS_...@newsguy.com> wrote:
>"On Fri, 29 Nov 2002 08:50:56 +0000 (UTC), in article
><3de87c8a...@news.supernews.com>, amca...@hotmail.com stated..."
>>
>>
>>For Jack Chick's read on this issue:
>>
>>http://www.chick.com/bc/2002/evolution.asp
>>
>>Although he is clearly biased and his 'facts' are highly
>>selective, I still wonder how much truth there is in his
>>ultimate conclusion, particularly:
>>
>>"The theory of intelligent design is becoming more widely accepted.
>>Christian parents have an excellent chance of breaking evolution's
>>grip on their local school if they will stand up and be counted."
>>
>>The above statement can be 100% true even if the pseudo-
>>science behind ID isn't :(
>>
>
> I wonder what would happen if the political grass-roots
>support for ID were to find out that ID does *not* deny evolution.
Probably nothing as long as the ID crowd doesn't push that
particular position, and somehow I don't thing that it is really
high on their list of priorities anyway.
In the end, since fundies usually only take from science
what they agree with in the first place, I think that they
will do the exact same with the ID movement, reaching
the ?eronious? conclusion that the ID movement
actually agrees with their position. This may actually
be true to begin with.
A more interesting question would be is whether or not
the main movers and shakers in the ID movement
openly criticize your typical scientific creationist, like so
many mainstream scientists do. If not, would this be a
case of not wanting to bite the hand that feeds you, or
that it is because they are really allies to begin with?
> As far as I can tell, ID only suggests that evolution does
>not account for developments at the Cambrian (about 500 million
>years ago), or that common ancestry is limited to within ...
>(oh, let's say, to be very conservative about it) the biological
>level of Class. So that humans are, on the basis of ID, related
>to bats, cats, rats, and wombats; but not to gnats and kumquats.
I get the impression that they insist on going much much lower,
like genus or species, at least concerning God's intervention.
Can you even pin them down on this one? Isn't the bombadier
beetle one of their ?past? arguments? This would imply
intervention at a pretty low level.
> Or, what would be the reaction if it were pointed out that ID
>does *not* exclude ... and probably suggests ... that there were
>multiple designers, which could have been Space Aliens? (Note the
>recent statement of support for ID from the Raelians.)
I think that most people on both sides of the issue realize who
they specifically are driving at, but cannot say, in order to
stay within what they percieve are legal bounds that allow
them to push this particular tripe in public schools.
> Tom S.
>
Judy Rickley
started by Michael Behe) simply a philosophy that states that mostly all
of the evolution bit is true but none of it came about by chance.
Rather a creator-force is behind it all. This philosophy is almost as
rational as pure evolution with its survival of the fittest twist. I
take it then that in ID theories, for one example, Neanderthal man is
not a post-flood human being (as he is in most young earth creationism
theories) but rather a truly different species of humans. I would think
rational people would welcome ID in schools over creationism of the
young earth kind.
NA Sides
<TomS_...@newsguy.com> wrote:
Yes, indeed. And what would be the reaction if evolutionists began to
take ID claims seriously enough to actually put into action the
research program that Behe and Dembski say is possible but have not
yet begun for themselves? It's been six or seven years since
intelligent design was suggested and they haven't yet presented any
testable ideas about the nature of the designer(s) nor has the idea of
an explanatory filter been framed in sufficiently precise terms that
it could actually do what Dembski says it can do.
Perhaps Behe and Dembski really are epochal thinkers and have simply
been too busy with other concerns to actually do any science related
to ID. Therefore, after all this time there still is no theory of, and
no real way to test for, intelligent design. Since, despite what
creationists think, the creation and testing of theories is the
foundation of all real science. They clearly need help to get their
project off the ground.
It's clear now that proponents of the wedge project have leapfrogged
the early stage of that project - the stage where they were actually
going to do some science related to ID - and have gone right to the
part about lobbying politicians and getting pro-ID school boards
elected. It's obvious they can handle the political and social aspects
of their project, but they just as obviously need help with the
science. How about it, people!!??!?? Can't you at least offer some
assistance in padding out that lesson plan they can't seem to produce?
NAS
>
> Tom S.
Richard Uhrich
We would prefer it over the Geocentric theory, too (the earth is the
center of the universe), but it would be best to keep *all* religious
opinions out of public schools. If ID wants to be accepted as science,
all they need do is provide some scientific evidence. (Your failure to
understand the mechanism of evolution is not scientific evidence.)
--
Richard Uhrich
---
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge. --
Charles Darwin
Bjoern Feuerbacher
>
> Excuse me all who are rational. Isn't intelligent design (more or less
> started by Michael Behe) simply a philosophy that states that mostly all
> of the evolution bit is true but none of it came about by chance.
> Rather a creator-force is behind it all.
Err, their main point is that it *couldn't* have happened by chance
resp. the laws of nature alone; that a creator is *needed* to explain
the evidence. The problem is: they don't offer any evidence for this...
> This philosophy is almost as
> rational as pure evolution
Pardon? Postulating a creator for which is no evidence is rational?
> with its survival of the fittest twist.
Why do you call this a "twist"?
> I take it then that in ID theories, for one example, Neanderthal man is
> not a post-flood human being (as he is in most young earth creationism
> theories) but rather a truly different species of humans.
I have never seen them addressing this question. AFAIK, they don't talk
about human ancestry at all.
That's understandable: they know fairly well that the evidence points to
humans being descended from apes - but if they would admit this, they
would lose the support of the YECs.
> I would think
> rational people would welcome ID in schools over creationism of the
> young earth kind.
Geocentrism is better than a belief in a flat earth, but nevertheless,
we don't want to have it in school.
Bob Pease
"Richard Uhrich" <uhr...@san.rr.com> wrote in message
news:3DE7A18...@san.rr.com...
Even more basic is...
ID is a smokescreen being used by Fundies to dilute the time spent on
Origins issues in Biology ( or other) classes.
They want to water down anything that they think might cause anyone to even
question the absolute accuracy of the Bible in all matters.
RJ Pease
---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
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R. Tang
Judy Rickley <JU...@webtv.net> wrote:
>Excuse me all who are rational. Isn't intelligent design (more or less
>started by Michael Behe) simply a philosophy that states that mostly all
>of the evolution bit is true but none of it came about by chance.
Actually, no.
To start with, Behe himself accepts almost all of evolution
through natural selection. Also, natural selection is NOT just about
chance; there are selection filters (which are assuredly not random).
>Rather a creator-force is behind it all. This philosophy is almost as
>rational as pure evolution with its survival of the fittest twist.
As philosophy, perhaps. But it is not very useful as science
(which is, after all, it purports to be). There is no useful metric to
decide what is designed and what is not. Nor does it say anything about
the creator.
>I
>take it then that in ID theories, for one example, Neanderthal man is
>not a post-flood human being (as he is in most young earth creationism
>theories) but rather a truly different species of humans. I would think
>rational people would welcome ID in schools over creationism of the
>young earth kind.
At least until you take a closer look. It essentially >IS<
creationism, very akin to young earth creationism, and it is being
propelled on political grounds, not scientific grounds.
--
-
-Roger Tang, gwan...@u.washington.edu, Artistic Director PC Theatre
- Editor, Asian American Theatre Revue [NEW URL][Yes, it IS new]
- http://www.aatrevue.com
Charlie O'Keefe
If you haven't had the pleasure of reading Jack Chick's classic, "Big
Daddy", head right over to:
http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0055/0055_01.asp
Make sure you don't miss his crusher toward the end, concerning 'the
binding force of the atom'. That panel has a footnote: "see drdino.com
for details" so it is apparenlty a Hovind original, although I
couldn't find anything about "gluons" at that site. It's an absolute
riot. And I hear that tract has been redone with the help of Hovind
and others, and that it used to be *worse*!
If anyone has more on "Dr." Hovind on Gluons, or an original "Big
Daddy", please send it my way ;-)
Lane Lewis
"Judy Rickley" <JU...@webtv.net> wrote in message
news:4700-3DE...@storefull-2254.public.lawson.webtv.net...
Behe's idea is indeed philosophy but not a rational one. He insist that
evolution occurs complete with random mutations and survival of the fittest
but with the intelligent designer interceding at certain points such as to
make the flagellum of a certain species. The theory will never amount to
anything until Behe can show evidence of this designer. In science you base
ideas on evidence not lack of evidence which is what Behe has done. I hope
rational people will see both creationism and ID as religion and not to be
taught in science class.
Lane
A. Carlson
Rickley) wrote:
>Excuse me all who are rational. Isn't intelligent design (more or less
>started by Michael Behe) simply a philosophy that states that mostly all
>of the evolution bit is true but none of it came about by chance.
More along the lines that not all of it could have come about
by chance. But as others have pointed out numerous times, they
are without evidence to back it up.
>Rather a creator-force is behind it all. This philosophy is almost as
>rational as pure evolution with its survival of the fittest twist.
It strikes me as though they could even reject survival of the
fittest as soon as they shoehorn a creator in there. Once the
assumption of a creator has been 'proven' to their satisfaction,
where would such a creator's influence stop? Why should
such a creator only be limited to that which we can't otherwise
explain? If a natural explaination that is clearly possible can
in additon be explained by their now 'proven' god who
intervenes, they could then argue to exclude all plausible natural
explainations, using their alternative. Where would it stop?
>I take it then that in ID theories, for one example, Neanderthal man is
>not a post-flood human being (as he is in most young earth creationism
>theories) but rather a truly different species of humans. I would think
>rational people would welcome ID in schools over creationism of the
>young earth kind.
>
I would rather simply leave it at science. At least one of their
primary missions is clearly to get their foot in the door so as to be
able to teach this transparently religious belief as legitimate
science, which it is not.
wf...@ptnospam.com
Rickley) wrote:
>Excuse me all who are rational. Isn't intelligent design (more or less
>started by Michael Behe) simply a philosophy that states that mostly all
>of the evolution bit is true but none of it came about by chance.
ID denies the role of natural forces in science. it says that,
somehow, someone did something to cause everything we see to exist.
when they're asked HOW this happened, ID'ers refuse to answer.
>Rather a creator-force is behind it all. This philosophy is almost as
>rational as pure evolution with its survival of the fittest twist. I
>take it then that in ID theories, for one example, Neanderthal man is
>not a post-flood human being (as he is in most young earth creationism
>theories) but rather a truly different species of humans. I would think
>rational people would welcome ID in schools over creationism of the
>young earth kind.
since the job of science is to explain how nature works, ID isn't
science
>
Morgoth's Cat
Carlson) scribed:
Widely accepted by whom?
White trash?
Best,
Dave
E-mail: morgoth AT valinor DOT freeserve DOT co DOT uk
Homepage: http://www.veilofnight.net
Debunking Creationist Lies: The Supernovae and Supernova Remnants FAQ
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/supernova/
Visions of Light, Visions of Darkness - a B&W Photographic Gallery
http://www.valinor.freeserve.co.uk/visions.html
catshark
Rickley) wrote:
>Excuse me all who are rational. Isn't intelligent design (more or less
>started by Michael Behe)
No, it was "more or less" stated by Phillip Johnson (a lawyer):
http://www.evcforum.net/RefLib/NaturalHistory_200204_Forrest.html
>simply a philosophy that states that mostly all
>of the evolution bit is true but none of it came about by chance.
It is indeed a philosophy, which is a good and sufficient reason why
it should *not* be taught in science classes.
More importantly, it is a philosophy that is intended to lend support
to a *particular* brand of religious thought, specifically
Fundamentalist Christianity. It is also part of a conservative
American *political* movement, seeking to "return" the U.S. to some
supposed Judeo-Christian golden age.
http://reason.com/9707/fe.bailey.shtml
Strangely, though, its proponents insist on calling it science. They
are doing this bait-and-switch intentionally. It is an attempt to
inject conservative religious content into public schools in the face
of the fact that doing so is clearly unconstitutional.
>Rather a creator-force is behind it all. This philosophy is almost as
>rational as pure evolution with its survival of the fittest twist. I
>take it then that in ID theories, for one example, Neanderthal man is
>not a post-flood human being (as he is in most young earth creationism
>theories) but rather a truly different species of humans. I would think
>rational people would welcome ID in schools over creationism of the
>young earth kind.
Ah, I see. We should accept certain political and religious factions
highjacking public school science classes because the alternative
might be the teaching of "creation science"? Not quite. Teaching
creationism as science has already been declared unconstitutional by
the U.S. Supreme Court. Why should we be happy to have one
unconstitutional religious/political exercise supplanted by a stealth
version of the same thing, constructed for no other reason than to try
to sneak those same ideas past the Constitution?
---------------
J. Pieret
---------------
Cogito sum, ergo sum, cogito.
- Robert Carroll -
Bob Pease
"TomS" <TomS_...@newsguy.com> wrote in message
news:as7um...@drn.newsguy.com...
ID is a fundo ploy to waste time so that "Dangerous", ( anti-bible) ideas
get watered down with copious servings of red herring.
I hardly matters whether the flights of fancy "COULD" be true.
RJ P
Frank J
> Excuse me all who are rational. Isn't intelligent design (more or less
> started by Michael Behe) simply a philosophy that states that mostly all
> of the evolution bit is true but none of it came about by chance.
> Rather a creator-force is behind it all.
If that's all Behe said, mainstream science would leave him alone.
Behe's chief critic, Kenneth Miller, in fact, shares that philosophy.
> This philosophy is almost as
> rational as pure evolution with its survival of the fittest twist. I
> take it then that in ID theories, for one example, Neanderthal man is
> not a post-flood human being (as he is in most young earth creationism
> theories) but rather a truly different species of humans. I would think
> rational people would welcome ID in schools over creationism of the
> young earth kind.
Behe, and at least some IDCs, apaprently agree with mainstream science
regarding neanderthals, so this is not an issue. The problem with ID,
and where it is, IMO, even worse than YEC or classic OEC, is how it
misrepresents evolution. This is just a glimpse:
http://bostonreview.mit.edu/br22.1/coyne.html
A. Carlson
mor...@REMOVETHISwytchcraft.REMOVETHISASWELLnet (Morgoth's Cat)
wrote:
>On Fri, 29 Nov 2002 08:50:56 +0000 (UTC), amca...@hotmail.com (A.
>Carlson) scribed:
>
>>
>>For Jack Chick's read on this issue:
>>
>>http://www.chick.com/bc/2002/evolution.asp
>>
>>Although he is clearly biased and his 'facts' are highly
>>selective, I still wonder how much truth there is in his
>>ultimate conclusion, particularly:
>>
>>"The theory of intelligent design is becoming more widely accepted.
>>Christian parents have an excellent chance of breaking evolution's
>>grip on their local school if they will stand up and be counted."
>>
>>The above statement can be 100% true even if the pseudo-
>>science behind ID isn't :(
>
>Widely accepted by whom?
>
>White trash?
Hey! With numbers, they can do a lot of damage.
I seem to remember that, in the 70's creation scientists were simply
dismissed by the established scientific community as being just a
bunch of religious crackpots (which they are), only to find that
they were the ones who much of the public at large wanted to
listen to and believe. Remember, our hallowed newsgroup
would not exist if it weren't for them ;)
KelvynT
That's exactly the route they want everyone to take. And which should
be resisted at all costs. It all sounds so 'reasonable', but when Ohms
Law becomes Designer's Law it won't.
Kelvyn
Bobby D. Bryant
Key distinction: evolution explains the evidence and ID doesn't.
And neither are philosophies: one is science and the other is (bad)
theology.
Bobby Bryant
Austin, Texas
A Pagano
<bdbr...@mail.utexas.edu> wrote:
>On Fri, 29 Nov 2002 10:57:47 -0600, Judy Rickley wrote:
>
>> Excuse me all who are rational. Isn't intelligent design (more or
>> less started by Michael Behe) simply a philosophy that states that
>> mostly all of the evolution bit is true but none of it came about
>> by chance.
Pagano replies:
In a word: no.
Behe wrote that neoDarwinian evolution (which is a purely naturalistic
theory) was the best explanation for most of the biological systems,
organs and structures that man has observed, BUT it could not explain
the origin of all of them. NeoDarwinian evolution could NOTexplain
the creation of systems he labeled "irreducibly complex." Behe argued
that the best mode of explanation for these irreducibly complex
systems is intelligent design.
>> Rather a creator-force is behind it all.
Pagano replies:
In a word: no. Intelligent design theory does not identify the
intelligent agent nor does it need to.
>>This
>> philosophy is almost as rational as pure evolution with its
>> survival of the fittest twist. I take it then that in ID theories,
>> for one example, Neanderthal man is not a post-flood human being
>> (as he is in most young earth creationism theories) but rather a
>> truly different species of humans. I would think rational people
>> would welcome ID in schools over creationism of the young earth
>> kind.
Pagano replies:
ID theorists make no such claim.
>
>Key distinction: evolution explains the evidence and ID doesn't.
Pagano replies:
ID theory attempts to offer a rigorous method for determining when
intelligent design would be the true mode of explanation for a
particular observation or event (rather than law or chance). For
example, intelligent design theory would give the investigator a
rigorous method for determining whether or not the bacterial flagellum
was the result of intelligent design as opposed to law, chance (or
some combination). ID theory goes no further than this.
As near as I can tell there does not exist a detailed and empirically
testable explanation of how the neoDarwinian mechanism created the
bacterial flagellum.
>And neither are philosophies: one is science and the other is (bad)
>theology.
Pagano replies:
There are certainly underlying philosophies to both evolutionary
biology and intelligent design. However, if Bryant can't produce an
empirically testable explanation of how the bacterial flagellum arose
then his brand of evolutionary biology is more storytelling than
science. And to the extent that Intelligent Design advocates can
"prove" rigorously their probablistic methodology it may prove more
scientific than Bryant's storytelling.
Regards,
T Pagano
Elmer Bataitis
> Behe wrote that neoDarwinian evolution (which is a purely naturalistic
> theory) was the best explanation for most of the biological systems,
> organs and structures that man has observed, BUT it could not explain
> the origin of all of them.
Gee Tony, how did you determine this? Did you gather this information
using naturalistic methods? I thought you claimed they are false.
***************************************************************
Elmer Bataitis “Hot dog! Smooch city here I come!”
Planetech Services -Hobbes
585-442-2884
"...proudly wearing and displaying, as a badge of honor, the
straight jacket of conventional thought."
***************************************************************
David Sienkiewicz
> On Sat, 30 Nov 2002 02:56:45 +0000 (UTC), "Bobby D. Bryant"
> <bdbr...@mail.utexas.edu> wrote:
>
> >On Fri, 29 Nov 2002 10:57:47 -0600, Judy Rickley wrote:
> >
> >> Excuse me all who are rational. Isn't intelligent design (more or
> >> less started by Michael Behe) simply a philosophy that states that
> >> mostly all of the evolution bit is true but none of it came about
> >> by chance.
>
> Pagano replies:
> In a word: no.
>
> Behe wrote that neoDarwinian evolution (which is a purely naturalistic
> theory) was the best explanation for most of the biological systems,
> organs and structures that man has observed, BUT it could not explain
> the origin of all of them. NeoDarwinian evolution could NOTexplain
> the creation of systems he labeled "irreducibly complex."
< snip >
But Tony, didn't you just get done telling us that ID doesn't explain,
describe or predict events?
(We'll forget for the moment that you don't have the foggiest idea
what neodarwinism does because you don't know what it IS.)
Tony, I remind you of this article by you:
In it you, clearly write:
"ID theory doesn't try to explain the origin of life, the diversity of
life, or the origin of novelty."
And:
"ID theory does not explain, describe, predict or retrodict events in
prehistory."
I realize that the "prehistory" bit is a qualifier, but we can come
back to that if you muster up the courage to respond, Tony.
So far, I have seen no "misinformation" by ANYONE ELSE about ID. What
I HAVE seen is you admit that it is useless as a "theory" because it
doesn't "explain, describe or predict" anything. What it does,
according to you, is say that "Supernatural design is simply a logical
possibility that cannot be eliminated a priori."
ID doesn't seem to do anything scientific.
So what good is it?
Lane Lewis
"Charlie O'Keefe" <thegr...@usa.net> wrote in message
news:18147ae6.02112...@posting.google.com...
I guess electrons, protons and neutrons don't exist either then. Well there
goes the universe.
Will keep am eye out for big daddy and I guess the universe.
Lane
Bobby D. Bryant
> On Sat, 30 Nov 2002 02:56:45 +0000 (UTC), "Bobby D. Bryant"
> <bdbr...@mail.utexas.edu> wrote:
>
>>On Fri, 29 Nov 2002 10:57:47 -0600, Judy Rickley wrote:
>>
>>> Excuse me all who are rational. Isn't intelligent design (more
>>> or less started by Michael Behe) simply a philosophy that states
>>> that mostly all of the evolution bit is true but none of it
>>> came about by chance.
>
> Pagano replies:
> In a word: no.
>
> Behe wrote that neoDarwinian evolution (which is a purely
> naturalistic theory) was the best explanation for most of the
> biological systems, organs and structures that man has observed,
> BUT it could not explain the origin of all of them. NeoDarwinian
> evolution could NOTexplain the creation of systems he labeled
> "irreducibly complex." Behe argued that the best mode of
> explanation for these irreducibly complex systems is intelligent
> design.
Yep, that's what he writes and argues. Too bad he can't actually
support those claims.
>>> Rather a creator-force is behind it all.
>
> Pagano replies:
> In a word: no. Intelligent design theory does not identify the
> intelligent agent nor does it need to.
If it was really science there would be nothing in the world that
interested them more than that identity. But since it's merely a
political ploy to sneak crypto-creationism past the courts they bend
over backwards *not* to identify it.
When have you ever seen a real scientist discover something new and
fail to show any interest in the cause?
Also, as I have argued repeatedly, when you look at the consequences
of the ID argument you discover that they must either appeal to the
supernatural or else admit that their whole argument is vacuous.
>>>This
>>> philosophy is almost as rational as pure evolution with its
>>> survival of the fittest twist. I take it then that in ID
>>> theories, for one example, Neanderthal man is not a post-flood
>>> human being (as he is in most young earth creationism theories)
>>> but rather a truly different species of humans. I would think
>>> rational people would welcome ID in schools over creationism of
>>> the young earth kind.
>
> Pagano replies:
> ID theorists make no such claim.
>
>
>>Key distinction: evolution explains the evidence and ID doesn't.
>
> Pagano replies:
> ID theory attempts to offer a rigorous method for determining when
> intelligent design would be the true mode of explanation for a
> particular observation or event (rather than law or chance). For
> example, intelligent design theory would give the investigator a
> rigorous method for determining whether or not the bacterial
> flagellum was the result of intelligent design as opposed to law,
> chance (or some combination). ID theory goes no further than
> this.
>
> As near as I can tell there does not exist a detailed and
> empirically testable explanation of how the neoDarwinian mechanism
> created the bacterial flagellum.
The problem for ID is that they have *nothing* to offer except a
claim that evolution couldn't do it alone. And unless they can
support that claim *rigorously* then they don't have any claim at
all. They are essentially trying to claim a negative, and that sort
of claim is useless unless it is entirely leak-proof.
But ID isn't leak-proof.
>>And neither are philosophies: one is science and the other is
>>(bad) theology.
>
> Pagano replies:
> There are certainly underlying philosophies to both evolutionary
> biology and intelligent design. However, if Bryant can't produce
> an empirically testable explanation of how the bacterial flagellum
> arose then his brand of evolutionary biology is more storytelling
> than science.
Don't blame the messenger. And don't shift the burden of proof:
it's the IDologists who are trying to prove that something is
impossible. If I can't give a counterexample, that doesn't mean
they've done a good job of proving it.
> And to the extent that Intelligent Design advocates can "prove"
> rigorously their probablistic methodology it may prove more
> scientific than Bryant's storytelling.
Of course, they *can't* prove it. If you show that something has a
low probability but see that it happens anyway, your scientific
obligation is to see why it happens -- not to conclude that it
doesn't. ID is nothing more than "I don't see how that could
happen, therefore godidit." You can't get any more intellectually
bankrupt than that. I don't know how this darn mosquito got into
my apartment while all the doors and windows were closed, but that
doesn't justify invoking the Invisible Pink Unicorn as an
explanation.
In science, it's better to say "I don't know" than to express
assurance about completely unsupportable claims.
Bobby Bryant
Austin, Texas
Frank J
> <bdbr...@mail.utexas.edu> wrote:
>
> >On Fri, 29 Nov 2002 10:57:47 -0600, Judy Rickley wrote:
> >
> >> Excuse me all who are rational. Isn't intelligent design (more or
> >> less started by Michael Behe) simply a philosophy that states that
> >> mostly all of the evolution bit is true but none of it came about
> >> by chance.
>
> Pagano replies:
> In a word: no.
>
> Behe wrote that neoDarwinian evolution (which is a purely naturalistic
> theory) was the best explanation for most of the biological systems,
> organs and structures that man has observed, BUT it could not explain
> the origin of all of them. NeoDarwinian evolution could NOTexplain
> the creation of systems he labeled "irreducibly complex." Behe argued
> that the best mode of explanation for these irreducibly complex
> systems is intelligent design.
When you say "explanation for" do you mean origin via speciation or
via abiogenesis? Behe rarely states it directly, but his conclusion is
that an IC system must come from another IC system, thus ID is his
"explanation" for speciation, not abiogenesis - with of course one
exception for the first IC system.
>
> >> Rather a creator-force is behind it all.
>
> Pagano replies:
> In a word: no. Intelligent design theory does not identify the
> intelligent agent nor does it need to.
While some accuse them of using this tactic to get around the Supreme
Court descision - and that may well be their primary motivation - I
suspect that they honestly want to leave the door open to panspermia
or other "alien" explanation.
>
>
> >>This
> >> philosophy is almost as rational as pure evolution with its
> >> survival of the fittest twist. I take it then that in ID theories,
> >> for one example, Neanderthal man is not a post-flood human being
> >> (as he is in most young earth creationism theories) but rather a
> >> truly different species of humans. I would think rational people
> >> would welcome ID in schools over creationism of the young earth
> >> kind.
>
> Pagano replies:
> ID theorists make no such claim.
>
> >
> >Key distinction: evolution explains the evidence and ID doesn't.
>
> Pagano replies:
> ID theory attempts to offer a rigorous method for determining when
> intelligent design would be the true mode of explanation for a
> particular observation or event (rather than law or chance). For
> example, intelligent design theory would give the investigator a
> rigorous method for determining whether or not the bacterial flagellum
> was the result of intelligent design as opposed to law, chance (or
> some combination). ID theory goes no further than this.
Yes it does, not with its own theory, but in how it represents the one
we have.
>
> As near as I can tell there does not exist a detailed and empirically
> testable explanation of how the neoDarwinian mechanism created the
> bacterial flagellum.
Not to the level of detail required by the IDCs. Until we can trace
the detailed chemistry from abiogenesis to a fully-functional
flagellum (which may have taken a billion years), IDCs will simply
move the goal posts as each new details are obtained.
>
>
> >And neither are philosophies: one is science and the other is (bad)
> >theology.
>
> Pagano replies:
> There are certainly underlying philosophies to both evolutionary
> biology and intelligent design.
I fail to see how Kenneth Miller and Richard Dawkins, for example,
have anything common in philosophy other than "thou shalt not bear
false witness."
> However, if Bryant can't produce an
> empirically testable explanation of how the bacterial flagellum arose
> then his brand of evolutionary biology is more storytelling than
> science. And to the extent that Intelligent Design advocates can
> "prove" rigorously their probablistic methodology it may prove more
> scientific than Bryant's storytelling.
It may, but so far it hasn't. Maybe they should listen to fellow IDC
Mike Gene and do more research instead of the incessant sales pitch.
>
>
> Regards,
> T Pagano
Betty West
> For Jack Chick's read on this issue:
>
> http://www.chick.com/bc/2002/evolution.asp
>
> Although he is clearly biased and his 'facts' are highly
> selective, I still wonder how much truth there is in his
> ultimate conclusion, particularly:
>
> "The theory of intelligent design is becoming more widely accepted.
> Christian parents have an excellent chance of breaking evolution's
> grip on their local school if they will stand up and be counted."
>
> The above statement can be 100% true even if the pseudo-
> science behind ID isn't :(
Yes it can be true. Read some of Ken Miller's work on subject.
Ken is scientist and a believer. As scientist his position is that
evolution and its hard to explain phenomenon such as blood coagulation
and the human eye are all capable of naturalist explanations.
Ken Miller thinks that God did create the universe by way of the Big
Bang but in doing so then and there at the moment of creation, t=0,
he set up the conditions that would (might) lead to life and sentinent
beings. Loveable and smart you and me. Like a pool shark who, at the
break, has the right angle and force (intelligently directed) to sink
every ball on the table. Except the shooter!
This is the way I look at God's creation of our world. Which seems to me
to do God more honor than any creationist crap based on a literal reading
of 1 Genesis.
And who could prove Miller wrong because the creative activity
of God is basically limited to the very initial act or command whereby
the universe pops out of nothing and gives us all the wonders of
the universe. Plus its downers???!!!
Seems to me the universe operates in a purely naturalistic way. And the
only way we know God created is by faith in the sense our relationship
with God convinces us he is always our protector and the very ground of our
existence. Including the physical world governed by the laws of chemistry
and physics. Wonderful, NO?
wf...@ptnospam.com
<anthony...@verizon.net> wrote:
>On Sat, 30 Nov 2002 02:56:45 +0000 (UTC), "Bobby D. Bryant"
><bdbr...@mail.utexas.edu> wrote:
>
>>On Fri, 29 Nov 2002 10:57:47 -0600, Judy Rickley wrote:
>>
>>> Excuse me all who are rational. Isn't intelligent design (more or
>>> less started by Michael Behe) simply a philosophy that states that
>>> mostly all of the evolution bit is true but none of it came about
>>> by chance.
>
> Pagano replies:
>In a word: no.
>
>Behe wrote that neoDarwinian evolution (which is a purely naturalistic
>theory)
neither pagano, nor behe for that matter, bothers to tell us how behe
uses non-naturalistic explanations in his field of biochemistry. when
i was at lehigh, in their chemistry dept, i certainly dont remember
hearing about behe's upsetting the laws of science, and placing lehigh
at the forefront of science by disregarding the rules of science.
was the best explanation for most of the biological systems,
>organs and structures that man has observed, BUT it could not explain
>the origin of all of them. NeoDarwinian evolution could NOTexplain
>the creation of systems he labeled "irreducibly complex." Behe argued
>that the best mode of explanation for these irreducibly complex
>systems is intelligent design.
whatever 'intelligent design' is. my dog is intelligent. dont think he
could design a species.
>
>>> Rather a creator-force is behind it all.
>
> Pagano replies:
>In a word: no. Intelligent design theory does not identify the
>intelligent agent nor does it need to.
in fact that's the great genius of ID. it doesnt have to explain
anything at all.
>>
>>Key distinction: evolution explains the evidence and ID doesn't.
>
> Pagano replies:
>ID theory attempts to offer a rigorous method for determining when
>intelligent design would be the true mode of explanation for a
>particular observation or event (rather than law or chance). For
>example, intelligent design theory would give the investigator a
>rigorous method for determining whether or not the bacterial flagellum
>was the result of intelligent design as opposed to law, chance (or
>some combination). ID theory goes no further than this.
because it tells us nothing about HOW something gets done. pagano owes
me a million dollars. why?
well, gee. i dont have to say.
>
>As near as I can tell there does not exist a detailed and empirically
>testable explanation of how the neoDarwinian mechanism created the
>bacterial flagellum.
the god of the gaps. creationists take the scientific 'i dont know'
and turn it into 'god did it'.
>
>
>>And neither are philosophies: one is science and the other is (bad)
>>theology.
>
> Pagano replies:
>There are certainly underlying philosophies to both evolutionary
>biology and intelligent design.
wrong. only ID has a 'philosophy'....a metaphysic. evolutionary bio,
since it is shared by hindu, jewish, christian, buddhist, muslim, etc,
scientists, shares only the precepts of science.
Steven J.
> <bdbr...@mail.utexas.edu> wrote:
>
> >On Fri, 29 Nov 2002 10:57:47 -0600, Judy Rickley wrote:
> >
> >> Excuse me all who are rational. Isn't intelligent design (more or
> >> less started by Michael Behe) simply a philosophy that states that
> >> mostly all of the evolution bit is true but none of it came about
> >> by chance.
>
> Pagano replies:
> In a word: no.
>
>
> Behe wrote that neoDarwinian evolution (which is a purely naturalistic
> theory) was the best explanation for most of the biological systems,
> organs and structures that man has observed, BUT it could not explain
> the origin of all of them. NeoDarwinian evolution could NOTexplain
> the creation of systems he labeled "irreducibly complex." Behe argued
> that the best mode of explanation for these irreducibly complex
> systems is intelligent design.
>
was the best *naturalistic* explanation for the evidence. He asserted
that intelligent design is the best explanation for IC systems.
Behe claimed that the mechanisms of mutation and natural selection
could not explain IC structures. However, this claim has been much
disputed. An IC structure can evolve by incrementally aquiring new
functions (e.g. the mammalian blood clotting cascade began its
evolution in cold-blooded, low-blood pressure organisms that didn't
need a terribly efficient clotting system), or by modifying old
components so that they work better in the company of newer
components, but no longer work at all without them. In addition,
redundant complexity can be removed by beneficial mutations, giving
rise to IC systems from formerly reducibly complex ones.
>
> >> Rather a creator-force is behind it all.
>
> Pagano replies:
> In a word: no. Intelligent design theory does not identify the
> intelligent agent nor does it need to.
>
I would say, it cannot afford to. Attempting to identify the
intelligent Agaent leads to the question of whether His purposes and
design philosophy can be detected in nature. The ID proponents either
fear it cannot, or fear that the most logical conclusions from the
evidence would radically contradict their theology.
Still, Behe argues at the start of _Darwin's Black Box_ that
resistance in the scientific community to the idea of "design" is not
that "design" is vacuous, aa label pasted over an admission of
ignorance, but rather that secular scientists are afraid that "design"
implies "God." You cannot be so naive as to imagine, or to expect us
to imagine, that Behe actually suspects space aliens, elves, or Cthulu
and his cronies might be the designers, or wants anyone else to
suspect this.
>
> >>This
> >> philosophy is almost as rational as pure evolution with its
> >> survival of the fittest twist. I take it then that in ID theories,
> >> for one example, Neanderthal man is not a post-flood human being
> >> (as he is in most young earth creationism theories) but rather a
> >> truly different species of humans. I would think rational people
> >> would welcome ID in schools over creationism of the young earth
> >> kind.
>
> Pagano replies:
> ID theorists make no such claim.
>
> >Key distinction: evolution explains the evidence and ID doesn't.
>
> Pagano replies:
> ID theory attempts to offer a rigorous method for determining when
> intelligent design would be the true mode of explanation for a
> particular observation or event (rather than law or chance). For
> example, intelligent design theory would give the investigator a
> rigorous method for determining whether or not the bacterial flagellum
> was the result of intelligent design as opposed to law, chance (or
> some combination). ID theory goes no further than this.
>
No, it has been explained to you that this is not true. At best, ID
identifies certain things that cannot be explained by known natural
mechanisms operating in known ways. It then invalidly ignores the
possibities of known mechanisms operating in unknown ways, and unknown
mechanisms operating, and ascribes the entire (allegedly) unexplained
residuum to "intelligent design." This is a classic "argument from
ignorance" -- "you can't prove me wrong, so I must be right." To the
extent that they imply *anything* can be known about their
"intelligent designer" (e.g. that it's actually intelligent or
purposeful in any normal sense of those words), it is also a "god of
the gaps" argument.
Dembski's filter (to which you allude here) gives the investigator a
rigorous method of determining whether or not the bacterial flagellum
was the result of intelligent design only if the investigator starts
by knowing all the possible results of "law" and "chance." Science,
of course, requires investigative methodologies that don't require
omniscience to use properly.
>
> As near as I can tell there does not exist a detailed and empirically
> testable explanation of how the neoDarwinian mechanism created the
> bacterial flagellum.
>
So, again, your "rigorous method" is an argument from ignorance.
>
> >And neither are philosophies: one is science and the other is (bad)
> >theology.
>
> Pagano replies:
> There are certainly underlying philosophies to both evolutionary
> biology and intelligent design. However, if Bryant can't produce an
> empirically testable explanation of how the bacterial flagellum arose
> then his brand of evolutionary biology is more storytelling than
> science. And to the extent that Intelligent Design advocates can
> "prove" rigorously their probablistic methodology it may prove more
> scientific than Bryant's storytelling.
>
Actually, even if one could show, mutation by mutation, how to change
some other structure into a flagellum, with each intermediate step
functional and advantageous, that would not show that this was how the
flagellum actually originated (and, since many different bacteria have
flagella, showing that one evolved by naturalistic means would not
show that others did not arise by miracles).
But really, it seems odd to insist that invoking an unobserved and
utterly untestable (because ID says *NOTHING* about how He works)
Designer, who inserts "design" in some utterly unknown way at unknown
times, is "more scientific" than sketching out possible stages by
which a demonstrated mechanism may produce a structure. The ID
position is that their "designer" (about whom NO details are
available) is to be preferred as an explanation as long as ANY details
are missing from the naturalistic account. That is hardly rigorous.
And, of course, it is impossible to "prove" rigorously a probabilistic
methodology when one doesn't even know what all the possibilities are,
much less how probable they are.
>
> Regards,
> T Pagano
-- Steven J.
Robin Levett
Remind me what was written on the other side of the elephant (I
take it you've actually read Darwin's Black Box). Then tell me
with a straight face that ID theory doesn't identify the
intelligent agent.
<snip>
--
________________________________________________________________
Robin Levett
rle...@ibmrlevett.uklinux.net
(address munged by addition of Big Blue)
Atheist = knows of and uses Occam's Razor
Agnostic = knows of but isn't sure whether to use Occam's Razor
Fundy = what's Ockam's erasure?
___________________________________________________
Morgoth's Cat
Carlson) scribed:
Oh, I do not doubt their effectiveness. Issac Asimov indeed foresaw
the dire situation (armies of the night etc)
Frankly, given the stupidity of people, the only solution may be
legislation...
Time to take the gloves off, and tell creationists to fuck off.
Best,
Dave
Frank J
While I doubt that Behe and most other IDCs personally favor an
"aliens" explanation, it seems that they are so fundamentally opposed
to anyone accepting anything remotely relating to their strawman of
"Darwinism" that a reader who infers alien designers is preferable.
(snip)
catshark
wrote:
>stev...@altavista.com (Steven J.) wrote in message news:<127ccf2e.0211...@posting.google.com>...
>> A Pagano <anthony...@verizon.net> wrote in message news:<0dnguu4u5100poho5...@4ax.com>...
>> > On Sat, 30 Nov 2002 02:56:45 +0000 (UTC), "Bobby D. Bryant"
>> > <bdbr...@mail.utexas.edu> wrote:
>> >
>> > >On Fri, 29 Nov 2002 10:57:47 -0600, Judy Rickley wrote:
[snip]
>> Still, Behe argues at the start of _Darwin's Black Box_ that
>> resistance in the scientific community to the idea of "design" is not
>> that "design" is vacuous, aa label pasted over an admission of
>> ignorance, but rather that secular scientists are afraid that "design"
>> implies "God." You cannot be so naive as to imagine, or to expect us
>> to imagine, that Behe actually suspects space aliens, elves, or Cthulu
>> and his cronies might be the designers, or wants anyone else to
>> suspect this.
>
>While I doubt that Behe and most other IDCs personally favor an
>"aliens" explanation, it seems that they are so fundamentally opposed
>to anyone accepting anything remotely relating to their strawman of
>"Darwinism" that a reader who infers alien designers is preferable.
Which raises an interesting question (having recently read Francis
Crick's _Life Itself_ because of DC's quote mining):
Why haven't the IDers invoked Fred Hoyle and Crick to lend a (more)
scientific cachet to the whole IC business? After all, a Nobel Prize
winner and a famous astronomer with "alternative views" certainly
couldn't hurt the public relations end and including people outside
the ID movement who also "question Darwinism" could be helpful in the
courts. It would seem to be a logical move on their part but, AFAIK,
they've never done it.
But, then again, maybe they are waiting until they put together that
public school curricula.
(P.S. I know Crick was only talking about abiogenesis, not evolution.
Just in case . . . ;-)
---------------
J. Pieret
---------------
The political motivation behind the Wedge Strategy:
"Religion is the opiate of the masses . . .
and that is a _good_ thing."
-- Bobby Bryant --
A Pagano
>> Pagano replies:
>> In a word: no.
>>
>> Behe wrote that neoDarwinian evolution (which is a purely
>> naturalistic theory) was the best explanation for most of the
>> biological systems, organs and structures that man has observed,
>> BUT it could not explain the origin of all of them. NeoDarwinian
>> evolution could NOTexplain the creation of systems he labeled
>> "irreducibly complex." Behe argued that the best mode of
>> explanation for these irreducibly complex systems is intelligent
>> design.
>
>Yep, that's what he writes and argues. Too bad he can't actually
>support those claims.
Pagano replies:
In the first edition of his book Behe presented 307 pages of
background and support. I would say that a full length work qualifies
as support even in the Orwellian double-speak of modern secularism.
Did this support rise to the level of a deductive conclusion? No, but
none of the "support" provided by modern secularists in defense of the
really important claims of neoDarwinism meet that level either. So it
would seem that Bryant's criticism has little force. But did Behe's
"support" have much force?
Behe must have been on to something with regard to his position that
neoDarinism prohibits the existence of irreducibly complex systems,
organs and structures. While neoDarwinians have almost universally
denied this prohibition the vast majority of their counter punches
have been to claim that the systems identified by Behe are not
irreducibly complex. In effect, they admit that Behe is correct.
>
>
>
>>>> Rather a creator-force is behind it all.
>>
>> Pagano replies:
>> In a word: no. Intelligent design theory does not identify the
>> intelligent agent nor does it need to.
>
>If it was really science there would be nothing in the world that
>interested them more than that identity.
Pagano replies:
If the cause didn't interest them then they wouldn't be placing their
personal careers in jeopardy by bucking the secular orthodoxy. And
they have taken a first step towards identifying the cause. A bold
step actually. The secular orthodoxy assumes WITHOUT EMPIRICAL TEST
that EVERY event in space-time (other than human artifacts) is the
result of law, chance or some combination. The IDers have offered a
rigorous, scientific, mathematical test to challenge this UNscientific
assumption. Isn't that interesting?
> But since it's merely a
>political ploy to sneak crypto-creationism past the courts they bend
>over backwards *not* to identify it.
Pagano replies:
Unlike neoDarwinians (beginning with Darwin) the Intelligent Design
advocates have not extrapolated where the science of their theory will
not allow. Dembski's "explanatory filter" employs algorithms already
in use by other well known sciences. He generalized, formalized and
added mathematical rigor to what already has been accepted in other
sciences.
Intelligent Design advocates don't deny that when their theory points
to an intelligent agent that this includes a supernatural one. They
simply are being good scientists when they refuse to extrapolate when
no extrapolation is justified.
>When have you ever seen a real scientist discover something new and
>fail to show any interest in the cause?
Pagano replies:
This whole line of argument is both absurd and nonsense. Bryant is
trying to add a new requirement for a theory and its adherents to
qualify as science and scientists, respectively. He argues that if
the scientist fails to completely identify all the causes for a
particular event that his work can't be real science and he is a
"crypto-scientist. He argues that their failure to fully and
completely identify the cause is evidence that they weren't really
interested in learning something about nature but betrays rather a
political motive.
Taken to its absurd conclusion we could smear virtually every
scientist and their theories with the same accusations. And we would
be forced to attribute political motives to all their activities.
>
>Also, as I have argued repeatedly, when you look at the consequences
>of the ID argument you discover that they must either appeal to the
>supernatural or else admit that their whole argument is vacuous.
Pagano replies:
Bryant is desparate and confused. He seems to be under the mistaken
view that this is somehow and argument agaisnt ID. ID theory as
presented by Dembski is a rigorous mathematical method for determining
when law and chance can be ruled out as the "mode of explanation"
leaving intelligent design as the "best mode of explanation."
When design theory points to design as the best mode of explanation it
is ONLY pointing to the SET of causes. The theory does not have the
capability to identify the member within the set. God is certainly a
member of the set and IDers don't deny this.
Bryant is under the mistaken impression that because God is a
potential candidate that this invalidates the theory. No so. Bryant
would have to invalidate Dembski's algorithm and math.
snip
>> Pagano replies:
>> ID theory attempts to offer a rigorous method for determining when
>> intelligent design would be the true mode of explanation for a
>> particular observation or event (rather than law or chance). For
>> example, intelligent design theory would give the investigator a
>> rigorous method for determining whether or not the bacterial
>> flagellum was the result of intelligent design as opposed to law,
>> chance (or some combination). ID theory goes no further than
>> this.
>>
>> As near as I can tell there does not exist a detailed and
>> empirically testable explanation of how the neoDarwinian mechanism
>> created the bacterial flagellum.
>
>The problem for ID is that they have *nothing* to offer except a
>claim that evolution couldn't do it alone.
Pagano replies:
This is not quite right. ID theory says absolutely nothing about
evolution, per se. It examines a particular event, or system and can,
in theory, determine only the best "mode" of explanation for that
event or system or structure.
It is quite true that the methodology of ID theory can only eliminate
law and chance as the best mode of explanation. Nonetheless this is
tremendously significant. Up to this point in modern time secular
scientists have assumed WITHOUT TEST that only law and chance can be
considered the true mode of explanation. Now there is a test. And if
accurate this means that secularists are sometimes looking for the
truth in the WRONG direction. This is significant.
>And unless they can
>support that claim *rigorously* then they don't have any claim at
>all. They are essentially trying to claim a negative, and that sort
>of claim is useless unless it is entirely leak-proof.
Pagano replies:
But the algorithm used by Dembski is not new and has been accepted by
other well known and accepted sciences. And the probablistic
mathematics offered by Dembski is rigorous.
>
>But ID isn't leak-proof.
Pagano replies:
Neither is abiogenesis; neither is neoDarwinism; neither is Big Bang
cosmology; and quite honest neither are any historical theories. The
blindless induced by the zealotry of secularists is instructive.
>
>
>>>And neither are philosophies: one is science and the other is
>>>(bad) theology.
>>
>> Pagano replies:
>> There are certainly underlying philosophies to both evolutionary
>> biology and intelligent design. However, if Bryant can't produce
>> an empirically testable explanation of how the bacterial flagellum
>> arose then his brand of evolutionary biology is more storytelling
>> than science.
>
>Don't blame the messenger. And don't shift the burden of proof:
>it's the IDologists who are trying to prove that something is
>impossible. If I can't give a counterexample, that doesn't mean
>they've done a good job of proving it.
Pagano replies:
But I'm not shifting the burden. It has always been the burden of
neoDarwinism to explain, in empirically testable detail, the origin of
the bacterial flagellum.
The only thing offered by ID theory is the mode of explanation. ID
theory has eliminated law and chance as the mode of explanation. This
puts the secularist in an even tighter spot. Now he's forced to show
that neoDarwinism can explain. But there haven't been any detailed
explanations. This is pathetic.
>
>
>> And to the extent that Intelligent Design advocates can "prove"
>> rigorously their probablistic methodology it may prove more
>> scientific than Bryant's storytelling.
>
>Of course, they *can't* prove it.
Pagano replies:
There are no deductive proofs but neither are there such proofs of
neoDarwinism. However, so far no one has found a situation where
Dembski's theory wrongly identified the mode of explanation for an
event or system of known cause.
> If you show that something has a
>low probability but see that it happens anyway, your scientific
>obligation is to see why it happens -- not to conclude that it
>doesn't.
Pagano replies:
Unfortuately the scientist must begin from a sound basis.
Secularists, atheists and agnostics ASSUME WITHOUT TEST that all
events in space-time are explanable by law, chance or some combination
of the two. If this assumption-----based in philosophy NOT
science-----is wrong then the attempt to find out the true cause is
doomed to failure. IDers have now offered a rigorous (probablistic)
scientific test for determining when we should eliminate law and
chance as the best mode of explanation.
>ID is nothing more than "I don't see how that could
>happen, therefore godidit."
Pagano replies:
This is exactly what it does NOT do. It employs an algorithm used by
a few accepted secular sciences. It generalizes this algorithm with
formality and mathematical rigor. And it never determines that God
did it. As usual the secuarist produces a straw man which can
ridicule rather than the actual position which he hasn't touched.
You can't get any more intellectually
>bankrupt than that. I don't know how this darn mosquito got into
>my apartment while all the doors and windows were closed, but that
>doesn't justify invoking the Invisible Pink Unicorn as an
>explanation.
Pagano replies:
And neither would ID theory.
I'm done here.
Regards,
T Pagano
Frank Reichenbacher
Tell us what an "EMPIRICAL TEST" that could refute the premise of natural
causes would look like?
The IDers have offered a
> rigorous, scientific, mathematical test to challenge this UNscientific
> assumption. Isn't that interesting?
But you don't believe in science. Why would you cite a scientific anything
to support your views?
Frank
<snip similarly transparent nonsense>
Frank J
Actually I have heard IDCs refer to Hoyle (& Crick too, but I'm not as
sure) on several occasions, and there too, they made sure not to
advertise that this is about abiogenesis and not evolution.
Bobby D. Bryant
"Must have been", why? His argument boils down to "I don't see how
that could have happened". Unfortunately for him, other people *do*
see how it could happen. That's why he keeps changing his examples.
> While neoDarwinians have almost universally denied this
> prohibition the vast majority of their counter punches have been
> to claim that the systems identified by Behe are not irreducibly
> complex. In effect, they admit that Behe is correct.
Philosopher7 would be proud of your illogic.
>>>>> Rather a creator-force is behind it all.
>>>
>>> Pagano replies:
>>> In a word: no. Intelligent design theory does not identify the
>>> intelligent agent nor does it need to.
>>
>>If it was really science there would be nothing in the world that
>>interested them more than that identity.
>
> Pagano replies:
> If the cause didn't interest them then they wouldn't be placing
> their personal careers in jeopardy by bucking the secular
> orthodoxy. And they have taken a first step towards identifying
> the cause. A bold step actually. The secular orthodoxy assumes
> WITHOUT EMPIRICAL TEST that EVERY event in space-time (other than
> human artifacts) is the result of law, chance or some combination.
> The IDers have offered a rigorous, scientific, mathematical test
> to challenge this UNscientific assumption.
No, they've offered a probability argument. We already knew that
biology, like the rest of the universe, isn't composed of an
unbiasedly random pile of quarks. What we want is an explanation
for why we *did* get what we have, and the theory of evolution is
the best answer going for biology right now. To the extent that ID
is rigorous, it's a rigorous argument about something other than the
universe we actually live in.
> Isn't that interesting?
No. Unless maybe from a sociological point of view.
>> But since it's merely a
>>political ploy to sneak crypto-creationism past the courts they
>>bend over backwards *not* to identify it.
>
> Pagano replies:
> Unlike neoDarwinians (beginning with Darwin)
You don't have to know any biology to know that Darwin wasn't a
neo-darwinist.
> the Intelligent Design advocates have not extrapolated where the
> science of their theory will not allow. Dembski's "explanatory
> filter" employs algorithms already in use by other well known
> sciences. He generalized, formalized and added mathematical rigor
> to what already has been accepted in other sciences.
No, he figured out what you're supposed to do when you can't dazzle
them with brilliance. The "No Free Lunch" theorem is only
interesting for completely random universes. But we already knew
that we don't live in a completely random universe, long before
Darwin was born.
> Intelligent Design advocates don't deny that when their theory
> points to an intelligent agent that this includes a supernatural
> one. They simply are being good scientists when they refuse to
> extrapolate when no extrapolation is justified.
We don't want them to extrapolate; we just wonder why they aren't
bothering to investigate. And of course everyone knows the answer:
they aren't interested in investigating because they already learned
the answer in sunday school.
>>When have you ever seen a real scientist discover something new
>>and fail to show any interest in the cause?
>
> Pagano replies:
> This whole line of argument is both absurd and nonsense. Bryant
> is trying to add a new requirement for a theory and its adherents
> to qualify as science and scientists, respectively. He argues
> that if the scientist fails to completely identify all the causes
> for a particular event that his work can't be real science and he
> is a "crypto-scientist.
I don't insist that they discover the causes; I just expect them to
show some interest.
BTW, *you* are the one who argued earlier in this thread that
science needs to completely identify the origin of the flagellum. It
sounds like you're trying to paint me with your own misconceptions
about what science is and how it works.
> He argues that their failure to fully and completely identify the
> cause is evidence that they weren't really interested in learning
> something about nature but betrays rather a political motive.
Not their failure to identify; their failure to show any interest.
And of course, their political motives were already known.
> Taken to its absurd conclusion we could smear virtually every
> scientist and their theories with the same accusations. And we
> would be forced to attribute political motives to all their
> activities.
Only if we applied your twisty illogic to your twisty
misrepresentation of what I said.
>>Also, as I have argued repeatedly, when you look at the
>>consequences of the ID argument you discover that they must either
>>appeal to the supernatural or else admit that their whole argument
>>is vacuous.
>
> Pagano replies:
> Bryant is desparate and confused. He seems to be under the
> mistaken view that this is somehow and argument agaisnt ID.
No, ID falls down without my help. The quoted comment was just an
aside about the IDologists political motives. Let's spell it out,
shall we? ID is an attempt to provide cover for people who want to
keep believing supernatural explanations for things where a natural
explanation is alread known.
> ID theory as presented by Dembski is a rigorous mathematical
> method for determining when law and chance can be ruled out as the
> "mode of explanation" leaving intelligent design as the "best mode
> of explanation."
Dembski does a poor job of ruling out law and chance, and even if he
did it would be a non sequitur to claim that intelligent design
followed from the process of elimination.
Perhaps you're not aware that shaking a bunch of numbers around does
not constitute a rigorous mathematical method? Dembski and his CSI
differ from Erik and his spreadsheet only in his eruditon.
> When design theory points to design as the best mode of
> explanation it is ONLY pointing to the SET of causes. The theory
> does not have the capability to identify the member within the
> set.
Sure, at least if ID actually pointed to anything other than
hucksterism.
But what I want to know is, why don't they try further
investigations? When Gallileo discovered that Jupiter had moons,
did astronomers just write it down in their list of facts about the
universe, and not bother to investigate the implications? No,
because scientists have very different motivations than IDologists
do. Therefore their methods differ.
> God is certainly a member of the set and IDers don't deny this.
That claim has not been established, even if we took ID's basic
claim to be true. I could just as well say "The Invisible Pink
Unicorn is certainly a member of the set".
> Bryant is under the mistaken impression that because God is a
> potential candidate that this invalidates the theory.
Not at all. I'm perfectly happy to have gods in my scientific
theories -- so long as they are there because the evidence demands
it.
> No so. Bryant would have to invalidate Dembski's algorithm and
> math.
That's already been done by others, thank you.
> snip
>
>>> Pagano replies:
>>> ID theory attempts to offer a rigorous method for determining
>>> when intelligent design would be the true mode of explanation
>>> for a particular observation or event (rather than law or
>>> chance). For example, intelligent design theory would give the
>>> investigator a rigorous method for determining whether or not
>>> the bacterial flagellum was the result of intelligent design as
>>> opposed to law, chance (or some combination). ID theory goes no
>>> further than this.
>>>
>>> As near as I can tell there does not exist a detailed and
>>> empirically testable explanation of how the neoDarwinian
>>> mechanism created the bacterial flagellum.
>>
>>The problem for ID is that they have *nothing* to offer except a
>>claim that evolution couldn't do it alone.
>
> Pagano replies:
> This is not quite right. ID theory says absolutely nothing about
> evolution, per se. It examines a particular event, or system and
> can, in theory, determine only the best "mode" of explanation for
> that event or system or structure.
>
> It is quite true that the methodology of ID theory can only
> eliminate law and chance as the best mode of explanation.
No, it can't even do that.
Nope. No more than it's the burden of geology to explain, in
empirically testable detail, the origin of the rock on my porch.
BTW, now you're back on the other side of the "must explain
everything" argument. Why do you demand it from scientists but
exempt IDologists?
> The only thing offered by ID theory is the mode of explanation. ID
> theory has eliminated law and chance as the mode of explanation.
Not so.
> This puts the secularist in an even tighter spot. Now he's forced
> to show that neoDarwinism can explain. But there haven't been any
> detailed explanations. This is pathetic.
Your illogic certainly is.
>>> And to the extent that Intelligent Design advocates can "prove"
>>> rigorously their probablistic methodology it may prove more
>>> scientific than Bryant's storytelling.
>>
>>Of course, they *can't* prove it.
>
> Pagano replies:
> There are no deductive proofs but neither are there such proofs of
> neoDarwinism.
You're the one that invoke proofs.
> However, so far no one has found a situation where Dembski's
> theory wrongly identified the mode of explanation for an event or
> system of known cause.
No? Then what was all that song and dance about CSI vs. "apparent"
CSI?
>> If you show that something has a
>>low probability but see that it happens anyway, your scientific
>>obligation is to see why it happens -- not to conclude that it
>>doesn't.
>
> Pagano replies:
> Unfortuately the scientist must begin from a sound basis.
> Secularists, atheists and agnostics ASSUME WITHOUT TEST that all
> events in space-time are explanable by law, chance or some
> combination of the two. If this assumption-----based in
> philosophy NOT science-----is wrong then the attempt to find out
> the true cause is doomed to failure. IDers have now offered a
> rigorous (probablistic) scientific test for determining when we
> should eliminate law and chance as the best mode of explanation.
Funny how they can't seem to convince any *real* scientists.
>>ID is nothing more than "I don't see how that could happen,
>>therefore godidit."
>
> Pagano replies:
> This is exactly what it does NOT do. It employs an algorithm used
> by a few accepted secular sciences. It generalizes this algorithm
> with formality and mathematical rigor. And it never determines
> that God did it. As usual the secuarist produces a straw man
> which can ridicule rather than the actual position which he hasn't
> touched.
So what's Dembski's mantra about science without Jesus being
meaningless?
> You can't get any more intellectually
>>bankrupt than that. I don't know how this darn mosquito got into
>>my apartment while all the doors and windows were closed, but that
>>doesn't justify invoking the Invisible Pink Unicorn as an
>>explanation.
>
> Pagano replies:
> And neither would ID theory.
That's because ID doesn't invoke any explanation at all. If it did,
the IPU would be as good as anything else.
> I'm done here.
Yeah, sure.
Bobby Bryant
Austin, Texas
Elmer Bataitis
> The secular orthodoxy assumes WITHOUT EMPIRICAL TEST
> that EVERY event in space-time (other than human artifacts) is the
> result of law, chance or some combination.
And so we have yet another admission from Tony that his version of God
cannot control chance and cannot have created law. Tony has a
mythological God that is weak and puny and cannot be seen in the
material universe. One wonders why this weak and puny God bothered to
create a material universe in the first place? One wonders why a weak
and puny God would bother having us use our material brains and
naturalistic assumptions to learn more about his creation. This puny God
has no such grandiose plans for his created beings. He just wants them
to assume that some non-material plane of existence was created for
them, and that supernaturalism is the only method by which this god is
evidenced (except that He leaves hints buried in bacterial flagella ;-).
Is it no wonder Tony must maintain that naturalism is false? Tony's
vision of God isn't strong enough to withstand doubt and God's material reality.
Tony, please don't respond to this post, because you'll be using
naturalistic methodologies to read and understand it, and since you
claim these methodologies false, you can never tell what I really wrote anyway.
;-)
Judy Rickley
anything the YEC's can come up with.
Andy Groves
<snip>
Tony's reply is rather misleading - whether intentionally or not - as
he omits the main thrust of Behe's critics - namely that a so-called
IC system can have some "part" removed and still retain some function
**even if this is not the original function of the IC system**. For
example, Ken Miller (IIRC) has taken to wearing part of a mousetrap as
a tie clip. In another example, the bacterial flagellum cited by Behe
can lose its "whip" - the part that actually does the beating - and
yet the remaining structure will continue to act as a protein
transporter.
Behe himself has acknowledged this flaw:
"However, commentary by Robert Pennock and others has made me realize
that there is a weakness in that view of irrreducible complexity [...
that removing parts leads to a loss of function...]. The current
definition puts the focus on removing a par from an already
functioning system. Thus, seeking a counterexample to IC, in "Tower of
Babel" Pennock writes about a part in a sophisiticated chronometer
whose origin is simply assumed, which breaks to give a system he
posits can nonetheless work in a simpler watch in a less demanding
environment. The difficult task facing Darwinian evolution, however,
would not be to remove components from a pre-existing system; it would
be to bring together components to make a new system in the first
place. Thus, there is an asymmetry between my current definition of IC
and the task facing natural selection. I hope to repair this in future
work."
From "Reply to my critics: A response to reviews of Darwin's Black
Box: The biochemical challenge to evolution", published in Biology and
Philosophy, vol. 16, pp 685-709 in 2001.
> I'm done here.
Tony has taken to finishing his replies with this comment. Does he
mean that:
a) The post has finished?
b) He does not intend to participate in the thread any more and reply
to his critics?
Or what?
Andy
wf...@ptnospam.com
<anthony...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> Pagano replies:
>In the first edition of his book Behe presented 307 pages of
>background and support. I would say that a full length work qualifies
>as support even in the Orwellian double-speak of modern secularism.
muslim fundies write long books too. they have the same view of
science you do, tony....just a different god.
>
>Behe must have been on to something with regard to his position that
>neoDarinism prohibits the existence of irreducibly complex systems,
>organs and structures. While neoDarwinians have almost universally
>denied this prohibition the vast majority of their counter punches
>have been to claim that the systems identified by Behe are not
>irreducibly complex. In effect, they admit that Behe is correct.
actually the term 'irreducibly complex' was invented by evolutionary
biologists over 80 years ago.
what behe introduced was the fiction that they cant evolve. they can,
and do. the replies to behe's book (point your search engines to
'behe's empty box' for a good review of behe's book) does a good job
of exposing not only is behe wrong in saying IC complex systems cant
evolve, but also shows behe is remarkably ignorant of the relevant
literature.
>>
>>
>>
>>If it was really science there would be nothing in the world that
>>interested them more than that identity.
>
> Pagano replies:
>If the cause didn't interest them then they wouldn't be placing their
>personal careers in jeopardy by bucking the secular orthodoxy.
pagano invokes the UFO theory of creationism; the entire world's
scientific community...including japanese, and indian scientists...are
involved in a hoax. even though christianity is almost unknown in
japan (about 1% of japanese are xtian), japanese evolutionary
biologists hate american xtians so much they participate in a hoax to
support evolution.
gee tony. and perhaps you think the tooth fairy is real, too.
And
>they have taken a first step towards identifying the cause. A bold
>step actually. The secular orthodoxy assumes WITHOUT EMPIRICAL TEST
>that EVERY event in space-time (other than human artifacts) is the
>result of law, chance or some combination. The IDers have offered a
>rigorous, scientific, mathematical test to challenge this UNscientific
>assumption. Isn't that interesting?
the fact is the ID'ers are unable to make their case.
they have never demonstrated a single observation that is not natural.
they have never demonstrated a single cause of any event in natural
that is not itself natural.
they ignore the historical fact that 'non-natural' causes USED to be
part of the worldview of many people, and still is among the ignorant
and superstitious. the reason it was rejected is because it failed.
supernaturalism is a failure. always, in every case, without
exception.
as to the 'rigorous test' pagano has in mind, perhaps his parents
still put money under his pillow when he loses a tooth.
>
>> But since it's merely a
>>political ploy to sneak crypto-creationism past the courts they bend
>>over backwards *not* to identify it.
>
> Pagano replies:
>Unlike neoDarwinians (beginning with Darwin) the Intelligent Design
>advocates have not extrapolated where the science of their theory will
>not allow.
really? they posit magical, mystical forces which cause unobserved
effects in nature.
if that aint extrapolatin', then what is?
Dembski's "explanatory filter" employs algorithms already
>in use by other well known sciences. He generalized, formalized and
>added mathematical rigor to what already has been accepted in other
>sciences.
dembski tells us nothing about nothing. he cant tell us HOW
intelligent design works. he cant tell us WHERE it can be observed in
action. he cant tell us WHAT forces it uses to cause changes in
nature.
it's a failure.
>
>Intelligent Design advocates don't deny that when their theory points
>to an intelligent agent that this includes a supernatural one. They
>simply are being good scientists when they refuse to extrapolate when
>no extrapolation is justified.
do they define what an 'intelligent' agent is? nope.
do they define how it works? nope.
do they define how they can test it in a lab? nope.
but they know it's science!
>
> Pagano replies:
>Bryant is desparate and confused. He seems to be under the mistaken
>view that this is somehow and argument agaisnt ID. ID theory as
>presented by Dembski is a rigorous mathematical method for determining
>when law and chance can be ruled out as the "mode of explanation"
>leaving intelligent design as the "best mode of explanation."
here pagano, like so many creationists, explicitly rejects the idea
that nature is orderly, and is ruled by natural law
ironic, aint it, creationists say that their god is a god of order.
they prove this by saying god is a god of chaos.
>>
>>But ID isn't leak-proof.
>
> Pagano replies:
>Neither is abiogenesis; neither is neoDarwinism; neither is Big Bang
>cosmology; and quite honest neither are any historical theories. The
>blindless induced by the zealotry of secularists is instructive.
the big bang theory was invented by georges lemaitre, a catholic
priest. last time i checked, catholic priests are not big on 'secular
zealotry'.
>>Don't blame the messenger. And don't shift the burden of proof:
>>it's the IDologists who are trying to prove that something is
>>impossible. If I can't give a counterexample, that doesn't mean
>>they've done a good job of proving it.
>
> Pagano replies:
>But I'm not shifting the burden. It has always been the burden of
>neoDarwinism to explain, in empirically testable detail, the origin of
>the bacterial flagellum.
the problem pagano faces is that evolution explained the development
of many features of living organisms; the evolution of the ear from
reptilian jaws, for example, is well understood.
his 'explanation' of ID for development of flagella is a 'god of the
gaps' argument. we dont know something so obviously god must have done
it.
>
>The only thing offered by ID theory is the mode of explanation. ID
>theory has eliminated law and chance as the mode of explanation. This
>puts the secularist in an even tighter spot. Now he's forced to show
>that neoDarwinism can explain. But there haven't been any detailed
>explanations. This is pathetic.
just because they 'eliminate' something does not mean they have
explained anything. absent a mechanism of HOW flagella come into
being, ID is just another variation of magic.
>>
>> If you show that something has a
>>low probability but see that it happens anyway, your scientific
>>obligation is to see why it happens -- not to conclude that it
>>doesn't.
>
> Pagano replies:
>Unfortuately the scientist must begin from a sound basis.
>Secularists, atheists and agnostics ASSUME WITHOUT TEST that all
>events in space-time are explanable by law, chance or some combination
>of the two. If this assumption-----based in philosophy NOT
>science-----is wrong then the attempt to find out the true cause is
>doomed to failure. IDers have now offered a rigorous (probablistic)
>scientific test for determining when we should eliminate law and
>chance as the best mode of explanation.
perhaps pagano can tell us of a single time...even one time...when
this assumption has failed?
he says it's never been tested. the fact is, it's tested every day in
every lab in the world. no scientist assumes his/her work is the
result of magic. we all assume natural events have natural causes.
pagano is welcome to disprove that statement with a reference to ANY
scientific work in ANY field that demonstrates non-natural influences
on natural events. merely saying 'it aint so' doesnt make it so.
>
>
wf...@ptnospam.com
<nyli...@frontiernet.net> wrote:
>A Pagano wrote:
>
>> The secular orthodoxy assumes WITHOUT EMPIRICAL TEST
>> that EVERY event in space-time (other than human artifacts) is the
>> result of law, chance or some combination.
>
>And so we have yet another admission from Tony that his version of God
>cannot control chance and cannot have created law. Tony has a
>mythological God that is weak and puny and cannot be seen in the
>material universe. One wonders why this weak and puny God bothered to
>create a material universe in the first place?
creationists think god is very lucky to have them around to tell him
what he can and cant do.
gen2rev
>
> A Pagano <anthony...@verizon.net> wrote in message news:<pvcnuu00280tudr1m...@4ax.com>...
[big snip]
> > I'm done here.
>
> Tony has taken to finishing his replies with this comment. Does he
> mean that:
>
> a) The post has finished?
>
> b) He does not intend to participate in the thread any more and reply
> to his critics?
>
> Or what?
He's so done he's crispy?
> Andy
gen2rev
>
> >> Pagano replies:
> >> In a word: no.
> >>
> >> Behe wrote that neoDarwinian evolution (which is a purely
> >> naturalistic theory) was the best explanation for most of the
> >> biological systems, organs and structures that man has observed,
> >> BUT it could not explain the origin of all of them. NeoDarwinian
> >> evolution could NOTexplain the creation of systems he labeled
> >> "irreducibly complex." Behe argued that the best mode of
> >> explanation for these irreducibly complex systems is intelligent
> >> design.
> >
> >Yep, that's what he writes and argues. Too bad he can't actually
> >support those claims.
>
> Pagano replies:
> In the first edition of his book Behe presented 307 pages of
> background and support. I would say that a full length work qualifies
> as support even in the Orwellian double-speak of modern secularism.
Gee Tony, have you read "Worlds in Collision" by Velikovsky? It's a
favorite of Ed Conrad's, and it's 401 pages...
> Did this support rise to the level of a deductive conclusion? No, but
> none of the "support" provided by modern secularists in defense of the
> really important claims of neoDarwinism meet that level either. So it
> would seem that Bryant's criticism has little force. But did Behe's
> "support" have much force?
>
> Behe must have been on to something with regard to his position that
> neoDarinism prohibits the existence of irreducibly complex systems,
> organs and structures. While neoDarwinians have almost universally
> denied this prohibition the vast majority of their counter punches
> have been to claim that the systems identified by Behe are not
> irreducibly complex. In effect, they admit that Behe is correct.
"While creationists have almost universally denied that evolution takes
place, the vast majority of their counter punches have been to claim
that intermediaries identified by scientists are not in fact
intermediaries. In effect, they admit that scientists are correct."
Still agree with the logic?
[snip]
> >When have you ever seen a real scientist discover something new and
> >fail to show any interest in the cause?
>
> Pagano replies:
> This whole line of argument is both absurd and nonsense. Bryant is
> trying to add a new requirement for a theory and its adherents to
> qualify as science and scientists, respectively. He argues that if
> the scientist fails to completely identify all the causes for a
> particular event that his work can't be real science and he is a
> "crypto-scientist. He argues that their failure to fully and
> completely identify the cause is evidence that they weren't really
> interested in learning something about nature but betrays rather a
> political motive.
But isn't this the tactic you use with "vestigial" organs? Don't you
claim that in order for the structure or organ to be characterized as
"vestigial" it must have "evolved" to that condition via the
neoDarwinian mechanism? Why yes, yes you do (see
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=imcdtu8uhti46l3o0st6p5qvb8cqoork7r%404ax.com
)
Why the double standard?
> Taken to its absurd conclusion we could smear virtually every
> scientist and their theories with the same accusations. And we would
> be forced to attribute political motives to all their activities.
[snip]
> >Don't blame the messenger. And don't shift the burden of proof:
> >it's the IDologists who are trying to prove that something is
> >impossible. If I can't give a counterexample, that doesn't mean
> >they've done a good job of proving it.
>
> Pagano replies:
> But I'm not shifting the burden. It has always been the burden of
> neoDarwinism to explain, in empirically testable detail, the origin of
> the bacterial flagellum.
See my comments above.
> The only thing offered by ID theory is the mode of explanation. ID
> theory has eliminated law and chance as the mode of explanation. This
> puts the secularist in an even tighter spot. Now he's forced to show
> that neoDarwinism can explain. But there haven't been any detailed
> explanations. This is pathetic.
See above.
[snip]
> > If you show that something has a
> >low probability but see that it happens anyway, your scientific
> >obligation is to see why it happens -- not to conclude that it
> >doesn't.
>
> Pagano replies:
> Unfortuately the scientist must begin from a sound basis.
> Secularists, atheists and agnostics ASSUME WITHOUT TEST that all
> events in space-time are explanable by law, chance or some combination
> of the two.
As has been pointed out to you repeatedly, this isn't true. How do you
propose we test for the supernatural? Or are you a closet secularist?
[snip the rest]
syvanen
> >> In a word: no.
> >>
> >> Behe wrote that neoDarwinian evolution (which is a purely
> >> naturalistic theory) was the best explanation for most of the
> >> biological systems, organs and structures that man has observed,
> >> BUT it could not explain the origin of all of them. NeoDarwinian
> >> evolution could NOTexplain the creation of systems he labeled
> >> "irreducibly complex." Behe argued that the best mode of
> >> explanation for these irreducibly complex systems is intelligent
> >> design.
> >
> >Yep, that's what he writes and argues. Too bad he can't actually
> >support those claims.
>
> Pagano replies:
> In the first edition of his book Behe presented 307 pages of
307 pages describe complex biological structures which are then
claimed, without any support or testable predictions, to be examples
of ID. This is not science, just empty rhetoric.
Mike Syvanen
Floyd
> Behe's theories still seem better to me for our young in schools than
> anything the YEC's can come up with.
Interesting. Is teaching students that 2 + 2 = 5 better than teaching
that it equals 7, in your opinion? Insofar as his claims that have
been tested, Behe is simply wrong. The remainder of Behe's claims are
untestable, given current technology. ID is not just unscientific, it
is anti-scientific. It is based on the assumption that any currently
unanswered question is permanently unanswerable. This assumption
necessarily rejects the goals of science as a whole, but Behe and his
coleagues dress themselves up as scientists and avoid "the G word" in
a cynical attempt to avoid the prohibition on state supported religion
in the US. In my opinion, this makes ID even worse than YEC, since
the flaws of YEC-ism are so blatant that any child can see through
them if s/he is willing to look. But really, given that both ID and
YEC are ultimately religious beliefs, and neither of them adequitely
explains the evidence (in fact, ID actively avoids explaining
anything), why should we teach either of them in public schools?
Religious teachings should be taught in religious settings (e.g.
churches, Sunday schools, etc) at the expense of the congregation, and
not in secular contexts at the expense of taxpayers who do not share
the beliefs.
-Floyd
A Pagano
Pagano replies:
Unfortunately for Rickley Behe's theory is consistent with YEC and
contradicts modern secular neoDarwinism.
Steven J.
> >> In a word: no.
> >>
> >> Behe wrote that neoDarwinian evolution (which is a purely
> >> naturalistic theory) was the best explanation for most of the
> >> biological systems, organs and structures that man has observed,
> >> BUT it could not explain the origin of all of them. NeoDarwinian
> >> evolution could NOTexplain the creation of systems he labeled
> >> "irreducibly complex." Behe argued that the best mode of
> >> explanation for these irreducibly complex systems is intelligent
> >> design.
> >
> >Yep, that's what he writes and argues. Too bad he can't actually
> >support those claims.
>
> Pagano replies:
> In the first edition of his book Behe presented 307 pages of
> background and support. I would say that a full length work qualifies
> as support even in the Orwellian double-speak of modern secularism.
>
examples of systems that (he claims) cannot fill their present
function if one of their componenents is missing, and which therefore
(he assumes) cannot have been built up incrementally by mutation and
natural selection. He pictures, the "neo- Darwinian process" having
to build up, e.g. mathe mammalian blood-clotting cascade, one
component at a time but with each of its components performing its
present function, and the entire system performing *its* present
function.
However, there is no need to assume this. The ancestral system may
have had much lower demands placed on it (e.g. a blood-clotting system
in poikilotherms with low blood pressure, or -- for physiological
rather than biochemical systems -- a simple cup-eye that only sensed
the direction and intensity of light). It's components may have been
less adapted to one another -- a protein that works excellently in its
modern form, but only in conjuction with another protein, may be
derived from a protein that works less efficiently, but can work
alone. And the system may have taken over functions that were
formerly handled by now-vanished components.
These processes -- incremental augmentation of function, and
"scaffolding" by components that can do a job alone but are
subsequently deleted or modified to be unable to work in isolation --
enable mutation and natural selection to build up many types of
irreducibly complex systems. There mere enumeration of such systems
does not establish that such mechanisms are incapable of producing
such systems.
>
> Did this support rise to the level of a deductive conclusion? No, but
> none of the "support" provided by modern secularists in defense of the
> really important claims of neoDarwinism meet that level either. So it
> would seem that Bryant's criticism has little force. But did Behe's
> "support" have much force?
>
Kenneth Miller has adduced several examples of irreducibly complex
systems (simple ones, but built in a short time by bacterial cultures
in the lab) produced by natural selection of mutations. That is not a
deductive conclusion, but carries a certain amount of force against
Behe's claims.
>
> Behe must have been on to something with regard to his position that
> neoDarinism prohibits the existence of irreducibly complex systems,
> organs and structures. While neoDarwinians have almost universally
> denied this prohibition the vast majority of their counter punches
> have been to claim that the systems identified by Behe are not
> irreducibly complex. In effect, they admit that Behe is correct.
>
I doubt that you have actually read and analyzed the majority of
"neoDarwinian counter punches" in order to be able to state what the
majority of them claim. In point of fact, some "neoDarwinians" have
argued that mutation and natural selection *ought* to result in
irreducibly complex systems, by deleting redundant complexity after
building up complex systems.
>
> >>>> Rather a creator-force is behind it all.
> >>
> >> Pagano replies:
> >> In a word: no. Intelligent design theory does not identify the
> >> intelligent agent nor does it need to.
> >
> >If it was really science there would be nothing in the world that
> >interested them more than that identity.
>
> Pagano replies:
> If the cause didn't interest them then they wouldn't be placing their
> personal careers in jeopardy by bucking the secular orthodoxy. And
> they have taken a first step towards identifying the cause. A bold
> step actually. The secular orthodoxy assumes WITHOUT EMPIRICAL TEST
> that EVERY event in space-time (other than human artifacts) is the
> result of law, chance or some combination. The IDers have offered a
> rigorous, scientific, mathematical test to challenge this UNscientific
> assumption. Isn't that interesting?
>
The secular orthodoxy includes a number of people (from SETI
researchers, to paleontologists) who are looking for artifacts
designed by intelligences other than human. What all of them assume
is NOT that "every event in space-time" is the result of law, chance,
or human activity, but that there is no sense in trying to figure out
the cause of ANY event in space-time, unless you have some testable
hypothesis about the effects that cause would produce.
Human design is recognized not because it is "irreducibly complex" or
contains "specified complex information," but because it bears
recognizable hallmarks of human techniques, purposes, and design
philosophies. Signals or artifacts of extraterrestrial origin would
be recognized if they were sufficiently similar to the way humans
would design such things. Intelligent design in the biological realm
could be recognized, if we had testable hypotheses about the purposes,
methods, and design philosophy of the Designer, and if those
hypotheses were supported by the evidence.
The ID proponents claim to have ways of identifying systems that
cannot be built up by the "neoDarwinian mechanism." Aside from the
very serious question (as noted above) of whether this claim is
correct, at best it would identify systems that demand *some*
alternative explanation. To assume that that alternative explanation
must be a purposeful, intelligent Agent rather than an unknown
unintelligent mechanism is a blatant nonsequitur. They have offered
NO evidence to justify such an assumption. Indeed, since they refuse
to say anything about how an intelligent designer could be expected to
design (there in no necessity even for the Designer to use SCI or IC,
or to refuse to use the "neoDarwinian mechanism), there is no way they
could find such evidence.
>
> > But since it's merely a
> >political ploy to sneak crypto-creationism past the courts they bend
> >over backwards *not* to identify it.
>
> Pagano replies:
> Unlike neoDarwinians (beginning with Darwin) the Intelligent Design
> advocates have not extrapolated where the science of their theory will
> not allow. Dembski's "explanatory filter" employs algorithms already
> in use by other well known sciences. He generalized, formalized and
> added mathematical rigor to what already has been accepted in other
> sciences.
>
No archaeologist or paleontologist starts with premise "I don't know
what this is or how it could have originated" and draws the conclusion
"it must be intelligently designed, although I can't say by whom or
for what." No medical examiner leaps from the realization "I can't
determine the cause of death" to "it must be murder; only intelligent
design could have caused this death!"
Dembski's filter (in principle) first excludes all phenomena of a sort
known to be produced by simple regularities of nature. It then
excludes all phenomena of a sort produced by complex and uncorrelated
regularities of nature (chance, or combinations of law and chance).
This then leaves a residuum of things whose explanation requires
principles unknown to current science. That is ALL it does. To show
that those unknown principles involve an *intelligent* cause, one
could say what traits an intelligently designed system ought to have,
and show that life has them. But Dembski, and Behe, and AFAIK (or
you, for that matter) refuse to make any testable hypotheses about
design or the Designer.
>
> Intelligent Design advocates don't deny that when their theory points
> to an intelligent agent that this includes a supernatural one. They
> simply are being good scientists when they refuse to extrapolate when
> no extrapolation is justified.
>
They have already committed an unjustified extrapolation when they
assume that their "intelligent agent" must in fact be an agent, or
intelligent in any normal sense of the term. Nothing in either Behe's
argument or Dembski's filter requires the unknown cause of IC or SCI
to have any shred of purpose, desire, or knowledge. It is merely
their use of the misleading term "intelligent design" rather than
"unknown mechanism or agent" that implies that it does.
>
> >When have you ever seen a real scientist discover something new and
> >fail to show any interest in the cause?
>
> Pagano replies:
> This whole line of argument is both absurd and nonsense. Bryant is
> trying to add a new requirement for a theory and its adherents to
> qualify as science and scientists, respectively. He argues that if
> the scientist fails to completely identify all the causes for a
> particular event that his work can't be real science and he is a
> "crypto-scientist. He argues that their failure to fully and
> completely identify the cause is evidence that they weren't really
> interested in learning something about nature but betrays rather a
> political motive.
>
That is not remotely close to what Bryant argues. Bryant argues that
a theory requires SOME idea -- not a complete picture in every detail
-- of how the mechanism or agent it posits as an explanation actually
works. He argues not that a scientists must identify every cause
behind an event, but that a scientist must actually have at least a
partial, testable description of every cause he actually names.
Charles Darwin, to take a relevant example, neither said that natural
selection was the sole cause of adaption, nor described its workings
in exhaustive detail, but did indicate what it was and was not, and
gave some idea of how it worked and what would falsify it. ID
"theory" doesn't tell us a thing about how, or when, or why ID acts,
or what would falsify it. All it has is a misleading label it
(over)uses in place of the more accurate "we don't know the cause."
That, and the explicit statement by Behe that scientists refuse to
acknowledge the "elephant in the living room" of biological design
because they fear "God" may be written on the other side of the
elephant, and the repeated emphasis on the alleged political
consequences of "Darwinism" by ID proponents, lends considerable
credence to the conjecture that politics, not science, motivates the
ID proponents.
>
> Taken to its absurd conclusion we could smear virtually every
> scientist and their theories with the same accusations. And we would
> be forced to attribute political motives to all their activities.
>
It is very rare to find a creationist (from YECs to IDers) who fails
to attribute religious motives to evolutionary theorists. Almost
invariably they attribute evolutionary theory to a desire to take God
out of the picture, even when the evolutionist is himself a theist.
The difference, of course, is that the IDers have no theory to smear.
By your own account, Dembski's filter is not a theory. Behe's
speculations about IC are not a theory. The argument from personal
incredulity and the god of the gaps are not theories. There are no
terms except religious and political ones in which to evaluate such
ideas.
>
> >Also, as I have argued repeatedly, when you look at the consequences
> >of the ID argument you discover that they must either appeal to the
> >supernatural or else admit that their whole argument is vacuous.
>
> Pagano replies:
> Bryant is desparate and confused. He seems to be under the mistaken
> view that this is somehow and argument agaisnt ID. ID theory as
> presented by Dembski is a rigorous mathematical method for determining
> when law and chance can be ruled out as the "mode of explanation"
> leaving intelligent design as the "best mode of explanation."
>
Dembski can rule out "law and chance" if he knows all the possible
effects, under all possible circumstances, of all the unintelligent
regularities of nature, alone and in all possible random conjuctions,
he has no grounds for concluding that that unknown cause must be
intelligent or purposeful. I think Dembski probably does not have
this omniscience.
>
> When design theory points to design as the best mode of explanation it
> is ONLY pointing to the SET of causes. The theory does not have the
> capability to identify the member within the set. God is certainly a
> member of the set and IDers don't deny this.
>
Either SCI and IC require an intelligent cause, or they do not. If
they do not, then there is no need to posit an intelligent designer.
If they do, then we either need a designer who is not IC/SCI, or we
need a Designer for the designer. If the former, then why should the
designer build into its own creations attributes it lacks and does not
need? And, of course, if the former, you can have IC/SCI emerging,
albeit at some remove, from natural unintelligent causes. If the
latter, then either you have special creation, or you can have
Gnosticism, with creation at the hands of demiurges made by emanations
made by the Creator.
>
> Bryant is under the mistaken impression that because God is a
> potential candidate that this invalidates the theory. No so. Bryant
> would have to invalidate Dembski's algorithm and math.
>
Bryant, surely, is under the impression that the theory is invalidated
because it isn't a theory. It makes no testable predictions, it
explains nothing, it cannot be tested in any way whatsoever. It does
nothing except tell you that things current theories cannot explain
cannot be explained by current theories, which of course even
secularists already know.
>
> snip
>
> >> Pagano replies:
> >> ID theory attempts to offer a rigorous method for determining when
> >> intelligent design would be the true mode of explanation for a
> >> particular observation or event (rather than law or chance). For
> >> example, intelligent design theory would give the investigator a
> >> rigorous method for determining whether or not the bacterial
> >> flagellum was the result of intelligent design as opposed to law,
> >> chance (or some combination). ID theory goes no further than
> >> this.
> >>
> >> As near as I can tell there does not exist a detailed and
> >> empirically testable explanation of how the neoDarwinian mechanism
> >> created the bacterial flagellum.
> >
> >The problem for ID is that they have *nothing* to offer except a
> >claim that evolution couldn't do it alone.
>
> Pagano replies:
> This is not quite right. ID theory says absolutely nothing about
> evolution, per se. It examines a particular event, or system and can,
> in theory, determine only the best "mode" of explanation for that
> event or system or structure.
>
Behe's IC is explicable in terms of the mechanisms of the modern
synthesis, and SCI is nothing but a fancy term for "inexplicable by
known mechanisms." "We don't know the cause of this" is not a mode of
explanation. And pasting a label which explains nothing, atop a
confession of ignorance, is not a mode of explanation either.
>
> It is quite true that the methodology of ID theory can only eliminate
> law and chance as the best mode of explanation. Nonetheless this is
> tremendously significant. Up to this point in modern time secular
> scientists have assumed WITHOUT TEST that only law and chance can be
> considered the true mode of explanation. Now there is a test. And if
> accurate this means that secularists are sometimes looking for the
> truth in the WRONG direction. This is significant.
>
This is entirely false, as already explained above. "Secular"
scientists have assumed that a true mode of explanation required one
to be able to posit testable statements about the proposed mechansisms
or agents behind a phenomenon, and have evidence confirming them. It
did not assume that the agents or mechanisms identified this way were
the sole causes. It did refuse to admit "causes" whose only
"evidence" was that current explanations did not explain everything,
and whose only discernable attributes was their complete immunity to
testing.
The significance of ID is not that it seeks to liberate science from
the tyranny of materialism and metaphysical naturalism. It is that it
seeks to liberate science from the tyranny of assuming that evidence
means something, or that explanations amount to more than labels.
>
> >And unless they can
> >support that claim *rigorously* then they don't have any claim at
> >all. They are essentially trying to claim a negative, and that sort
> >of claim is useless unless it is entirely leak-proof.
>
> Pagano replies:
> But the algorithm used by Dembski is not new and has been accepted by
> other well known and accepted sciences. And the probablistic
> mathematics offered by Dembski is rigorous.
>
False, and false, as explained above.
>
> >But ID isn't leak-proof.
>
> Pagano replies:
> Neither is abiogenesis; neither is neoDarwinism; neither is Big Bang
> cosmology; and quite honest neither are any historical theories. The
> blindless induced by the zealotry of secularists is instructive.
>
You claim above that Dembski's filter is rigorous, and provides the
"best modeof explanation," even though it itself explains absolutely
nothing, and is based on the premise that there can be no direct
evidence for ID. If there could be evidence for ID itself, ID
proponents would not need to make their case by trying to find things,
not the ID explains, but that "neoDarwinism" cannot.
There is evidence for the Big Bang, "neoDarwinism," and abiogenesis.
There is not, and by Dembski's own demonstration cannot be, evidence
for ID. Since ID can be established *only* by excluding all possible
alternatives (note that this is NOT true for any actual theory), it is
very important that the arguments for it be "leak-proof." It must not
permit ANY "law or chance" explanation.
>
> >>>And neither are philosophies: one is science and the other is
> >>>(bad) theology.
> >>
> >> Pagano replies:
> >> There are certainly underlying philosophies to both evolutionary
> >> biology and intelligent design. However, if Bryant can't produce
> >> an empirically testable explanation of how the bacterial flagellum
> >> arose then his brand of evolutionary biology is more storytelling
> >> than science.
> >
> >Don't blame the messenger. And don't shift the burden of proof:
> >it's the IDologists who are trying to prove that something is
> >impossible. If I can't give a counterexample, that doesn't mean
> >they've done a good job of proving it.
>
> Pagano replies:
> But I'm not shifting the burden. It has always been the burden of
> neoDarwinism to explain, in empirically testable detail, the origin of
> the bacterial flagellum.
>
In a sense this is true, of course. But the failure to provide such
an explanation is not evidence for ID, even if ID simply means "any
explanation, including pure 'law' or 'chance,' other than
'neoDarwinism.'" After all, a detailed neoDarwinian explanation might
be forthcoming in the future.
Exactly the same burden as is on "neoDarwinism" is on any rival
explanation. And if you hope to make your case by excluding rival
explanations, you need to be omniscient, in order to rule out a
virtual infinity of alternative explanations, including hosts
involving unknown regularities of nature operating in unknown ways.
>
> The only thing offered by ID theory is the mode of explanation. ID
> theory has eliminated law and chance as the mode of explanation. This
> puts the secularist in an even tighter spot. Now he's forced to show
> that neoDarwinism can explain. But there haven't been any detailed
> explanations. This is pathetic.
>
There have been detailed explanations of the orgins of many other
systems. It is not even known, in detail, how the bacterial flagellum
works -- what its mechanism *is*, much less how it came to be. You
seem to find a lack of omniscience, and the existence of unsolved
problems, as "pathetic" (although it is the only known condition of
humanity in general and science in particular, in all places at all
times).
In the meantime, there is no positive evidence -- nothing but "god of
the gaps" arguments -- for intelligent design as the explanation of
ANY aspect of biology. By your own admission, ID makes no predictions,
and offers no explanations as to why anything in nature is the way it
is, as opposed to some other imaginable way of being. It cannot tell
us how, or why, or by whom, the bacterial flagellum was designed; it
cannot tell us, actually, that it *was* designed, but merely that, in
Behe and Dembski's opinion, it has no other explanation. And this,
oddly, does not strike you as pathetic.
>
> >> And to the extent that Intelligent Design advocates can "prove"
> >> rigorously their probablistic methodology it may prove more
> >> scientific than Bryant's storytelling.
> >
> >Of course, they *can't* prove it.
>
> Pagano replies:
> There are no deductive proofs but neither are there such proofs of
> neoDarwinism. However, so far no one has found a situation where
> Dembski's theory wrongly identified the mode of explanation for an
> event or system of known cause.
>
In other words, if we know that something was caused by intelligent
action, we can apply Dembski's filter (or pretend to) to find out what
we already know. That is a truly wonderful thing to contemplate.
>
> > If you show that something has a
> >low probability but see that it happens anyway, your scientific
> >obligation is to see why it happens -- not to conclude that it
> >doesn't.
>
> Pagano replies:
> Unfortuately the scientist must begin from a sound basis.
> Secularists, atheists and agnostics ASSUME WITHOUT TEST that all
> events in space-time are explanable by law, chance or some combination
> of the two. If this assumption-----based in philosophy NOT
> science-----is wrong then the attempt to find out the true cause is
> doomed to failure. IDers have now offered a rigorous (probablistic)
> scientific test for determining when we should eliminate law and
> chance as the best mode of explanation.
>
Repeating this does not make it more true than it was the last time I
refuted it.
>
> >ID is nothing more than "I don't see how that could
> >happen, therefore godidit."
>
> Pagano replies:
> This is exactly what it does NOT do. It employs an algorithm used by
> a few accepted secular sciences. It generalizes this algorithm with
> formality and mathematical rigor. And it never determines that God
> did it. As usual the secuarist produces a straw man which can
> ridicule rather than the actual position which he hasn't touched.
>
Again, repeating your assertions does not confirm them.
>
> > You can't get any more intellectually
> >bankrupt than that. I don't know how this darn mosquito got into
> >my apartment while all the doors and windows were closed, but that
> >doesn't justify invoking the Invisible Pink Unicorn as an
> >explanation.
>
>
> Pagano replies:
> And neither would ID theory.
>
Of course not, the IPU is far too specific; someone might figure out a
way to empirically test it. ID "theory" would merely say that since
neither law nor chance can explain the mosquito's presence, its
presence must be somehow "designed" in an unspecifiable way for an
unfathomable purpose.
>
> I'm done here.
>
> Regards,
> T Pagano
-- Steven J.
wf...@ptnospam.com
IOW it's bad science
thanks, pagano. we knew that. hell, we dont even study it at lehigh
university, where behe teaches.
John Wilkins
> Unlike neoDarwinians (beginning with Darwin) the Intelligent Design
Here we can see that Tony simply fails to understand what neo-Darwinism
could be, if he includes *Darwin* as a neo-Darwinian.
What do you understand that term to mean, Tony? I'm *sure* I asked this
before...
--
John Wilkins
[I]magine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, "...interesting
hole I find myself in - fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? ...
must have been made to have me in it." Douglas Adams, Salmon of Doubt
Dana Tweedy
True, but since both Behe and YEC's ideas are contradicted by the evidence,
neither belong in the public schools.
DJT
Mike Dunford
>>> Pagano replies:
>>> In a word: no.
>>>
>>> Behe wrote that neoDarwinian evolution (which is a purely
>>> naturalistic theory) was the best explanation for most of the
>>> biological systems, organs and structures that man has
>>> observed, BUT it could not explain the origin of all of them.
>>> NeoDarwinian evolution could NOTexplain the creation of
>>> systems he labeled "irreducibly complex." Behe argued that
>>> the best mode of explanation for these irreducibly complex
>>> systems is intelligent design.
>>
>>Yep, that's what he writes and argues. Too bad he can't
>>actually support those claims.
>
> Pagano replies:
> In the first edition of his book Behe presented 307 pages of
> background and support. I would say that a full length work
> qualifies as support even in the Orwellian double-speak of
> modern secularism.
I find it mildly amusing that the fact that Behe managed to write 307
pages seems to have somehow impressed you, while you are unimpressed
by both the 511 pages of the first edition of volume one of Lyell's
_Principles_ and the 513 pages of the first edition of Darwin's
_Origin_.
> Did this support rise to the level of a deductive conclusion?
> No, but none of the "support" provided by modern secularists in
> defense of the really important claims of neoDarwinism meet that
> level either. So it would seem that Bryant's criticism has
> little force. But did Behe's "support" have much force?
I don't know why you seem to have this fetish for deductive logic, or
why you seem to think that a "deductive conclusion" is all that
important. You can't learn anything from deductive logic that you
don't already know, and the truth of the conclusion is independent of
the validity of the argument.
> Behe must have been on to something with regard to his position
> that neoDarinism prohibits the existence of irreducibly complex
> systems, organs and structures.
Why? Because people think that it is wrong?
> While neoDarwinians have almost
> universally denied this prohibition the vast majority of their
> counter punches have been to claim that the systems identified
> by Behe are not irreducibly complex. In effect, they admit that
> Behe is correct.
No. The effect of denying that evolution can not produce "irreducibly
complex" systems is not to admit that evolution can not produce
"irreducibly complex" systems.
What people have been doing is pointing out that Behe is wrong on two
separate counts: (1) he is wrong to claim that "irreducible
complexity" is problematic for evolution, AND (2) he is wrong to
claim that his examples actually demonstrate "irreducible
complexity". Pointing out two wrongs does not constitute an admission
that one or more of them is right.
>>>>> Rather a creator-force is behind it all.
>>>
>>> Pagano replies:
>>> In a word: no. Intelligent design theory does not identify
>>> the intelligent agent nor does it need to.
>>
>>If it was really science there would be nothing in the world
>>that interested them more than that identity.
>
> Pagano replies:
> If the cause didn't interest them then they wouldn't be placing
> their personal careers in jeopardy by bucking the secular
> orthodoxy.
"The cause" is not the same as the "identity." There is little doubt
in my mind that Behe, Dembski, Johnson, et al are interested --
committed -- to the cause outlined in the wedge document.
Unfortunately, this does no mean the same thing as being committed to
science, truth, or anything else.
The current postition of design proponents -- that the designer
cannot be identified -- makes it appear that they are trying to reap
the theological benefits of the 19th century design argument without
having to deal with any of the theological pitfals which resulted
from this argument (the biological side of the problem of evil,
imperfect design, &c).
> And they have taken a first step towards identifying
> the cause. A bold step actually. The secular orthodoxy assumes
> WITHOUT EMPIRICAL TEST that EVERY event in space-time (other
> than human artifacts) is the result of law, chance or some
> combination. The IDers have offered a rigorous, scientific,
> mathematical test to challenge this UNscientific assumption.
> Isn't that interesting?
It might be, if it were correct. As many other people have pointed
out, scientists do not assume that every event in space time other
than human artifacts is the result of law, chance, or some
combination. As Dembski has pointed out, for example, the SETI
program already searches for a non-human intelligence. The IDers have
not offered any way to distinguish natural design from supernatural
design.
Further, their test is neither rigorous nor scientific. It is subject
to both false negative and false positive results, and is dependent
on the dubious _assumption_ that our understanding of chance and law
is complete and accurate.
>> But since it's merely a
>>political ploy to sneak crypto-creationism past the courts they
>>bend over backwards *not* to identify it.
>
> Pagano replies:
> Unlike neoDarwinians (beginning with Darwin) the Intelligent
> Design advocates have not extrapolated where the science of
> their theory will not allow.
There does not appear to be any reason that their "theory" would not
allow inferences to be drawn about the designer. For example, we
should be able to reasonably infer, with Haldane, from the fact that
there are some 400,000 known species of beetle (as compared to 8,000
some odd species of mammal) that the designer must have "an
inordinate fondness for beetles". Other, less amusing inferences
regarding the habits and preferences of the designer can be drawn
from an examination of the lifestyle of other insects -- the
cannibalism of the mantis, or the caring manner in which many wasps
provide for their offspring.
> Dembski's "explanatory filter"
> employs algorithms already in use by other well known sciences.
In all of those other cases (anthropology, archaeology, SETI, etc),
the available evidence is scrutinized for any information, however
vague, it might be able to provide about the nature, identity,
motives, etc of the designer. Yet, for some inexplicable reason, the
IDers claim that the same thing cannot be done in this case.
> He generalized, formalized and added mathematical rigor to what
> already has been accepted in other sciences.
I find it hard to call any mathematical "test" that is subject to
both false positive and false negative results "rigorous". I also
find it hard to call such a "test" "useful".
> Intelligent Design advocates don't deny that when their theory
> points to an intelligent agent that this includes a supernatural
> one.
Unfortunately, they provide no means of distinguishing a
"supernatural" agent from a "natural" one.
> They simply are being good scientists when they refuse to
> extrapolate when no extrapolation is justified.
Why is is unjustified to infer (or extrapolate, if you prefer) that
the "designer" took a greater interest in beetles than in mammals?
>>When have you ever seen a real scientist discover something new
>>and fail to show any interest in the cause?
>
> Pagano replies:
> This whole line of argument is both absurd and nonsense. Bryant
> is trying to add a new requirement for a theory and its
> adherents to qualify as science and scientists, respectively.
You are the current newsgroup expert on the subject of adding
requirements, but in this case I disagree with you. It would seem to
me that the only "requirement" that Bryant is asking for is that they
act like scientists.
> He argues that if the scientist fails to completely identify all
> the causes for a particular event that his work can't be real
> science and he is a "crypto-scientist. He argues that their
> failure to fully and completely identify the cause is evidence
> that they weren't really interested in learning something about
> nature but betrays rather a political motive.
>
> Taken to its absurd conclusion we could smear virtually every
> scientist and their theories with the same accusations. And we
> would be forced to attribute political motives to all their
> activities.
The conclusion is absurd because your version of the argument is a
strawman. Bryant does not argue that their failure to fully and
completely identify the cause is evidence of anything. It is their
failure to do what other scientists do with objects which they
believe are designed that raises questions about their motives.
>>Also, as I have argued repeatedly, when you look at the
>>consequences of the ID argument you discover that they must
>>either appeal to the supernatural or else admit that their whole
>>argument is vacuous.
>
> Pagano replies:
> Bryant is desparate and confused. He seems to be under the
> mistaken view that this is somehow and argument agaisnt ID. ID
> theory as presented by Dembski is a rigorous mathematical method
> for determining when law and chance can be ruled out as the
> "mode of explanation" leaving intelligent design as the "best
> mode of explanation."
Dembski provides no justification for leaving "intelligent design" as
the "best" explanation. He simply asserts that there are only those
three possibilities. In addition, his "rigorous" method is prone to
both false positive and false negative results. Personally, I'd call
any "theory" which rests on that kind of cornerstone vacuous.
[snip]
>>> Pagano replies:
>>> ID theory attempts to offer a rigorous method for determining
>>> when intelligent design would be the true mode of explanation
>>> for a particular observation or event (rather than law or
>>> chance). For example, intelligent design theory would give
>>> the investigator a rigorous method for determining whether or
>>> not the bacterial flagellum was the result of intelligent
>>> design as opposed to law, chance (or some combination). ID
>>> theory goes no further than this.
>>>
>>> As near as I can tell there does not exist a detailed and
>>> empirically testable explanation of how the neoDarwinian
>>> mechanism created the bacterial flagellum.
>>
>>The problem for ID is that they have *nothing* to offer except a
>>claim that evolution couldn't do it alone.
>
> Pagano replies:
> This is not quite right. ID theory says absolutely nothing
> about evolution, per se. It examines a particular event, or
> system and can, in theory, determine only the best "mode" of
> explanation for that event or system or structure.
Unfortunately, Dembski's "rigorous" method can only determine that
design is the best "mode" if we assume that there are only three
choices (law, chance, design), AND if we assume that we correctly
know everything important about the first two. Both of those
assumptions are at best questionable.
> It is quite true that the methodology of ID theory can only
> eliminate law and chance as the best mode of explanation.
And then only if we _assume_ that our human understanding of both is
complete and correct.
> Nonetheless this is tremendously significant. Up to this point
> in modern time secular scientists have assumed WITHOUT TEST that
> only law and chance can be considered the true mode of
> explanation. Now there is a test. And if accurate this means
> that secularists are sometimes looking for the truth in the
> WRONG direction. This is significant.
But this "test" is entirely incapable of either eliminating a natural
cause or demonstrating a supernatural one.
>>And unless they can
>>support that claim *rigorously* then they don't have any claim
>>at all. They are essentially trying to claim a negative, and
>>that sort of claim is useless unless it is entirely leak-proof.
>
> Pagano replies:
> But the algorithm used by Dembski is not new and has been
> accepted by other well known and accepted sciences. And the
> probablistic mathematics offered by Dembski is rigorous.
Only if the definition of "rigorous" is stretched far enough to
include a test prone to both false positive and false negative
results.
[rest snipped]
--Mike Dunford
--
I never learned from a man who agreed with me.
--Robert A. Heinlein
jillar...@webtv.net
Mike Dunford wrote:
> ...that the designer can not be identified makes it appear -- that
they are trying to reap the theological benefits of the 19th century...
Good Morning,
Without specified identification by the author why is it theological?
Why not paganistic, pantheistic or even something like ancient Greek
Mythology. We can add Zeus to the growing list of unidentifiable ID-ers.
Maybe this is why it is not science. It's too open ended in it's
conclusion. Still, this is different from the uncertainty principle in
quantum mechanics. Should we start to list philosophical texts (
Aristotle's "Physica") in a science curricula? Isn't this a philosophy
of science problem?
> ...he is wrong about..."irreducible complexity"..
If it stays in the natural world probably so. But what if at some point
in the future rigor of evolution theory some scientist wants to take it
into a very theoretical direction of quantum mechanics for answers? Some
will not want to go in that direction. Yet, some may. Is that not still
science?
Jillar
A Pagano
(John Wilkins) wrote:
>A Pagano <anthony...@verizon.net> wrote, inter alia:
>
>> Unlike neoDarwinians (beginning with Darwin) the Intelligent Design
>
>Here we can see that Tony simply fails to understand what neo-Darwinism
>could be, if he includes *Darwin* as a neo-Darwinian.
>
>What do you understand that term to mean, Tony? I'm *sure* I asked this
>before...
Pagano replies:
Certainly it is true that Darwin was not officially a neoDarwinian.
Obviously he died to soon to see its emergence. However, Wilkins
seems to imply that neoDarwinism was a radical departure from
Darwinism. Why else would he distance Darwin from neoDarwinism?
That would be real news if it were true....but it ain't. neoDarwinism
retains the solid basis and framework from Darwinism. Darwin was
ignorant of many things and treated the mechanism of transformation
and heredity as black boxes.
NeoDarwinians simply openned the black boxes and discarded a few of
the matters over which they believe Darwin was mistaken----which
weren't many. I suspect I can argue without fear of contradiction
that Darwin would be a neoDarwinian (and a vigorous one to boot) if he
was alive today. And such would have only required a few minor
corrections to his next edition of "The Origin of Species."
Surely our resident and credentialled comedian-philosopher can find
better mistakes of mine than this. Or maybe not.
Regards,
T Pagano
Bobby D. Bryant
> I find it hard to call any mathematical "test" that is subject to
> both false positive and false negative results "rigorous".
Chez Watt!
Bobby Bryant
Austin, Texas
gen2rev
>
> On Tue, 3 Dec 2002 06:31:40 +0000 (UTC), john.w...@bigpond.com
> (John Wilkins) wrote:
>
> >A Pagano <anthony...@verizon.net> wrote, inter alia:
> >
> >> Unlike neoDarwinians (beginning with Darwin) the Intelligent Design
> >
> >Here we can see that Tony simply fails to understand what neo-Darwinism
> >could be, if he includes *Darwin* as a neo-Darwinian.
> >
> >What do you understand that term to mean, Tony? I'm *sure* I asked this
> >before...
>
> Pagano replies:
> Certainly it is true that Darwin was not officially a neoDarwinian.
"Officially"? Who decides this?
> Obviously he died to soon to see its emergence. However, Wilkins
> seems to imply that neoDarwinism was a radical departure from
> Darwinism. Why else would he distance Darwin from neoDarwinism?
Makes you think, doesn't it?
> That would be real news if it were true....but it ain't. neoDarwinism
> retains the solid basis and framework from Darwinism.
Well, no. Without giving away the farm, I'd say that neoDarwinism
doesn't get its basis from Darwinism. Certainly it gets quite a lot, but
something else contributed a substantial amount as well.
> Darwin was
> ignorant of many things and treated the mechanism of transformation
> and heredity as black boxes.
That's not true either.
> NeoDarwinians simply openned the black boxes and discarded a few of
> the matters over which they believe Darwin was mistaken----which
> weren't many. I suspect I can argue without fear of contradiction
> that Darwin would be a neoDarwinian (and a vigorous one to boot) if he
> was alive today. And such would have only required a few minor
> corrections to his next edition of "The Origin of Species."
This is like arguing that Ptolemy would be a heliocentrist if he were
alive today. It may be true, but so what?
> Surely our resident and credentialled comedian-philosopher can find
> better mistakes of mine than this. Or maybe not.
Would you care to explain how neoDarwinism differs from Darwinism?
Otherwise, I'll have to assume you have no idea what you're talking
about.
> Regards,
> T Pagano
Mike Dunford
news:23754-3DE...@storefull-2294.public.lawson.webtv.net:
> Mike Dunford wrote:
>
>> ...that the designer can not be identified makes it appear --
>> that they are trying to reap the theological benefits of the
>> 19th century...
For clarity, I am going to restore the entire paragaph:
>> The current postition of design proponents -- that the
>> designer cannot be identified -- makes it appear that
>> they are trying to reap the theological benefits of the
>> 19th century design argument without having to deal with
>> any of the theological pitfals which resulted from this
>> argument (the biological side of the problem of evil,
>> imperfect design, &c).
> Without specified identification by the author why is it
> theological? Why not paganistic, pantheistic or even something
> like ancient Greek Mythology. We can add Zeus to the growing
> list of unidentifiable ID-ers.
It is not the inability of the ID proponents to identify the designer
that makes me think that they are trying to reap the benefits of the
19th century design argument while avoiding its theological problems,
but their unwillingness to use the properties of the things
identified as "designed" to draw inferences about the designer.
As the now-infamous "wedge document" (1) clearly illustrates, the
intelligent design proponents seem to share the desire of their early
19th century counterparts to demonstrate that there is evidence for
God manifested in creation. They also seem to share the fears of many
of Darwin's contemporaries about the moral, ethical, and social
consequences of materialism and naturalism. (The "wedge document"
also clearly indicates that its proponents do have a specific
designer in mind.)
The current ID advocates differ from their 19th century counterparts
in one key area: unlike the Victorian design advocates, the current
IDers are unwilling to extrapolate anything about the designer from
the evidence they claim indicates that one is present. This also is
unlike any of the areas in science where scientists deal with
designed items (anthropology, archaeology, the SETI program, etc). In
the 19th century, natural theologians openly wrestled with the
theological implications of some of the things seen in nature. Both
William Kirby and St. George Mivart, for example, attempted to
address the theological problems raised by the Ichneumonidae -- wasps
which provide for the welfare of their offspring by laying their eggs
inside a living organism, providing them with an immediate, and
defenseless, source of food. Currently, anthropologists and
archaeologists are not at all reluctant to draw every possible
inference about an ancient people from even the smallest piece of
physical evidence. The current design advocates, however, refuse to
draw inferences ("make claims") about the nature of the designer.
There is really no scientific justification for this refusal to draw
inferences. In fact, such a refusal runs counter to both the current
and past practices of scientists confronted with physical evidence
they believe indicates design. Theologically and/or politically,
however, the refusal makes sense. Unlike the 19th century natural
theologians, who were openly and explicitly operating from a
Christian perspective, todays ID advocates claim to be operating
without preconceptions. The 19th century natural theologians had a
difficult time reconciling much seen in nature with Christian
theology. If the same things were addressed without theological
preconceptions, I think they would indicate that the designer does
not resemble the Christian image of God.
The ID advocates feel that they need evidence of a designer to combat
materialism. (More to the point, they think that they need to make
sure that children are taught that there is a god to do so.) Once
they make that point, they have little to gain and everything to lose
by drawing inferences about the designer from the "designed". After
all, if no inferences are drawn they can continue to claim that the
designer could be anything from the Christian God to Little Green Men
who like to talk to French race car drivers. If inferences are drawn,
they might indicate that the designer acts more like the Norse deity
Loki than it does the Christian God.
To sum up, then, I think that the ID advocates are playing
theological games because that seems to me to be the obvious
implication of their tactics.
> Maybe this is why it is not science. It's too open ended in it's
> conclusion.
My objection was not that it was too open ended, but that the design
advocates are refusing to take the obvious steps to make it less so.
That is far from the only reason that what they are doing is not
science, of course, but it does provide a good illustration of how
they are using science when it suits them, and deviating from
scientific procedure when it does not.
> Still, this is different from the uncertainty
> principle in quantum mechanics. Should we start to list
> philosophical texts ( Aristotle's "Physica") in a science
> curricula? Isn't this a philosophy of science problem?
I don't think so, no. As the ID advocates themselves are fond of
pointing out, there are already sciences which deal with the problem
of identifying designed objects. If they think that they have found
another method for identifying design, and that design is indicated
within living things, then there is no reason that this case should
be treated differently. Their refusal to do so indicates that they
are not really trying to do science, and is evidence of their
religious and political motives. I don't see that as a "philosophy of
science problem".
>> ...he is wrong about..."irreducible complexity"..
>
> If it stays in the natural world probably so. But what if at
> some point in the future rigor of evolution theory some
> scientist wants to take it into a very theoretical direction of
> quantum mechanics for answers? Some will not want to go in that
> direction. Yet, some may. Is that not still science?
In a sense, some have already done so. For example, Ken Miller, in
his book _Finding Darwin's God_, argues that QM, unlike the more
deterministic physics which preceeded it, provides a possible role
for God after the universe is created. Theologically, I waffle back
and forth about whether or not this argument provides me with any
comfort. But it is not a scientific argument, although it is rooted
in science. It cannot be tested, it cannot be investigated, it makes
no predictions, and it cannot be proven false. It is theology or
philosophy, not science.
It is possible, at least in theory, that someone may later find some
way to make that argument scientific. I cannot think of any, but I am
not omniscient. If someone does devise some way, some how, to come up
with a testable, falsifiable, investigatable method, then it might
become scientific. Until then, however, the answer to your question
is no. An argument is not scientific simply because it refers to a
scientific theory. It needs to be able to be subjected to the same
type of test and investigation as any other scientific hypothesis.
--Mike Dunford
(1) The "wedge document" is a 1998 outline of the purpose and
strategy of the Discovery Institute's Center for the Renew of Science
and Culture, and is available online at
http://antievolution.org/features/wedge.html
--
There is something fascinating about science. One gets such
wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of
fact.
--Mark Twain
Mike Dunford
news:asiqmc$d6l$1...@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu:
> On Tue, 03 Dec 2002 00:57:22 -0600, Mike Dunford wrote:
>
>> I find it hard to call any mathematical "test" that is subject to
>> both false positive and false negative results "rigorous".
>
> Chez Watt!
Did that amuse you, or have I failed to notice that I said something
stupid?
--Mike
--
A common mistake that people make when trying to design something
completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete
fools.
--Douglas Adams
Frank Reichenbacher
"gen2rev" <gen...@crosswinds.net> wrote in message
news:3DED0C3F...@crosswinds.net...
> A Pagano wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, 3 Dec 2002 06:31:40 +0000 (UTC), john.w...@bigpond.com
> > (John Wilkins) wrote:
> >
> > >A Pagano <anthony...@verizon.net> wrote, inter alia:
> > >
> > >> Unlike neoDarwinians (beginning with Darwin) the Intelligent Design
> > >
> > >Here we can see that Tony simply fails to understand what neo-Darwinism
> > >could be, if he includes *Darwin* as a neo-Darwinian.
> > >
> > >What do you understand that term to mean, Tony? I'm *sure* I asked this
> > >before...
> >
> > Pagano replies:
> > Certainly it is true that Darwin was not officially a neoDarwinian.
>
> "Officially"? Who decides this?
>
>
> > Obviously he died to soon to see its emergence. However, Wilkins
> > seems to imply that neoDarwinism was a radical departure from
> > Darwinism. Why else would he distance Darwin from neoDarwinism?
>
> Makes you think, doesn't it?
>
>
> > That would be real news if it were true....but it ain't. neoDarwinism
> > retains the solid basis and framework from Darwinism.
>
> Well, no. Without giving away the farm, I'd say that neoDarwinism
> doesn't get its basis from Darwinism. Certainly it gets quite a lot, but
> something else contributed a substantial amount as well.
You're being unnecessarily disengenuous here. Of course, neoDarwinism does
derive from Darwinism, that's why it's called _neoDarwinism_ for Pete's
sake.
>
>
> > Darwin was
> > ignorant of many things and treated the mechanism of transformation
> > and heredity as black boxes.
>
> That's not true either.
I think Tony is quite right. Agreeing with him on this point, however, does
not in any way shape or form, validate his overall position on anything.
>
>
> > NeoDarwinians simply openned the black boxes and discarded a few of
> > the matters over which they believe Darwin was mistaken----which
> > weren't many. I suspect I can argue without fear of contradiction
> > that Darwin would be a neoDarwinian (and a vigorous one to boot) if he
> > was alive today. And such would have only required a few minor
> > corrections to his next edition of "The Origin of Species."
>
> This is like arguing that Ptolemy would be a heliocentrist if he were
> alive today. It may be true, but so what?
>
>
> > Surely our resident and credentialled comedian-philosopher can find
> > better mistakes of mine than this. Or maybe not.
>
> Would you care to explain how neoDarwinism differs from Darwinism?
Modern genetics is the principal difference.
> Otherwise, I'll have to assume you have no idea what you're talking
> about.
I think that goes without saying.
Frank
>
>
> > Regards,
> > T Pagano
>
gen2rev
Shhh! I'm hunting wabbits...
> Of course, neoDarwinism does
> derive from Darwinism, that's why it's called _neoDarwinism_ for Pete's
> sake.
I'm not saying that it didn't. But what is the 'basis' of neoDarwinism,
what is the mechanism of heredity? Perhaps I'm just engaging in
semantics, but it seems an important distinction to me.
> > > Darwin was
> > > ignorant of many things and treated the mechanism of transformation
> > > and heredity as black boxes.
> >
> > That's not true either.
>
> I think Tony is quite right. Agreeing with him on this point, however, does
> not in any way shape or form, validate his overall position on anything.
Actually, as far as I can remember, Darwin did put forth a theory of
heredity, and didn't treat it as a black box.
> > > NeoDarwinians simply openned the black boxes and discarded a few of
> > > the matters over which they believe Darwin was mistaken----which
> > > weren't many. I suspect I can argue without fear of contradiction
> > > that Darwin would be a neoDarwinian (and a vigorous one to boot) if he
> > > was alive today. And such would have only required a few minor
> > > corrections to his next edition of "The Origin of Species."
> >
> > This is like arguing that Ptolemy would be a heliocentrist if he were
> > alive today. It may be true, but so what?
> >
> >
> > > Surely our resident and credentialled comedian-philosopher can find
> > > better mistakes of mine than this. Or maybe not.
> >
> > Would you care to explain how neoDarwinism differs from Darwinism?
>
> Modern genetics is the principal difference.
SHHH!!!!!!!!!!
> > Otherwise, I'll have to assume you have no idea what you're talking
> > about.
>
> I think that goes without saying.
But it might have been amusing... :)
> Frank
>
> >
> >
> > > Regards,
> > > T Pagano
Bobby D. Bryant
> "Bobby D. Bryant" <bdbr...@mail.utexas.edu> wrote in
> news:asiqmc$d6l$1...@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu:
>
>> On Tue, 03 Dec 2002 00:57:22 -0600, Mike Dunford wrote:
>>
>>> I find it hard to call any mathematical "test" that is subject
>>> to both false positive and false negative results "rigorous".
>>
>> Chez Watt!
>
> Did that amuse you, or have I failed to notice that I said
> something stupid?
No, I wish *I* had said it. I thought someone said the Chez Watt
could go to any comment that was noteworthy -- whether for its
goodness or its badness.
Bobby Bryant
Austin, Texas
Bobby D. Bryant
> A Pagano wrote:
>> Obviously he died to soon to see its emergence. However, Wilkins
>> seems to imply that neoDarwinism was a radical departure from
>> Darwinism. Why else would he distance Darwin from neoDarwinism?
>
> Makes you think, doesn't it?
Recall who it is you're talking to.
Bobby Bryant
Austin, Texas
Mike Dunford
Chez Watt can certainly go to any noteworth comment, good or bad. I
just wanted to make sure I knew which you were putting it in. ;)
--Mike
--
You ask: what is the meaning or purpose of life? I can only answer
with another question: do you think we are wise enough to read God's
mind?
--Freeman Dyson
Robin Levett
news:ut1quu812p807pq4n...@4ax.com...
> On Tue, 3 Dec 2002 06:31:40 +0000 (UTC),
john.w...@bigpond.com
> (John Wilkins) wrote:
>
> >A Pagano <anthony...@verizon.net> wrote, inter alia:
> >
> >> Unlike neoDarwinians (beginning with Darwin) the Intelligent
Design
> >
> >Here we can see that Tony simply fails to understand what
neo-Darwinism
> >could be, if he includes *Darwin* as a neo-Darwinian.
> >
> >What do you understand that term to mean, Tony? I'm *sure* I
asked this
> >before...
>
> Pagano replies:
> Certainly it is true that Darwin was not officially a
neoDarwinian.
> Obviously he died to soon to see its emergence. However,
Wilkins
> seems to imply that neoDarwinism was a radical departure from
> Darwinism. Why else would he distance Darwin from neoDarwinism?
>
No Tony, that would be your implication; why do you relentlessly
use the term "neoDarwinism" if you don't mean thereby to
distinguish it from garden-variety "Darwinism". Is it just
because it's a longer word, so you get more letters to the dollar?
If that's not the reason, perhaps you could expound upon the real
differences in meaning between the two terms.
> That would be real news if it were true....but it ain't.
neoDarwinism
> retains the solid basis and framework from Darwinism. Darwin
was
> ignorant of many things and treated the mechanism of
transformation
> and heredity as black boxes.
>
> NeoDarwinians simply openned the black boxes and discarded a few
of
> the matters over which they believe Darwin was mistaken----which
> weren't many. I suspect I can argue without fear of
contradiction
> that Darwin would be a neoDarwinian (and a vigorous one to boot)
if he
> was alive today.
But as he isn't alive today, so isn't, and wasn't, a
"neoDarwinian". In any event, if he were alive today, he would
not be a neoDarwininan; "neoDarwinism" would instead be
"Darwinism".
> And such would have only required a few minor
> corrections to his next edition of "The Origin of Species."
>
> Surely our resident and credentialled comedian-philosopher can
find
> better mistakes of mine than this. Or maybe not.
>
Tony, you make so many mistakes that the problem is not finding
them, but keeping up with them.
--
________________________________________________________________
Robin Levett
rle...@ibmrlevett.uklinux.net
(address munged by addition of Big Blue)
Atheist = knows of and uses Occam's Razor
Agnostic = knows of but isn't sure whether to use Occam's Razor
Fundy = what's Ockam's erasure?
___________________________________________________
Bobby D. Bryant
> "Bobby D. Bryant" <bdbr...@mail.utexas.edu> wrote in
> news:asjdgn$nm3$1...@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu:
>
>> On Tue, 03 Dec 2002 14:30:22 -0600, Mike Dunford wrote:
>>
>>> "Bobby D. Bryant" <bdbr...@mail.utexas.edu> wrote in
>>> news:asiqmc$d6l$1...@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu:
>>>
>>>> On Tue, 03 Dec 2002 00:57:22 -0600, Mike Dunford wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I find it hard to call any mathematical "test" that is subject
>>>>> to both false positive and false negative results "rigorous".
>>>>
>>>> Chez Watt!
>>>
>>> Did that amuse you, or have I failed to notice that I said
>>> something stupid?
>>
>> No, I wish *I* had said it. I thought someone said the Chez Watt
>> could go to any comment that was noteworthy -- whether for its
>> goodness or its badness.
>
> Chez Watt can certainly go to any noteworth comment, good or bad.
> I just wanted to make sure I knew which you were putting it in. ;)
I think there's supposed to be a don't-ask/don't-tell policy on
that.
Bobby Bryant
Austin, Texas
syvanen
Surely you do not understand his thinking at all in the chapter on use
and disuse. A little hint: today we call that thinking lamarckian.
So more than a few minor changes.
Mike Syvanen
John Harshman
Mike Dunford <mdun...@hawaii.rr.com> wrote:
> "Bobby D. Bryant" <bdbr...@mail.utexas.edu> wrote in
> news:asjdgn$nm3$1...@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu:
>
> > On Tue, 03 Dec 2002 14:30:22 -0600, Mike Dunford wrote:
> >
> >> "Bobby D. Bryant" <bdbr...@mail.utexas.edu> wrote in
> >> news:asiqmc$d6l$1...@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu:
> >>
> >>> On Tue, 03 Dec 2002 00:57:22 -0600, Mike Dunford wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> I find it hard to call any mathematical "test" that is subject
> >>>> to both false positive and false negative results "rigorous".
> >>>
> >>> Chez Watt!
> >>
> >> Did that amuse you, or have I failed to notice that I said
> >> something stupid?
> >
> > No, I wish *I* had said it. I thought someone said the Chez Watt
> > could go to any comment that was noteworthy -- whether for its
> > goodness or its badness.
>
> Chez Watt can certainly go to any noteworth comment, good or bad. I
> just wanted to make sure I knew which you were putting it in. ;)
Whoa. I think it's noteworthy for its badness. Of course I don't know
the context, but any statistical test is subject to both false positives
and false negatives. Depending on how you count it, one of these is
called "Type I error" and the other is "Type II error". I never can
remember which is which, but one of them rejects the null hypothesis
when it is in fact true, and the other fails to reject the null
hypothesis when it is in fact false. Decreasing the probability of one
of them (by redesigning the test) tends to increase the other. A good
test maintains a proper balance between Type I and Type II, and of
course keeps both low. But you can't eliminate them.
So what you seem to be saying there is that there are no rigorous
statistical tests. Which I would dispute.
--
*Note the obvious spam-defeating modification
to my address if you reply by email.
Bobby D. Bryant
Subtle difference: people who do statistical tests (and know what
they're talking about) give a confidence factor. Dembski would
have his hearers think his method has a 100% confidence factor.
False positives and negatives *are* a problem for methods that are
peddled as proofs.
Bobby Bryant
Austin, Texas
Frank Reichenbacher
You're too much, dude. Happy hunting.
Frank
Steven J.
> (John Wilkins) wrote:
>
> >A Pagano <anthony...@verizon.net> wrote, inter alia:
> >
> >> Unlike neoDarwinians (beginning with Darwin) the Intelligent Design
> >
> >Here we can see that Tony simply fails to understand what neo-Darwinism
> >could be, if he includes *Darwin* as a neo-Darwinian.
> >
> >What do you understand that term to mean, Tony? I'm *sure* I asked this
> >before...
>
> Pagano replies:
> Certainly it is true that Darwin was not officially a neoDarwinian.
> Obviously he died to soon to see its emergence. However, Wilkins
> seems to imply that neoDarwinism was a radical departure from
> Darwinism. Why else would he distance Darwin from neoDarwinism?
>
philosophical nitpicking as yourself would appreciate this point.
Just as Plato *cannot* be a neoPlatonist (a matter which is obvious
even if one knows nothing of either Platonism or neoPlatonism), and
Keynes could not be a neoKeynesian, Darwin canot be a neoDarwinist,
"officially" (and what would an "unofficial" neoDarwinist be --do you
imagine that there's an "official" list?) or otherwise. It makes no
difference how vast or trivial the difference between the two
positions -- the original theorist cannot be an adherent of the "neo-"
version of the theory. That's pretty much a prerequisite for it being
a "neo-" version of the theory.
>
> That would be real news if it were true....but it ain't. neoDarwinism
> retains the solid basis and framework from Darwinism. Darwin was
> ignorant of many things and treated the mechanism of transformation
> and heredity as black boxes.
>
transformation of populations and species (that is, evolution rather
than ontology). Darwin had quite specific ideas on the mechanism for
evolution, although he did not insist that they provided an exclusive
explanation.
>
> NeoDarwinians simply openned the black boxes and discarded a few of
> the matters over which they believe Darwin was mistaken----which
> weren't many. I suspect I can argue without fear of contradiction
> that Darwin would be a neoDarwinian (and a vigorous one to boot) if he
> was alive today. And such would have only required a few minor
> corrections to his next edition of "The Origin of Species."
>
simple question I (and others) had asked you: what do you mean by
"neoDarwinian." Apparently, you don't really know what the term
means, any more than you know what "nascent" or "transitional" or
"vestigial" mean.
Darwin's theory depended on the following:
[1] Every population soon reaches the carrying capacity of the
environment, and thereafter produces more offspring than the
environment can support.
[2] Consequently, most offspring will die before they can reproduce.
[3] There is variation in every population; offspring differ among
themselves
[4] Survival and reproduction is nonrandom; some variants are more
successful than others.
[5] Some of this variation leading to reproductive success is
inherited
[6] Natural selection (the above process) depletes variation, but some
means exists to replenish the variation, randomly with respect to
the species' needs.
Darwin did not know how [6] was accomplished. Perhaps it was some
unknown natural mutability in the mysterious mechanism of heredity, or
invisible space pixies "poofing" new variation at random into living
things, or (his best guess) some mechanism for the inheritance of
aquired characteristics.
At the end of the 19th century, Weismann showed that aquired
morphological characteristics could not affect the germ cells.
Darwin's best guess at the mechanism for new variation was falsified.
This began "neoDarwinism" -- Darwinism minus the "Lamarckian" idea of
inheritable aquired traits.
Early in the 20th century, neoDarwinism contended with various
"Mendellian" or mutationist ideas -- ideas about saltational change
arising from mutations. This occured because the neoDarwinians could
not explain where the minute incremental changes natural selection
worked on came from -- mutations, after all, were spotted because they
produced *big* changes.
The discovery of small- scale mutations impelled the combination of
Mendellian and neoDarwinian ideas into the modern synthesis -- natural
selection, acting on mutations, most of which did indeed produce tiny,
incrementally selectable variations. There's much more to it than
this, of course -- among other things, the modern synthesis tended to
reject the idea that the process always favored a single most
advantageous allele (form of a gene) for a given population in a given
environment). But that's the gist of it.
>
> Surely our resident and credentialled comedian-philosopher can find
> better mistakes of mine than this. Or maybe not.
>
Certainly he can. Indeed, I think you just helped him.
John Wilkins
> On Tue, 3 Dec 2002 06:31:40 +0000 (UTC), john.w...@bigpond.com
> (John Wilkins) wrote:
>
> >A Pagano <anthony...@verizon.net> wrote, inter alia:
> >
> >> Unlike neoDarwinians (beginning with Darwin) the Intelligent Design
> >
> >Here we can see that Tony simply fails to understand what neo-Darwinism
> >could be, if he includes *Darwin* as a neo-Darwinian.
> >
> >What do you understand that term to mean, Tony? I'm *sure* I asked this
> >before...
>
> Pagano replies:
> Certainly it is true that Darwin was not officially a neoDarwinian.
> Obviously he died to soon to see its emergence. However, Wilkins
> seems to imply that neoDarwinism was a radical departure from
> Darwinism. Why else would he distance Darwin from neoDarwinism?
Well, Darwin's student Romanes thought it was.
>
> That would be real news if it were true....but it ain't. neoDarwinism
> retains the solid basis and framework from Darwinism. Darwin was
> ignorant of many things and treated the mechanism of transformation
> and heredity as black boxes.
Non sequitur.
>
> NeoDarwinians simply openned the black boxes and discarded a few of
> the matters over which they believe Darwin was mistaken----which
> weren't many. I suspect I can argue without fear of contradiction
> that Darwin would be a neoDarwinian (and a vigorous one to boot) if he
> was alive today. And such would have only required a few minor
> corrections to his next edition of "The Origin of Species."
Speculative and IMO unlikely. And the things Darwin was and remains
mistaken about include: heredity (he was a blending hereditarian, and a
Lamarckian), and the major mode of speciation (he was a sympatrist).
Neither of these are minor matters.
>
> Surely our resident and credentialled comedian-philosopher can find
> better mistakes of mine than this. Or maybe not.
>
Are you going to define what you meant by neo-Darwinian Tony? It's been,
I think, about 2 years since I first asked this of you.
John Wilkins
> "Bobby D. Bryant" <bdbr...@mail.utexas.edu> wrote in
> news:asiqmc$d6l$1...@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu:
>
> > On Tue, 03 Dec 2002 00:57:22 -0600, Mike Dunford wrote:
> >
> >> I find it hard to call any mathematical "test" that is subject to
> >> both false positive and false negative results "rigorous".
> >
> > Chez Watt!
>
> Did that amuse you, or have I failed to notice that I said something
> stupid?
>
Chez Watt includes both classes of statements.
jillar...@webtv.net
Hello Mike Dunford,
Thanks for clearing that up.
It seems to me that this tactic of not drawing the inference knowingly
leads them to a conclusion of nothing new to say (about the designer).
Did they make a disclaimer about this? If not, I think it's trickery
too.
Their motives aside, is their intent then only to demonstrate
intelligent design?
And then would you say that they are correct or incorrect in their
demonstration of that design being intelligent?
Thanks in advance for you responses. I hope to read more when I get back
from an out of town trip.
Jillar
Bobby D. Bryant
> Hello Mike Dunford,
>
> Thanks for clearing that up.
>
> It seems to me that this tactic of not drawing the inference
> knowingly leads them to a conclusion of nothing new to say (about
> the designer). Did they make a disclaimer about this? If not, I
> think it's trickery too.
>
> Their motives aside, is their intent then only to demonstrate
> intelligent design?
To all appearances, their _intent_ is simply to sabatoge evolution
as the grand unifying theory of biology. Their sole argument seems
to be that "evolution needed help at various places along the way".
To all appearances, their _motive_ is to create a scientific-seeming
loophole so that people who want to continue believing a Bronze Age
myth about human origins can continue to do so and still pride
themselves on being in synch with the latest scientific findings.
(Motives are inscrutable, but it is very clear that they are having
this *effect*, as can be seen by browsing the anti-evolution
arguments posted to t.o. that invoke ID.)
The great irony is that that Bronze Age mythology was refuted by the
discoveries of geology, not by the discovery of evolution. No grand
anti-evolution argument, however eloquent and convincing, will ever
repair the big gaping hole that geology put in the myth a couple of
generations before Darwin published his book. People who invoke ID
to preserve their biblical literalism should actually be looking for
intelligent design in the geological record rather than in
biological structure.
> And then would you say that they are correct or incorrect in their
> demonstration of that design being intelligent?
First, I don't think they've come anywhere close to making a case
that evolution needed help to begin with. But if they *had* make
that case, they certainly haven't make any case for _intelligent_
intervention. They are actually trying to make an argument that
something _didn't_ happen, and then jumping to preconceived
conclusions rather than investigating what _did_ happen.
Bobby Bryant
Austin, Texas
Andy Groves
> A Pagano <anthony...@verizon.net> wrote:
<snip>
> > Surely our resident and credentialled comedian-philosopher can find
> > better mistakes of mine than this. Or maybe not.
> >
> Are you going to define what you meant by neo-Darwinian Tony? It's been,
> I think, about 2 years since I first asked this of you.
I second John's request. In my dealings with Tony on the "vestigial
structuers" threads, I find it incredibly difficult to figure out what
exactly he means when he uses this term. Sometimes I think he is
referring to common descent. Sometimes I think he's referring to
natural selection. I wish Tony would be more precise.
Andy
Elmer Bataitis
> john.w...@bigpond.com (John Wilkins) wrote in message news:
> > Are you going to define what you meant by neo-Darwinian Tony? It's been,
> > I think, about 2 years since I first asked this of you.
> I second John's request. In my dealings with Tony on the "vestigial
> structuers" threads, I find it incredibly difficult to figure out what
> exactly he means when he uses this term. Sometimes I think he is
> referring to common descent. Sometimes I think he's referring to
> natural selection. I wish Tony would be more precise.
Whatever he means by it, it's something he doesn't like ;-)
***************************************************************
Elmer Bataitis “Hot dog! Smooch city here I come!”
Planetech Services -Hobbes
585-442-2884
"...proudly wearing and displaying, as a badge of honor, the
straight jacket of conventional thought."
***************************************************************
gen2rev
What?!? And give up verbalism?
> Andy
Judy Rickley
Look, if Behe's view of Neanderthals is more like conventional science
than a YEC's view of them, the latter-view of Neanderthals being usually
that they are post-flood mutations who lived an idiotic and measley 4500
to 6000 years ago, then he must have something right over the YEC's. You
seem to feel Behe has views consistent with YEC"s, perhaps you meant
another view of his because Frank J here claims his (Behe's) view on
Neanderthals is consistent with what mainstream science says about them.
That's a very big hit for Behe in my book! Also, Behe then must feel the
Earth is multiple times older than the YEC"s 6,000 to 10,000 years old.
If so, and I think he does, another very big hit for him in my book. And
also if so, therefore I would strongly like IDC taught in schools (at
least) over YEC. I don't care one bit about the rest of Behe's slant on
things as long as he has the age of earth multiple times older then most
YEC's do. A personal slant on anything is a person's right, and
perfectly fine as long as they have the basic structure correct. Look,
some mainstream scientists argue that the horse-like skeletons found at
the La Brae tar pits are of horses. Some mainstreamers claim they're
zebras. Which school of thought is right? I don't know and I don't care!
They both sensibly agree it's some type of member of the horse family.
No foolish school of thought that they are cats exists. Well, pretty
much same thing with Behe's IDC's and mainstream scientists.
Mike Dunford
news:10356-3D...@storefull-2297.public.lawson.webtv.net:
[snip]
> It seems to me that this tactic of not drawing the inference
> knowingly leads them to a conclusion of nothing new to say
> (about the designer). Did they make a disclaimer about this? If
> not, I think it's trickery too.
To my knowledge, they have not made any statements detailing why they
believe their "theory" can say nothing about the nature of the
designer. In general, their tactic has been to make that assertion
loudly and frequently, and hope that it goes unquestioned.
Here's one example:
Within biology, intelligent design holds that a
designing intelligence is indispensable for
explaining the specified complexity of living
systems. Nevertheless, taken strictly as a
scientific theory, intelligent design refuses to
speculate about the nature of this designing
intelligence. Whereas optimal design demands a
perfectionistic, anal-retentive designer who has
to get everything just right, intelligent design
fits our ordinary experience of design, which is
always conditioned by the needs of a situation
and therefore always falls short of some
idealized global optimum. (Dembski, 2000)
Notice that while Dembski states that "intelligent design refuses to
speculate about the nature of this designing intelligence", he
provides no reason, no justification for this refusal. In every other
science where we identify design, such "speculation" is a major,
massive part of the effort. Scientists do not, for example, refuse to
speculate about the nature of the "designer" when they find the
ancient, well dressed remains of a dead girl preserved in an
archaeological site high up an Andes Mountain. Instead, they
"speculate" that she was probably sacrificed to the mountain gods of
the Incan culture. (for more information on this, see
http://www.mountain.org/reinhard/docs/academic/newsart.htm). If the
designer that Dembski and others claim to see in biology is truly
unknown, why shouldn't we use the very evidence (they claim) leads us
to conclude that a designer is the cause to make conclusions
regarding the nature of this "designer"? Dembski's answer is somewhat
revealing.
Dembski continues:
The success of the suboptimality objection comes
not from science at all, but from shifting the
terms of the discussion from science to theology.
In place of _How specifically can an existing
structure be improved?_ the question instead becomes
_What sort of God would create a structure like
that?_...The problem of suboptimal design is thus
transformed into the problem of evil....
Critics who invoke the problem of evil against
design have left science behind and entered the
waters of philosophy and theology. A torture chamber
replete with implements of torture is designed, and
the evil of its designer does nothing to undercut the
torture chamber's design. The existence of design is
distinct from the morality, aesthetics, goodness,
optimality, or perfection of design. Moreover, there
are reliable indicators of design that work
irrespective of whether design includes these
additional features (cf. my previous posts to META).
Notice Dembski's tactic here. The problem of evil, he now claims, is
a _theological_ one, not a _scientific_ one. But how does he know
this? Dembski is one of the people in the ID movement who has been
most vocal about claiming that "space aliens" could have been the
designer, and that they are not making any assumptions about the
designer (see, for example, Hall, 2002). If he is sincere about that,
why would he call the question one of "philosophy or theology"? In
principle, shouldn't we proceed from the identification of design in
biology just as was done with the identification of design at the
Incan sacrifice site I referred to above?
There is something that I should make explicitly clear at this point.
Dembski's argument in the article I am quoting from is directed
toward those who claim that the fact that the "design" is "evil" or
"suboptimal" indicates that there is no actual design. That is not my
argument here. In fact, at least to a limited extent, I agree with
Dembski that the presence of "suboptimal" or "evil" design does not
in and of itself argue against the presence of a designer (it does
not necessarily argue for one, either, of course). My point is a bit
more basic: if the advocates of "Intelligent Design" are sincere in
their statements that they are not committed to any particular
"designer", what possible scientific reason could there be for
refusing to make inferences about the "designer" from the "designed"?
Reading the conclusion of Dembski's article, the answer becomes all
too clear:
One looks at some biological structure and remarks,
"Gee, that sure looks evil." Did it start out evil?
Was that its function when a good and all-powerful
God created it? Objects invented for good purposes
are regularly co-opted and used for evil purposes.
Drugs that were meant to alleviate pain become
sources of addiction. Knives that were meant to cut
bread become implements for killing people. Political
powers that were meant to maintain law and order
become the means for enslaving citizens.
This is a fallen world. The good that God initially
intended is no longer fully in evidence. Much has been
perverted. Dysteleology, the perversion of design in
nature, is a reality. It is evident all around us. But
how do we explain it? The scientific naturalist explains
dysteleology by claiming that the design in nature is
only apparent, that it arose through mutation and natural
selection (or some other natural mechanism), and that
imperfection, cruelty, and waste are fully to be expected
from such mechanisms. But such mechanisms cannot explain
the complex, information-rich structures in nature that
signal actual and not merely apparent design--that is,
intelligent design.
The design in nature is actual. More often than we
would like, that design has gotten perverted. But the
perversion of design--dysteleology--is not explained by
denying design, but by accepting it and meeting the
problem of evil head on. The problem of evil is a
theological problem. To force a resolution of the
problem by reducing all design to apparent design is an
evasion. It avoids both the scientific challenge posed
by specified complexity, and it avoids the hard work of
faith, whose job is to discern God's hand in creation
despite the occlusions of evil.
Clearly, Dembski does have a firm committment to a particular
designer. He is so firmly committed, in fact, that he is refusing to
consider the possibility that any other possible "designer" is
involved, no matter what comments he might make in public about
"space aliens". Unfortunately, he is so committed to his particular
designer that he misses a massive, fundamental flaw in his claim that
the "problem of evil" is a theological one.
The "problem of evil" is only a theological problem if you presume a
priori the presence of a benevolent, all-powerful God. In fact, it is
a theological _problem_ because it appears to argue _against_ the
existence of such a benevolent deity. If we make no presumptions
about the nature of the designer, then the presence of what Dembski
calls "dysteleology" is not a "problem", nor is it evidence of a
"perversion of design", nor of a "fallen world". Instead, it is
simply one piece of evidence which could potentially help to identify
the nature and motives of the designer. The only reason not to draw
inferences is if you are attempting to insulate your own particular
theological beliefs from the conclusions.
If we have no preconcieved conclusions about who is responsible for
the "intelligent designer", what would we conclude from our
observations of nature? We observe, in nature, a great deal of
activity that most of us find to be distasteful, repulsive, and
cruel. If we conclude that living organisms are designed, and we
know that some of these organisms reproduce by laying eggs within a
living organism, so that their newly-hatched young can quite
literally eat the helpless creature from the inside out, how can we
infer that the designer of this system is a kind and benevolent one?
That is the "problem of design" -- if you look at nature _without_
faith that it is the product of an all-powerful and kind deity, it is
difficult (perhaps impossible) to conclude that it is.
So, to (finally) answer your question, I think that their refusal to
"speculate" or "draw inferences" about the nature of the designer is
nothing more than trickery. It is a tactic that is clearly designed
to insulate their Christian beliefs from the possible consequences of
what they claim is a scientific investigation of design in nature. It
makes a mockery out of both their claim to have no particular
designer in mind and their claim that they are simply following the
scientific evidence where it leads -- especially that second one.
> Their motives aside, is their intent then only to demonstrate
> intelligent design?
That depends, I suppose, on how you make the distinction between
"motives" and "intent". In front of school boards, or in the media,
you do tend to find the major proponents of "Intelligent Design"
claiming essentially that their intent is only to demonstrate design
(see, again, Hall, 2002). Dembski, for example, usually manages to
leave out the stuff about "fallen world" and "perversion of design"
when he trying to get ID taught in the public schools. So do other
major proponents of ID (see, for example, Chapman & Meyer, 2002),
claiming instead that this is entirely a scientific debate.
All three of the authors I just cited are associated with the
Discovery Institute (DI) and/or it's Center for Science and Culture
(CRSC). Chapman is the president of the DI, Meyer is the director of
the CRSC, and Dembski is a "Senior Fellow". The currently available
statement of the public purpose of the CRSC (see
http://www.discovery.org/crsc/about.html) mirrors their statements to
public audiences. Both an earlier version of their "about" page,
(http://web.archive.org/web/19970514072337/www.discovery.org/crsc/abo
utcrsc.html) and a widely circulated internal memo, known as the
"Wedge Document" (CRSC, undated) provides a somewhat different view.
(See Forrest, 2001, for a discussion of the authenticity of the
document.)
From the Wedge Document:
"Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science
and Culture seeks nothing less than the overthrow of
materialism and its cultural legacies."
(An identical statement was a part of the 1997 version
of their "About CRSC" page cited above.)
Is it their intent simply, as they claim, to follow the evidence
where it leads (and if so, why stop short of looking at the intent of
the designer), or is their "scientific" objection to evolution simply
a tactic designed to aid their expressed intention of overthrowing
"materialism"? Personally, I think that even a casual examination of
what they have done and written seems to strongly favor the second.
They say that they intend to overthrow materialism and replace it
with something that is theisticly based, and I see no reason to doubt
them on that.
> And then would you say that they are correct or incorrect in
> their demonstration of that design being intelligent?
[snip]
I think that they are incorrect in saying that they have demonstrated
that design is present. Currently, the entire "scientific" portion of
their "theory" seems to rest on the work of two people -- Michael
Behe (see Behe, 1996), and William Dembski (see Dembski, 2002).
Numerous authors have pointed out major flaws in the work of both, in
fora ranging from internet websites and discussion forums to popular
and scholarly works. (for example, see Miller, 1999, for a detailed
criticism of Behe's work.) This post has run long enough already, and
a detailed explanation of intelligent design's flaws would take up
too much more time and space to go into now. For more information on
those topics, you can go to www.talkorigins.org , www.talkdesign.org
, or www.antievolution.org .
--Mike Dunford
--
References:
Behe, M.J., 1996, Darwin's Black Box. New York, The Free Press.
Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture, "The Wedge Strategy,"
[online] Accessed on 26 nov 2002 at
http://antievolution.org/features/wedge.html
Chapman, B. & Meyer, S.C., 2002, Darwin Would Love This Debate.
Seattle Times, 10 June 2002. Accessed online 4 Dec 2002 at
http://www.discovery.org/viewDB/index.php3?program=CRSC&command=view&
id=1171
Dembski, W.A., 2000, Intelligent Design is not Optimal Design
[online]. Accessed 4 Dec 2002 at
http://www.designinference.com/documents/2000.02.ayala_response.htm
Dembski, W.A., 2002, No Free Lunch -- Why Specified Complexity Cannot
Be Purchased Without Intelligence. Lanharn, Rowman & Littlefield.
Forrest, B., 2001, The Wedge at Work -- How Intelligent Design
Creationism Is Wedging Its Way into the Cultural and Academic
Mainstream, in Pennock, R.T (ed), Intelligent Design Creationism and
Its Critics. Cambridge, MIT Press, p. 5-53.
Hall, Carl T., 2002, Nature's diversity beyond evolution -- Debate
over intelligent design. San Francisco Chronicle, 2002 Mar 17, Page
A-1
Miller, K.R., 1999, Finding Darwin's God -- A Scientist's Search for
Common Ground Between God and Evolution. New York, Harper Collins.
--
Do you know anyone who would wager a substantial sum, even on
favorable odds, on the proposition that _Homo_sapiens_ will last
longer than _Brontosaurus_?
--Steven Jay Gould
catshark
<mdun...@hawaii.rr.com> wrote:
>jillar...@webtv.net wrote in
>news:10356-3D...@storefull-2297.public.lawson.webtv.net:
>
>[snip]
>> It seems to me that this tactic of not drawing the inference
>> knowingly leads them to a conclusion of nothing new to say
>> (about the designer). Did they make a disclaimer about this? If
>> not, I think it's trickery too.
>
>To my knowledge, they have not made any statements detailing why they
>believe their "theory" can say nothing about the nature of the
>designer. In general, their tactic has been to make that assertion
>loudly and frequently, and hope that it goes unquestioned.
[snip]
Great work Mike and I nominate this for Post of the Month. Seconds,
please.
I have just one addition below.
>
>So, to (finally) answer your question, I think that their refusal to
>"speculate" or "draw inferences" about the nature of the designer is
>nothing more than trickery. It is a tactic that is clearly designed
>to insulate their Christian beliefs from the possible consequences of
>what they claim is a scientific investigation of design in nature. It
>makes a mockery out of both their claim to have no particular
>designer in mind and their claim that they are simply following the
>scientific evidence where it leads -- especially that second one.
There is another motive: sneaking ID past the courts, despite the
fact that is clearly intended to inject religion into science
classrooms. The fact that this is a conscious effort can be seen by
comparing Dembski's comments about "dysteleology" and his contention
that there is no need to identify the designer or its nature with the
following from _Intelligent Design in Public School Science Curricula:
A Legal Guidebook_ where it discusses the 3 part test for determining
if something is a "religion" for purposes of the Establishment Clause
applied by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in _Peloza v. Capistrano
and Alvarado v. City of San Jose:
The second part of the test identifies religion with a comprehensive
belief system "as opposed to an isolated teaching." [74] Design
theory does not offer a theory of morality or metaphysics, or an
opinion on the prospects for an afterlife. It requires neither a
belief in divine revelation nor a code of conduct; nor does it purport
to uncover the underlying meaning of the universe or to confer
inviolable knowledge on its adherents. It is simply a theory about the
source of the appearance of design in living organisms. It is a clear
example of an "isolated teaching," one that has no necessary
connections to any spiritual dogma or church institution. Design
theory has no religious pretensions. It simply tries to apply a
well-established scientific method to the analysis of biological
phenomena.
- David K. DeWolf, (Fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for the
Renewal of Science and Culture), Stephen C. Meyer (Director of the
Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture)
and Mark E. DeForrest
http://arn.org/docs/dewolf/guidebook.htm#foreword
Clearly, the Iders are trying to avoid being tagged by the courts as
having "any spiritual dogma" or "religious pretensions" by avoiding
the - g - o - d - word. Sheep everywhere should look to their
clothing.
[ . . . ]
---------------
J. Pieret
---------------
Cogito sum, ergo sum, cogito.
- Robert Carroll -
Matt Silberstein
<cats...@yahoo.com>:
>On Thu, 5 Dec 2002 00:28:41 +0000 (UTC), Mike Dunford
><mdun...@hawaii.rr.com> wrote:
>
>>jillar...@webtv.net wrote in
>>news:10356-3D...@storefull-2297.public.lawson.webtv.net:
>>
>>[snip]
>>> It seems to me that this tactic of not drawing the inference
>>> knowingly leads them to a conclusion of nothing new to say
>>> (about the designer). Did they make a disclaimer about this? If
>>> not, I think it's trickery too.
>>
>>To my knowledge, they have not made any statements detailing why they
>>believe their "theory" can say nothing about the nature of the
>>designer. In general, their tactic has been to make that assertion
>>loudly and frequently, and hope that it goes unquestioned.
>
>[snip]
>
>Great work Mike and I nominate this for Post of the Month. Seconds,
>please.
Second. I was going to nominate it but you beat me to it.
--
Matt Silberstein
Stupendous -
The only word that starts off as an insult and ends up as a compliment...
Except, of course, for "Jerking"
Tony Martin
Dana Tweedy
"Judy Rickley" <JU...@webtv.net> wrote in message
news:7746-3DE...@storefull-2253.public.lawson.webtv.net...
> Dana, you seem rational from your statement.
Well, thanks for you vote of confidence.
> I can dispute with you.
> Look, if Behe's view of Neanderthals is more like conventional science
> than a YEC's view of them, the latter-view of Neanderthals being usually
> that they are post-flood mutations who lived an idiotic and measley 4500
> to 6000 years ago, then he must have something right over the YEC's.
AFAIK,(as far as I know) Behe has admitted that he accepts common descent,
so I am assuming his views on Neanderthals is roughly the same as mainstream
scientists.
>You
> seem to feel Behe has views consistent with YEC"s,
The only thing consistent between Behe's "Irreductible Complexity" and the
YEC's world view, is the idea that something other than the action of
natural law is responsable for life. Behe's ideas are more consistent with
the evidence than YEC's but he's still wrong. Not AS wrong as YECs but
still wrong.
>perhaps you meant
> another view of his because Frank J here claims his (Behe's) view on
> Neanderthals is consistent with what mainstream science says about them.
AFAIK that is correct. Behe hasn't specifically stated his views on
Neanderthals, but I don't think he holds to the YEC time frame, or creation
scenario.
> That's a very big hit for Behe in my book! Also, Behe then must feel the
> Earth is multiple times older than the YEC"s 6,000 to 10,000 years old.
Again, AFAIK Behe does agree with the mainstream views on the age of the
earth.
> If so, and I think he does, another very big hit for him in my book. And
> also if so, therefore I would strongly like IDC taught in schools (at
> least) over YEC.
I would agree that IDC is not as blatently contradicted by the evidence as
YEC, but it's still not a scientific theory that deserves to be taught as
science in public schools. My position is that neither YEC or ID should be
presented as science.
> I don't care one bit about the rest of Behe's slant on
> things as long as he has the age of earth multiple times older then most
> YEC's do.
Unfortunately Behe's errors relate to biochemistry, not geology and
cosmology.
> A personal slant on anything is a person's right, and
> perfectly fine as long as they have the basic structure correct.
Personal slants that are inconsistent with the evidence aren't scientific.
> Look,
> some mainstream scientists argue that the horse-like skeletons found at
> the La Brae tar pits are of horses. Some mainstreamers claim they're
> zebras. Which school of thought is right?
So you have a reference for this? AFAIK, Zebras never lived in the
Americas. Early horses evolved in what is now North America, but I never
heard that zebras lived anywhere but Africa.
> I don't know and I don't care!
> They both sensibly agree it's some type of member of the horse family.
> No foolish school of thought that they are cats exists. Well, pretty
> much same thing with Behe's IDC's and mainstream scientists.
Not really. IDC says that life is too complex to have developed through
natural means. An "Intelligent Designer" is postulated to explain the
existance of this complexity. Some ID proponents are willing to suggest
that this designer just got life started, and then stood back and let
evolution proceede. Others posit that the designer is constantly stepping
in to "upgrade" it's creation, and that natural evolution plays little or no
part in diversity. IDers often claim that science's insistance on
naturalistic explanations is wrong, and science should allow supernatural
explanations.
Mainstream science holds that invoking a "designer" to explain life is
unecessary. Complexity can form through natural processes, and since there
is no evidence of an intelligent being capable of designing life, one should
not appeal to causes not in evidence. Mainstream scientists generally feel
that allowing supernatural explanations would effectively cripple scientific
investigations, as the supernatural can literally explain everything,
therefore explains nothing.
DJT
>
Frank Reichenbacher
"Andy Groves" <gro...@cco.caltech.edu> wrote in message
news:991ea4ae.02120...@posting.google.com...
Maybe I've missed something in these Pagano / vestigial structures here, but
why do you want Tony to define Neo-Darwinism? You're a Neo-Darwinist, why
don't you simply tell him what it is. Neo-Darwinism is natural selection
with genetics, i.e., the mechanism of heritability. (At least that's what
I've always thought.)
>
> Andy
>
Traklman
>From: "Frank Reichenbacher" fr...@bio-con.com
>Date: 12/5/2002 8:02 AM Central Standard Time
>Message-id: <NNucnWSdu4p...@speakeasy.net>
IIRC, people *have* tried to explain this, to no avail. Welcome to the world
of Pagano threads, where all discussions must be conducted in Paganospeak. The
reason one must ask him what he means by "neoDarwinism" is that:
a) He is unshakeably convinced that *his* usage is the correct one, and
b) No one else knows what the hell he is talking about.
Von Smith
Fortuna nimis dat multis, satis nulli.
David Jensen
trak...@aol.com (Traklman) wrote in
<20021205092452...@mb-fh.aol.com>:
...
>Von Smith replies:
>
>IIRC, people *have* tried to explain this, to no avail. Welcome to the world
>of Pagano threads, where all discussions must be conducted in Paganospeak. The
>reason one must ask him what he means by "neoDarwinism" is that:
>
>a) He is unshakeably convinced that *his* usage is the correct one, and
>b) No one else knows what the hell he is talking about.
I notice that AJ and Pagano are avoiding each other. I would think that
a gibberish fight between the two would be quite entertaining.
TomS
<97htuugpqdur6d56m...@4ax.com>, catshark stated..."
Your reference is to "Intelligent Design in Public School Science
Curricula: A Legal Guidebook". This should be interesting to people
in the general public (including creationists), who are supporting
the teaching of ID in the schools. I found this, from the
introductory sentences, something which the parents of the kids
should especially read:
The Foundation for Thought and Ethics seeks to restore
freedom of choice to young people in the classroom,
especially in matters of worldview, morality, and
conscience.
Now, of course, we all know that what they *mean* is that the
young people should have the freedom of choice to choose what the
creationists want them to choose. They certainly do *not* mean
untrammeled freedom of choice.
But it seems that, in order to get this sort of thing *legally*
acceptable, they have to distance themselves from their *political*
support.
I propose a tactic, that such statements as these be made more
widespread. As well as the admission that ID is compatible with
humans being related, by evolutionary common descent, with chimps
and baboons. And that the intelligent designers may well be space
aliens (not that any of the ID advocates actually feel comfortable
with that) -- or, at least, that they are indistinguishable from
gnostic demiurges.
Surely some of their audience would wonder, "What are we gaining
with Intelligent Design, rather than evolution? Maybe we're making
things even worse."
Tom S.
catshark
Can we get Nemonemini to referee?
Frank Reichenbacher
"Traklman" <trak...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20021205092452...@mb-fh.aol.com...
I'm well aware of the slippery Mr. Pagano's tactics. I was roundabout
suggesting that you don't have to engage in Paganospeak in order to win the
argument to the satisfaction of most people. Forget about Pagano, he's
hopeless, you should only be concerned about the lurkers who might be swayed
by his apparent intelligence.
The
> reason one must ask him what he means by "neoDarwinism" is that:
See, I really don't think you do. You tell him what it means and make sure
you have citable sources to back you up. Don't let him beat you to it with a
bunch of transparent hogwash.
>
> a) He is unshakeably convinced that *his* usage is the correct one, and
If you get into it with him without being unshakeably convinced of your own
position, then you will lose the debate.
> b) No one else knows what the hell he is talking about.
This is a deliberate ploy to confuse the debate.
Frank
Jie-san Laushi
>things as long as he has the age of earth multiple times older then most
>YEC's do.
I will say this for Behe: his was the first truly new argument I have ever
seen. Every Creationist argument I have ever heard, read, seen, etc., I find
was already addressed in some form by Darwin in _On the Origin of Species_.
>Look,
>some mainstream scientists argue that the horse-like skeletons found at
>the La Brae tar pits are of horses. Some mainstreamers claim they're
>zebras.
Aren't horses and zebras both in the genus _Equus_? If so, wouldn't that mean
a zebra is just a striped horse anyway?
Jie-san Laushi
Huodau lau, xuedau lau, hai you sanfen xue bulai
_____________________________________________
to email: eliminate redundancy
catshark
(Jie-san Laushi) wrote:
>>I don't care one bit about the rest of Behe's slant on
>>things as long as he has the age of earth multiple times older then most
>>YEC's do.
>
>I will say this for Behe: his was the first truly new argument I have ever
>seen. Every Creationist argument I have ever heard, read, seen, etc., I find
>was already addressed in some form by Darwin in _On the Origin of Species_.
Not so original. Behe's stuff is basically a rehash of William
Paley's "watchmaker" argument, that Darwin did deal with (particularly
when discussing the eye).
See: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/behe.html for some critiques of
Behe.
Andy Groves
It's simple really. Tony has already been shown that vestigial
structures exist. He may be in denial about this, but the proof has
been physically e-mailed to him several times.
What he wants to do is now shift the goalposts and say that you cannot
label something as "vestigial" unless you show *how* it became
vesyigial in the first place. This is what he might mean by
"neoDarwinism" in thsi context.
I reject that linkage between label and mechanism. I think most people
would agree that simpy to label something as vestigial does not say
anything at all about the precise mechanism by which a particular
structure became vestigial. This makes perfect sense, as there could
be many different ways that an organ in a particular animal could have
become vestigial.
However, Tony might be using the term "neoDarwinism" to talk about
common descent. I have much more sympathy with his view here. Indeed,
the dictionary definition of "vestige" that I've used (since Tony has
something of a fondness for dictionary definitions) specifically
defines a "vestige" in biology with respect to an earlier stage in an
organism, a previous generation of that organism, or a closely related
form of an organism. If Tony wants to couch the discussion of
vestigial structures in terms of common descent, I'm all ears. Since,
however, he has specifically titled one of his threads as
"Groves asserts that vestigial structures are independent of the
neoDarwinian mechanism....GAME FINALLY OVER"
I would guess that he wants to discuss vetigial structures in terms of
the mechanism of how they became that way. I feel this is
intellectually dishonest, since he has shifted the terms of the
debate.
Andy
cc to Tony.
Robin Levett
news:h14vuu8gff95qija3...@4ax.com...
> On Thu, 5 Dec 2002 14:25:08 +0000 (UTC), David Jensen
> <da...@dajensen-family.com> wrote:
>
> >On Thu, 5 Dec 2002 14:15:08 +0000 (UTC), in talk.origins
> >trak...@aol.com (Traklman) wrote in
> ><20021205092452...@mb-fh.aol.com>:
> >
> >...
> >
> >>Von Smith replies:
> >>
> >>IIRC, people *have* tried to explain this, to no avail.
Welcome to the world
> >>of Pagano threads, where all discussions must be conducted in
Paganospeak. The
> >>reason one must ask him what he means by "neoDarwinism" is
that:
> >>
> >>a) He is unshakeably convinced that *his* usage is the
correct one, and
> >>b) No one else knows what the hell he is talking about.
> >
> >I notice that AJ and Pagano are avoiding each other. I would
think that
> >a gibberish fight between the two would be quite entertaining.
>
> Can we get Nemonemini to referee?
>
What would be the point; he couldn't understand them, they
couldn't understand him, and they couldn't understand each other
(and AJ, notably, would have difficulty understanding himself).
...ahhh, I see, sorry I spoke.
--
________________________________________________________________
Robin Levett
rle...@ibmrlevett.uklinux.net
(address munged by addition of Big Blue)
Atheist = knows of and uses Occam's Razor
Agnostic = knows of but isn't sure whether to use Occam's Razor
Fundy = what's Ockam's erasure?
___________________________________________________
John Wilkins
Mike Dunford <mdun...@hawaii.rr.com> wrote:
--
John Wilkins
"Listen to your heart, not the voices in your head" - Marg Simpson
A Pagano
Groves) wrote:
>john.w...@bigpond.com (John Wilkins) wrote in message news:<1fmnv7f.s7sdt5epeiu2N%john.w...@bigpond.com>...
>> A Pagano <anthony...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
><snip>
>
>> > Surely our resident and credentialled comedian-philosopher can find
>> > better mistakes of mine than this. Or maybe not.
>> >
>> Are you going to define what you meant by neo-Darwinian Tony? It's been,
>> I think, about 2 years since I first asked this of you.
Pagano replies:
Since I usually refuse to provide definitions it's probably going to
be a long wait. I've used that label in context repeatedly in
hundreds of posts. Probably close to 1000 of my posts are available
and searchable at google.com. If the accusation is that I use the
label incorrectly, ambiguously, or in a non standard way then it
should be a simple matter to produce the quotes in context. Probably
the current threads would suffice.
Groves has currently used this as excuse to avoid committing himself
to whether or not the "vestigial" conclusion is neoDarwinian or not.
gen2rev at least commited himself...at least for the moment. Groves
ran as fast from neoDarwinism in the discussion of nascent structures
as he does now in the discussion of vestigial ones. Either vestigial
organs are the result of neoDarwinism or they are not?
The following answers are acceptable: yes, no, and I don't know.
>
>I second John's request. In my dealings with Tony on the "vestigial
>structuers" threads, I find it incredibly difficult to figure out what
>exactly he means when he uses this term. Sometimes I think he is
>referring to common descent. Sometimes I think he's referring to
>natural selection. I wish Tony would be more precise.
Pagano replies:
From this I'm lead to believe that both Groves and the
comedian-philosopher DON'T think that "neoDarwinism" refers to a
framework of theories which includes both "natural selection" and
"common descent." Any sources which agree with this notion should be
posted. I would love to find and read them.
Finally, when one uses an "ism" one refers to the whole class of
included theories. Surely this isn't too difficult for one at CalTech
and a credentialled philosopher of science to understand.
Regards,
T Pagano
Harlequin
> So nominated
Seconded. Good work as usual for Mike Dunford.
> Mike Dunford <mdun...@hawaii.rr.com> wrote:
>
>> jillar...@webtv.net wrote in
>> news:10356-3D...@storefull-2297.public.lawson.webtv.net:
[snip]
--
Anti-spam: replace "usenet" with "harlequin2"
catshark
<TomS_...@newsguy.com> wrote:
>"On Thu, 5 Dec 2002 03:53:29 +0000 (UTC), in article
><97htuugpqdur6d56m...@4ax.com>, catshark stated..."
>>
>>On Thu, 5 Dec 2002 00:28:41 +0000 (UTC), Mike Dunford
>><mdun...@hawaii.rr.com> wrote:
>>
>>>jillar...@webtv.net wrote in
>>>news:10356-3D...@storefull-2297.public.lawson.webtv.net:
[snip, including quote from
http://arn.org/docs/dewolf/guidebook.htm#foreword ]
While I'm all for getting the truth out about the motives and tactics
of the Intelligent Design Creationists, I'm not sure that making clear
what they are doing will have the effect we might wish.
Take the following from AiG as an example of the YEC attitude. After
criticising Johnson, Behe, Dembski and Meyer as "not fully
Bible-believing scientists and researchers", the author, Mark Looy
(the Media Director of AiG), goes on to say:
The above scholars are having an impact in exposing the scientific
bankruptcy of evolution theory, and their work can be usefully
(though carefully) used by creation ministries as an adjunct to
the work of truly Bible-believing researchers and scientists.
However, it should always be kept in mind that they are merely
rejecting evolution (or at any rate the "random" explanation of
evolution) in favor of a generic notion of intelligent design, and
this does not go far enough.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2/4257gc3-24-2000.asp#bios
In other words, AiG is willing to "carefully" use the ID arguments
against evolution (i.e. 'forget that stuff about E.T. being the
designer or the age of the Earth') as an adjunct to their own agenda.
Other Evangelical Christians, such as the Christian Research
Institute's Hank Hanegraaff (radio's "Bible Answer Man") are even more
willing to promote ID, having Johnson and Dembski on his program to
push their books, while sweeping any differences under the rug, in the
interest of forming a "big tent". This is *perfectly* in accord with
the ID strategy.
Reporting on the 1999 "Reclaiming America for Christ" conference, Rob
Boston of _Church & State_ magazine recounted Phillip Johnson
summarizing ID's intent as follows:
The objective, [Johnson] said, is to convince people that
Darwinism is inherently atheistic, thus shifting the debate from
creationism vs. evolution to the existence of God vs. the
non-existence of God. From there people are introduced to "the
truth" of the Bible and then "the question of sin" and finally
"introduced to Jesus."
"You must unify your own side and divide the other side,"
Johnson said. He added that he wants to temporarily suspend the
debate between the young-Earth creationists, who insist that the
planet is only 6,000 years old, and old-Earth creationists, who
accept that the Earth is ancient. This debate, he said, can be
resumed once Darwinism is overthrown.
http://www.au.org/churchstate/cs4995.htm
Simply stated, Johnson (who is an OEC) recognizes that the YECs are,
ultimately, fighting a losing battle with science and therefore wants
to shift the debate from whether Genesis is *literally* true to
whether theism is *generally* true. He can read the polls as well as
anyone and knows that is, in the U.S. today, a more winnable goal. He
and the rest of the Intelligent Design theorists are confident
(justifiably or not) that once the battle moves there, conservative
Evangelical Christianity will win out. As Dembski puts it:
Intelligent Design opens the whole possibility of us being created
in the image of a benevolent God.... The job of apologetics is to
clear the ground, to clear obstacles that prevent people from
coming to the knowledge of Christ.... And if there's anything that
I think has blocked the growth of Christ as the free reign of the
Spirit and people accepting the Scripture and Jesus Christ, it is
the Darwinian naturalistic view....
-- William Dembski, February 6, 2000, at a meeting of the National
Religious Broadcasters in Anaheim, California (as quoted by Barbara
Forrest in "The Wedge at Work: How Intelligent Design Creationism
Is Wedging Its Way into the Cultural and Academic Mainstream" in
_Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics: Philosophical,
Theological and Scientific Perspectives_, ed. Robert T. Pennock, A
Bradford Book, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts / London,
England, p. 5 - 53, at p. 30)
To sum up, the Intelligent Design movement is aimed at the vast
majority of Americans who are theists but not biblical literalists.
They count on a combination of Americans' lack of understanding of
evolutionary theory and their general belief in god to enable them to
politically force ID into schools, calculating that the majority will
not see anything all that wrong in having schools "leave room for
god". From there, they hope that, by removing the "impediment" of
evolution and naturalistic explanations for human origins, there will
be a greater interest in religion in general and Evangelical
Christianity (YEC or OEC) in particular. With nods and winks to the
YECs, they will do their best to paper over their differences in this
"greater cause". And, based on the evidence so far, they are not
wrong to count on the YECs' complicity.
---------------
J. Pieret
---------------
We have done amazingly well in creating a cultural movement,
but we must not exaggerate ID's successes on the scientific front.
- William A. Dembski -
John Wilkins
If we do that then Tony can always make up some post hoc story about how
he thinks *those* views lead to all kinds of hidden sins and dirty
secrets. But the way he uses the term indicates that he really has no
idea what it is. I did, in one post some time back, make a definition,
but he never responded, and continued to use the term in ways that
indicated that he still doesn't understand what it means. For example,
he uses the term when the notion of common descent is expected. This is,
of course, *nothing* to do with *neo-*Darwinism, but rather goes back to
the typological morphology of Oken and von Baer, or rather to the
temporalisation of it.
Tony is just using a word for the connotative cachet, and trying
(unsuccessfully, of course) to smear that set of views by association.
He is not even aware that neo-Darwinism was the name given to the views
of *Wallace* by George Romanes in the 1880s. He thinks it is restricted
to, I don't know, the views of Richard Dawkins, as if there was nobody
else in the business.
Andy Groves
>>> A Pagano <anthony...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>
>><snip>
>>
>>> > Surely our resident and credentialled comedian-philosopher can
find
>>> > better mistakes of mine than this. Or maybe not.
>>> >
>>> Are you going to define what you meant by neo-Darwinian Tony? It's
been,
>>> I think, about 2 years since I first asked this of you.
>
>Since I usually refuse to provide definitions it's probably going to
>be a long wait.
Why is that, Tony? Just curious.
> I've used that label in context repeatedly in
>hundreds of posts. Probably close to 1000 of my posts are available
>and searchable at google.com. If the accusation is that I use the
>label incorrectly, ambiguously, or in a non standard way then it
>should be a simple matter to produce the quotes in context. Probably
>the current threads would suffice.
>
>Groves has currently used this as excuse to avoid committing himself
>to whether or not the "vestigial" conclusion is neoDarwinian or not.
>gen2rev at least commited himself...at least for the moment. Groves
>ran as fast from neoDarwinism in the discussion of nascent structures
>as he does now in the discussion of vestigial ones. Either vestigial
>organs are the result of neoDarwinism or they are not?
>
>The following answers are acceptable: yes, no, and I don't know.
Actually, Tony, you are wrong again. It is formally possible for a
given vestigial structure to arise as a result of natural selection,
and another to arise as a result of genetic drift, a third to arise by
half the structure being bitten off by a predator, and a fourth to
arise as a result of a mutation in the parent's germline. All of those
fit at least one of the definitions of "vestige". Would you include
all the above as being encompassed by "neoDarwinism" as you understand
it?
In the case of the cavefish eyes, it is clear that a variety of gene
mutations have resulted in the degeneration of the cavefish eyes. We
know this from the interbreeding experiments that I cited from the
cavefish review article. What we do not know is *how* the mutation
arose, *how* the mutation became fixed in a given cavefish population,
or *whether* natural selection, genetic drift, or other evolutionary
mechanisms were responsible for fixing the mutations in the different
cave-dwelling populations.
What we *do* know is that there are at least 26 different forms of
mexicanus with differing degrees of degenerate eyes. We know the eyes
are vestigial because they are degenerate with respect to the
surface-dwelling forms of the same species.
That is why, for the umpteenth time, labelling a structure as
"vestigial" says nothing about whether the structure arose by natural
selection, genetic drift, or whatever. It is likely that in the case
of mexicanus, one or more of the mechanisms that you seem to think
fall into the category "neoDarwinism" were responsible for each of the
26= cave-dwelling blind forms arising. We do not know how each of
these arose, but we do know that they are the same species as their
surface-dwelling brethren with functional eyes.
Capice?
>>I second John's request. In my dealings with Tony on the "vestigial
>>structuers" threads, I find it incredibly difficult to figure out
what
>>exactly he means when he uses this term. Sometimes I think he is
>>referring to common descent. Sometimes I think he's referring to
>>natural selection. I wish Tony would be more precise.
>
> Pagano replies:
>From this I'm lead to believe that both Groves and the
>comedian-philosopher DON'T think that "neoDarwinism" refers to a
>framework of theories which includes both "natural selection" and
>"common descent." Any sources which agree with this notion should be
>posted. I would love to find and read them.
>
>Finally, when one uses an "ism" one refers to the whole class of
>included theories. Surely this isn't too difficult for one at
CalTech
>and a credentialled philosopher of science to understand.
Ad hominem noted.
Andy
Elmer Bataitis
> Since I usually refuse to provide definitions it's probably going to
> be a long wait. I've used that label in context repeatedly in
> hundreds of posts. Probably close to 1000 of my posts are available
> and searchable at google.com. If the accusation is that I use the
> label incorrectly, ambiguously, or in a non standard way then it
> should be a simple matter to produce the quotes in context.
Uhh Tony, read for comprehesion. This is exactly what people have been
saying. People have been posting reams of stuff about how you use the
term "neoDarwinian" and are trying to figure out what it means when you
use it. I figure it's just some term you decided to dislike and thus use
it pejoritivly. But, heck, you continue to respond to all these post
using naturalistic means. Why do you do this since you claim it's false?