PeterDavid.net

Rationally, sure, you'd go for it. Couldn't hurt, and the potential gains are certainly worth it.

Realistically, not a chance in hell. Emotions in too many quarters run too high to even consider it, to say nothing of the pundits. I'm certain Ann Coulter (Her Cerebral Phosphorescence) among others would have many interesting things to say on the subject, none of which would be at all productive.

I'd love to see Al Qeada genuinely want peace and be willing to work toward it. But at the monet, I honestly don't think enough people with influence on our side truly want peace to make it possible.

The first thing I thought when I read about this was, I wonder if the stakes are getting too high and they are not willing to use the methods that Al Qeada employs? The impact of the violence they have used lessens when others use planes to hit targets. Either way, I applaud any group who is willing to lay down arms and talk. We will also sit at the table with terrorists as soon as they indicate willingness. Hopefully it will be sooner, rather than later.

The analogy doesn't hold. A unified Ireland ceases to be a threat, A muslim world unified under the equivilant of Osama or Mao becomes the greatest threat since W.W.II
As to the question of "can you stomach working with former terrorists?" I have to ask if you can afford not to if it means a stop to the bloodshed.
Even though I believe these tactics reprehensible, America, Israel, & South Africa have all been accused of terrorism.
All we can hope for the future is that sane and rational people will finally be able control the forces of their own governments.

Then it wouldn't be Al Qaeda anymore. The IRA had specific reasonable goals (although their methods were barbaric) and they could be compromised with. Al Qaeda seeks the conversion or subjugation of all non-Muslims, and a worldwide caliphate headed by Arabs (they look down upon Muslims of other races). That's a fundamental part of their world view, and they are not going to stop until they achieve it. Negotiating with such an organization would be pointless.

The IRAs' greatest source of revenue was from Irish-Americans. This source has dried up since 9/11, no doubt, in some small part to Mr. Blair probably telling Mr. Bush that if the United States wanted Britians' support, the United States government would need to take an active roll in curbing and elimanating this financial subsidy to terrorism.

In order for Al Qaeda to sue for peace, two things would need to occur; Bin Ladens' money would need to be dried up or otherwise gone, and a greater threat than themselves would have to come on to the world scene.

Of course, I could be wrong.

Hasn't the IRA basically forgone violence already and this is a press release restating the obvious?

One huge, honking, disgustingly offensive, repugnant detail leaps out at me:

The IRA largely avoided civilian casualties, preferring to target political and military figures -- to the point of phoning in warnings before bombs would go off. Al Qaeda, alternately, seems to prefer killing innocents by the thousands.

To compare the two, to place them on the same level, is to compare a guy who robs convenience stores with a Jeffrey Dahmer. With a kid caught with an M-80 around the end of June with Timothy McVeigh. To a guy jacking deer (that's "hunting out of season," "hunting without a license," or violating some other hunting laws to you flatlanders) with the guy in the clock tower. To say they differ only in degree is obscene.

J.

Heya Jay,

There's a problem with that distinction in my mind. It casts the United States in the same light as Al Qaeda. The States certainly weren't phoning in when and where they were bombing and clearing out civilians from the fire zone. Even the conservative websites that offer body count numbers put the innocent Iraqi dead in the tens of thousands. The liberal ones come in at over one hundred thousand.

And I'm betting not one of them got a warning.

A rabbi friend of mine once told me about the Jewish tradition of not counting humans. Count livestock. Count sheep. Count bushels of grain. But never count humans. One life is an infinite loss, he would say. You cannot count higher than infinity. And to try only diminishes the worth of the first.

So in that vein, there is no difference between the IRA and Al Qaeda. Split that hair and you are splitting infinity.

It's an interesting hypothetical, but it took the IRA many, many decades to come to this point. I don't think an al Qaeda conversion is going to come in our lifetimes, particularly as we continue perpetuating a society not as tolerant of Islam and "brown people" as we are of warring Christian sects among white people.

I'd love to see Al Qeada genuinely want peace and be willing to work toward it. But at the monet, I honestly don't think enough people with influence on our side truly want peace to make it possible.

I know I won't persuade most of you, but this type of thinking is both wrong and counterproductive. What did we do to cause the attacks in the first place? The attacks were happening at least with Clinton, and I would argue even earlier. I don't care whether it is a Republican or Democrat in control, America as a people have been for peace, and I would argue that every President (including currently) has wanted peace. To suggest otherwise is strictly a matter of demonizing someone you don't like.

To answer PAD's broad question, you only have to go back to the 1980's with Ronald Reagan. While the situations are obviously different, his slogan still applies: "Trust but verify." Whether it was G W Bush or a President 3 terms from now, I am certain that if any terroist group did what the IRA has done, they would talk to them. PAD's question, do we work with them, all depends on wha they actually do, not what they say.

I accept that many of you disagree with Bush. That is your choice. But let's look beyond the white house for a moment. This country, as imperfect as it obviously is, has provided more freedom and done it consistently for a longer amount of time than any other country in history. Yes, slavery, etc., demonstrates America was not (and still is not) perfect. But name for me one other country that holds a candle to the freedom we have had in the USA. And because of that, the people in this country DO overwhelmingly want peace for us and for others. Again, we are not perfect. I understand the arguments that this current war, for example, will make things worse rather than bring peace. But that is worlds apart from us as a people (and through us, the leaders we elect) not truly pursuing peace.

Until some of you finally understand that Al Qeada truly is worse and more evil President Bush ever was or will be, the cause of peace will be delayed or even prevented.

Iowa Jim

Name you a country that holds a candle to the freedom you've had in the USA? How about three: Canada, the UK, Australia. More? New Zealand, France, post-Soviet Estonia? Post-WWII Germany (obviously only West Germany until recently). I'm sure there others... maybe post-imperialism India?

And all of these have had those freedoms without bullying the rest of the world to the extent the US has. Not that they're perfect nations by any stretch... but I think they've probably done far less harm than the US overall while having comparable freedoms.

Yeah, and Al Qaeda might be as bad as Bush if they had access to the resources and spin machine that Bush does. Insidious, self-righteous, and self-deluded evil is always more dangerous than obvious, "let's blow up civilians for the primetime news" evil.

Okay, who had 11 on the post number where the USA was bashed and Bush declared worse than Al Qaeda?

Anyway, to address PAD's question- Honestly, it depends on the collective memory of both the American people and the news outlets. After all, we as a nation were willing to deal with Arafat and the PLO for years despite numerous terrorist attacks that targeted military, political and civilian targets alike.

Much as I hate to say it... I guess we'll have to see.

I think the Irish Republican Army (or at least most of them, except for splinter groups like the "Real IRA") has been in a very long cease-fire recently, which led Erik to say that they'd renounced violence already. And they'd been waiting and seeing if the Protestant Irish and their British friends were going to live up to most of their promises before declaring the cease-fire permanent and starting to destroy their weapon caches.

I'd want Al Qaeda to do a long cease-fire before accepting that they're willing to be non-violent and trusting them very far at all. But I'd be willing to stop hunting Osama if they're willing to promise to stop helping al-Zarqawi and other insurgents in Iraq (and we see progress on that score). That'd be a place to start.

Do the IRA really deserve credit? As mentioned before above one of the reasons they have made this announcement now is that their primary source of funding (from irish americans) dried up after sept 11th. Having seen first hand the terror i guess they found it more difficult to justify funding a band of foreign criminals to go around blowing up, shooting and kneecaping their way around the streets of northern ireland.
The other more immediate reasons is that the people that they claimed to speak for told them enough, the bank raid and the MacCarthy murder in the bar were enough to get the wives, sisters and mothers to say no more.
Thats not to say that the IRA finally decided to get into the modern world and accept debate and democracy better than the bullet and the bomb is a bad thing, just saying don't idolise them.
Al-quaeda is a different beast being set up for a global jihad (and to take over saudi for its oil revenues) and so it is difficult to see what they would feel they would gain out of talking.

I'm from (and i live in )Spain so as first thing, excuse me for my poor english. I'll do my best.
There's really a hard decision, do you trust the ones that have been killing people for decades, or do you not?
I think there are two points where we can never be sure:
1.could you think that they have already given ALL their arms?
2.do every one in IRA accept this resolution?

I'll answer myself:

1.That's clear that, even if they really lay down their arms today, the political thinkings of this people are not going to change.So, if they don't get at last what they're looking for, it seems reasonable they will be back to their original means.

2.I expect, but i don't thik so. In that case...wich are the possibilities about the creation of a new terrorist force based in some present people of IRA? Maybe in a couple of months we have IREO (don't look meaning to this)or some other thing like that.

After this...
I wish the best for english and irish people. I hope they will find the rigth solution. I expect the politics see what i can't see and trust what i cant't trust.
Because after all...how i wish ETA and Al Qaeda say this one day.

Greetings from spain.

Hi. I am too from spain.

Perhaps we can accept that.
But, will those who have lost family or friends in a terrorist action, accept that the people who killed them go unpunished?

I do not know.
I wish it could be possible, but I have not lost friends this way...

As a Brit let me try and give the view from over the pond. First, the IRA caused enormous numbers of civilian casualties. Second, they tried to kill the entire British government - like them or loathe them they were still elected, no one has ever voted for the IRA. Third, their aims are only "reasonable" if your an Irish Republican. The majority of people in Northern Ireland consider themselves British, not Irish.

The "but" is though the IRA were not and have never been fascist which is more than I can say for Al Qeada. There can be no middle ground for dealing with fascism, Al Qeada seeks both the destruction of the United States and her allies and a global Islamic state whether the rest of the world wants it or not. There can be no appeasement. Too many times the West, and particularly the US and her close allies like the UK, have supported and maintained brutal regiemes because it is a convenient solution. This time I don't think there can be any accomodation for what is no more than a fascist death-cult.

Posted by Kevin Hall: This time I don't think there can be any accomodation for what is no more than a fascist death-cult.

***

As Stephen Colbert would say...

I dunno... We've put up with the Texas judicial system for a while now... What's one more?

J/K

This is a situation without any real good solution. If they want peace, thousands of innocents go unavenged. They continue to war, and thousand smore die.

Add to that that Al Qaeda very obviously doesn't want peace to begin with, and it seems a moot point.

And to those complaining over the comparison of Bush and Al Qaeda, if it ever came down to a fistfight between Bush and Osama, I'd genuinely have trouble rooting for either one. One's responsible for thousands of deaths across the globe and the fermentation of worldwide hatred. And the other's Osama.

Yeah, you're right, Mike. That's why we carpet-bombed Tikrit a couple of months ago. And why Fallujah was flattened without several weeks' warning and urging for civilians to evacuate. Why that medic last week, after being shot by a sniper, wounded his assailant and instead of treating his injuries, shot him seven more times and left his head on a pike. And why we have destroyed literally dozens of mosques the terrorists have used as hidey-holes and nests to launch their ambushes from.

Whoops, my mistake. Tikrit's still standing. Civilian casualties in Fallujah were relatively low. The medic in question DID treat the wounded terrorist sniper. And we have extremely restricted rules on attacking structures as mosques, schools, and hospitals, no matter how many terrorists are inside, shooting out at our forces.

You know, if Bush was really as evil and all-seeing as you seem to think he is, why the hell hasn't your ass been hauled off to Guantanamo by now? Why is Teddy Kennedy still free to drink himself into oblivion? Why hasn't the ACLU all been rounded up and shot? Why are the CBS satellites still working? Why is the United Nations Building still a building, and not the United Nations Smoking Crater?

J.

Except for the Shiites of Iran, and now Iraq, isn't the Muslim world pretty much unified now? Aren't we allied with almost every Muslim nation, now including Libya? Aren't we already giving hundreds of millions of dollars to Palestine, and isn't Egypt practically a member of NATO? Didn't the CIA train al-Qaida?

Until some of you finally understand that Al Qeada truly is worse and more evil President Bush ever was or will be, the cause of peace will be delayed or even prevented.

Straw man, Jim. Nobody here has said (or, IMO, even implied) otherwise.

In terms of America truly wanting peace, I agree that the group of neocons running the country wants peace -- but a very specific peace. The PNAC documents are very clear and very damning -- they see US domination as the key to a peaceful world. They'd like us to be the one and only superpower in the world, with enough influence that everybody will work with us, or at least not try to oppose us.

Now, I agree that such an approach might bring about peace ... for a while. However, I for one don't believe it would last. I also think the aftermath, when the superpower topples, would be much worse than the current state of affairs. Lastly, I don't believe the US has the moral superiority to be justified in saying "hey, we'll bring peace, just let us run the world for a while." No single country has that.

And as for knowing you won't convince most of us ... well, no, not when your first phrase after that is "this type of thinking is wrong."

TWL

The obvious answer is "yes," assuming that their goal is really and sincerely to unify the area under some sort of peaceful umbrella.

Unfortunately, I think it's just an interesting hypothetical exercise. With all the strife in the area, both historical and political, from without and within, I just don't see it happening.

Along similar lines, I wonder sometimes what Iraq will look like in ten years. Heck, I wonder sometimes what the USA will look like in ten years. In 1995 I certainly didn't expect we'd be where we are today.

dj
st. paul, mn

Wow!Tim that was very well put
As far as the topic at hand,I think if Al Queda elements were to come forward with the peace proposal we most at least consider it.It may not work,ultimately it might fail but if there is a way to peacefully resolve conflicts without the death and destruction of thousands we must consider it.
Unfortunately with the influence of Neoconservatives and blind media zealots like Coulter and limbaugh this would never happen unless it was somehow in thier(the neocons) best interests,whatever that may be

"Until some of you finally understand that Al Qeada truly is worse and more evil President Bush ever was or will be, the cause of peace will be delayed or even prevented."

I think we understand that. What we don't understand is this bizarre, almost perverse conservative compulsion to turn EVERY question about world politics into a referendum on Bush and then start howling that Bush is constantly being attacked. The only mention of Bush until you brought him up was a passing observation that indicated he might have had a hand in getting the IRA to publicly declare the end of its terrorist activities, which is hardly an attack. And frankly, since you're the first one to bring up "evil" and "Bush" in the same posting, to me that suggests that you have one serious guilty conscience rattling around in your head.

"You know, if Bush was really as evil and all-seeing as you seem to think he is, why the hell hasn't your ass been hauled off to Guantanamo by now? Why is Teddy Kennedy still free to drink himself into oblivion? Why hasn't the ACLU all been rounded up and shot? Why are the CBS satellites still working? Why is the United Nations Building still a building, and not the United Nations Smoking Crater?"

Patience, patience. These things happen incrementally, not all at once. You can't just toss aside ALL civil liberties and human rights in one shot. First you have to pass things like the Patriot Act. Then you have to say that the Geneva convention is "quaint" and "doesn't apply." Then you have to let opponents know that resistence will be met with below-the-belt retaliation (like, say, outing a CIA operative). Then you nominate a Supreme Court justice who appears to be opposed to limitations on presidential power. That kind of thing. You have to work your way up to the really big stuff.

Man, with all these conservatives linking "evil" and "Bush" together, we liberals don't have to do a thing except sit back and laugh.

PAD

I would argue that every President (including currently) has wanted peace. To suggest otherwise is strictly a matter of demonizing someone you don't like.

I would argue that suggesting otherwise is a sign I read the newspapers. Bush has said he wanted peace. Cheney said military action in the Middle East should be a last resort. Many of the words are good. Actions speak louder, and the actions have NOT been peaceful.

the people in this country DO overwhelmingly want peace for us and for others.

Yes we do. But we're not really represented in the government these days.

Until some of you finally understand that Al Qeada truly is worse and more evil President Bush ever was or will be, the cause of peace will be delayed or even prevented.

Is this finally a tacit admission that President Bush IS evil?

Actually, Al Qaeda has put forth their peace proposal. It calls for the removal of all Western influence from Muslim lands, and the end of persecution of Muslims worldwide.

Of course, the devil is in the details:

1) Once a land is Muslim, it is Muslim for all time. That means a good chunk of Spain has to be given back to them, for starters. And kiss Israel goodbye. And since Jews are "Westerners," they're pretty much gone from the Middle East entirely.

2) "Persecuting Muslims" is defined as preventing them from establishing the Caliphate, the Muslim world-state. Which means that the non-Muslim world will be constantly redefined to mean a smaller and smaller space, and eventually none at all.

Al Qaeda's peace offering was, in essence, "leave us alone and we'll give you a little more time before we conquer you." Great starting position, that.

J.

PAD writes; "Do we accept that? Do we start working with them?"

And I say; Yes. Yes we do.

If it stops more killing on both sides?

Of course we do.

If Osama called tomorrow and said he wanted to sue for peace, we'd be hypocrits to not consider it. Granted, our terms would be unconditional surrender, and we'd undoubted call for the trials of the terrorist leaders, but the rank and file? Agree to disarm, and never take up arms agains the US again, and they're free to go about their lives.

Someone feel free to correct, me, but isn't what I've decribed pretty much what we did with Nazi Germany at the conclusion of WWII?

why the hell hasn't your ass been hauled off to Guantanamo by now?

You tell me. I think he deserves to be.

isn't the Muslim world pretty much unified now?

Not really.

If anything, I think it's more likely for the Muslim world to be unified against us than for most of the Muslim world to be unified with us while a couple of rogues run about.

I'm sure many Muslim leaders were happy that Saddam was ousted, but at the same time, pissed because it's created a bigger mess with more terrorists that threaten everybody (as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Spain, and the UK can attest).

Al Qaeda's peace offering was, in essence, "leave us alone and we'll give you a little more time before we conquer you." Great starting position, that.

Obviously that's a sarcastic 'great starting position' in your opinion, but it is a valid one for Muslims.

From the way I understand things, bin Laden got his start because he wanted the US out of Saudi Arabia. Conveniently, our government trained him to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan.

Saudi Arabia is bin Laden's homeland, and, although he is in exile, it's not unreasonable for him to see the US as a foreign invader.

I know, I know, that's traitorous thinking - everybody wants the US to come in, guns blazing, right?

But this does go back to the unified aspect - for many Muslims, religious pride is more important than national pride. Thus, they're willing to fight on what would otherwise be considered foreign soil if they perceive an attack on Islam.

And when Western powers have been mucking about in the Middle East for over a century, perhaps Arab Muslims have a point.

Sure, but that scenario seems only slightly more likely than the Axis powers declaring that they were sorry, willing to give back all the land they'd conquered, and, hey, the Jew folks ain't that bad after all.

It's possible that if we keep on eliminating the leaders that eventually the organization will evolve into something very different, which seems to be more or less what happened to the IRA (and I have to disagree very much with the poster who said the IRA did not target civilians, btw. Even if one is sympathetic to the purported gaols, there is nothing admirable in the IRA).

Indeed, rightly or wrongly, the IRA wanted an independant Republican Ireland. Al Qaedia simply want their version of the Muslim faith to be the dominant one around the world.

Patience, patience. These things happen incrementally, not all at once. You can't just toss aside ALL civil liberties and human rights in one shot. First you have to pass things like the Patriot Act. Then you have to say that the Geneva convention is "quaint" and "doesn't apply." Then you have to let opponents know that resistence will be met with below-the-belt retaliation (like, say, outing a CIA operative). Then you nominate a Supreme Court justice who appears to be opposed to limitations on presidential power. That kind of thing. You have to work your way up to the really big stuff.

There's also labeling people "enemy combatants" so as to deny people a fair trial Jose Padilla), rounding up people who protest (Republican convention), having the FBI collect thousands of pages of survalliance on groups that oppose the president, random & useless searches of transit riders

I also forgot to make another point abuot Ireland (getting back to PAD's orginally question...) was that the troubles over there go back at least 400 years to Oliver Cromwell's time. Cromwell pursued a murderous campaign against the Irish as did his successors, not least including doing nothing during the terrible potato famines leaving the Irish to starve. Fast forward a few hundred years and the pattern is repeating itself in the Middle East, not least the fact that we've tried to dominate that part of the world since the time of the Crusades, pre-dating even Ireland. The point is though, none of us want several hundred years struggle with Al Qeada because neither side can deliver a knock-out blow. Personally though I think a fascist cause will rot from the inside, as all causes written in terms of absolutes always do. Al Qeada has given us no alternative other than putting up the most fierce resistance to their campaign of hate and death - I really don't think they have it in them to renounce violence and negotiate with purely legitimate means.

Jim: "Until some of you finally understand that Al Qeada truly is worse and more evil President Bush ever was or will be, the cause of peace will be delayed or even prevented."

Tim: "Straw man, Jim. Nobody here has said (or, IMO, even implied) otherwise."

Now, Tim, we reference back to Finley's post:

"Yeah, and Al Qaeda might be as bad as Bush if they had access to the resources and spin machine that Bush does. Insidious, self-righteous, and self-deluded evil is always more dangerous than obvious, 'let's blow up civilians for the primetime news' evil."

Finley did indeed state (pretty clearly, it seems to me) that Dubya is more evil than the entire al-Qaeda organization.

Jonathon,

Actually, it wasn't Findley, it was then previous poster and anyway, he posted AFTER Iowa Jim. Of course, one could argue that IJ did his post knowing that someone would snap at the bait and prove him right...you don't have to be here long to learn that it's not hard to get knees jerking on both sides...

"Now, Tim, we reference back to Finley's post:

"Yeah, and Al Qaeda might be as bad as Bush if they had access to the resources and spin machine that Bush does. Insidious, self-righteous, and self-deluded evil is always more dangerous than obvious, 'let's blow up civilians for the primetime news' evil."

"Finley did indeed state (pretty clearly, it seems to me) that Dubya is more evil than the entire al-Qaeda organization."

Number one, that doesn't change the fact that Iowa Jim was still the first person to link "Bush" and "evil" at a point where no one else was, making it a straw man argument at the time that he said it.

Number two, I'm pleased it seems so clear to you what Finely said and didn't say. Curiously, it seems clear to me that Finley, in fact, said no such thing. Joey Connick made the post you're referring to.

Suddenly things seeming less clear?

PAD

There's no way for this set of assumptions to happen. If al-Qaeda is functional in 10 years then they will still have the manpower, firepower and finances to keep up what they are doing. The only reason you lay down weapons for peace is if you can better accomplish goals through politics and/or trade. However, al-Qaeda has nothing to trade, and there's no country out there who will publically negotiate with al-Qaeda on their political ends. Right now their political goals are to remove governments from power in favor of stricter Islamic control.

May I say how much I love the fact that several people are going after my claim on Iowa Jim's straw man, and not one has made any substantive response to the rest of my post? Gotta love the web sometimes...

[And yes, for the record, when I responded to Jim I'd only read as far as his post, not the rest, and thus hadn't seen Joey Connick's entry.]

TWL

Ah, "The Irish Problem". Here are a few things to keep in mind:

1) Most Americans get their impression of the IRA from the songs they hear at the local Real Authentic Irish Pub(tm), and fail to realize that the Provisional IRA of today (not to mention the Real IRA, the Official IRA, and the Fuck-You-We're-the-IRA) are NOT the same organization that fought for Irish independance ninety years ago, and tend to thus over-romanticize them.

2) Even during the worst of the "Troubles" of the '70s and '80s, the per capita homicide rate--including terrorist attacks and sectarian violence--in Northern Ireland was no higher than the homicide rate in the US. Often lower.

3) By the 1990's, most of the paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland, on BOTH sides, had essentially become gangs of common street thugs wrapping themselves in religious, ethnic and political rhetoric.

As for the al-Qa`ida question, well, in the past 36 years, the PIRA is blamed for about 1700 deaths, about 500 of which were civilians. Republican paramilitaries overall are blamed for about 2000 deaths, about 740 of which were civilians. Al-Qa`ida has a LOT more to answer for. This doesn't meen negotiations are impossible, but the situations are very different. For my money, the IRA and the UVF are more comperable to the Bloods and the Crips than to al-Qa`ida.

I think much of this rests on how you define "evil". If you are just looking at total civilian bodycount, there is no question that the US government is worse than al-Qa`ida. But if you look at MOTIVATION, al-Qa`ida is FAR worse. If bin-Ladin had access to our level of military force, he would have nuked Israel by now.

I, for one, think that unintentional civilian deaths resulting from a directed military campaign--even a botched and arguably illegal one--are not as MORALLY reprehensible as deliberate, malicious killings of civilians that serve no larger military purpose. That doesn't make them remotely OK, but it is the difference betweem negligent homicide (or possibly "depraved indifference") and murder with malice aforethought.

The US has killed, or contributed to the deaths of, a staggering number of Iraqis, but we didn't do it out of hatred. They are just as dead, but there is a fine moral difference.

Oh, here is the source for the Irelans statistics:

http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/sutton/index.html

Something about Al Qaeda.
A spanish international analist said last friday that Al qaeda isn't really a terrorist group but an revolution movement, if we look for their tactics an their objectives.
He said that they're reliyng to an action-reaction strategy that allows them to maximize their recruitment.
Doesn't make you think if we're acting our best?

Greetings from spain.

Jack,

I would like to know why you think that it Bin Ladden had the resources of America that he would nuke Israel? This is considered Muslem holy land with a Muslem holy city in it. Destroying it would be an act against God/Allah/Jehovah/Howard.

Just in case anyone was wondering, Howard is from an old joke on Gods name in the Lords Prayer:

"Our Father, who art in Heaven, Howard be thy name."

I don't know why people are so quick to believe the rhetoric of those who claim to do evil "in the name of God" (or Allah, or Howard, or Hendrix) whenit is obvious even to a marsupial that what they do is, by any literate study of the basic beiefs of their religion, AGAINST the will of God. You'd have to be crazy to think that anyone in the IRA is a devout Catholic and it is equally obvious that the leadership of Al Qaida doesn't believe their own words--you don't see the top guys going for that sweet 72 virgins deal now do you?

My point is, it would not stun me if Bin Laden got a nuke and did something as totally unexpected as bomb Mecca itself, in the hope that it would make every Muslim worldwide rise up in pure homicidal rage. No matter what evidence there was, there is no way that most would not believe that the Israelis did it. (Hell, even some supposedly educated folks think they were involved with 9/11!).

What would stop him? A belief in Allah? I am dubious. I think that Bin Laden may be pinning his hopes on a heaven right here on Earth. The religious ferver of his followers is just the morter to build those heavenly gates.

PAD, I wish this site was less about your petty political ideas and more about comics.

But that's just me.

"PAD, I wish this site was less about your petty political ideas and more about comics. But that's just me."

See, whereas I wish it was less about petty fans showing up and being snotty, but that's just me...

Oh, wait. It's not.

PAD

I wish this site was less about your petty political ideas and more about comics

I wouldn't consider global terrorism to be petty politics.

Here are some sites about comics, free of politics:
http://www.newsarama.com/
http://www.comicon.com/

Craig, you ARE aware that the US pulled out all our troops from Saudi Arabia a little while ago? At the request of the Saudi government?

And when you describe that starting point as "a valid one for Muslims," aren't you engaging in racism? Are you saying that certain things are reasonable and acceptable when put forth by one group, but not normally others? That unreasonableness and irrationality are cultural traits?

And yeah, the West has been "mucking around" in the Middle East for over a century. More like about 10 centuries, if you go back as far as the Crusades (and a lot of them do). Even longer, if you consider the Jews "Westerners" (and a lot of them do).

I will agree with you on one point: you say that the irrational beliefs of the Muslims are understandable. They're a product of centuries of toxic culture. Where you and I differ is that you take it further and consider it acceptable when they wish to impose their irrationality on us. I don't.

And before you go and call me names for calling their culture "toxic," go and look up how women, homosexuals, and non-Muslims are treated. More importantly, look at their formal legal status -- if you're not a Muslim man, you're pretty much camel-crap legally.

And they want that to become the law of the land for the whole world. No, thanks. We fought several wars over people who considered themselves the "master race" and wanted to impose that belief on Americans (the Civil War, World War II), and I think we, as a nation, are willing to do it again.

J.

And they want that to become the law of the land for the whole world.

No, actually, MOST don't. Some do, just as some folks (coughcoughTomBugfuckDelay) have stated publicly that their role in government is to establish a Christian, biblical worldview. Most, however, see it as their personal faith and no more.

How many Muslims do you actually know, Jay?

No, thanks. We fought several wars over people who considered themselves the "master race" and wanted to impose that belief on Americans (the Civil War, World War II), and I think we, as a nation, are willing to do it again.

Ooh, I get to be the first one to yell "Godwin" in a crowded thread. Cool.

TWL

PAD wrote:

"See, whereas I wish it was less about petty fans showing up and being snotty, but that's just me...

Oh, wait. It's not."

And I just have to BWAHAHA... It's rude but heyy the guy asked for it.

Comic book writing, although it may be grounded in a flair of escapism, always has to be grounded in reality also - observations of what is going on in the real world.

A comic book fan who just wants the comic book stuff from a writer of comic books isn't rrrreally a comic book fan... IMHO.

Have a good 1 y'all!

/Bob

Patience, patience. These things happen incrementally, not all at once. You can't just toss aside ALL civil liberties and human rights in one shot. First you have to pass things like the Patriot Act. Then you have to say that the Geneva convention is "quaint" and "doesn't apply." Then you have to let opponents know that resistence will be met with below-the-belt retaliation (like, say, outing a CIA operative). Then you nominate a Supreme Court justice who appears to be opposed to limitations on presidential power. That kind of thing. You have to work your way up to the really big stuff.

There is now a Kansas State Attorney General wanting record of 90 women, most over the age of consent, from Planned Parenthood.He claims he's fighting child rape, but he's apparently only asked for the record of so-called "abortion clinics" and mostly of women of age.

As of tomorrow a federal law prohibits you from purchasing medications that contain pseudoephedrine without giving your name, presumably you'll have to show i.d.

It's always in small increments and always,always couched in "security" of some kind.

Michael J Norton

What bothers me is that PAD's politics boil down to is simplistic "Republicans are bad, and therefore I disgaree with everything they do. Even if that means I end up looking like an ass making asinine comparisons between two things that are only comparable in my mind."

But again, I'm kooky that way. Had I such an audience I wouldn't be turning them off right and left with arrogant partisan political rantings.

My political rantings would hopefully seem less petty and more perturbed at the pathetic state of the American political system. I think that is where the vast majority of Americans are. We're stuck with two shitty parties and no way out.

I mean what kind of choice is a choice between two parties so continually corrupted and devoid of actual ideas?

It's no choice.

But yeah, Democrats, YAY!

They're our corrupt guys, corrupt Men of The People, they talk touchy feely nanny state bullshit, instead of corporate militarist bullshit.

Still bullshit. Still corrupt.

Sad state of affairs. And ain't nothing PAD says makes it any less sad.

I thought you were smarter than this, it's your type of petty partisan rancor that's gonna lead to bad shit. And even if it doesn't get violent, what are you gonna do when this current two party system falls apart? It has happened before, it's just taking longer for it to happen this time. Doesn't mean it won't. And it's needed.

But how will you answer for your adherence to the party line of a corrupt dying party?

I'd ask the same of any Republican. What does anyone see in obviously corrupt, morally bankrupt parties? Don't you feel icky aligning with the Karl Roves and Terry McAuliffes of the world?

An analogy
PAD* is to Democrats as Sean Hannity is to Republicans.

But I'm looking forward to the new Spider-Man book. Sounds fun.

ElCoyote
-

*fill in the blank, really, I could name a hundred more, Al Franken, Howard Dean, etc

And when you describe that starting point as "a valid one for Muslims," aren't you engaging in racism?

How the hell is that being racist any more than it not being a surprise when black slaves rose up against white owners back in the 1800's?

And before you go and call me names for calling their culture "toxic," go and look up how women, homosexuals, and non-Muslims are treated.

Why would I call you names for it? I consider Christianity, in some quarters, just as "toxic".

We fought several wars over people who considered themselves the "master race" and wanted to impose that belief on Americans (the Civil War, World War II), and I think we, as a nation, are willing to do it again.

Only this time, the US is just as willing to become the "master race" via our right-wing conservative Christian government.

Do you think calling the war on terror a "Crusade" was an accident?

In other news, this one was quietly under the radar, but a bunch of (dumbass) Democratic Senators have put forth a bill that would place a 25% tax on all internet porn (and you know how broad the term 'porn' is these days) and make age verification mandatory for all sites.

Oh, and it's to help protect the children, btw.

This probably has no way of passing... well, actually, I'd give it a fighting chance... but the fact that these things keep getting suggested...

As Michael J Norton just suggested, it's always in small increments.

First thing, I'm from Israel. Secondly, I reached this site looking for news about Fallen Angel, but I seem to be drawn to political arguments for some reason.

The question is difficult because Al-Quida is a complex phenomenon. It is not exactly like the PLO or IRA or ETA, but more like the weathermen, or the Red Brigades, although they have more popular support.

The US problem in Iraq is not Al-Quida per se, but nationalistic groups in Iraq who were inluenced by Al-Quida's Islamic ideology (i.e. Islamic) and methodology (terrorism). The same way that we here in Israel have problems with national Islamist Palestinan groups like Hamas, as much as with national Marxist Palestinian groups.

The US will find itself in a position in which it will be able to achieve cease Fire agreements or even Peace Agreements with such groups in Iraq, and these groups will continue to hold a variant of Islamic ideology and still believe that terrorism was right. But it will be better to have an agreement than not, although there will be very good reasons for mistrust. Think of it in the same terms as agreements the US made with the USSR.

With Al-Quida it is less likely, since their only reason to exist is militant Islamism. What Al-Quida basically does is take any friction in the world involving muslims and casts it in terms of a struggle between Islam and the non-muslims, whether it is the friction between Israelis and Palestinians or between Britons and their muslim minority. It may be possible to try to deal with some of these causes of friction on the local level, and with some of the local organizations involved, but not all of them, and not in a way that will satisfy Al-Quida.

For these reasons and others bargaining with them is much more complicated. It is also more questionable, because it like bargaining with the Mafia. To deal with them is to accept the fact that they have a voice in these local issues, which is unacceptable (as opposed to the local organizations). I dont completely exclude the possibility of dealing with some people in Al-Quida, but it is more complicated. The world should also be clear that there is no way to bargain with Al-Quida in the same way that you would bargain with the IRA or PLO, and also that its current ideology is not one you can bargain with (the ideology is not world domination per se, but it is basically a demand for complete surrender of the non muslim or secular muslim side to radical islamic demands in any place where there is friction).

Another thing to keep in mind the fractured and chaotic nature of Al-Quida. Bin Laden doesn't sit in his cave and plans every attack in the world. There are many independant groups acting seperately who are influenced by Al-Quida ideology and method. That also makes bargaining with them difficult.

Mike: There's a problem with that distinction in my mind. It casts the United States in the same light as Al Qaeda. The States certainly weren't phoning in when and where they were bombing and clearing out civilians from the fire zone.
Luigi Novi: Except that that isn’t terrorism, but one of the inevitabilities of war. What Al Quaeda did doesn’t compare.

Varjak: I'd love to see Al Qeada genuinely want peace and be willing to work toward it. But at the monet, I honestly don't think enough people with influence on our side truly want peace to make it possible.
Luigi Novi: I don’t think Al Quaeda itself wants it either, and I think that’s the slightly bigger problem, since they’re the ones who started the terrorism war, they’re the ones who fly planes in buildings, and they’re ones who deliberately and tactically target civilians. To assert that somehow we’re the ones who don’t “want peace” is absurd.

Joey Connick: Name you a country that holds a candle to the freedom you've had in the USA? How about three: Canada, the UK, Australia. More? New Zealand, France, post-Soviet Estonia? Post-WWII Germany (obviously only West Germany until recently). I'm sure there others... maybe post-imperialism India? And all of these have had those freedoms without bullying the rest of the world to the extent the US has.
Luigi Novi: What type of freedom are we talking about here? The UK doesn’t have a 1st Ammendment, and neither, if I understand correctly, does France. And then there’s economic freedom, and when you rank quality of life by that, not many countries show up at the top of the list with us.

Iowa Jim: Until some of you finally understand that Al Qeada truly is worse and more evil President Bush ever was or will be, the cause of peace will be delayed or even prevented.

Tim Lynch: Straw man, Jim. Nobody here has said (or, IMO, even implied) otherwise.
Luigi Novi: Perhaps not on this particular board, Tim, but there are certainly those on the extreme left who say it outright. And Jim is right when he says that the type of thinking embodied by Varjak’s comment is wrong.

Bobb: If Osama called tomorrow and said he wanted to sue for peace, we'd be hypocrits to not consider it. Granted, our terms would be unconditional surrender, and we'd undoubted call for the trials of the terrorist leaders, but the rank and file? Agree to disarm, and never take up arms agains the US again, and they're free to go about their lives.
Luigi Novi: But I think that’s just it. Peter’s description seems to imply something other than one side surrendering to the other, but the two sides meeting as equals.

ElCoyote: PAD, I wish this site was less about your petty political ideas and more about comics. But that's just me.
Luigi Novi: I wish people would stop trying to tell Peter what to talk about on his own blog, as if the site content were somehow supposed to be democratic, rather than reflective of its owner, and simply skip over blog entries that they don’t like.

ElCoyote: What bothers me is that PAD's politics boil down to is simplistic "Republicans are bad, and therefore I disgaree with everything they do. But that’s just me.
Luigi Novi: The problem with using arguments that utilize phrases like “seems like” or “boil down to” is that it allows you to oversimplify and distort that thing you’re describing. “Republicans are bad and Peter disagrees with everything they do”? Peter never said any such thing. You did. So the only one subscribing to oversimplification is you. If you want to respond to or criticize Peter’s political statements, why not do so with the statements he’s actually made, and explain with some detail why you feel they don’t hold up, instead of employing Straw Men that he hasn’t?

ElCoyote: I thought you were smarter than this, it's your type of petty partisan rancor that's gonna lead to bad shit. And even if it doesn't get violent, what are you gonna do when this current two party system falls apart?
Luigi Novi: Right, because what a sci-fi/fantasy author says on his website is really going to affect current events.

ElCoyote: An analogy…PAD* is to Democrats as Sean Hannity is to Republicans.
Luigi Novi: Given how Sean Hannity is a pathological liar and hypocrite, and I haven’t heard a similar argument illustrating such behavior on Peter’s part, I’d say it’s a pretty poorly-made analogy. Can you give us examples of where or when Peter has done the things Hannity has?

"What bothers me is that PAD's politics boil down to is simplistic "Republicans are bad, and therefore I disgaree with everything they do. Even if that means I end up looking like an ass making asinine comparisons between two things that are only comparable in my mind."

See whereas, again to turn it around, what bothers me are people who fabricate positions for me and then put it in quotes to imply that I actually said it, when all it is is nonsense.

Notice that I usually say "conservatives." I know a good many Republicans who actually believe in core Republican values, are in fact, appalled by actions taken by the neocons and religious extremists who have usurped the Republican party, and are taking positions in opposition to current GOP dogma (including...what's her name? Oh, right. Nancy Reagan.)

At the same time I have expressed disgust with a number of decisions and directions taken by the Democratic party. The only place where positions of mine are stark black-and-white is when they're restated for me by people who slap quotation marks around them even when they're not actually quotes of anything I said.

PAD

"So let's say we flash forward ten years, and Al Qeada is still strong, in business, and a major terrorist force. Iraq is still a fragmented mess. And suddenly Al Qeada announces that it wants to lay down arms and work toward a peaceful unification of Iraq and the Muslim world."

Unfortunately, there are a lot of "ifs" in this idea. The main problem, as far as I can tell, is that Al Qeada has no centralized government or structure. The IRA did, although there were a lot of splinter groups, but the violence was isolated to one area. This isn't a civil war/civil unrest type of situation. Al Qeada is striking all over the world. Who exactly would we try to deal with?

I can understand any reservations regarding peace with groups with a long history of violence, however, nothing can be lost by entering into a peace agreement cautiously and with your eyes open.

The potential benefits far outweight any reasonable apprehension in my humble opinion.

Regards:
Warren S. Jones III

Craig, you ARE aware that the US pulled out all our troops from Saudi Arabia a little while ago? At the request of the Saudi government?

But only because we've found a new place in the Middle East to put them.

Anyone who thinks we'll see all of our troops leaving Iraq within the next ten years is kidding themselves.

To assert that somehow we’re the ones who don’t “want peace” is absurd.

Is it so absurd? I don't think so.

Bush is the one that wanted to bomb Iraq *before* 9/11 happened.

Not exactly a hallmark of a 'peace president', is it?

We want peace. But like many others that want peace, we want it on our terms. Granted, we weren't the ones that took an overly aggressive first strike action to instigate a war...until we were the target of such an action, and after we had made progress in retaliating to those that had attacked us, we then...turned and took an overly aggressive action first strike action to instigate a war.

So, while I'd agree that the US "wants peace." But the current strategy of lashing out on flimsy evidence against a nation that it appears there was at least some pre 9/11 Presidential desire to attack really isn't in line with the "want peace" mentality.

Let's summarize it like this:

The American people want peace.

Our current president, though, is a warmongering a-hole. :-)

Momentary peace that allows an enemy to build strength to again threaten peace is short-sighted. The Islamic Extremist threat grows stronger in peace as they amass weapons that can do even more harm. Is there really any wisdom in a short-term peace that will likely make any future agression even more deadly and widespread?

The Middle East status quo is/was going to change. Only time will tell if Bush's willingness to force that change on our time schedule will work (though if it does, it won't be easy to determine... what would have happened if we'd gotten into the WWII years before? What would have happened if he hadn't gotten involved at all?)

I think the World Wars (part I and Part II) play out Robbnn's statement: Although, in that regard, it wasn't so much a "peace" as it was a "time out." Both sides were running out of bodies, $, and the will to fight. And it's rare in history when there's a peace treaty that one side has such an advantadge over the "losing" side that it can dictate terms. After all, if you can summarily exterminate your opponent, it's not so much a peace, as it is a forced surrender. The losing side in that case is basically appealing to the winner's sense of forgiveness.

Which makes the "war" on terror an interesting study. While you could say that our true enemy is an ideal, there are very real people supporting and spreading that ideal. You can kill as many of the people as you have bullets for, but if you can't counter the ideal, you're never going to win. In WWII, we countered the ideal by uncovering the horrible attrocities committed by the Nazis. Whatever your position on expansionist regimes was, seeing the true evil the Nazis unleashed put them in a class of their own (we just watched "Why We Fight" from Band of Brothers, so some of those emotions are more fresh with me). But the Nazi party was only a small fraction of the German population, and even some of those members did not embrace all that the party did. The so-called terrorist movement, or the militant islamics, seem to have a larger base that embraces the ideal that Americans (and others) are godless infidels that deserve to die. And moreso, that those that serve Allah by killing the infidels will be rewarded.

That's an ideal that's hard to fight. I think it's the main reason why any talk of peace with the terroists is met with high skepticism.

Den,
"Let's summarize it like this:
The American people want peace
Our current president, though, is a warmongering a-hole:)"

I'm glad you put a smiley at the end of that statement, since it's impossible to take it seriously.

Firs, every sane person wants peace. The reason our "warmongering" president was elected again in 2004 is because - as this blog clearly shows - those who oppose him have no viable alternative to what he is doing.

Varjak,
"We're not really represented in the government these days."
Who is 'we', white man? Given your "it's our fault the terrorists hate us" point of view, then you're right. People with your point of view are not represented in our government to any measurable degree. Thankfully, a majority of people do not share your idiotic, uneducated point of view.

Luigi Novi,
"Given how Sean Hannity is a pathological liar and hypocrite"

Would you care to give an example, Luigi? Seriously, seeing as how you have disapproved of statements made by people ranging from Ann Coulter to Michael Moore to Al Franken, I would be interested in the basis for your statement .

Craig J. Ries,

"I consider Christianity, in some quarters, just as toxic."

Right, because Christians have an international organization - and reputation - for destroying those who are infidels.

"The US is just as willing to become the master race"

You really don't have any sense of perspective, do you? Thankfully, your social impact is zero.
Keep typing away, and let me know if you need a new tin foil hat.

On working with Al Qeada. It would be akin to working with Al Capone on law-enforcement matters, or Scott Petersen on marriage counseling.

The Arab/Muslim world desparately needs a Martin Luther King, Ghandi or Nelson Mandela, who can work with their own people to show that there is a better, peaceful, and yes, democratic way. Those are the types of individuals we hopefully should be working with, and will work with, to bring human rights, dignity, tolerance, and peace to a very dysfunctional part of the world. Where is the Palestinian or Iraqi Martin Luther King, who can steer young people away from this hatred
and hopelessness?

"Right, because Christians have an international organization - and reputation - for destroying those who are infidels."

Uh, well, there was that whole Crusades thing that lasted for hundreds of years...

"The Arab/Muslim world desparately needs a Martin Luther King, Ghandi or Nelson Mandela, who can work with their own people to show that there is a better, peaceful, and yes, democratic way"

I'd say, for 90% of "the muslim world," probably more, they don't need this...because, as my understanding of traditional Islam goes, violence just isn't tolerated. Period. There just happens to be a militant minority that has perverted traditional Islam in such a spectacular fashion that it seems like it's a culture run amok.

But there are starting to surface those within the Islamic world that are speaking of doing the very thing you suggest: "correct" the thinking that Islam endorses the deaths of "infidels."

However, by suggesting that such a movement needs to be democratic I think goes too far. At the risk of re-hashing an older discussion, there's nothing magic about a democracy that supports peace. Some form of representative organization, sure, since you can't hold a dialogue with 3 billion people, but pushing democracy on people that may not want it is condescending and insulting.

I love it when you reply to my posts, Jerome, if only because it's amusing as to what bizarre tangent you'll spin out of it.

First of all, yeah, I was half-joking. But Bush came into office in 2001 with the full intent of invading Iraq, long before 9/11. He grasped at any excuse he could. Hell, Dick and Rummy wanted to use 9/11 as an excuse to attack Iraq because "there were no targets" in Afghanistan.

Second, what does my statement about him getting elected? Even though the majority of Americans are finally waking up to the reality of how badly he's bungled things in Iraq, we're still stuck with him until January, 2009. That's a fact.

Third, the opposition has ideas. Unfortunately, the Democrats can't organize a ham sandwich, so those ideas aren't getting aired in the public forum. Let's start with actually protecting our ports and cities with more than duct tape.

Luigi Novi,
"Given how Sean Hannity is a pathological liar and hypocrite"

Would you care to give an example, Luigi? Seriously, seeing as how you have disapproved of statements made by people ranging from Ann Coulter to Michael Moore to Al Franken, I would be interested in the basis for your statement .

I can give you a recent example. Sean was interviewing the author of The 100 Most Dangerous People in America. One person that was mentioned in the book (justifiably) is Judge Roy Moore of Alabama. The author criticized Moore for ignoring judicial orders to remove the Ten Commandments display. He likened it to the mayor of San Francisco ignoring the state law for issuing marriage licenses to homosexuals. Both are examples of government officials blatantly ignoring orders from higher officials, which can only be called activism. Hannity justified Moore by saying "he knew the consequences of his actions".

So what!??!

It is hypocritical to criticize a liberal mayor for activism and ignoring state law while promoting a judge who was likewise activist in ignoring a federal court order.

Firs, every sane person wants peace. The reason our "warmongering" president was elected again in 2004 is because - as this blog clearly shows - those who oppose him have no viable alternative to what he is doing.

A main reason people voted for bush is not because of the war issue, but because he opposed gays, which made him a "moral" president.

And this is without getting into the many issues of vote fraud that was committed in 2004.

Whether there was vote fraud or not, I know that a good many people also voted for Bush because they view him as a so-called Pro Life candidate. For a good many voters, nothing else mattered.

Bobb, there's always a certain percentage of people on both sides of the issue who consider their position to be the only issue that matters and would shoot themselves before voting for a candidate on the opposite side.

However, despite the one poll that showed "moral values" (read anti-gay and anti-abortion) as the top reason that many people voted for Bush. Other more comprehensive polls showed that the election really turned on national security. Here, Kerry failed to make a case as to how he would handle the terrorist threat differently, so the majority decided to stick with Bush since they knew what they were getting with him.

Now, of course, more recent polls are showing the American public, like a drunk waking up the next morning in a strange bed, are thinking, "Oh God, what have I done?"

"Uh, well, there was that whole Crusades thing that lasted for hundreds of years..."

If the Crusades, which happened in what, the 15th century, should not be used to tar modern Christianity, any more than the rough treatment given to the Philistines should be held against Jews. For that matter, much of the early success of Islam came at the end of the sword, but so what? It's what is happeneing in the here and now that should concern us and while Christians these days are seldom more aggressive than knocking on your door with stupid pamphlets or, at worst, trying to make their morality into law by democratic means, there is still a substantial streak of the conquest memtality in far too many Muslims. A minority, to be sure, but one that still has enough numbers to do damage.

I'd say, for 90% of "the muslim world," probably more, they don't need this...because, as my understanding of traditional Islam goes, violence just isn't tolerated.

Well, then they must have a hard time with their own history. Mohammed did not succeed through gentle persuasion and letters to the Style Section of the New York Times.

Some form of representative organization, sure, since you can't hold a dialogue with 3 billion people, but pushing democracy on people that may not want it is condescending and insulting.

You may be right...but how can you know without some kind of vote? I'm just asking--how do we determine whether or not a people want democracy?

Something about Martin Luther King in the context of the Islam and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I don't want to say that Islam is violent. But from a cultural perspective ideas of non-violence don't have much a cultural infrastructure to draw on in Islamic society. Whereas afro-americans had already a history of not reacting to violence against them, as a result of their unfortunate experience as slaves, people in the Muslim world are more used to the ideas of fighting back, defending honor and taking vengeance. Add to this their history as fighters, and the prestige that fighters and suicide bombers have because they fought back and avenged a loss of honor, and you get a very weak background for ideas of non-violence.

Nevertheless, in Israel-Palestine there are Israeli and Palestinian people trying to practice non violent resistence. However they had limited success for several reasons:

a. For the last hundred years the ideal and norm in Palestinian society was a violent one. These alien ideas of non violence don't have any prestige. For a Palestinian child seeing his elders not react with violence when confronting Israeli soldiers doesn't seem very heroic or very effective. The fact that violence has not been effective either doesn't matter. At least it is more satisfying. (This was my impression in the very few demos I attended).

b. The media is more likely to report about violent activities. The politicians in the world and in Israel are more likely to pay attention to the Palestinians as a result of the use of violence. And violence is emotionaly more satisfying, especially in a culture that has idealized it.

c. The use of non-violence is very local and isolated, so it is not a mass movement, and it is easy for the Israeli army to isolate it where nobody hears about it. Even when it does get some coverage in the Israeli press, it is swallowed by the greater issues.

d. When violence has been the norm in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with most leading groups, for a small local group to start using non-violence suddenly does not hold much credibility with the Israeli public (or the world). Especially when the struggle is against a fence built in order to stop suicide bombers.

e. Few Palestinians have adopted the method of non-violence. But it is instrumental. They have not adopted the ideal and the language of non-violence as Dr. King did. Plus they are not very good or disciplined at it. Their non-violence does not look or sound good to the camera, but more like a mob chanting nationalistic arabic slogans and pushing and being pushed by soldiers. Often somebody will loose his temper and start throwing stones. They claim that they can't do anything about it, which may be true. But what Israelis hear is the same old violence. Furthermore, wheras King's dream was known to white America as one of Peace, Many Israelis fear that the Palestinian dream is still to see Israel vanish. In any case, Palestinian use of non-violence does not have the effect that Gandhi's and King's did on Britons and Americans. It does not inspire them to question their beliefs or go beyond their fears of the Palestinians.

One other thing. The way the US defeated the Nazi ideal (or the Japanese nationalism) was by destroying the infrastructure that promoted it completely; discrediting it by bringing great harm to the majority of Germans and Japanese who supported it when it was successful; and then, after crushing them completely, offering a better option by helping them rebuilding their countries. Most Japanese and Germans were not committed enough to fashism to realize that the alternative was better. However, the circumstances and the public state of mind in Iraq are different.

Bill, not to be an ass, but you do realize that you argue against using Christian history against modern Christians, then use muslim history to criticize modern Islamics?

And to a degree, you are right when you say we need to conern ourselves with the here and now. And the here and now is that there's a militant Islamic minority that is only able to have a global impact because of modern weaponry...a single person can assemble an explosive device that can kill hundreds...if not thousands...and in some cases, not even risk his own life.

The point about the Crusades is because there's this modern view that Christianity is somehow free from the evils that plague men, and that's just patently false. Knowing that faith in Christ has been (and some would say continues to be) used to justify killing is critically important in making sure such perversions do not prevail again.

I don't think you need a vote...maybe a poll of some kind....wait, that's a vote. Honestly, governments are evolving, changing entities (just check our the US "democracy"). If you really, really asked the common man-on-the-street whether he wants a representative democracy, a democratic republic, a congressional monarchy, or whatever, chances are, your answer's going to be in the "whatever let's me keep my stuff, keep others from getting my stuff, and gives me a chance to earn a decent life for me and mine" category. And if any nation's government provides that, chances are, folks are going to be content to go about grousing about whatever government they've got. And if the government doesn't do all that, chances are, at some point, that government's going to be replaced. Sometimes rather messily, sometimes not.

Something that needs to be taken into account is that, while the Crusades may seem like ancient history to us, many other societies take a much longer view of history. We Americans tend to find the idea of holding people responsible for the actions of their ancestors to be silly, but to others, things like the Crusades are still something that Christians as a group were responsible for. In fact, whether it's Ireland, Bosnia, Darfur, or Rowanda, many of the disputes in these parts of the world have their roots in events that are hundreds of years old.

So, to dismiss the Crusades as ancient history isn't realistic. People still do care about these things.

But Americans have become experts at forgetting the past...if you take that away from us, what will we have left that we're better than everybody else at? Besides basketball, er, wait....

With regards to the comments about militant Islam versus true Islam, militant Islam is definitely the minority in the Islamic world, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the more common form of Islam is true Islam. Egypt's top religious official is considered by many to be one of the shining lights of true Islam, a real reformer who has studied the original Islamic texts and teachings and is really putting the screws to common Islamic thinking. Common Islamic customs, like the frequent oppression of women, grew out of a mixture of true Islam and the tribal customs of the earliest groups to adopt Islam as their religion. Naturally, the men in power at the time found it rather convenient to intermix the two and propogate the amalgamation as a theocratic way of life. True Islam, like the Christian and Judaistic teachings it's based on, is a peaceful religion that encourages love of your fellow man, tolerance of those who have not been brought to your way of seeing things, and respect for both sexes as intergral parts of the faith. But as long as people focus on the negative in all of these religions, continue to use centuries-old history that, while horrible, isn't reflective of the modern faiths that have developed, and confuse religous zealots and other atypical figures as representative of the entire faith, then we'll never be able to lay down our spears and shields and pick up some olive branches.

The reason our "warmongering" president was elected again in 2004 is because - as this blog clearly shows - those who oppose him have no viable alternative to what he is doing.

Maybe you should find some quotes from a couple of years ago, including ones from me that said this country would be in a war to make sure Bush was reelected.

And, bingo! We're in Iraq.

When's the last time we had a change of president during a war/conflict that was caused by the election of a new president?

Right, because Christians have an international organization - and reputation - for destroying those who are infidels.

A) I did say in "some" quarters. Apparently you missed that. Not a surprise, really, since you just love running around shooting people down like they've got targets on them or something.

Are you sure you aren't a card-carrying members of the NRA?

Anyways, nutjobs such as Pat Robertson would qualify, don't you think?

Or is just your general sense of loyalty to Christianity that nothing bad can be said about even the msot insane of Christians?

You really don't have any sense of perspective, do you?

Yes, I do.

Are you stupid enough to believe that we're going to let the Iraqis do what they want with this Constitution?

Hell no - it's going to be "the American way" or forget about it.

As I've said in the past, you can't force democracy on people; they have to want it. And if the Iraqis really wanted it, they would've overthrown Saddam.

Thankfully, your social impact is zero.

Nice way to reduce somebody's opinion to nothing, jackass.

Do you want a cookie now for your great social commentary and worth?

Keep typing away, and let me know if you need a new tin foil hat.

I'm just fine, thanks. But I think you need to see a doctor - you've got something lodged up your ass that's interfering with your common sense.

While freely admitting I'm not much of a historian, I'm willing to question our understanding of the Crusades. I have a muslim friend (taught Islamic Studies in Egypt) who happily scoffs at our slant on the Crusades. He claims that the Crusades headed off an impressive jihad that, had the Catholics not opposed them, we would now be in a muslim world. This came up in a discussion of how he believes we are our own worst enemy since we refuse to comprehend the true nature of our Islamic enemy.

Take it for what it's worth, which isn't much, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if this is true.

As someone with a degree in History, I will take a step back and say that acknowledging the mistakes of the past is important, but only in the context of learning from them in order to move on to a better future. Fixation on the Crusades and/or the spread of Islam as representative religious exercises leaves out the socioeconomic politics and other non-religious motivations of the times, and the significant idea that just because someone says they're following a religious calling doesn't make it so.

Robbnn, the Crusades from the European prespective was all about "liberating" the Holy Land from the infidel and they were largely unsuccessful in that goal, although they had a great time slaughtering people along the way. Basically, the Christian decided one day that they were tired of raping and pillaging their fellow Europeans and decided to rape and pillage in the Middle East.

Islamic civilization, however, at one time did cover Spain and managed to penetrate deep into Eastern Europe. They weren't defeated by the Crusaders as much as they were driven out by the native Europeans. However, I can see how how Islamic historials might lump it all together as one "crusade". Given the differing levels of education and technology, it is entirely possible that Islamic Civilization could have conquered Europe.

One of the things that frustrates me is how the Bushites try to dismiss the modern Islamic extremists with trite phrases like "they hate freedom". This isn't a case of them looking at our freedom press (what's left of it) and freedom of religion and thinking, "we need to destroy that." No, the goal of Al Qaeda and others like them is worldwide Islamic domination, starting with the destruction of Israel, but leading towards the restoration of the Ottoman Empire and the retaking of Spain as stepping stones to global conversation. They believe that as the true faith, this is their destiny as decreed by God. We are not fighting people who hate our freedoms. We are facing an ideology that desires a total eradication of western culture.

Of course, the balance of economic, military, and technological power today is far different than it was in the 15th century. Today, the west continues have the upper hand, so Al Qaeda resorts to terrorism as the weapon available to them and their efforts will continue to escalate. Islamic extremists are the minority among the Islamic people, but their belief in this ideology is unshakable.

We need to realize that we are not fighting communism anymore. This cannot be defeated by replacing a few regimes. This is a global nationalistic movement and the American government has a long history of underestimating the power of nationalism (see: Vietnam). We need to understand that this is a war of ideas that knows no international boundaries. To think that we can create a pro-Western democracy in Iraq and then watch it spread throughout the Middle East is foolish in the extreme. By invading Iraq, we've creating a stage for the extremists to take this country the moment we pull out.

I think the debate as to whether violence is part of "true" Islam is pointless. If someone is willing to kill and die for their beliefs, then those beliefs are "true" enough for them, regardless of whether this or that passage in their holy book supports it. The Crusades and the Inquisition (in many ways, the result of attempts to unify Spain post-Islamic rule) are examples that despite Jesus telling his followers to "turn the other cheek," Christianity can be used to justify atrocities. Likewise, so can Islam or Judaism or Hinduism or Buddhism. All you you are enough people with the "true believer" personality type and a leader charismatic enough to direct them towards violence.

every sane person wants peace.

Which does not in fact preclude Craig's commentary about this administration. :-) Sorry, dude -- you set it up that nicely, I'll take the shot.

while Christians these days are seldom more aggressive than knocking on your door with stupid pamphlets or, at worst, trying to make their morality into law by democratic means, there is still a substantial streak of the conquest memtality in far too many Muslims. A minority, to be sure, but one that still has enough numbers to do damage.

I think those people killed or maimed by Eric Robert Rudolph would take issue with your statement that the last sentence applies only to Muslims.

For that matter, isn't the IRA ("remember Alice ... this is a song about Alice...") made up pretty much entirely of white Christians? Lots of rather more aggressive people there, methinks.

And Jerome, while Craig can be a little extreme, the next time you try to dismiss him with "thankfully, your social impact is zero," I'm going to hire someone in PA with a very large pin to go and poke your head for a while until the ego deflates back to normal size. Just what the heck do YOU do that makes your social impact so grand?

TWL

Hmm... ok, Den, then replace the instances of "true" with "pure" - I'd not argue whether people who don't share a particular faith have true faith, just that what they truly believe isn't representative of the pure or core ideals of the faith they claim to follow. Heh, was that convuluted enough for you? And the debate is important in the context that showing someone that there's a way to follow their basic faith in a more positive way, that doesn't inspire hate or violence, that doesn't preach intolerance, is the first step in achieving true peace.

And please note I'm not specifying a religion here; too many people of all faiths look at the ways they can differentiate themselves from others with the big ideas and advantageous interpretations which foster intolerance, rather than focusing on the commonalities among almost all pure faiths on how to live day-to-day in peace and learn to work through the other differences as an "agree to disagree" arrangement.

I would like to know why you think that it Bin Ladden had the resources of America that he would nuke Israel?

Ah, good point. I was using "nuke" figuratively. I imagine he would have to use conventional forces, and avoid airstrikes on Old Jerusalem, but he would not hesitate to murder as many Jews as he could with no military purpose.

Jason, I understand what you're saying, but the problems pretty much stem from the subjective nature of what a "pure" form of a religion is. I think some of the ideological differences in the various Christian faiths are at least as wide as those in the Islamic faiths. The major difference, at least in terms of the US, is that regardless of which branch of the faith you ascribe to, you're pretty well off. You don't go into a job interview, impress some big wigs, get to within seconds of getting a great job offer, only to be faced with the question "which church do you go to?" And then fail to give the "correct" response, and don't get the job.

Which is my usual long-winded way of saying that there's no disaffected, repressed christian sect in the US that feels that it has to resort to extremist measures in order to advance themselves. In many Islamic countries, I think you have just the opposite: sect A comes into power, and starts repressing all other sects. Sect C has no where else to go, and with an increasing number of unemployed, disaffected young men/people, is prone to a charismatic leader that's capable of finding justifications in the religious base to engage in war against the heathan oppressors of God's True Children.

This situation is maybe the best argument I've seen supporting a democratic solution to terrorism, because a democracy is more likely than other forms of government to provide a means to succeed for everyone. Granted, it has to be a religiously tolerant democracy, or there's no relief to the disaffection suffered by the repressed. At that point, with everyone owning a home, holding a job, supporting a family, i.e.: having something greater than your own life to lose--it's at this point that militant/terrorist ideals don't have a supply of bodies and minds to recruit from. Whichever "strain" of a particular religion you subscribe to no longer matters.

The Crusades were in part possible because European nobility had a growing number of sons, and a lack of land and titles for them. Sending them on the Crusades was a tidy way of pushing the problem of who gets the family castle into the future, and letting natural selection play a role as well. But if there wasn't a group of disaffected, unattached, nothing to lose bodies sitting around, they'd never have happened to the extent that they did.

Right, because Christians have an international organization - and reputation - for destroying those who are infidels.

I'll just mention that the Inquisition still exists, now called the "Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith". It's former prefect was recently elected Pope.

Christians haven't made a habit of killing "heathens" in the last century. But prior to that, they were largely less tolerant than their Muslim contemporaries.

The Arab/Muslim world desparately needs a Martin Luther King, Ghandi or Nelson Mandela, who can work with their own people to show that there is a better, peaceful, and yes, democratic way.

The Muslim world DID have a Gandhi: Gandhi. He wasn't a Muslim, prior to partition, India had one of the largest Muslim populations in the world. (It still does, but at a lower percentage.) Gandhi had plenty of Muslim followers, and was considered a traitor by many Hindus for attempting to mediate between Hindus and Muslims. It was a HINDU nationalist, after all, who assassinated him.

Also, read a bit on Abdul Ghaffer Khan.

Jerome Maida said:

Right, because Christians have an international organization - and reputation - for destroying those who are infidels.

uhm, it's called: the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith -- it's what was once the Inquistion.

Ah, but Bobb, simply having a democratic form of government doesn't put a chicken in every pot, as it were. Even the best democratic ideals can be usurped with a strong majority that blocks out a minority. The new Iraqi government, with all its successes, is still desperately trying to figure out how to get the Kurds, Sunnis, and Shiitites to place nice-nice. I think the key isn't a religiously tolerant democracy as much as a move away from the various forms of theocratic governments currently in power throughout the Middle East and the notion that religious belief equals political allegiance. The ongoing ability of small groups of hardline critics to continually oppress entire nations of people is the major problem, and they're the ones that always find a way to reinterpret the texts to suit their needs, whether those needs are to repress the general citizenry or just a certain sect of it. I guess I would take the facts you lay out and then build my argument from there that the key would be to get the sects to focus on working out their differences in a peaceful way. The extreme lack of real natural and socioeconomic resources among the general populations throughout the Middle East will always pit people against each other, unless perhaps something like true religious tolerance focused people's attention and resources on how to resolve practical problems like hunger and education, instead of small numbers of religiously-empowered leaders using their supporters to wage holy wars as a distraction from those same leaders complete inability to provide their people with the basics of civilization.

Pardon me - "critics" should have been "clerics" in the above.

Hmm... in rereading your post, Bobb, I think we're on the same path, except you think it'll have to be a democracy, whereas I think it'll just take something non-theocratic.

OK, here's a talking point. As I mentioned, in the past 100 years, there hasn't been much of a movement within Christian RELIGIOUS institutions to do violence against non-Christians. Most of the mass-violence in the West in the 20th century was the result instead of totalitarian governments.

Now Soviet Communism can't really be called Christian, but Fascism COULD be. Nazism was marginal, perhaps, but Italian and Spanish Fascism absolutely considered themselves to be CHRISTIAN movements, and often enjoyed support of the church. And if nothing else, the Nazis recycled aspects of Christian antisemitism to mix with their own racial theories.

My point is that, to an outsider, it would be very easy to perceive some of the great crimes committed in recent Western history as religiously-motivated, Christian movements. I suspect many Jews had trouble distinguishing Gentiles who hated them as "Christ-killers" from those who hated them as "racially impure".

Iowa Jim: Until some of you finally understand that Al Qeada truly is worse and more evil President Bush ever was or will be, the cause of peace will be delayed or even prevented.

Tim Lynch: Straw man, Jim. Nobody here has said (or, IMO, even implied) otherwise.

Except, as I pointed out earlier, someone had already said that. Yes, I got the name wrong - I never claimed to be even middling perfect - but the point is not who said Bush was more evil than Al-Qaeda, the point is that it was said.

Apparently, though, pointing out that I got the source of the quote wrong is considered in some circles to be equivalent to proving it doesn't exist...

Heh, Jason, I'm usually the guy opposing the forcful expansion of democracy, or at least trying to get people to see that it's not the end-all and be-all of government that some think it is. I just meant that those that advocate the spread of democracy at least have the general wetern model of a successful nation of plenty to go with that spread, and in the scenario I lay out, the key to ending organized violence is to provide in a meaningful way for as many as you can. Or at least provide opportunities to as many as you can.

Regardless of the form of government, I don't think you'll be in a stable, peaceful situation unless you get everyone to accept that they have a stake to lose in the game. It would make an interesting social experiment (say, something for Q to ponder) to take a society of peaceful, religious groups that advocate non-violence and tolerance, and then elevate one sect to unchallenged power. Then start limiting resources, and see how long/if a disinfranchisement of the other sects would occur, and how long/whether their core religious belief would decay to the point where they derived exemptions to the non-violent call of their religions.

Because the thing is, even militant Islamics hold a mostly peaceful view of themselves...they've just created a loophole where it's OK to be violent to heathan infidels. It's discrimination in fatal terms...you distinguish yourself from the infidels to the point of dehumanization, so that you're able to overcome any religious prohibition against killing. Throw in a little martydom in, and you get willing suicide bombers. The scary thing about this combination is that it could potentially override even the Stake to Lose idea. Which would bring us back to the example of the Nazis, where we had to do a huge amount of damage to the infrastructure, and kill a lot of the idealists, before we could really call our victory over the Nazi ideal substantial.

Jack, Ghandi was an Indian nationalist and therefore wanted to preserve India as a singular nation instead of breaking it up into what is now India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh (East Pakistan at the time of partition). Even so, he was still a devout Hindu and as such could not speak with authority on Islamic doctrine. Moreover, he had little influence over Moslems outside of the Indian subcontinent. For Ghandi to become a leader of a peaceful Islamic movement would be akin to a Jewish person taking over Martin Luther King's movement. He could be an ally of peaceful Islamic leaders, but he not be considered one of them.

What Islam needs is someone from within their faithful who is capable of speaking with clear moral authority and repudiate the violent doctrine of extermism. Such Imams do exist, but they have yet ganered enough political strength to put a dent in the recruitment efforts of Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations.

Luigi Novi: To assert that somehow we’re the ones who don’t “want peace” is absurd.

Craig J. Ries: Is it so absurd? I don't think so. Bush is the one that wanted to bomb Iraq *before* 9/11 happened. Not exactly a hallmark of a 'peace president', is it?
Luigi Novi: Varjak didn’t say anything about Bush, or presidents. Granted, the President of the U.S. does have the most” influence” in pursuing peace, but Varjak’s blanket statement does seem a bit like hyperbole.

Luigi Novi: Given how Sean Hannity is a pathological liar and hypocrite…

Jerome Maida: Would you care to give an example, Luigi? Seriously, seeing as how you have disapproved of statements made by people ranging from Ann Coulter to Michael Moore to Al Franken, I would be interested in the basis for your statement .
Luigi Novi: As far as hypocrisy is concerned, one example that comes to mind is the manner in which he criticizes people who criticize Bush because he feels doing this during a time of war gives aid and comfort to the enemy, despite the fact that he had no problem criticizing Clinton when Clinton took military action in Kosovo.

As for dishonesty, geez, where do I start? The ad hominem I remember him using when attacking a caller to his radio program in mid-2000 comes to mind. The caller asked him, quite politely, and without any invective or slanted tone of voice, about the legitimacy of the U.S.’s covert intervention into the politics of other countries, such as its engineering of elections, its installations of dictators favorable to its interests, etc. Hannity, rather than answering the question directly, hammered the caller as to whether he read this liberal publication or that liberal publication, a clear ad hominem response, and insulted the caller by saying he shouldn’t be listening to the things coming in through the fillings in his teeth. Hannity ultimately did respond that he felt the U.S. had the right to do these things that were in its best interests, but in addition to the initial ad hominem response, with which he spent far more time and verbiage, he ended the call by asking the caller how he felt about the saying, “To each the best of his own abilities.” Perhaps not knowing the derivation or principle behind the quote, or what Hannity was getting at, the caller, who may have figured that the saying seemed fairly reasonable, indicated that it sounded okay. Hannity, having trapped the caller with this response, responded it was made by Karl Marx, presumably as a linchpin of marxism. Never mind that the motto, on its face, does not necessarily appear to the uninitiated to be a core principle of communism or Marxism, and could be construed by someone ignorant of its origin to be simply a general axiom of encouragement, and that such an answer as the caller’s does not indicate communist tendencies, let alone provide any relevance to his questioning the U.S. covert foreign policies. To Hannity, this response by the caller somehow in and of itself served as an obvious refutation of the caller’s position, even though no one had explicitly stated anything about communism, Marxism, or made any accusations regarding the atrocities committed in its name.

Or how about his claim that when Rush Limbaugh showed a photograph of Chelsea Clinton when referencing the “White House dog,” it was a mistake, and that it was supposed to be a different photo, despite giving any explanation of what this other photo was, or what the joke would’ve been with it?

You can find more examples at http://www.spinsanity.org/columns/20020826.html, and I’m sure many others elsewhere, such as the one Mark L pointed out. Given the contempt propagandists like Hannity, Coulter, and Moore have for things like facts, objectivity and internal consistency, it shouldn’t be too hard.

Hi there. Im a little short on time and I wanted to comment but cant get through the 99 others in time. So apologies if I reiterate anything.

The IRA were in a cease fire for sometime. As were their counterparts on the other side of the border.

It has nothing to do with 9/11 or Irish Americans money. The work was in progress for a peaceful end before that. Its just taken some time as the various political parties dont like each other or the various terrorist groups.

That said, speaking as someone from Dublin, its nice to finally have an end to it on both sides. Irish people and those in the North were sick of it all. Good riddance to the IRA, RIRA, Continuity IRA, UDF, UVF and a bunch of other acronyms for violent bullies.

As for the original question, do you accept Al Qeada if they want peace? Yes. Just be ready incase its a ruse.

The rise of militant Islamis is usually not about different sects fighting with each other over resources. With the exception of Lebanon and to a certain degree Israel and Europe, it did not emerge in minority sects, but in the large sunni muslim (or Shia in Iran) majority. Radical Islamism is about muslims looking for a solution in their old time religion for the failings of the Muslim world in the present. It is a response to a sense of failure and disappointment with two facts: (a) the weakness of the muslim world in relation to the non-muslim; (b) the failure of western ideas to improve the situation of people in the Muslim world, which is then also perceived as having a corrupting influence on Muslim society. (They use a term which refers to the immoral situation of the Arabs before the conversion to Islam, which I think is Jahalia). Both problems are seen as interconnected. They are violent instead of being non-violent because violence has prestige. The preceive themselves as non violent in the sense that they were peaceful until they felt it necessary to respond to the attack against them by the non-muslims or by the heretic muslims.

One last word in defence of the Inquisition. The Inquisition was created to deal with christians who deviated from the Catholic doctrine (heretics), not people who were non Christians. It did not persecute Jews and Muslims in Spain, but Jews and Muslims who converted to Christianity but kept practicing their old religions in secret.

Bill, not to be an ass, but you do realize that you argue against using Christian history against modern Christians, then use muslim history to criticize modern Islamics?

I did a bad job of conveying my thoughts--for one thing, erase the word "if" at the beginning of my post and it makes slightly more sense. But the point I was making was that it was wrong to judge modern Christianity by what happend in 1503 and if one DID use such a standard, Islam would come off poorly as well.

My other comment on Islam's violent past was because of a comment that violence was not tolerated. Untrue--Mohammed used it to his advantage. I'm not saying he was wrong, but history is what it is.

The point about the Crusades is because there's this modern view that Christianity is somehow free from the evils that plague men, and that's just patently false.

What modern view is that? Every college history course I ever took was actively hostile to religion. I could rattle off a list of recent movies that have evil Christian characters. Meanwhile, they change Tom Clancy movies so that the villians go from Islamic terrorists to neo-nazi types.

We Americans tend to find the idea of holding people responsible for the actions of their ancestors to be silly, but to others, things like the Crusades are still something that Christians as a group were responsible for. In fact, whether it's Ireland, Bosnia, Darfur, or Rowanda, many of the disputes in these parts of the world have their roots in events that are hundreds of years old

You're absolutely right about that but you know, the problem with blaming children for the sins of their great great grandfathers isn't that it is unamerican--it's just stupid, superstitious and evil. I know we need to be sensitive to the ways of others but there are some things that one should be willing to take a stand on. If we allow people to be judged by the actions of the long dead we will never get anywhere (and, in point of fact, those countries that are obsessed with the slights of the past seldom DO get anywhere).

Anyways, nutjobs such as Pat Robertson would qualify, don't you think?

Not as someone who "destroys infidels". He IS a nutjob though. If, however, he is the worst that Christianity has to offer then the religion is in GREAT shape.

Basically, the Christian decided one day that they were tired of raping and pillaging their fellow Europeans and decided to rape and pillage in the Middle East.

Yeah, that's the "modern view of Christianity" that I was thinking of.

I said :while Christians these days are seldom more aggressive than knocking on your door with stupid pamphlets or, at worst, trying to make their morality into law by democratic means, there is still a substantial streak of the conquest memtality in far too many Muslims. A minority, to be sure, but one that still has enough numbers to do damage.

Tim replied I think those people killed or maimed by Eric Robert Rudolph would take issue with your statement that the last sentence applies only to Muslims.

Whoa,whoa whoa, how do you get that from what I said? In no way shape or form did I suggest that ONLY muslims are capable of violence. Obviously, if I am ever mugged, beaten or murdered, the odds are great that it will be a "christian" who does it.

You will note the use of the word "seldom". Yes, there are crazed Christians and extremist Jews and Mormons who give coffee enemes to schoolkids but there are entire GOVERNMENTS of Islamic extremists who are cutting a bloody swath through the "unbelievers" in Africa. My take--and anyone can feel free to tell me where I'm going wrong--is that today, in this world, as we speak, most of the worst atrocities are in part due to Muslim extremism, not Christian, Judaic, Buddhist or Atheist. That doesn't mean that there is something inherently bad about Islam. That doesn't mean that other religions haven't held the mantle in years past. But trying to equate, as some have, idiot TV preachers with people who have the blood of thousands on their hands...well, it just doesn't work for me.

Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith -- it's what was once the Inquistion.

And they don't torture or kill people. So obviously Christianity has evolved. Compare and contrast to the treatment of heretics in Islam--you can contact Salaman Rushdie at 1313 Ontherun Blvd, Somewhere USA.

"Meanwhile, they change Tom Clancy movies so that the villians go from Islamic terrorists to neo-nazi types."

Which is strange in itself since the villians were changed (and the movie filmed) before 9-11 happened. Don't get me started on Clancy books-to-film. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Jonathan (the other one) --

I haven't denied your point when you referenced the quote -- I simply pointed out that it couldn't possibly be what Jim was referring to, since it was posted AFTER he did. Unless you're claiming he's prescient, that can't be evidence in favor of his statement at the time of his statement.

You're more than welcome to keep belaboring this point if you like, but boy, I wish someone would actually address the substance of what I'd said in that post.

Bill:
while Christians these days are seldom more aggressive than knocking on your door with stupid pamphlets or, at worst, trying to make their morality into law by democratic means, there is still a substantial streak of the conquest memtality in far too many Muslims. A minority, to be sure, but one that still has enough numbers to do damage.

Me:
I think those people killed or maimed by Eric Robert Rudolph would take issue with your statement that the last sentence applies only to Muslims.

Bill:
Whoa,whoa whoa, how do you get that from what I said? In no way shape or form did I suggest that ONLY muslims are capable of violence. Obviously, if I am ever mugged, beaten or murdered, the odds are great that it will be a "christian" who does it.

Poor phrasing on my part; apologies.

However, my point is that "seldom" is really too general a word to use when your argument is tarring the Islamic world with a very broad brush. (I know, that's not your intent -- but it's how it's reading and very difficult to interpret any other way.) It's awfully hard to say that "their extremists are worse than 'our' extremists" when a Christian extremist can be just as much the indiscriminate killer without the slightest bit of remorse.

Speaking as one comfortably outside of both faiths (read: any), I think both of them have done a fair bit of good over the centuries, and have also been used for truly massive amounts of evil. On balance, personally, I think humanity would be a lot better off without any sort of organized religion -- but I also recognize that it's unlikely to head in that direction in ... well, maybe ever. So I carry on.

My take--and anyone can feel free to tell me where I'm going wrong--is that today, in this world, as we speak, most of the worst atrocities are in part due to Muslim extremism, not Christian, Judaic, Buddhist or Atheist. That doesn't mean that there is something inherently bad about Islam. That doesn't mean that other religions haven't held the mantle in years past. But trying to equate, as some have, idiot TV preachers with people who have the blood of thousands on their hands...well, it just doesn't work for me.

I think you're too close to the subject, then.

Pat Robertson, let's not forget, waxes nigh-orgasmic about how much he wished someone would plant a small nuke at Foggy Bottom. That's not only evil, it's bordering on incitement to treason. Maybe he doesn't have the blood of thousands on his hands -- but he has openly wished for something that would cause that, and at least to my knowledge has never recanted the statement.

(Has Pat Robertson killed infidels? No -- but he's also never had the means, and I for one am not confident enough of him to say that he'd refrain from using them if he had them.)

You're probably right that at this very moment, more of the worst atrocities are being committed by Islamic extremists and not those of some other faith. So far as I can tell, though, that's mostly because they happen to be at the front of the line at the moment. I don't think it's especially constructive to single them out, at least not if (as I think it might) it leads us to turn a blind eye away from other atrocities at the same time. I, for one, still think it's worryingly possible that twenty years from now, other countries will be discussing American atrocities exactly the same way we are now, and have at least as much of a moral reason to do so.

TWL

First, to Jerome Maida:

Who is 'we', white man?

"We" is "the people in this country [who] DO overwhelmingly want peace for us and for others." I thought that was quite clear.

Given your "it's our fault the terrorists hate us" point of view, then you're right.

Apparently you didn't notice nine posts earlier when Peter David said "what bothers me are people who fabricate positions for me and then put it in quotes to imply that I actually said it, when all it is is nonsense." (Yes, ElCoyote, I put his words in quotes, because he actually said them!) I never said it's our fault that the terrorists hate us. You beamed that out of thin air and then used this point of view you made up for me to attack my position as idiotic and uneducated. There are words for that. Eric Cartman calls shenanigans. Tim Lynch calls straw man. I call bullshit.

The war against terrorists is not one we chose. It was forced on us. And after September 11 we looked around and saw Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan taking credit for the attacks, we saw Pakistan continuing to shelter terrorists such as those who were behind the first attack on the World Trade Center, we saw North Korea continuing work on its nuclear program and threatening its neighbors, we saw Syria openly sponsoring terrorist organizations, we saw that most of the funding for terrorist cells comes from Arab royal families such as those in Saudi Arabia, so we declared that we were going to fight the terrorists and do everything in our power to stop them...

And then we buddied up with Pakistan, threw an underwhelming force at Afghanistan and turned our full attention to Iraq, far from the center of the world of terrorism, later more or less begging Saudi Arabia to step up oil production to help us out, allies that they are against terrorists). I don't feel a strong need to recite chapter and verse the lies of the current administration. I do feel a strong need to explain that I want our government, and the other governments of the world, to do everything in their power to stop terrorism (idiotic and uneducated as that point of view may be, Jerome). Instead, our leaders talked big about stopping terrorism and then greatly ignored its causes, its sources, and its leaders to commit everything we have to Iraq.

Terrorism is a real threat, and the desire for peace involves eliminating threats to the peace, which includes terrorism. Iraq is not the source of that terrorism. Invading Iraq has not hampered terrorism. Invading Iraq has not made us safer. Invading Iraq was not something done to protect the peace. It wasn't a strategic move. It wasn't done for the greater good. It was a purely militaristic move against the wrong enemy at the wrong time, and we will be paying the price for it for decades. Thousands of people die, the entire country is still largely anarchic, and the people leading this nation flatly insist that things are improving every day and everything is going great and anyone who disagrees is supporting terror.

Bottom line: Bush wanted war with Iraq long before September 11. The attacks just gave him an excuse. It's been all about war since the beginning. It was never about keeping us safe or stopping terrorism or any of the hundred other things they've said.

You say, "People with your point of view are not represented in our government to any measurable degree." I agree. And that's a shame for every one of us.

As for Luigi Novi... No, Al Qeada clearly doesn't want peace with us. I don't think we want peace with them either. If Al Qeada made peace overtures, I don't think the Bush administration would accept them, except under terms that would be flatly unacceptable. We did the same thing with Iraq, which didn't have the power to do anything more to threaten us than make faces at us and play cheerleader to Al Qeada, and then bombed the hell out of them. I ask, Why Iraq, rather than any one of a dozen other nations that are more of a source of terrorism? I have yet to hear an adequate, or even rational, explanation for this. I don't believe one exists.

Support the cause, hate the approach. Support the troops, hate the war. Support the government, hate the leaders. If only more people could see that these kinds of distinction are valid, more people would express their opinions about what's going on without having to worry about being branded as supporting terrorists just because they didn't fall lock in step with every word the government has said.

Tim,

As big an idiot as Pat Robertson is--and he's a BIG IDIOT, let nobody be mistaken on that--the "Nuke the state Department" comment was a typically stupid attempt at humor, like when Nina Totenberg wished that Jesse Helms or one of his grandkids would contract AIDS. "nuke" and "nuclear" has lost all meaning--I just read one commentary how Abortion Rights are "under nuclear attack". Dumb comment but I won't try to pretend that the writer (Marjorie Cohn) actually believes that radioactive fallout will be drifting down over NOW headquarters.

Robertson has done lots of idiotic things. He has been a bad influence on the Republican Party and the country in general. But...there's no "maybe" in the "maybe he doesn't have the blood of thousands on his hands" and I just wish all of us could reserve the labels for the many who have earned it. Robertson has earned the label of fool but putting him anywhere near the same level of mass murderers is like those conservatives who want to believe that Micahel Moore secretly wants to have all conservatives sent to consentration camps.

You're probably right that at this very moment, more of the worst atrocities are being committed by Islamic extremists and not those of some other faith. So far as I can tell, though, that's mostly because they happen to be at the front of the line at the moment. I don't think it's especially constructive to single them out, at least not if (as I think it might) it leads us to turn a blind eye away from other atrocities at the same time.

Ok, I know you aren't actually saying that it's wrong for us to be singling out those committing atrocities...I'm assuming you are saying that it is wrong to single out the fact that Islam may be a factor. But if we ignore that we might not be able to actually attack the root of the problem.

I don't know if what is needed is a Muslim Ghandi. I would suggest maybe another Ataturk or two.

Maybe Pat Robertson hasn't personally slaughtered anyone, but he had invested in a silver mine in Africa where human rights abuses were documented.

Pat's lost a lot of his fun for me. I used to loved listening to him in the 90s talk about how Y2K was the coming apocalypse and then in his next segment, start giving out long-term financial advice. As if that mattered if he truly thought the world was coming to an end in a few years.

As for Hannity, giving people blind quotes and then trying to trap them into a response is SOP for him. I've seen on Hannity and Sock Puppet pull similar things, like pull a quote from Kerry about Iraq and try to make the guest think it was from Bush so that they'd condemn it.

I guess that's easier that actually talking about ideas.

Maybe Pat Robertson hasn't personally slaughtered anyone, but he had invested in a silver mine in Africa where human rights abuses were documented.

Pat's lost a lot of his fun for me. I used to loved listening to him in the 90s talk about how Y2K was the coming apocalypse and then in his next segment, start giving out long-term financial advice. As if that mattered if he truly thought the world was coming to an end in a few years.

As for Hannity, giving people blind quotes and then trying to trap them into a response is SOP for him. I've seen on Hannity and Sock Puppet pull similar things, like pull a quote from Kerry about Iraq and try to make the guest think it was from Bush so that they'd condemn it.

I guess that's easier that actually talking about ideas.

Sorry about the double post. Typekey was being goofy again.

Luigi Novi,
Thanks for your reply. While I don't interpret the incident in question the same way you do, I can see how you would. Thanks.

Tim Lynch,
"And Jerome, while Craig can be a little extreme"

No.No. No. Using the term "master race" is more than a 'little extreme'. Please, Tim. If I or anyone posted that the increasing frequency of, say, interracial relationships was producing a "mongrel race", as was stated so frequently in the '60s, I don't think you or anyone else would consider that a "little extreme".
They would call it what it is - nasty, ugly, bigoted sludge.
But the target is Christians, whom it is clear from many of the postings here that many here truly despise. Not disagree with. Despise.
Because, again, using Nazi terminology to paint any group with that outrageous of a broad brush goes beyond the pale.
Seriously, Tim, while I disagree with you quite often, at least you usually - even in your moments of extreme anger - present a rational argument. You may be angry at times, but I have never found you to be hateful.
But when people say things like "Al-quaida would be as bad as Bush" (which someone else did, and which I have yet to see you or anyone except Luigi rebuke) and inject "master race" into the discussion, then not only do I find it impossible to take such people seriously, but I find such ugly hyperbole beneath contempt and feel perfectly justified in dismissing such outrageous arguments.
I have seen and heard a lot of ugliness lately, and I'm sick of it. One of the nicest people I've ever known surprised the hell out of me by using the term "ragheads" in describing Arabs. I find that offensive, as well as disappointing. One of my better friends is Iranian. She's absolutely one of the best people I know and now I have to wonder, if certain worlds collided, what the reaction would be. It is not uncommon, when back in my hometowm, to hear the N-word.
And I'm sick of it. Sick of it to death. The problem is many here, who freely understand why I would be upset with the previous two examples, of people who refuse to open their minds and see people as people, are quite silent when somone continuously bashes a group they DON'T LIKE, in this case Christians.
So instead of wasting my time and energy engaging someone who clearly doesn't care whether I do so or not, I will dismiss those who I feel add nothing but anger to the conversation and will choose to speak with those who actually have something to add to the discourse.
I consider you to be one of them, despite your occasional cheap shots at me. If you can understand what I'm saying, great. If not, well that's swell too.
Bigotry is ugly no matter who it's directed against.

Bill,

Robertson has done lots of idiotic things. He has been a bad influence on the Republican Party and the country in general. But...there's no "maybe" in the "maybe he doesn't have the blood of thousands on his hands" and I just wish all of us could reserve the labels for the many who have earned it.

The "maybe" wasn't meant to show I was uncertain about it -- it just seemed the best way to start the sentence, a la "Okay, so maybe I don't have statues devoted to me but I'm still a decent guy."

I will express mild skepticism, though, at dismissing the "nuke" comment as only a poor attempt at humor. It certainly was that, but I really wonder sometimes whether it was only that.

Ok, I know you aren't actually saying that it's wrong for us to be singling out those committing atrocities...I'm assuming you are saying that it is wrong to single out the fact that Islam may be a factor. But if we ignore that we might not be able to actually attack the root of the problem.

I'm not saying ignore it -- I'm saying give it the focus it deserves and no more. No disrespect intended to anyone here, but as far as my own personal safety is concerned I'm a lot more concerned with the way-out-there fanatics within Christianity than those within Islam.

I don't know if what is needed is a Muslim Ghandi. I would suggest maybe another Ataturk or two.

Not a bad idea -- and besides, he had an entire menagerie all called Abdul. :-) [A non-no-prize to anyone who gets THAT reference...]

TWL

Yes, Jerome, bigotry is ugly no matter who it's directed towards -- but I don't find Craig to be a bigot. And while it may break your heart to hear this, you're not the grand arbiter of who gets to be ignored and who doesn't.

Give me evidence of someone here "despising" Christians. Not "it's clear from the posts." Not more attempts to play the "Christians are poor put-upon victims even though they control the friggin' country" card. Evidence. Ev-I-Dence.

[And I love the condescension inherent in the "if you can understand what I'm saying" phrase, as if understanding what you're saying automatically means agreeing with it. Isn't that what you usually accuse us wacky liberals of doing?]

And so far as rebuking the al-Qaeda/Bush comparison ... sorry to keep you waiting. I don't think Bush is as bad as al-Qaeda -- but that doesn't mean my opposition to Bush, his cronies, and his policies is lessened in any way. I think that American culture is balanced on a knife-edge at the moment, and Bush is part of parcel of the group determined to force us down a very frightening path. Clearly you disagree. Fine. There it is.

As far as "outrageous arguments" that you like to dismiss offhand, though -- how about Ann Coulter suggesting that the NYT be blown up? How about Pat Robertson's "Foggy Bottom" quote? How about Limbaugh's frequent "feminazi" rhetoric, which is a hell of a lot more Nazi-invoking than Craig's phrase was? Going to rebuke any of them?

I can wait.

Oh, and by the way -- lots of Christians I know find Bush a far greater affront to their faith than anyone speaking out against him. Just a data point.

TWL

"Until some of you finally understand that Al Qeada truly is worse and more evil President Bush ever was or will be, the cause of peace will be delayed or even prevented."

I think we understand that.

Ok. I admit I wrote the post when I was tired and I was very reactionary. But I really do wonder at times if some who post on this site agree with you on this. I hope you are right.

Iowa Jim

A common mistake people make is to lump all "Christians" or "Moslems" into a common lump and assume that everyone in that lump believes in the exact same things. If history has shown us anything, is that both religions have split numerous times into a variety of factions and continue to do so in the modern era.

I notived recently that more and more liberally aligned Christian groups have gotten active in talking about religion and spiritually. Of course, the conversative Christians have immediately begun attacking them as not being being "true" Christians because the liberal groups would rather talk about feeding the poor instead of gay marriage.

i find it very interesting that whenever someone on the conservative side of the argument accuses someone on the liberal side of using hateful rhetoric, or an extreme position, the current method of "debate" is not to argue the merits of the position, but instead to trot out similar extreme positions from conservative pundits/politicians/etc. and visa versa. i see it all the time from the likes of sean hannity and michael moore.

"oh yeah, well your side is WORSE" has replaced reasoned debate of the issues. any position, even extreme ones, can be debated on merits, or lack thereof. but if i say someone is going too far in comparing bush to a nazi, replying by saying "oh yeah? well what about pat robertson?!" is not engaging in intelligent debate. this is part of the reason why political discussion in this country has become so polarized - we don't deal with the subjects as they are presented, we always try and deflect any criticism into an attack on the "other side". as if showing that the opponent is bad somehow proves that my side is good - it doesn't. all it does is leave both sides free to lob incendiary statements at each other, then when called on it, use it as an opportunity to accuse them and start the name calling.

sure makes it hard to have an honest debate about ideas, in my opinion...

Bob, your point is well taken -- but when someone claims to be against the hateful rhetoric but frequently quotes people who use it themselves, I don't think it's a particularly unreasonable stance to point out the hypocrisy. I hardly think my response can be summed up as "oh yeah? well what about pat robertson?" It's pointing out that if Jerome wants to decry people who haven't rebuked extreme positions taken by their "side", he should start in the mirror.

[And if you think that particular debate approach is limited to the liberal side, all I can say is that you haven't been here very long.]

If you think there's a specific position whose merits have not been argued, please speak up.

TWL

bob woodington:
"i find it very interesting that whenever someone on the conservative side of the argument accuses someone on the liberal side of using hateful rhetoric, or an extreme position, the current method of "debate" is not to argue the merits of the position, but instead to trot out similar extreme positions from conservative pundits/politicians/etc. and visa versa. i see it all the time from the likes of sean hannity and michael moore."

Total agreement here. I might lean more consertive on many issues, but this is exactly why I don't care for the "debates" on Hannity and Colmes. Both sides, although I will say I think that Alan Colmes is worse about it, use the "but your side is worse" arguement too much.

Hmmm, "but your side is worse..."

Is that the adult version of "I'm rubber, you're glue...."

"It's pointing out that if Jerome wants to decry people who haven't rebuked extreme positions taken by their "side", he should start in the mirror."

why? if i want to say that "marvel zombies" are overly antagonistic, why should i have to first acknowledge/explain how antagonistic "dc zombies" are? how do you even know that i am a dc fan? perhaps i prefer independents? instead, why not debate whether or not marvel fans are antagonistic? even if dc fans ARE just as bad, that doesn't excuse the actions of marvel fans. and inexcusable actions should be called out, regardless of whose side you're on.

the problem becomes this: if every time someone questions the actions of someone on your side, the only response is, "look in the mirror!", and both sides take this approach, then noones actions are ever truly questioned/debated.

"[And if you think that particular debate approach is limited to the liberal side, all I can say is that you haven't been here very long.]"

and i really do not intend to pick on you here, but this is EXACTLY what i'm talking about. did you read my post? i tried to make it very clear that this was something that BOTH sides of the argument are guilty of. i only started with the liberal side first because it was the most recent example, and, well, to make the example clear i only had two choices. and i immediately said "visa versa". but you made an assumption based upon how you read my post - that i thought the approach was limited to the "liberal" side. in a typical discussion, this would lead to me crying out "you're assuming that i'm a conservative! all of you liberals are ready to attack anyone who questions you", then you would follow with "it's really the conservatives (like a, b, c) who are the ones doing this", and it would go on ad infinitum.

and it's not solely used in a political sense either - i've seen it used here and in other places in talking about everything from religion ("religion a is committing atrocities", "oh yeah, well your religion has committed worse!") to comics ("kyle raynor is not worthy", "oh yeah, well hal jordan is worth less")...the concept of debate used to be about who could best support his/her argument with a combination of facts and logic. now, it seems to be about who can get in the best "counter attack", so instead of facts and logic we get duels.

again, if it seems like i'm directing this at you, well...i sort of am, but also at everyone else as well. it would be nice when someone attacks bush, for instance, if the response wasn't "well the liberals want....", and instead was an attempt at a reasonable assessment if the attack on bush has merit or not.

"If you think there's a specific position whose merits have not been argued, please speak up."

i have lurked here for quite awhile, so if it seems like i am jumping in here abruptly, i apologize. the problem i'd have on a thread like this is figuring out where to jump in - there have been so many "counter-attack" positions flying here that it would be nigh impossible to pick one to begin discussing without getting in the cross-fire of the back-and-forth.

besides, if i'm critical of a liberal, i will be painted as a ditto-headed conservative. if i'm critical of a conservative, i'll be painted as a pinko liberal. if i try to maintain a moderate stance, the extreme ends of the debate will prompt me to pick one end over the other, leading to one of the first two problems. so i decided to simply "speak up" on the merits of debate, and see if that has any legs...

-b

Both sides, although I will say I think that Alan Colmes is worse about it, use the "but your side is worse" arguement too much.

See, on the other hand, whenever I've watched Hannity and Sock Puppet, I wonder if Colmes is even allowed to talk at all. I've seen a number of episodes where the sock puppet has sat there quietly while Hannity and the conservative guest gang up on the liberal guest.

As far as I can tell, Alan "sock puppet" Colmes's main job on the show is to announce the commercial breaks..

Actually, I have a question for Tim about this response (to keep his remarks in some context, I'm including what he's responding to):

"Ok, I know you aren't actually saying that it's wrong for us to be singling out those committing atrocities...I'm assuming you are saying that it is wrong to single out the fact that Islam may be a factor. But if we ignore that we might not be able to actually attack the root of the problem.

I'm not saying ignore it -- I'm saying give it the focus it deserves and no more. No disrespect intended to anyone here, but as far as my own personal safety is concerned I'm a lot more concerned with the way-out-there fanatics within Christianity than those within Islam."

With regards to the bold part, I have to ask what threats to your safety are there from Christian extremists that outweigh threats from extremists who follow other religions? Or are you including threats to your political freedoms, which are markedly different, if not incomparable, to threats to personal safety from terrorists? After reading that President Bush actually supports further discussion of Intelligent Design in public schools, I can understand feeling that there are certain fundamental things being threatened these days, like proven scientific theories (Why, George, why? Do you delight in making it that much harder to find something to be positive about in this term?), but is it really appropriate to make a leap from religious battles in political processes to suicide bombers?

Crap, just realized "proven scientific theories" would be more appropriately phrased "generally-accepted, widely-held, able-to-withstand-true-scientific-analysis theories," because I understand that Human Evolution technically hasn't been proven in certain regards due to, you know, our inability to dig up the entire global fossil record to do so.

Jason,

With regards to the bold part, I have to ask what threats to your safety are there from Christian extremists that outweigh threats from extremists who follow other religions?

To answer the part I didn't include, no, I'm not particularly referring to "threats to political freedoms" here, though I'd be lying if I thought that wasn't part of my thought process at all.

In terms of physical threats: I teach physics and astronomy, including cosmology when I get a chance. My wife is an evolutionary biologist. Many hardcore fundamentalists see both of those as intrinsically evil, and I believe there are documented cases of some biologists getting death threats for teaching evolution.

Christian extremists tend to bomb things like Planned Parenthood centers, which I'm probably more likely to be in than something like the WTC or the Pentagon.

Lastly ... as Bill alluded to before, it's a question of numbers. If I'm living in a predominantly Christian community, there are undoubtedly more way-out-there fanatics near me who call themselves Christian than there are comparable ones who call themselves Muslim. It's simply a matter of scale: if I were living someplace else, I'd almost assuredly think differently.

TWL

Micha: One last word in defence of the Inquisition. The Inquisition was created to deal with christians who deviated from the Catholic doctrine (heretics), not people who were non Christians. It did not persecute Jews and Muslims in Spain, but Jews and Muslims who converted to Christianity but kept practicing their old religions in secret.
Luigi Novi: Which is still persecution. Why, after all, should anyone care how someone practices their religion, or which religion they practice in secret? Indeed, why do you think Jews converted to begin with? Could it have been that they feared how Jews were being treated? Detractors called converted Jews Marranos, a pejorative word that can also be translated "pigs". The Inquisition started by targeting Conversos (Jews converted to Christianity) in Seville, and tribunals were established in quick succession at Cordova, Jaen, and Ciudad Real, followed by Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia. Between 1486-1492, 25 auto-da-fes (ritual public penance or humiliation of condemned heretics and apostates) were held in Toledo alone, and there would eventually be over 464 auto-da-fes targeting Jews between 1481 and 1826. In total, more than 13,000 Conversos were tried from 1480-1492. The Inquisition against the Conversos culminated in the expulsion of all of the Jews from Spain in 1492.

And remember, the Inquisition was charged with suppressing heresy. Heresy, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is a "theological or religious opinion or doctrine maintained in opposition, or held to be contrary, to the ‘catholic’ or orthodox doctrine of the Christian Church, or, by extension, to that of any church, creed, or religious system, considered as orthodox. By extension, [heresy is an] opinion or doctrine in philosophy, politics, science, art, etc., at variance with those generally accepted as authoritative." Heresy, therefore, doesn’t refer merely to Christians converted from Judaism.

Jerome, you’re welcome. But if you’re referring to the incident with the radio caller, I’d be curious to see how you’d interpret it, especially if you heard it yourself.

Ack. My response above (which begins with Luigi Novi:) should not be in bold.

Jason, you've just illustrated the basic confusion that the anti-science crowd creates over what is "just a theory." 99% of what is taught in science class is "just a theory", but they are theories that have withstood rigorous examination. Of course, the anti-science crowd doesn't acknowledge that. They keep repeating the "just a theory" mantra because they know that that lay audiences put a different degree of certainty to the meaning of the word theory than scientists do.

The most frightening thing that I can think of, the thought that keeps me up at night more than Operation Fix Daddy's Mistake is that the 21st century is going to be dominated by the country that most advances in the fields of biology, medicine, pharmacology, communications, engineering. Just as this is becoming obvious even to the average kindergarten student, though, America has been taken over by the single most anti-science administration in the history of this country.

Bob,

I feel a bit as if I'm bashing my head against a wall here, but I'll see if we can reach some common ground.

Me:
"It's pointing out that if Jerome wants to decry people who haven't rebuked extreme positions taken by their "side", he should start in the mirror."

Bob:
why? if i want to say that "marvel zombies" are overly antagonistic, why should i have to first acknowledge/explain how antagonistic "dc zombies" are? how do you even know that i am a dc fan?

Bad analogy. Jerome has self-identified as a Republican and a Bush supporter many, many times. It's not, at present, the multipolar discussion you propose here.

even if dc fans ARE just as bad, that doesn't excuse the actions of marvel fans. and inexcusable actions should be called out, regardless of whose side you're on.

Um ... did I in fact say or imply otherwise? You'll note that I did respond to the rest of the post as well, Bob -- it's not nearly as "nyah-nyah-you're-worse" as you seem to be reading.

the problem becomes this: if every time someone questions the actions of someone on your side, the only response is, "look in the mirror!", and both sides take this approach, then noones actions are ever truly questioned/debated.

And right there is where we differ: the word "only." I agree with you that such an approach is bad. I do not agree that I, or others, have used such an approach as our ONLY response to any given post all or even most of the time. (Occasionally, I wouldn't be surprised; I'm human, as I assume everyone else here is.)

I think you've got a bit of a blind spot here: when you see someone use a technique you don't like, you're immediately assuming that's all they're doing, when the facts of the case show otherwise.

Me:
"[And if you think that particular debate approach is limited to the liberal side, all I can say is that you haven't been here very long.]"

Bob:
and i really do not intend to pick on you here, but this is EXACTLY what i'm talking about. did you read my post?

Yes, I did. You started out with a clear "liberals do this in response to being challenged", and all your examples were used to support that assertion. A hasty "and vice versa" without any examples does not an equal-opportunity criticism make, Bob.

i have lurked here for quite awhile, so if it seems like i am jumping in here abruptly, i apologize. the problem i'd have on a thread like this is figuring out where to jump in - there have been so many "counter-attack" positions flying here that it would be nigh impossible to pick one to begin discussing without getting in the cross-fire of the back-and-forth.

You're gonna have to start somewhere, kiddo. :-) We all did, once upon a time.

I hope my previous post (to Jason) satisfies your criteria for being an actual discussion rather than a discussion about the discussion. If not ... well, I tried.

TWL

"the single most anti-science administration in the history of this country."

that's a pretty bold statement - more anti-science than benjamin harrison's? or grover cleveland's? are you basing that on comparison of presidential administrations, or simply hyperbole because you don't like bush?

and i wouldn't worry about the 21st century - we're only 5 years into it...

-b

Tim: I did not realize your personal situation with regards to the issue and your focusing more on the "trouble where you live" versus "total global problem" perspectives. While I would argue there's still a big-picture difference between the more infrequent terrorist acts of pro-life extremists versus a too-frequent global terrorist campaign, both groups are pretty much the worst of the worst, no matter what scale we're talking about. And thank you to you and your wife for teaching what you teach; as Den points out, it's scary how much true scientific education and progress is under attack these days (Den: I hope the sarcasm in my little correction was evident. Like I mentioned way above in a previous post in talking about scientific paradigms, I know how insidious the argument about not being able to prove a theory 100% versus 99.9% truly is).

that's a pretty bold statement - more anti-science than benjamin harrison's? or grover cleveland's? are you basing that on comparison of presidential administrations, or simply hyperbole because you don't like bush?

Would it make you feel better if I just said, "single most anti-science administration in my lifetime"? Either way, this administration is very hostile to science in particular and scholarship in general.

and i wouldn't worry about the 21st century - we're only 5 years into it...

Worry. Tomorrow's scientists are today's grade school students. And with science education under constant assault, you can bet we will be having a serious brain-deficit over the next 20 years. Already our educational standards lag behind those of many third-world nations and it's getting worse. The current administration did not start this downward spiral, but they are doing their best to hurry it along.

Actually, Bob, National Geographic ran an article about stem cell research last month as a cover story. In it they reported about the flight of researchers in stem cell and related fields to other countries that are being more progressive. The U.S. still maintains a slight edge as the orginator of the field, but if current policies stand, within a few years countries like Singapore and the UK will have a decided advantage moving forward in the development of related medical treatments. As for the "debate" over Intelligent Design versus Evolution, it's not just an attempt to keep new science suppressed; it's an effort to promote bad junk science (if you can even call a thinly-veiled version of Creationism "science" at all) as a valid scientific theory, even though it doesn't stand up to the rigorous scientific process that's at the heart of modern science education. How are we going to be a global leader in the science of tomorrow if we chase away the best talent in the world in developing fields and teach our future scientists the wrong things today?

Kill them all and let God sort them out. Hell no you do not work with those bastards. Here's an idea give them a country where they can all gather and pray to Allah! Just when we get them all in the same place Nuke the suckers....

sorry to be causing head pains, tim, that was not my intention. and since i know i'm beating a dead horse hear, i'll only give it one or two more thumps and move on...:)

tim:
"Bad analogy. Jerome has self-identified as a Republican and a Bush supporter many, many times. It's not, at present, the multipolar discussion you propose here."

i still think the analogy is apt. even if i am a diehard dc fan, that doesn't mean i have to explain the actions of all other dc fans before being allowed to be critical marvel fans. nor does my dc fandom mean that my criticisms are invalid.

tim:
"Um ... did I in fact say or imply otherwise? You'll note that I did respond to the rest of the post as well, Bob -- it's not nearly as "nyah-nyah-you're-worse" as you seem to be reading."

again, i was speaking in generalities, not trying to specifically attack you. but it is also true that when those "nyah-nyah-you're-worse" lines are included, often the rest of the post is ignored - they tend to be inflammatory.

tim:
"I think you've got a bit of a blind spot here: when you see someone use a technique you don't like, you're immediately assuming that's all they're doing, when the facts of the case show otherwise."

this is a fair criticism, since it is similar to what i'm complaining about. but in my defense, this thread started as a intriguing discussion on if and how we should deal with terrorists, and has quickly morphed into yet another "liberals vs. conservatives" and "christians vs. non-christians" thread, mostly because of the type of thing contributing to my blind spot. but as i said, this will be my last diatribe on the subject, so i appreciate the indulgence...:)

tim:
"Yes, I did. You started out with a clear "liberals do this in response to being challenged", and all your examples were used to support that assertion. A hasty "and vice versa" without any examples does not an equal-opportunity criticism make, Bob."

*sigh*. i was trying to make a point, not highlight liberals. if i reworded my post the opposite way to read "conservatives do this in response to being challenged, and visa versa", would that be better? my entire point was that both extremes use this method - in fact, not all my examples were pro-conservative - i highlighted sean hannity (one of the worst offenders with this) when giving examples. i have a bad tendency to be extremely long-winded when posting, so sometimes try to make my examples as simple as possible. but we are so accustomed to people taking sides that when we see only one side being highlighted, the immediate assumption is that it's an attack from the other side...

tim:
"You're gonna have to start somewhere, kiddo. :-) We all did, once upon a time."

yes, well, i guess it's too late now to hide under a lurking rock - i suspect i'm all in now...:)

tim:
"I hope my previous post (to Jason) satisfies your criteria for being an actual discussion rather than a discussion about the discussion. If not ... well, I tried."

not that my blessing really means anything, except to me, but yes, i thought it was a great response. not that i necessarily agree with your answers, mind you, but that's a discussion for another post. ;)

-b

jason:

well, that's two different issues. the second issue, dealing with trying to force "intelligent design" into biology curriculum, is right now a solely local issue - being handled by state and local governments. if there is any sort of federal law that the administration is pushing related to this i am unaware of it. bush may believe in intelligent design, but as an administration i don't know of anything that he is specifically doing to promote it, so that criticism is unfair. (feel free to correct me if there is some sort of legislation or doe action being taken)

the stem cell issue is not entirely a scientific issue - there are moral issues involved, because we are dealing with unborn children. i do not intend for this to devolve into a "when life begins/abortion" debate - i only mention it because there are moral issues involved. therefore, being opposed to fetal stem cell research does not necessarily make you anti-science. it is actually the same type of moral issue that has resulted in making human cloning illegal in the u.s. (something that far fewer people are upset about) - and the science for that is going overseas as well. the saddest thing is that BOTH sides of the stem cell debate are ignoring a potentially HUGE source of fetal stem cells that would have NONE of the moral implications - umbilical cords. when we had our children, we tried to find someplace to donate the umbilical cords - which contain stem cells - but you cannot donate umbilical cords without paying for their storage - which costs more than a thousand dollars. regardless, the stem cell debate isn't really about science, or anti-science, it's really about abortion, which explains it's politicizing...

-b

Hey, here's a change of pace...watch me as I defend Bush (watch close, this won't happen often).

From the AP report I've read, Bush didn't say "boo" about intelligent design, or what his personal stance is on the creation of all things. He, rather cleverly I might add, avoided answering a direct question by rephrasing the question to "you're asking me." So he changed the question to "do you support the teaching of alternative ideas," or something like that, and he answered that question in the affirmative. If he said more than that, AP left out those quotes, but was quick to state that Bush supported teaching Intelligent Design in schools. Which is not really what he said.

I actually don't really have a problem with intelligent design. As I understand things, ID isn't quite the same as Creationism. Strict Creationism says the Earth is at most 15,000 years old, and that it was created in 6 literal days (144 hours). ID more generically states that the order and complexity of life is too structured to have just happened by chance, that the only possible way a system as diverse and complex could have developed was if there was some intelligence guiding it. The way I look at it, where evolution stops, ID picks up. Evolution can tell you what species are doing, see traits between species as they evolve, but it can only go so far back. It can't tell you why some species succeed and others don't. It can just tell you what happened, not the why. ID attempts to explain the why.

den,

actually, yes, i would prefer that, because making baseless statements tend to make one wonder if the rest of your assertions are baseless as well.

besides, when talking "pro-science", or "anti-science", it is easier to quantify when you say "in my lifetime" as opposed to "the history of this country", since our country didn't really fund very much science until the 20th century. and much of the funding of the sciences in the 20th century was because of the cold war - federal funding of the physical sciences and space science has been mostly flat since the cold war ended, presidential administration notwithstanding.

now that we have your assertion to a more quantifiable level, do you have any evidence of that? or are you just talking about a few particular things that bush is not supporting?

i did some checking, and found that bush isn't really "anti-science", at least not if you look at the numbers - he has increased funding for science, research, development, etc. significantly over recent presidents. however, he has skewed a higher percentage of the funding towards science/research with a military application than clinton did (who had moved it to more of a 50/50 split of civilian/military spending). but that weight towards science with military applications is nothing new, really, at least in the last 60 years of federal funding of "science" (which is a very broad term - it includes so many disciplines that it makes it difficult to boil down to a simple phrase like "anti-science", in my opinion). he has limited stem cell research, but he did complete a doubling of the budget of the NIH that began in the clinton administration. he has proposed manned missions to the moon and mars, which has greatly excited the astronomy/space community, but his other non-science activities do threaten the funding. at my initial glance, it seems like a mixed bag - not clearly worse than any other recent president, but i'd be more than happy to see any data you have suggesting otherwise...

-b

Bob,

First, in response to a different post -- this particular member of the astronomy/space-science community is not especially excited by the Moon-Mars push Bush is shilling for without actually PROVIDING a shilling for. Nor are friends of mine who work at JPL. That's some data -- anecdotal to be sure, but certainly contradicting the generalization you were making.

I would also suggest that you not only look at Bush's financial record vis-a-vis science (though that's valid, with the caveat that inflationary pressures make it likely that EVERY president increases funding over the previous one), but at what he says and what he and his associates do. When scientific essays written at the EPA are expressly and explicitly rewritten by the political appointees who reside higher up the food chain, it shows a deep misunderstanding of and/or disrespect for the scientific process -- and that ends-over-means approach is at least as damaging in the long run as a funding cut.

As to the only thing we really need to go back to in your response to me...

*sigh*. i was trying to make a point, not highlight liberals. if i reworded my post the opposite way to read "conservatives do this in response to being challenged, and visa versa", would that be better?

No. If you want to get across the point that both extremes use the method, why not START your point by saying just that? "It seems that both sides do X -- when liberals are accused by conservatives of Y they do Z, and when conservatives are ...etc. etc. etc." Very parallel and clearly even-handed; anyone who'd misread THAT isn't doing much beyond injecting their own biases. Your initial post didn't lend itself to that clear presentation.

TWL

As someone who loves teaching evolution more than pretty much any other subject, I have to roll my eyes at the Intelligent Design debate. On the one hand, I want to deny the creationists any victory however puny. On the other hand, at least with ID you will actually be teaching evolution, as opposed to ignoring it entirely, as some would have us do.

Since ID has more to do with the origin of life itself and not Darwinian evolution, it is somewhat limited in its harmfulness. At any rate, the only kids who ever give me any grief at all on evolution or geology are not the ones I expect to go into the hard sciences anyway. I'm not to worried about the future--however many scientists run off to practice stem cell research in Pago Pago will be more than offset by the 13 skidillion geniuses from India who come in every year. Now if we start keeping out immigrants, THEN I start to worry.

And maybe it's just me being the pain in the ass that I am but I'm actually looking forward to spending a few class periods teaching evolution and ending it with the straightest face possible--"Then again, maybe something designed it. Intelligently." Because, frankly, there isn't much else to say about it, no experiments, no evidence, nothing. Maybe I'll give some time to ancient Budhist ideas about the Earth resting on the back of a giant turtle. It'll be fun.

Funding means nothing. Look at results. We've got the continuation of a Shuttle program (not all Bush's fault...he didn't order a fleet of what was supposed to be a test vehicle) that's 20 years beyond it's productive life. We've got an adminstration call to go to the Moon (and Mars), when we can't even get an unmanned sattelite to land safely (both a Mars and Earth science sattellite crashed horribly because of faults...if you count the dual Mars rovers as a single mission, we're 1 for 3 in recent years). We've got the EPA hog-tied on major issues of science...things like the effects of global warming, pushing for better controls on pollutant emissions...because the administration doctors the science reports to not contradict the words coming out of Bush's mouth. Then there's No Child Left Behind...or as my in-law parents call it, No Idiot Left Behind. Which all but forces schools to focus more on the slower students, and since NCLB is yet another Federal mandate that didn't come with Federal $, schools are forced to sacrifice the kids at the top of the grade curve. We aren't allowing tomorrow's scientists to develop, because we're forced to spend what little resources we have on the kids that either don't care to, or simply can't, meet standards. Or we just cheat.

Sure, Bush increased spending on research for the existing stem cell lines, which is good. But when "I spent more on stuff we were already doing" is your greatest accomplishment when it comes to the science arena, you've got some issues.

Yeesh, Bill, you stole my post. That's about the length of the ID discussion I can see in school. You could spend a week on evolution...ok, years...and sum up ID in 5 words.

With regards to the bold part, I have to ask what threats to your safety are there from Christian extremists that outweigh threats from extremists who follow other religions.

If you happen to be a woman, the threat posed to your body by some Christian extremists may seem pretty immediate. Or if you're gay, for that matter.

I think the people in Africa dying of AIDS because Christian extremists pressure the US government to cut off funding to reproductive health programs have a pretty good beef, too.

Well Bob, as Tim as already noted, the moon/Mars initiative has, in fact, not excited the astronomy/space community because it's all hot air. Like the way Bush does his AIDS in Africa initiatives and his "No Child Left Behind" program, it's long on vague rhetoric, but short on real, tangible actions.

And no, I'm not impressed by his military-based research funding. There are more efficient ways to find cures for disease than waiting for an idea to trickle out of the Pentagon.

There is also more to science than just government funding. The moral tone of this administration has been overwhelmingly anti-science and pro-ignorance. Whether the issue is stem cell research, evolution, the environment, or ignoring the diagnosis of every doctor that has actually exmined a patient in favor of six seconds of carefully edited video tape, this administration has stood against the scientific community on virtually every issue.

And not isn't hyperbole, okay?

From the AP report I've read, Bush didn't say "boo" about intelligent design, or what his personal stance is on the creation of all things.

Actually, when asked about evolution, he said something to the effect of, "The jury is still out on exactly how God created the universe."

Not biased at all.

Kill them all and let God sort them out.

"Caedite eos! Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius!"

The original quote comes from the Albigensian Crusade, which set out to wipe out the Cathar heresy in France. It was spoken by Abbot Arnaud-Amaury during the siege of Béziers, in which 10,000 citizens were slaughtered in a search for less than 500 Cathars.

It's not a very sound policy.

i only mention it because there are moral issues involved. therefore, being opposed to fetal stem cell research does not necessarily make you anti-science.

If one opposes stem-cell research on moral grounds, one should oppose in-vitro fertilization (the source of all these spare embeyos) on the same grounds. I have yet to hear any politicians express such opposition.

First, with regards to the Intelligent Design issue, FoxNews.com's headline is "Bush Backs Intelligent Design" - and here's the cut-and-paste from it:

During a round-table interview with reporters from five Texas newspapers, Bush declined to go into detail on his personal views of the origin of life. But he said students should learn about both ideas, Knight Ridder Newspapers reported.

"I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought," Bush said. "You're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, the answer is yes."

The theory of intelligent design says life on earth is too complex to have developed through evolution, implying that a higher power must have had a hand in creation.

I will agree that, no, he did not expressly say "Hells yeah, that Intelligent Design stuff is great learnin' for the kids." (Geez, I will admit I'm pissed and not overly objective when I'm the one making fun of President Bush's way of speaking...), but his comments, no matter how phrased, were in the context of the issue of Intelligent Design being taught in schools. And the problem with Intelligent Design is that it attempts to explain not a scientific why, but the big macro Why. Science is about explaining the how's, what's and why's within a system or intermixed group of systems; just because we haven't figured out how to explain why certain characteristics and the species that have them survived in the evolutionary process doesn't mean we get to start saying it must be due to an unseen intelligent force, despite no evidence to the contrary. And the result appearing to be an Intelligent Design doesn't actually prove that it is. If I throw several toothpicks on the floor, and they all happen to fall into perfect geometric patterns, someone could come along and say that those shapes, since they are an Intelligent Design, must have been created using Intelligent Design, when in actuality they fell that way by pure chance. Look, I believe God is responsible for everything, which includes the processes science attempts to explain. The challenge of science is that we don't get to say "well, it's too hard or it's taking too long or it's not 100% proven, so we can just go back to saying that things go into this box, something magic happens in a nondenominational way, and out pops the result I can't scientifically explain."

Second, with the Stem Cell debate, it is relevant in that there are lots of scientific fields that involve morality. Every medical treatment available today at some point underwent human testing that involved some form of ethics and morality. Einstein was keenly aware of what his research into atomic reactions would lead to, and said as much at the first testing. The necessity of having a moral debate about an emerging science does not preclude us from making progress in that science. The scary part about stem cell research (and cloning, as you point out) is that the administration is not actively encouraging debate; it's only reacting when forced and delaying our ability as a society to constructively debate the moral issue and reach some kind of conclusion.

If one opposes stem-cell research on moral grounds, one should oppose in-vitro fertilization (the source of all these spare embeyos) on the same grounds. I have yet to hear any politicians express such opposition.

That's because in-vitro helps wealthy couples conceive a child. Stem cell research involves the part of in-vitro that most people don't want to think about: what happens to the leftover embryos.

ID attempts to explain the why.

But it does not attempt to do so in a manner that can be tested. "God did it" is not a falsifiable hypothesis. It therefore isn't science and has no place in a science classroom.

In science, if you don't have enough evidence to draw a conclusion, you just say so. You don't assume that it was magic.

The problem with teaching ID in a science class (as opposed to a philosophy or comparative religion class) is that it isn't science. In order for an idea to be considered a scientific hypothesis, it has to be falsifiable. In other words, there has to be some test that you can subject it to in order to attempt to disprove it (note that real scientists never speak in terms of "proving" a theory. A theory is either disproven or it's "supported by available evidence").

"Life is too complicated, therefore, it must have been designed by some intelligence," is a philosophical statement, not a scientific theory. What kind of test can you devise to disprove the existence of this intelligence*? Answer: none. Therefore, it's not science.

*I'll note the most ID proponents are careful not to claim that this intelligence is the Judeo-Christian God, unless of course, someone suggests that it could be Odin or Buddha.

If I throw several toothpicks on the floor, and they all happen to fall into perfect geometric patterns, someone could come along and say that those shapes, since they are an Intelligent Design, must have been created using Intelligent Design, when in actuality they fell that way by pure chance.

Your illustration cannot be farther from the truth. The people pushing ID have developed an extensive methodology to allow ID to be tested. Read Dembski's book "Intelligent Design" or Behe's book "Darwin's Black Box." Dembski in particular has done a lot of work to give a scientifically based system of evaluating whether or not design is present. You may disagree with his methods and conclusion, but it is grossly unfair to say those who believe in ID have not applied the rules of science to the process. They do not say design is true because the Bible says so, but because the evidence itself if looked at in any other situation would clearly point to design. So unless you by defnition insist a designer could not exist, they believe the evidence would insist that a designer was the only way it could happen.

The reality is, evolution has yet to give an explanation of how life first formed. The "gods of the gaps" for evolution is "time and chance." Since we are here, it therefore must have happened. Yet the most basic sequencing of our DNA requires a complexity that has yet to be explained. My question is this: How did chemical molecules organize into the first living cell?

Here is the argument an intelligent design video I watched made on the issue:

They interviewed Dean Kenyon. He is (or at least was when the video was made) Professor of biology (emeritus) at San Francisco State University. Back in the 1960’s, he was a firm believer in chemical evolution. He co-authored the book Biochemical Predestination. In the book, he laid out his theory that life was biochemically predestined by the properties of attraction between its chemical parts (primarily the amino acids that form proteins). The book was widely accepted and was used as a textbook for 20 years.

But soon after the book was published, Kenyon began to doubt his own theory. He found he could not answer a challenge from a student: How could the first protein have been assembled without the help of genetic instructions?

In all living cells we can observe today chains of amino acids are not formed directly by forces of attraction between their parts. Instead, the DNA stores the assembly instructions. This posed a problem for Kenyon since any natural process could not explain the property of DNA having such information. The DNA chemical code is the most densely packed and elaborately detailed assembly of information in the known universe. Even the
information in the DNA of the simplest cell would fill 100’s of pages of text.

The challenge comes down to two options: Where did the assembly instructions come from, or how did proteins form directly from amino acids without DNA in the primeval ocean and do so in a way that it could form a self replicating structure? The odds of it happening by chance
alone are astronomically high, and most experts (including most evolutionists) believe that there had to be some mechanism. The mechanism normally suggested is a form of natural selection. But this is a problem since by definition natural selection is not possible without self-replication, which would require DNA.

Based on this evidence, Dean Kenyon began to be open to the idea of intelligent design, and currently feels it is the best explanation for the evidence.

I understand the necessity to not rely on a "god of the gaps" to simply explain away anything we don't understand. ID is not, in my opinion, simply punting and saying it is "god." Instead, it is saying that based on the known laws of the universe that we can observe, ID is the best answer. This is not based on just one issue (such as my question about the origin of the first cell), but on a string of issues that consistently show design. If that then forces us to ask the bigger question, who is the designer, then it should. Science should not avoid that question if the evidence demands it be asked. In my opinion, it is not just demanding it, it requires it.

Iowa Jim

Iowa Jim, what is the exact primary thesis of Intelligent Design? Can it be proven false? What is the scientific methodology that ID proponents use to test this thesis? And what other evidence do they use besides the astronomical odds of something happening randomly?

Actually, I decided not to be lazy and looked at Wikipedia's entry for it. A couple of highlights:

While the scientific theory of evolution by natural selection has observable and repeatable facts to support it such as the process of mutations, gene flow, genetic drift, adaptation and speciation through natural selection, the "Intelligent Designer" in ID is neither observable nor repeatable. This violates the scientific requirement of falsifiability. ID violates Occam's Razor by postulating an entity or entities to explain something that may have a simpler and scientifically supportable explanation not involving unobservable help.

Critics point to the fact that implicit in ID is a redefinition of natural science,[3] and cite books and statements of principal ID proponents calling for the elimination of "methodological naturalism" from science.[4] Natural science uses the scientific method to create a posteriori knowledge based on observation alone (sometimes called empirical science). Critics of ID consider the idea that some outside intelligence created life on Earth to be a priori (without observation) knowledge. ID proponents cite some complexity in nature that cannot yet be fully explained by the scientific method. (For instance, abiogenesis, the generation of life from non-living matter, is not completely understood scientifically, although the first stages have been reproduced in the Miller-Urey experiment.) ID proponents infer that an intelligent designer is behind the part of the process that is not understood scientifically. Since the designer cannot be observed, it is a priori knowledge.

This a priori inference that an intelligent designer (God or an alien life force[5]) created life on Earth has been compared to the a priori claim that aliens helped the ancient Egyptians build the pyramids[6]. In both cases, the effect of this outside intelligence is not repeatable, observable, or falsifiable, and it violates Occam's Razor as well. Empirical scientists would simply say "we don't know exactly how the Egyptians built the pyramids" and list what is known about Egyptian construction techniques...

Religion and leading ID proponents
Intelligent design arguments are carefully formulated in secular terms and intentionally avoid positing the identity of the designer. Phillip E. Johnson has stated that cultivating ambiguity by employing secular language in arguments which are carefully crafted to avoid overtones of theistic creationism is a necessary first step for ultimately introducing the Christian concept of God as the designer. Johnson emphasizes "the first thing that has to be done is to get the Bible out of the discussion" and that "after we have separated materialist prejudice from scientific fact." only then can "biblical issues" be discussed.[9] Johnson explicitly calls for ID proponents to obfuscate their religious motivations so as to avoid having ID recognized "as just another way of packaging the Christian evangelical message."[10] Though not all ID proponents are theistic or motivated by religious fervor, the majority of the principal ID advocates (including Michael Behe, William Dembski, Jonathan Wells, and Stephen C. Meyer) are Christians and have stated that in their view the designer of life is clearly God.

[edit]
What Intelligent Design is not
Intelligent Design is not and does not claim to be an alternative theory replacing mutations, gene flow, genetic drift, natural selection, or speciation. All of these have been observed in laboratories and in the field. For example, humans have themselves created many new species and have observed new species appearing in nature.[11] This is contrary to how ID is sometimes characterized by both supporters and critics.

I admit to reading quickly, so some of this may be out of a proper context.

How did chemical molecules organize into the first living cell?

We don't know.

How hard is that to accept? We may know someday, but when we do, from a scientific standpoint, it will be through observation of NATURAL phenomena bound by natural laws.

That's the thing: science deals with the NATURAL world, and relies on the assumption that the physical world is bound by physical laws. In order for there to scientifically-valid evidence of an Intellegent Designer(tm), that designer would ALSO have to be bound by physical laws, something few IDers would be willing to accept. You MIGHT be able to prove life on Earth was created by a race of highly-advanced aliens, but not a super-natural being. Once you open the possibility of an agency which can change or ignore the laws of physics, it becomes impossible to test.

Or, like they said on the Simpsons: "A wizard did it!"

If you look at the history of the creation debate, you can see an amazing lineage of backpedaling.

"God created the universe in seven days in 4004 BC!"

"OK, maybe not 4004 BC, but only a few thousand years, and he created every animal as it exists today!"

"OK, maybe some animals adapted after God created them, but they never became new species! And people were created special!"

"OK, maybe there are new species, but that's only microevolution. There is no macroevolution! All those ape-like hominids are either just apes or deforemed humans!"

"OK, maybe there is macroevolution, and maybe the world is millions of years old, and maybe man evolved too, but God was the one who created life in the first place!"

The people pushing ID have developed an extensive methodology to allow ID to be tested. Read Dembski's book "Intelligent Design" or Behe's book "Darwin's Black Box." Dembski in particular has done a lot of work to give a scientifically based system of evaluating whether or not design is present. You may disagree with his methods

Jim, no. Please. You are simply wrong in this.

Dembski has been CONTINUALLY asked to use his filter to determine what is and what is not designed. He has flatly refused to field test his methods in the real world (let alone get to the point where others besides himself can take his methodology and apply it to the real world).

You may have been told otherwise, but the fact is that there has been NO lab work done on either irreduceable complexity OR CSI.

Using the term "master race" is more than a 'little extreme'.

Hardly.

A "master race", in this case, would be that everybody were Christians, good or otherwise, honest or hypocritical. And there are plenty of all of those to go around.

But when some Christians are trying to use their position to undermine the country and the thoughts of the people in the country, you have to wonder what they're trying to accomplish.

I wouldn't call subverting public opinion on things such as morals and marriage, and Christianity's role in those things, as being noble.

The goal is for God in the classroom, in the home, and throughout government. It's to ban abortion, deny equal rights to gays, and more.

It's not entirely about helping the poor, keeping immoral and harmful corporations from overrunning our lives, etc.

I haven't read Dembski's book (and am not likely to have the time to do so in the near future), but one quote of his in particular stands out for me. Dembski (at least as quoted by Wikipedia) says that ID's fundamental axiom is

"there are natural systems that cannot be adequately explained in terms of undirected natural forces and that exhibit features which in any other circumstance we would attribute to intelligence."

My question to Jim, or to anyone, is this: how in the world can you establish a clear, falsifiable test for the proposition that some systems cannot be adequately explained? The converse of the statement is "every natural system can be adequately explained," and the only way to verify that is to take an infinite amount of time to check every one.

It's rather like the claim "there is intelligent life in the universe somewhere other than Earth." While it's a very tempting claim (and something I suspect many of us would like to believe is true, myself included), it does not pass the test as a scientific claim: there is no way to falsify it that does not take an infinite amount of time. It doesn't make it an invalid belief ... but it means it is a belief, not a statement of scientific thought.

Jim also refers to Dean Kenyon, saying

he was a firm believer in chemical evolution.

Jim rather nicely demonstrates the real gap between our worldviews right there. One does not need to be a "believer" in evolution any more than one needs to believe in gravity -- both are empirically observed processes.

Some years ago when I was living in Pasadena, a pair of Jehovah's Witnesses came to our door. Lisa told them early on that their time was likely better spent elsewhere, since we're atheists. Their response was, and I quote:

"Oh, so you follow the teachings of Isaac Asimov."

Even leaving aside that they pronounced the man's name as "Eye-zay-uk", I found it very telling that the alternative to following their teachings had to be following someone else's. Thinking and reasoning for oneself was a foreign concept: one had to be guided down a particular path.

I'll second Jack on this, Jim -- if you want to posit a God that's the "uncaused cause" behind the Big Bang and set all the physical laws in place, I'm happy to listen (though again, not in science classes), and even to consider it. If, however, you posit a God that's going to step in and twiddle the rules, changing what was previously in place, then I have to ask what makes your claims any more likely than Erich von Daniken's. (And if you don't know who he is, I suggest you do a little research of your own.)

Again using the Wikipedia article, I can address at least one of Dembski's claims directly: he refers to a Shakespearean sonnet as "both complex and specified," thus pointing inexorably to a designer. Apparently Dembski hasn't heard the old saw about an infinite number of monkeys on an infinite number of typewriters. Sure, the odds of it occurring by chance are astronomically tiny ... but it's an astronomically huge universe out there, and the odds of improbable things happening somewhere, somewhen are not even remotely small.

TWL

And Jim, while I agree with Jack that no one is really sure about the origin of the first cell, a few links might interest you. I suspect you're not going to like what you find, but I present them here in the hope that (a) you might, or (b) others might.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB010_2.html
http://www.resa.net/nasa/origins_life.htm

TWL

Bill,

Maybe I'll give some time to ancient Budhist ideas about the Earth resting on the back of a giant turtle. It'll be fun.

Only if you promise to (a) tape it, and (b) put the footage up on the Web someplace where we can all enjoy it. :-)

(it's) TWL (all the way down)

For what it's worth, it has been demonstrated that if you simulate Earth's atmosphere as it existed billions of years ago and pass electricity through it (as in lightning), you can create amino acids. I think the leap from that point to microorganisms is the smaller jump than the one where you create complex chemicals in the first place, and we've shown that it can be done.

And the concept of drawing a line between microevolution and macroevolution always seemed silly to me. It's the equivalent of saying that sure, there's small changes, so you can add one and one and one together and get three steps of change, but no matter how long you give it, you can never add up enough ones to reach a million. Arguments of incredulity never held much water in my book.

The reality is, evolution has yet to give an explanation of how life first formed. The "gods of the gaps" for evolution is "time and chance." Since we are here, it therefore must have happened. Yet the most basic sequencing of our DNA requires a complexity that has yet to be explained. My question is this: How did chemical molecules organize into the first living cell?

Evolution isn't SUPPOSED to explain the origin of life! That's far more of a biochemical question. And even if we one day create a primitive cell in a test tube that will in no way prove that it is what happened 4 billion years ago.

Only if you promise to (a) tape it, and (b) put the footage up on the Web someplace where we can all enjoy it. :-)

yeah, I think I'd like to put that whole "I've got tenure, they can't touch me!" theory to the test...one of my best friends told me I wouldn't be happy until I went down in flames. In all honesty, I have to say that the folks here in old North Carolina are a lot more supportive and open minded than I've seen in some of the states I would have expected better from. There so far has been no limit to what I've been able to talk about in my classroom, except the time I really freaked out one poor child with a video on the situation in Africa (I mean, it's good that she found out about this stuff but I shouold have softened the blow with a bit of warning--not everyone watches the discovery channel 24/7)

That would, IMHO, depend on who was in charge of Al-Qaieda at that point.

And the concept of drawing a line between microevolution and macroevolution always seemed silly to me.

Well, actually it's not INHERENTLY silly.

What it is, actually, is a SCIENTIFIC question. If there's a line, a barrier, then it SHOULD be detectable by scientific methods. And there'd be mechanisms that would show themselves.

Of course, there's that awkward little problem that the line's BEEN crossed in the wild and in the field....

Posted by: Iowa Jim at August 2, 2005 05:15 PM

If I throw several toothpicks on the floor, and they all happen to fall into perfect geometric patterns, someone could come along and say that those shapes, since they are an Intelligent Design, must have been created using Intelligent Design, when in actuality they fell that way by pure chance.

Iowa Jim: Your illustration cannot be farther from the truth. The people pushing ID have developed an extensive methodology to allow ID to be tested.
Luigi Novi: What for? There already is a methodology to test empirical knowledge: The Scientific Method. ID isn’t scientific.

Iowa Jim: Read Dembski's book "Intelligent Design" or Behe's book "Darwin's Black Box." Dembski in particular has done a lot of work to give a scientifically based system of evaluating whether or not design is present. You may disagree with his methods and conclusion, but it is grossly unfair to say those who believe in ID have not applied the rules of science to the process.
Luigi Novi: It’s not unfair, as it happens to be true. ID proponents do not abide by the Scientific Method, and have not offered any evidence for ID that has passed the Peer Review Process. Behe’s Irreducible Complexity Fallacy is simply recycled from William Paley’s Blind Watchmaker, and has been thoroughly debunked. Creationists simply ignore the rebuttals to that fallacy, or pretend they’re unaware of it.

Iowa Jim: They do not say design is true because the Bible says so, but because the evidence itself if looked at in any other situation would clearly point to design.
Luigi Novi: Only if you approach the matter by arguing design on an a priori basis. When one approaches it without believing that which you simply wish to believe, one sees that there is zero evidence for a Intelligent Designer, and that all the evidence we do have points to evolution.

Iowa Jim: The reality is, evolution has yet to give an explanation of how life first formed.
Luigi Novi: That’s because evolution has nothing to do with how life first formed. That’s abiogenesis, which has nothing to do with evolution. Evolution explains only how life adapted to its environment after it got here. Confusing the two is a commonly parroted creationist argument.

wow, this discussion has really shifted from the original post quite a bit, hasn't it? :)

couple of points:
1) stem-cell research/in-vitro fertilization. in vitro fertilization DID have a lot of people against it on moral grounds when it was first developed. over time, those moral concerns have been either addressed or forgotten, but i would recommend that instead of getting upset about limits on stem-cell research (which, remember, are only limiting u.s. federal funding of new fetal stem cell lines), remember that stem-cell research is still brand new, and opposition will probably work much the same way as it did for in-vitro fertilization. also, this might be a good thing in the long run, IF the scientific community is able to use this time and delay to establish strong moral limits within which to work. and bush will only be president for a few more years - there's even rumblings that other possible republican candidates won't take as hard line a stance...

2) bush on intelligent design. bush is still an american citizen. he can have any opinion on i.d. he wants. heck, he can believe the world is flat if he wants, as long as he's not passing legislation to make it mandatory teaching in schools. (which, to my knowledge, he hasn't done)

3) intelligent design in science classes. i.d. is not science - it should not be taught in science classes. however, i do feel our schools should offer some sort of philosophy/comparitive religion class - saying i.d. should not be taught in science class doesn't mean it shouldn't be taught. asking "why" is every bit as fundamental as asking "how", but people are so afraid of knowledge "corrupting" their kids (whether it's knowledge of muslim beliefs, or hindu, or christian, or atheist) that they give the "why" a short shrift. yet, so much of our world as adults is guided/influenced by the "why", and always has been. anyway, back to science classes, i do think that 'alternate theories' should be presented, but scientific ones. 'steady state universe', for example (an aside - what major theory could come up with two major tests that the theory doesn't pass, and instead of calling into question the validity of the theory, new "mystery factors" are invented to explain the discrepancies? when big bang theory didn't perform like expected, "dark matter", and then "dark energy" were invented. not saying they don't exist, but i think there are certainly possibilities that the 'big bang' as we understand it might be something the scientific community is grasping too tightly to.)

4) bush as worst science president. i'm not saying that he's a great supporter of science. i'm just saying i don't really know, and would rather work with facts, as opposed to anectdotal evidence. as i see it, there's two ways a president can affect science - federal funding and vision. federal funding is limited, because it all comes down to what he puts in his budget, but congress is ultimately the body that determines what gets funded or doesn't get funded. still, if scientific funding is increasing, just not in the areas you'd like to see it increased, that doesn't mean he's anti-science, it just means he has different views than you do (plenty of scientific advancements in history have come out of military funding, for instance). which lead us into "vision", a rather nebulous term which generally talks about where science is planning to go. limiting stem cell research lines and planning missions to the moon and mars fall into this category. the problem is, as vision goes, as long as he's not saying "science is evil, there will be no more science", quantifying "anti-science" is very difficult. again, it's more of a question of "science i like/don't like" instead of "against all science". but all of that said, it doesn't get to the root of the statement. whatever level of "pro" or "anti" science we assign to bush, to claim he is the "worst" in the last, say, 50 years would mean judging past presidential administrations by the same yardsticks. is bush truly worse than carter? than reagan? than his dad? he might be, but i'd like to see that statement supported. (another aside: i don't see how "results" can be used in this discussion, since often scientific results are not acheived for many years down the road. kennedy is often given credit for our landing men on the moon, but he did not produce those results. as you said, the shuttle program is having problems, and by even mentioning it you tie it to bush, even though the shuttle program should have been phased out long ago, probably by his dad, but most certainly by clinton...)

5) to bob jones:
sorry, it looks like the original topic is long long gone here....

-b

when big bang theory didn't perform like expected, "dark matter", and then "dark energy" were invented.

That's a fairly serious oversimplification.

The idea of dark matter initially arose for reasons that have nothing whatsoever to do with the Big Bang, or even cosmology. Simple rotational dynamics made it very clear that the Milky Way's got a lot more mass than the visible components of it can provide. Voila -- dark matter. Granted, the concept was then scaled up a bit to help keep the universe geometrically flat, but that's a separate issue.

As for dark energy ... frankly, most of the astronomical community was surprised as hell by this. It only directly connnects to the Big Bang if you define the BB as "anything having to do with an expanding universe." Dark energy is something that several different teams of researchers working in very different areas (supernova analysis, microwave-background measurements, etc.) all came to more or less simultaneously -- while it's pretty shocking in some ways (and IMO, gets more shocking the more deeply you understand it), it's also one of the more rigorous conclusions the field's had in the last few decades.

Is it possible that there's some more elegant idea out there which will explain the observations more cleanly and put a stake through much of current cosmological theory? Sure, it's possible, and I think some within cosmology even hope for a radical change. (Observers, mostly -- they love to piss off the theorists. :-) Much more likely, however, is that the theory will continue to change gradually and be fine-tuned, but that the basic idea will stay intact.

TWL

Well, this conversation is starting to task my limited knowledge of big bang theories, matter explanations, etc. etc. But I think it's a well-made point that ID is more suited to a philosophical discussion, and not one of science. Evolution may be a theory, yet it's one that's supported by obervable facts, and you can see repeating patterns within those facts. Anyone that wants to go out and study evolution has a lot of material to look at. I don't think you can say the same thing for ID.

And if you could, how would you go about it? Start with a TV, take off the back, look at the collection of wires, tube, chips, circuit boards, and conclude that there's an order and complexity present that makes the random accumulation of this material improbably, and this some intelligence must have designed it? And while you'd be accurate, I think you'd be missing the point: however improbable, it's still possible that a random collision of material could produce a working, cable-ready, V-Chip equipped television. If it really is true that a complex work as detailed and dramatic as Shakespear's Henry V could be randomly produces by an infinite amount of chimps at an infinite amount of typewriters, doesn't that, in fact, bely the theory of ID?

And isn't the whole idea of God based on faith? Those familiar with Hitchhiker's know what happens when we prove God exists. Maybe we shouldn't be looking to closely at the why of evolution. There might be a Babble Fish somewhere just waiting to be discovered.

2) bush on intelligent design. bush is still an american citizen. he can have any opinion on i.d. he wants.

No one ever said he couldn't have an opinion. I would, however, prefer he try an informed one instead of the willfully ignorant one he usually peddles.

heck, he can believe the world is flat if he wants, as long as he's not passing legislation to make it mandatory teaching in schools. (which, to my knowledge, he hasn't done)

Give him time.

3) intelligent design in science classes. i.d. is not science - it should not be taught in science classes. however, i do feel our schools should offer some sort of philosophy/comparitive religion class

I can agree with that.

4) bush as worst science president. i'm not saying that he's a great supporter of science. i'm just saying i don't really know, and would rather work with facts, as opposed to anectdotal evidence. as i see it, there's two ways a president can affect science - federal funding and vision.

Fact: Bush has publicly downplayed the signifigance of the potential stem cell research.

Fact: The Bush administration employed a lawyer (now an energy industry consultant) to alter EPA reports written by scientists to downplay the anything that supports the idea that global warning is real. A lawyer is just like a scientist, right?

Fact: Bush's one big "vision" for science, ie going to Mars, has received only marginal funding and isn't going anyway. We're more likely to get to Mars by paddle boat than by following his initiative.

Fact: The abstinance only programs that Bush touted were shown in several studies last year to not only being ineffective, but also were giving out distorted and false information, such as exaggerating the failure rate of condoms and claiming that people have gotten AIDS from tears. But hey, why let facts get in the way of ideology?

Carter, Reagan, and Bush Sr all have scientific initiatives that they touted. Carter was big on alternative energy. Reagan was big on space exploration. Both put forth initiatives with concrete actions towards their goals instead of just pumping empty rhetoric. Something Bush has not done with his Mars plan.

On your "big bang" statement:

I can tell you from the astronomers and physicists that I studied under at PSU, that many of them were not comfortable with the idea of "dark matter" or "dark energy" filling in the gaps of cosmology, but all observed data indicated that the universe had more mass that they could see through their telescopes. There had to be *something* there to explain this. So they kept making observations and crunching the numbers. Over the years, they found many things that could fill in some of those gaps. That's what real scientists do when they can't fully explain something: They continue to make studies until they do. Often these studies take several lifetimes, but that is how scientific knowledge advances. They could have just said, "obviously, magic elves must be holding the galaxies together" and called it a day.

If we followed the Intelligent Designers approach to scientific research, we'd still be drilling holds in people's heads to let the evil spirits out.

The argument is that if you see something complex, say a watch, it is more likely that is was designed by some intelligence than developed in an evolutionary process. However, in a sense, watches also developed by an evolutionary process. After all, the watches we have now didn't just come to being by some watchmaker creating them all of a sudden. Thousands of watchmakers over history have tinkered and improved the watches, beginning with simpler mechanisms, and slowly developing more complex ones. It is not exactly like evolution since minds are involved, but it is not creation either.

couple of quick notes, then we should really let this rest.

tim:

yes, i oversimplified, again for brevity's sake (and i am not an astronomer or a cosmologist, so my knowledge is, admittedly, somewhat limited) - my point was not to say that the big bang is wrong, or that dark matter/dark energy won't be found. it's rather that there seems to be an oversimplification in our public schools stating that the big bang is right, at least in the curriculum. if you get a great teacher, you will get the message that it is a theory, and the best one right now, but that there are other competing theories (in fact,the big bang theory isn't really that old, as far as universal (no pun intended) acceptance goes). i'd rather see science classes put more emphasis on the scientific process than on teaching what is absolutely known to be true. (scientists can also fall prey to the kind of close minded thinking that religious adherents are known for) i'm reminded of that line in "men in black" where k says “Fifteen hundred years ago everybody KNEW the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago everybody KNEW the Earth was flat. And fifteen minutes ago you KNEW that people were alone on this planet.” - i'd like to see more of that approach taught in science classrooms - especially at high school level - but that's a pet peeve of mine so we can now move on. :)

den:
well, you might be willing to blame bush for i.d. rules that he might someday try to enact, but i think that's not only wrong to do in principle (blaming someone for something they might do because you don't like them), but i think it's dangerous if you truly don't want to see i.d. in science classes. why? because it takes the focus off of the state and local decision makers and puts it on the president. the battle for science curriculum is is being fought at lower levels - as it should be. i.d. has been discussed in this thread, and bush has been discussed in regards to it multiple times, but the state of kansas not once. and yet it's the state of kansas (amongst others, like ohio) who is actually trying to get i.d. put into textbooks. i'm afraid that in the fervor to find something else to denounce bush, local legislators fly under the radar and get this pushed through. believe me, if bush does try to push this through on a national level, i'll stand beside you in denouncing it. (also, attacking him for things that he hasn't done only makes it harder to convince people to support you when attacking things he has done...)

oh, and there are some links here to help keep science in the science classes:
http://www.ascb.org/publicpolicy/creationism.html

-b

Bob, if Bush's support of ID were the only reason for me believe that he was anti-science, I would agree with you that it's unfair to categorize him as such. I've given several other reasons in this blog, however, in support of my belief that his administration is anti-science.

We can talk about Kansas and Dover, PA (live about 60 miles from Dover) if you want. I'm not saying that Bush is the leader of some sinister evil conspiracy to shove ID into our schools and undermine scientific advancement. He is, however, a product of a growing anti-science movement in this country. More and more, the idea that scientific learning is something to be scorned as "pointed-headed intellectualism" is gaining in popularity. Our culture is reaching a point where willful ignorance is considered a virtue. Where revealed "truth", whether that "truth" is to downplay the damage we are doing ot our environment, undermine science education in the schools, or to affirm the existance of WMDs in Iraq, is considered more important than observable facts. If the facts don't conform to the "truth" then the facts must be wrong and need to altered or ignored.

Bush is a product of this mindset. Indeed, he clearly considers the willfully ignorant as part of his base support.

So, am I blaming Bush for the ID movement in schools? No, I am merely pointing out a pattern of behavior on his part that clearly demonstrates both a hostility towards the scientific method and a desire to make his worldview the predominant way of thinking in the country.

I consider that in itself to be very dangerous. The idea that revealed "truth" is more important that observable facts is the absolute worst mentality this country could adopt right now.

Wasn't here yeaterday to comment, so I need to catch up.

But the target is Christians, whom it is clear from many of the postings here that many here truly despise. Not disagree with. Despise.

Speaking for myself, & I'm sure there are others who agree, I don't despise people for being Christians. What I do despise is people calling themselves Christians, but acting in ways contrary to Christ's teaching. What I despise is the hypocracy of many self-proclaimed Christians.

A few examples:
* People like Pat Robertson who calls Islam a violent religion, then says he wants to detonate a nuclear bomb at Foggy Bottom (The U.S. State Department Building)

* Jerry Falwell also calling Islam a violent religion, then, when asked about all the civilians killed in Iraq, laughingly says that God will sort them out

* Christ spoke of the importance of charity & helping the needy, but then self-proclaimed Christians opposing things like welfare, food stamps, medical coverage, etc.

* Saying bush is a "moral man" because he opposes gays & abortion, but ignoring the immorality of getting over 100,000 people killed in a war based on lies.

* Telling other people they have to live their lives according to their interpatation of the bible, because it is the 'literal & explicit word og God', but then fail to do so themselves. (i.e. - being gay is a sin, but they ignore the dietary laws (keeping kosher) laid down in the same bible).

And before anyone says I'm singling out Christians, note I am repling to a specific comment. Hypocrites come in all races, religions, & nationalities.

--------------------------
Re: the Pope & the inquisition:
A thought to consider - If bush had invaded a european nation & killed 100,000 people who were mostly Christian, woult the former head of the inquisition still call bush "pro-life"?

-----------------------
Re: who's more evil:
1) Al Queda is upfront about their reasons for the violence they cause, which is an Islamic world. However, bush keeps lying about the cause for his (Iraq has WMD's, Iraq was part of 9/11, etc.)

2) In regard to the body count: Before the Iraq invasion, Rumsfeld was talking about all of the super-precise weaponry the U.S. military has at it's disposal. However, when we invaded, we dropped as many bombs as possible to kill & destroy as much as possible. To unnecessarily do so when we could have invaded by taking out the military targets alone, certainly seems very evil to me. Especially when we're claiming to be the good guys.

--------------------------
re: Intelligent Design:
If you can provide proof by the scientific method, then teach it in science class. But since it is based on "I/we believe", then it belongs in philosophy or comparitive religion.

--------------------------
Re: bush vs. science:
Prior to bush, the Dept. of Education's website had proven methods of teaching safe sex, which reduced teen pregancy & STD's. Now, that information is gone & replaced with absinence only, which has increased teen pregancy & STD's.

Prior to bush, the Health & Human services website said there was no link between abortion & breast cancer. Under bush it says that studies are inconclusive.

Den -- beautifully put in your last post.

Bob --

my point was not to say that the big bang is wrong, or that dark matter/dark energy won't be found. it's rather that there seems to be an oversimplification in our public schools stating that the big bang is right, at least in the curriculum. if you get a great teacher, you will get the message that it is a theory, and the best one right now, but that there are other competing theories (in fact,the big bang theory isn't really that old, as far as universal (no pun intended) acceptance goes).

Bob, no disrespect intended -- but I am an astronomer (or at least, I've got a master's in the subject) and focused on cosmology during my grad years. I currently teach physics at the high school level and have done so for thirteen years.

I would ask you to name one "competing theory" to the big bang that isn't laughable before lamenting that it's being taught as "right."

Now, the rest of your paragraph (hoping for as much emphasis on process as on "facts") is something I completely and utterly agree with, and it's something I like to focus on myself whenever given the chance. Even given something like Newtonian gravity, I like to provide enough history to show where the reasoning came from rather than simply saying "here 'tis."

It's one of the reasons I love teaching special relativity so much, frankly -- you have to look at the reasoning and the experiments backing it up before it'll make even the slightest bit of sense.

So while I think I'm with you when it comes to what you'd like to see in HS science classes, I also think you tend to put yourself out on very thin ice when it comes to several of the specifics.

TWL

Just for the heck of it, I saw this comment on another forum I read on this same subject (evolution vs creation).

A guy was talking about fossil evidence to back up the claim that birds evolved from dinosaurs.

The religious fellow responded with this:

"If someone has convinced you of this you HAVE been schnookered. Would love to see the fossils of the missing links though, because thats what those fossils will be..."

I mean, let's face it: I can't compete with that.

Apparently, to believe in evolution is to have been frauded. I mean, I wish *I* had an imaginary friend that could get me to believe this kind of stuff...

A couple of years ago, I saw a quote from a creationist publication that claimed that all of the fossils were actually planted by the devil to deceive us.

Yep, that's right. The devil is so powerful that he can recreate the world into a complete lie. I loved it! The truth is what we believe it to be and if the evidence proves otherwise, then the evidence is fabricated.

And people wonder why I'm worried about the state of science education in this country.

Re: bush vs. science:
Prior to bush, the Dept. of Education's website had proven methods of teaching safe sex, which reduced teen pregancy & STD's. Now, that information is gone & replaced with absinence only, which has increased teen pregancy & STD's.

Since I run an after school Teen Pregnancy prevention program I'd like to know where you get your data. According to the CDC the birth rate for the youngest teens has fallen to the lowest levels since 1948. For 15-17 year olds the rate fell 38% from 1990 to 2002. If there are more up to date reports from reputable sources please let me know.

One does not need to be a "believer" in evolution any more than one needs to believe in gravity -- both are empirically observed processes.

And, indeed, the MECHANISM of gravity is LESS well understood than the mechanisms of evolution, but darn it, the planets just keep on goin'...

If I recall, the pregnancy rates were falling before abstinence only programs were instituted, so there's no correlation there.

Of the programs that DO cut teen pregnancy, they include:

School-based comprehensive sex education
These programs, which include the abstinence message, discuss contraception and draw on peer leaders to conduct role-playing exercises. Result: They delay the first time a teen has sex and also make condom use more likely.

Teen outreach programs
These programs, found in 16 states, channel teens into community-service activities, with adult mentors teaching the teens how to be effective as volunteers. Although sex education is not a formal part of the program, the pregnancy rate of participants fell by a third.

Intensive mentoring programs
The New York City Carrera Program run by the Children's Aid Society was the star of the study. This program does it all: sex education, health care, individual tutoring, mentoring and arts enrichment. It cut pregnancy rates in half, a phenomenal success rate for any kind of teen-pregnancy program.

I believe there's an Advocate for Youths study that shows there were no difference in pregnancy rates between those in abstinence only programs and those who weren't (so there's a tenuous support for claims against abstinence only programs).=

re: Posted by Bill Mulligan at August 3, 2005 05:01 PM

I admit I may have been given bad information about this. I don't mean this to sound flip, but I will defer to yet expertise over information from a layman.

'yet' should be 'your' in my last post

Michael,

It's cool. frankly, the data is very poor and this is one of those things where it is incredibly difficult to measure the effects, good or ill, that one does. Since my progrqam is one of the teen outreach types that Roger talks about, I'm happy to hear that they are being credited with the good results...but in all honesty there are an incredible number of variables that go into these things. So much of it has to do with elements beyond anyone's control--the improving economy may have as much to do with the recent improvement in my home town as anything I could possibly do. And if the results suddenly go south--if next year teen pregnancy goes up 20% how could I know that without the programs we've been running it wouldn't have been 30%?

Right and Left love to quote effect and either claim credit or give blame for the cause but most of the time they have very very little to back it up with.

My question to Jim, or to anyone, is this: how in the world can you establish a clear, falsifiable test for the proposition that some systems cannot be adequately explained? The converse of the statement is "every natural system can be adequately explained," and the only way to verify that is to take an infinite amount of time to check every one.

First, let me say that I am interested why most of you disagree, so I appreciate the responses that were thoughtful and specific.

Tim, I realize that this is where I don't understand evolution. Yes, specific things (such as mutations, genetics, etc.) are observable. But those are evidences that are then used to add up to Evolution. Most ID and/or Creation scientists do not argue that these things exist, but they disagree with the conclusions that are drawn from them. So while specific pieces of evolution are falsifiable, the overarching theory itself does not seem to be.

To answer your question, I would not begin to try to summarize Dembski since it has been a few years since I read his book. My response is based on my own logic. The issue is not that some systems cannot be adequately explained, at least for me. The issue is that we have gone down not just to the cellular level but also the molecular level, and things remain incredibly complex. If this was 50 years ago, I would say you have a point. But at this point, we have gotten down to virtually the bottom without really solving the riddle. Thus Behe, and others, argue that there is not going to be an answer to why these systems exist. You then have to fall back on your presuppositions. If you say "god" / a designer does not exist, or that you cannot even consider that "god" exists, then you have to say it had to happen naturally since the system itself exists. There is an inherent problem with this. Even if you could explain the evolution of man from the formation of the universe billions of years ago, you are still left with the question of where the universe came from. You are then left with guesses such as that we are one of many universes (which solves nothing except push it back even farther), or similar ideas. Bottom line, you are left with either the belief/faith that nature itself is in some way eternal, or that a "designer" / "god" of some sort exists and designed it all.

So to ask you a question, what do you do when you get to the most basic building blocks of the universe and you still have no idea what system formed it in the first place? You may argue we are not there yet, but my question is what do you do if this were to happen?

Jim rather nicely demonstrates the real gap between our worldviews right there. One does not need to be a "believer" in evolution any more than one needs to believe in gravity -- both are empirically observed processes.

You are comparing apples to oranges. Evolution is a much bigger and all encompasing theory then gravity alone. I again ask where you we can actually observe evolution itself in action? The few examples I have read are weak stretches (such as the change in the length of a beak of a bird) that do not demonstrate the formation of a new and more complex system. If you want to say that based on a string of observed processes, you have pieced together a theory, I can understand that. But evolution itself is not a simple process, it is a far more complex system then is gravity. (I know gravity is complex, but talking about the theory of gravity does not encompass the breadth of issues and processes that evolution attempts to encompass.)

I'll second Jack on this, Jim -- if you want to posit a God that's the "uncaused cause" behind the Big Bang and set all the physical laws in place, I'm happy to listen (though again, not in science classes), and even to consider it. If, however, you posit a God that's going to step in and twiddle the rules, changing what was previously in place, then I have to ask what makes your claims any more likely than Erich von Daniken's. (And if you don't know who he is, I suggest you do a little research of your own.)

I don't believe God is constantly "tinkering" with the rules. I believe the universe has consistency. But if God does exist, he by definition exists in a higher plane/dimension than ours. Because he is in a higher dimension, it is logical that the rules of that dimension could in fact have an impact here that would seem "contrary to nature" while actually being in line with true reality. It is the old analogy of a 3 dimensional person interacting with a 2 dimensional world.

I personally believe in a literal 6 day creation, which would not require God to "tinker" anyways, at least not after he is done creating. Miracles are not "tinkering" with the laws of physics, but just the intervention of a higher dimension on a lower one.

Again using the Wikipedia article, I can address at least one of Dembski's claims directly: he refers to a Shakespearean sonnet as "both complex and specified," thus pointing inexorably to a designer. Apparently Dembski hasn't heard the old saw about an infinite number of monkeys on an infinite number of typewriters. Sure, the odds of it occurring by chance are astronomically tiny ... but it's an astronomically huge universe out there, and the odds of improbable things happening somewhere, somewhen are not even remotely small.

You have left out one crucial aspect in this analogy: time. Yes, you could suggest that while improbable, it is not impossible. Until you do the math. If you say the monkeys have unlimited time, then you can maintain the illusion it could happen. But when you quantify that the monkeys can type X keystrokes a minute, and that when you add up the keystrokes needed to write perfectly the sonnet, you suddenly realize that it is statistically an impossibility. That is what ID is arguing. Even if the universe is as old as mainstream evolution currently states it to be (and many ID scientists accept this figure as being true), there is not enough time for random chance to bring about the complexity that is observed.

When you realize it is not just one sonnet that has to be written, but you have to write all of the sonnets by Shakespeare and they have to be in the same order as he wrote them, that is where the claim that "Sure, the odds of it occurring by chance are astronomically tiny ... but it's an astronomically huge universe out there, and the odds of improbable things happening somewhere, somewhen are not even remotely small" is just absurd to me.

Iowa Jim

By the way, thanks for the links. I will read them soon when it is not 2 am in the morning.

Actually, Jim, that's where you're wrong. Given an INFINITE number of monkeys, getting the collected works of not only Shakespeare, but of Peter David, the Bronte Sisters, and Bob the janitor is not only probable, but a statistical CERTAINTY, even within time constraints.

One problem with the assertion that God MUST have guided creation is the assumption that the universe was only created once. The universe could have had nearly infinite permutations, from Big Bang to Gnab Gib, before this one and we'd never know, since there would be no evidence of said permutations after their demise. So, we have a finite (albeit astronimically huge) amount of material to work with and an infinite amount of time to work in, and therefore a statistical certainty that life as we know it would eventually arise.

Granted, that still doesn't explain the ultimate origin of ALL, but given the observable behavior of the universe, Life is a statistical certainty even without Intelligent Design, whether people can wrap their heads around it or not.

-Rex Hondo-

Just want to point out that I have no problem with Intelligent Design as a philosiphical concept, just when proponents attempt to put it into scientific terms when it cannot comform to the scientific method.

Also, on a side note, Jim, I rather like the idea of God (or whatever you want to call him/her/it) existing in a higher set of dimensions. Of course, I've come to believe we exist in six dimensions. But that's a discussion for another time, I think. :P

-Rex Hondo-

So to ask you a question, what do you do when you get to the most basic building blocks of the universe and you still have no idea what system formed it in the first place? You may argue we are not there yet, but my question is what do you do if this were to happen?

Scientists will do what they always do when the reach a point that the don't undestand: Continue to make observations, postulate theories, and test them. My problem with Intelligent Design as a philosophical construct is not that it requires belief in an intelligent creater. In fact, I do believe that there is a higher intelligence to the universe. My problem is that the idea as present asks us to just accept an intelligent designer as the end of the story. I can't accept that. I want to know what's behind the curtain.

To look at your point from the other direction, when I was a kid in Sunday school, I asked what I thought was a reasonable question: What happened before God created the universe? In other words, what created God? The teachers looked at me like I had just sprouted another head. Even as a child, I could not accept the idea of an infinite being that always existed. Everything has to have come from somewhere, even God.

I never got a decent answer to that question.

Jim raises many points that I think lead to different conclusions.

First, it seems as though you're saying that evolution argues against ID. I don't think it does. Evolution doesn't try to explain how things started: it explains how we got to where we are today. In the process of studying fossil records, we hope that maybe we'll gain a deeper understanding of the forces behind evolution, ad to a degree, we have. We've seen that environment plays a large/huge role in determining what characteristics and species suceed. But so does illness, intelligence, random chance, foreign species invasion, food supply (granted, you could lump sum most of these into environment). But most of these are still just observations...understanding the deeper why of the process is still beyond us.

ID is just one possible explanation of the why. And to my mind, ID is very much like the deist approach to science and religion: God acts through science. When you start with the premise that God created everything, you don't need to have a theory like ID or creationism. No matter how far back you go, how microscopic you go, God will always be there, and will probably always be one step away from you. If we ever do get to an end-point of science, we'll either have discovered God, or we'll blow everything up (depending on which myth you tend to follow).

In other words, to say that something happens "naturally" to a deist is to say that things happen because that's the way God planned for them to happen. Not in a "God's Day Planner, 300 million BC, hurl comet at Earth to destroy 99% of all life, including those pesky large dinosarus....200 million BC, evolve suriving pesky dinosaurs into birds....that'll teach 'em" way, but in a "I've created the universe with all kinds of laws, orders, and forces that man will one day call 'Nature'" kind of way.

"I again ask where you we can actually observe evolution itself in action?"

This is the big question those against the idea of evolution always seem to ask. The answer is, look around you. You see it all the time. But the creationist response typically is "no, that's MICROevolution (beaks getting longer), I want to see MACROevolution (T-Rex turns into a pigeon). Well, you'd better start looking for the fountain of youth first, because MACRAevolution is just MICROevolution stretched out over a few hundred million years (and of course, first you have to get out of the strict creationist mindset that Earth is only 15,000 years old). It's like trying to watch a flower open it's petals in the morning: If your impatient, and you can only sit for 10 minutes, all you're going to see is...well, nothing. THe flower's going to appear to reamin motionless. But if you can sit for, say 3 hours, or you use time-laspe photography, you'll see that the flower not only moves, but moves a great deal. Our human perception is so short, compared to evolutionary changes, that in all the history of modern man/homo sapiens, only Vandal Savage would have even begun to see any evolutionary change.

We're starting to see evolution in fossil records with the dinosaurs. Just in my lifetime (34 years) dinosaurs have gone from giant, lumbering, stupid, cold-blooded ancestors of reptiles to warm-blooded, agile, intelligent ancestors of birds. Will we find a complete record in fossils? Probably not. Why? Because we won't find a fossil of every dinosaur that ever lived. There were millions, if not billions, of dinosaurs that have been on earth. Probably less than 0.01% of those had their remains fossilized. Meaning it's likely entire species of dinos were never fossilized. So we won't have a complete record (until Doc Brown invents his Time Machine). But the increasing amount of evidence indicates that dinos were not just related to birds, they were birds. It's been my experience that the evidence to see evolution is there, but creationists fail to see it for what it is, and apply some other explanation to it.

The logical question is, of course, Jim, what explanation do you have for the similarities between dino fossils and modern birds? What do you say to those that study both fossil records and modern bird skeletons and see not just a resemblance, but identicle features?

As to the devil planting fossils to deceive/corrupt us, I've always thought that, wouldn't it be kinda funny if that were actually true? Or in the alternative, what if sometimes, when something gets fossilized, it increases in size over time? So T-Rex really wasn't really a 40 foot long T-Rex, but just a big pigeon that grew as it fossilized?

A pigeon with sharp teeth?

The one thing that creationists argue is that there have been no transitionary fossils found, when there actually have been. In fact the whole dinos-to-birds theory came about because numerous fossils were found that scientists had trouble classifying as belonging to birds or dinosaurs.

Aye, I totally agree with you Den. I was looking at pics of the no-longer extinct Ivory Billed Woodpecker this week...put a muzzle instead of a beak on that guy, and he's almost a dead ringer for acheopteryx.

We've got a few swans and more geese around the office pond these days. And, ever since seeing the Jurrasic Park movie, I'm really thankful that the big pointy teeth birds evolved out. But go watch a swan floating around a pond sometime, and superimpose the image of a sauropod over it. Then blow it up 1000 times in size. It can get pretty daunting.

Actually, Jim, that's where you're wrong. Given an INFINITE number of monkeys, getting the collected works of not only Shakespeare, but of Peter David, the Bronte Sisters, and Bob the janitor is not only probable, but a statistical CERTAINTY, even within time constraints.

I am not sure it is a "certainty" statistically unless you truly are talking about an infinite amount of time and monkeys (I can't believe I just said that!). However, we are talking about the real world where there still are limits both in terms of both time AND materials (i.e., monkeys). My contention is that based on the known laws of the universe, including the most generous estimates of time and matter available, the odds are still so astronomically low as to be considered in any other setting impossible. If you can give a factual reason why there are an infinite number of monkeys, I am ready to listen.

One problem with the assertion that God MUST have guided creation is the assumption that the universe was only created once. The universe could have had nearly infinite permutations, from Big Bang to Gnab Gib, before this one and we'd never know, since there would be no evidence of said permutations after their demise. So, we have a finite (albeit astronimically huge) amount of material to work with and an infinite amount of time to work in, and therefore a statistical certainty that life as we know it would eventually arise.

The problem with your suggestion is that it is as much of an assumption as the suggestion that God did it. You can't test it. And in my opinion, it really answers nothing because you are saying that matter and the laws of nature are in some way eternal. If you can prove this scientifically, please do so. Otherwise, it is as much a "belief" as is my assertion that God created everything.

Granted, that still doesn't explain the ultimate origin of ALL, but given the observable behavior of the universe, Life is a statistical certainty even without Intelligent Design, whether people can wrap their heads around it or not.

This is where I really don't get it. It is only a "statistical certainty" when you say that with infinite number for trys, one of them is bound to get it right. Otherwise, all of the arguments I have read boil down to "we are here, so it must be natural for this to happen." Which is not science at all. Please explain to me why Life is so certain.

Iowa Jim

Swans are vicious animals. I can see them rampaging over everything in sight if they were bigger.

Getting back the "devil made the fossil record" point, whether they admit it or not, creationists always fall back on a kind of "turtles all the way down" argument. And that's why their arguments can never be considered as an "alternative scientific theory." As I said earlier, if you start with the belief that your revealed "truth" is correct no matter what, you have to then keep manufacturing new mental constructs like the devil running around burying fake bones or God deliberately creating the world "old." That these constructs are completely unfalsifiable doesn't deter them from believing in them.

Also, on a side note, Jim, I rather like the idea of God (or whatever you want to call him/her/it) existing in a higher set of dimensions. Of course, I've come to believe we exist in six dimensions. But that's a discussion for another time, I think. :P

This is not an original idea from me. Hugh Ross has written a book that explores this concept. It is called "Beyond the Cosmos." He uses current theory about higher dimensions to show how it is scientifically possible to walk through walls (if someone was living in a higher dimension).

Iowa Jim

To look at your point from the other direction, when I was a kid in Sunday school, I asked what I thought was a reasonable question: What happened before God created the universe? In other words, what created God? The teachers looked at me like I had just sprouted another head. Even as a child, I could not accept the idea of an infinite being that always existed. Everything has to have come from somewhere, even God.

I think that is a fair question. But I disagree that it has to be true. By definition, God is a being who exists outside of the known natural universe. It is like a 2 dimensional being trying to comprehend 3 dimensions. The fact that I don't understand it doesn't make it not true.

Ok, let's move for a second into theology, not science. One reason I don't agree with matter and the universe being eternal is because it is in my dimension. I can somewhat grasp it, and the laws I observe make it difficult to believe it has always existed. If that is true, then why do I believe a "god" exists who is truly beyond my comprehension? Because I believe he has chosen to reveal himself through the Bible and through becoming a man (i.e., Jesus Christ). I don't say this to try to convert anyone, but to simply say that if what I believe is true, then it would open the door to the option that God could be eternal and did not need to "come from somewhere." As I said, this is theology/philosophy, not science. It cannot be proved by science. But neither can it be disproved.

Iowa Jim

This is where I really don't get it. It is only a "statistical certainty" when you say that with infinite number for trys, one of them is bound to get it right. Otherwise, all of the arguments I have read boil down to "we are here, so it must be natural for this to happen." Which is not science at all. Please explain to me why Life is so certain.

"Certainty" would not be the right word if your requirement is that the universe is infinite. However, given that there are billions upon billions of stars in billions of galaxies, the universe is about as close to infinite as the human mind can grasp. Given the sheer number of stars out there, that one could hold a planetary system capable of supporting life is, if not 100% certain, than so highly probable so as to be nearly certain.

"Given the sheer number of stars out there, that one could hold a planetary system capable of supporting life is, if not 100% certain, than so highly probable so as to be nearly certain."

Just to play devil's advocate (hm, waitaminute...the Devil's been raised on the board, and now a lawyer is arguing for him....)

Anyway, if life exists on another planet, and tree on that planet falls, and there's no one for Earth around to observe it, does it really happen?

Which is sort of to say, just because something is a statistical certainty isn't the same thing as saying it's an acuality. Give inifinite monkeys infinite time and ink, and they'll recreate every literary work ever created by man. But that doesn't mean that it will happen, ever. It's just an obervation. If I go stand on a metal plate in a thunderstorm enough times, eventually I should reach a point were, from a statistical certainty point, I should have been struck by lightning. But if I manage to not be struck by lightning, I've then beaten the odds, despite the statistical certainty.

Which, if you follow me, is why the nearly certain logic fails. Granted, I'll likely never be able to prove, or disprove, that theory. But using a statistical certainty is dangerous tool to rely on when trying to make a point.

By definition, God is a being who exists outside of the known natural universe.

By whose definition? Since God hasn't bothered to show himself except through intermediaries (Jesus, Moses, Buddha, etc), how do we know what he is "by definition.

As I said, this is theology/philosophy, not science. It cannot be proved by science. But neither can it be disproved.

And this is exactly why it doesn't belong in a science class. Philosophy/religion class? No problem. Science class? No way!

The logical question is, of course, Jim, what explanation do you have for the similarities between dino fossils and modern birds? What do you say to those that study both fossil records and modern bird skeletons and see not just a resemblance, but identicle features?

For many ID scientists, your question is a non-issue since they accept much of evolution.

Since I believe in a 6 day creation, obviously this would be an issue. I don't believe the fossils are fake, etc., but I have not seen clear evidence that it has to be a transition between two distinct animals. I don't say this as an easy way out, but it is possible that God created the creatures with similarities, such as between a bird and a dinasour, and they are not a transition. The evidence I have read has not yet been convincing that it was a transition, but I freely admit it would have to be overwhelming.

MACRAevolution is just MICROevolution stretched out over a few hundred million years (and of course, first you have to get out of the strict creationist mindset that Earth is only 15,000 years old). It's like trying to watch a flower open it's petals in the morning: If your impatient, and you can only sit for 10 minutes, all you're going to see is...well, nothing.

I get that this is the point of evolution, and I don't expect to see it happen in 10 minutes right under my nose. But the analogy would be better put this way. I have a time lapse camera that takes 20 pictures at very infrequent intervals over a one year period. I then try to piece together what has happened. That is what evolution has done. It takes known processes that can be observed today ("microevolution") and the snapshots we have over time (fossils) and comes up with a theory ("macroevolution"). As you get more snapshots, you can better refine your theory. But it may also show your theory was way off.

The problem I have is that I don't believe there is evidence that microevolution can really produce the changes you see in the snapshots. And I am not alone in this. You have increasingly complex organisms that have increasingly complex information. "Natural selection" does not answer how the list of options (the information stored in the DNA) came about in the first place. And without that foundational structure, evolution makes no sense at all. Even with the time frame you suggest of billions of years, it still does not add up.

When you go back to the beginning, you don't just have the freedom with the chemical building blocks to start mixing and matching. It is more like a jigsaw puzzle where only certain pieces match with certain other pieces. And when you have a limited number of jigsaw pieces and a limited amount of time and you must have a very precise order to create life and only a totally random process in order to match up the pieces, you are in trouble. If we really did come about this way, it must have been the biggest fluke in cosmic history, and we are foolish to waste time looking for intelligent life on other planets since statistics would say the chances of it happening twice really would be nil.

Iowa Jim

Hmmm... after some reflection, I feel the need to clarify my thoughts on ID. I would have to say that I adhere to a mix of Deism/Roman Catholicism about God's role in the shaping of the universe and his influence in it. Philosophically, I rather like the Watchmaker concept and the idea that the way things work and our ability to observe them come from something God put into motion. In an ironic way, that probably makes me a believer in some form of ID, from a RELIGIOUS standpoint. Where I have a problem with the ID movement is the argument that it's based on some kind of thorough scientific analysis that should be held to the same SCIENTIFIC esteem as Newton's Three Laws, the Theory of Relativity, Evolution, etc. Its proponents are a group of people using the current political environment to usurp the concept of scientific thought and observation to promote a religious-based agenda. I guess my issue is that when teaching science, I agree with other posters on here that the key concept we're trying to teach is the Scientific Method; yes, we're trying to teach kids about biology, chemistry, physics, etc., but it's much more important to give them the critical thinking skills to find things out for themselves. And teaching ID as a scientific concept, versus the philosophical/religious subject it is, is a stunting of our country's intellectual growth. Studying science makes me KNOW how things work, but observing the unique and improbable wonders of science definitely makes me BELIEVE in God.

By whose definition? Since God hasn't bothered to show himself except through intermediaries (Jesus, Moses, Buddha, etc), how do we know what he is "by definition.

To be precise, I don't believe Jesus was an intermediary but was God in the flesh, but that is beside the point. "By definition" is simply referring to the philosophical discussion about God. You can come up with a theory of a "god" within our universe (somewhat like the Greek and Roman "gods). I am saying that if you start with the concept that God is, by definition, a being outside of the natural universe, the rest makes sense.

The 3D vs 2D analogy works again here. If you imagine a 3 dimensional person interacting with a 2 dimensional world, those in the 2D world will only see a very limited part of the 3D person. So, to use that dreaded term again, by definition it would not be possible for God to fully reveal himself to us unless he made us 3D.

To be clear, I am not trying to say that I get to define what or who God is. When I say "by definition," I simply mean it as a presupposition or starting place for the discussion.

And this is exactly why it doesn't belong in a science class. Philosophy/religion class? No problem. Science class? No way!

I agree that my theological discussion would not be appropriate in a science class if you are talking about the nature of "god." But neither is it appropriate to say in a science class that "god" does not exist and that he/she/it does not ineract with our natural universe. Science strictly deals with what is observed. So if I did see a man who had his ear cut off and it was instantly and fully restored or someone who was dead and buried for 4 days suddenly come back to life and full health (i.e., a miracle), then I would have to deal with that observation. Most science classes and scientists would rule out any possibility that "god" was involved and say it had to have a natural explanation. I would suggest that we should not be so quick and certain that something "supernatural" does not exist.

Iowa Jim

But if Science is generally defined as the study of our universe according to observable, natural theory, why would we want to or expect to be able to use it to study the supernatural?

Jim, by its very nature, science HAS to look at natural causes and can't look at anything else. It HAS to be quick and certain to rule out "supernatural causes" by its very definition. Anything that's supernatural is inherently outside of science, and trying to force that into science is an excercis in futility.

Hm. A better way to look at this is that people often confuse the rules on how science operates with how scientists look at the universe (methodological naturalism vs. philosophical naturalism).

By the nature of scientific methodology, scientists can't allow God into their research---because how can you research something that can break and change the rules (which is inherent in the nature of God)? That's entirely different from allowing God into their lives and how they look at the universe....and the two shouldn't be mixed up.

Jim –

Fasten your seatbelt – we may be here a while.

Tim, I realize that this is where I don't understand evolution. Yes, specific things (such as mutations, genetics, etc.) are observable. But those are evidences that are then used to add up to Evolution. Most ID and/or Creation scientists do not argue that these things exist, but they disagree with the conclusions that are drawn from them. So while specific pieces of evolution are falsifiable, the overarching theory itself does not seem to be.

That is perhaps a misstatement on my part. A theory needs to make concrete, testable predictions: if the predictions are verified, the theory is strengthened, and if the predictions are shown to be false then the theory needs to be altered.

The theory of evolution has made and does make such predictions. ID, to my knowledge, does not – if you have a specific example of a specific testable prediction it makes, I’d love to know it.

The issue is not that some systems cannot be adequately explained, at least for me. The issue is that we have gone down not just to the cellular level but also the molecular level, and things remain incredibly complex. If this was 50 years ago, I would say you have a point. But at this point, we have gotten down to virtually the bottom without really solving the riddle.

That’s essentially Richard Dawkins’ “blind watchmaker” argument taken a few steps further down. Ten or twenty years ago, the example used was “look at the eye – it’s just as complicated as a camera, and how on earth would it have shown up naturally?”

At this point, we’ve got a pretty good answer there.

Another example: mitochondria. You may not know, Jim, that most cells have two different types of DNA: nuclear and mitochondrial. That seems inefficient, to say the least. However, a very plausible hypothesis that’s been gaining support and evidence over the last decade-plus is that a mitochondrion used to be an entirely different and separate organism that was somehow subsumed by another (eaten and not digested, perhaps?), and that a mutually beneficial relationship started up. Over time, some of the functions of the mitochondrion mutated away, since there was no longer a need for them (gathering food, for instance).

The “incredibly complex” system you’re referring to on the molecular level is probably DNA, and I’ll certainly agree we don’t understand its origins particularly well yet. However, keep in mind that it’s only been a little bit over half a century since DNA was even discovered, and the technology to really look at genetics has been around a lot less than that. Why would you expect us to know everything instantly?

You might, however, want to look up the “RNA world hypothesis”, not to mention research sections of DNA called introns. DNA is neither as unprecedented nor as “perfect” as the ID folks tend to argue.

So to ask you a question, what do you do when you get to the most basic building blocks of the universe and you still have no idea what system formed it in the first place? You may argue we are not there yet, but my question is what do you do if this were to happen?

You seek to understand everything up to that point as best as you can, and you continue to find new ways to question and to investigate.

There’s every possibility that we won’t ever be able to fully understand everything. In fact, some aspects of quantum mechanics suggest rather strongly that we will NEVER been able to take our understanding further back than something called the “Planck time”, which is 10**-43 seconds after the Big Bang. (The reason? Time itself is quite possibly quantized in units of that size, which means that you can’t really define time once you go further back than that. Does your head hurt yet? :-)

I’ve got no problem if you want to believe in a designer, Jim. None. As I already said, I’ll happily concede the possibility of same if you’re willing to place said designer back about 12-14 billion years. As Den already put so well, however, I’m not willing to say that the story ends there.

Science is about the process and the manner of thinking, not about “the final answer”, with all due respect to Regis Philbin. (Science, BTW, also in no way presupposes the nonexistence of a deity. They’re different realms. One of the best biology teachers I’ve ever met, who’s also one of my best friends from our “California period”, is also one of the most deeply believing Christians I’ve ever known.)

Jim rather nicely demonstrates the real gap between our worldviews right there. One does not need to be a "believer" in evolution any more than one needs to believe in gravity -- both are empirically observed processes.

You are comparing apples to oranges.

Absolutely and unequivocally wrong. Sorry, Jim.

Gravity is a lot more complex than you think.

Many observations have been made and tests done before the “all-encompassing” theory of gravitation was put in place – and even now we know it’s not a perfect theory, since general relativity and quantum mechanics don’t really knit together very well.

A proper understanding of gravitation is one of the most difficult areas in physics you can study. It’s hard enough that when a reporter asked Sir Arthur Eddington in the 1920s if it was true that he was “one of only three people who understand relativity”, Eddington’s response was to wonder who the third person was.

Gravitational theory is full of controversial and in some cases very strange predictions. Black holes. Neutron stars. Gravitational waves.

If you think evolution is more all-encompassing than gravity, then with all due respect you’re showing that you don’t get what “gravity” actually is.

A great, great, GREAT book on the subject (for you, or anyone else here who’s interested) is Kip Thorne’s Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy. I’ve had students read it and like it, so the level is certainly fine for anybody here who wants to take the time.

I again ask where you we can actually observe evolution itself in action?

Bobb has addressed this, so I’ll just ask a counter-question: can you show me where we can actually observe a black hole? A gravitational wave?

I don't believe God is constantly "tinkering" with the rules. I believe the universe has consistency. But if God does exist, he by definition exists in a higher plane/dimension than ours.

Whose definition would that be? It’s a neat idea, but it’s no more than an extra assumption.

I personally believe in a literal 6 day creation, which would not require God to "tinker" anyways, at least not after he is done creating. Miracles are not "tinkering" with the laws of physics, but just the intervention of a higher dimension on a lower one.

Six days as in 6 24-hour periods, not six “periods which were called days but which could have been a lot longer?” The latter is more often what I hear.

In any case, you are more than welcome to believe in whatever form of creation you like – but you are not welcome to insist that it be taught alongside legitimate peer-reviewed science.

On to monkeys and typewriters:

You have left out one crucial aspect in this analogy: time.

No, I haven’t. You don’t understand what “infinite” means ... but I’ll leave that there, since others are addressing this argument well.

You say that “many ID scientists” accept the age of the universe as 10-15 billion years. Do you? Do you also accept the age of the Earth as being 4-5 billion years? If so, how do you reconcile that with the “literal 6-day creation” you described earlier?

Whew. Okay, done now. :-)

Oh, wait – more links. A great starting point for evolution is the PBS site for the series they aired a year or two back: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/about/sitemap.html . I would in particular suggest that you go to the “Life’s Grand Design” essay connected with episode 2: it discusses the eye and makes a lot of very good points.

TWL

I am saying that if you start with the concept that God is, by definition, a being outside of the natural universe, the rest makes sense.

Maybe to you, but I for one am still wondering what is "beyond" God then?

But neither is it appropriate to say in a science class that "god" does not exist and that he/she/it does not ineract with our natural universe.

As someone who teaches a college-level science class, I can tell you that this generally does not happen. In most cases, the subject of God just doesn't come up.

Science strictly deals with what is observed. So if I did see a man who had his ear cut off and it was instantly and fully restored or someone who was dead and buried for 4 days suddenly come back to life and full health (i.e., a miracle), then I would have to deal with that observation.

Science does deal with what is observed, but here is the problem with your argument: No one alive today has observed the events you described. All we have are translations of translations of secondary accounts written several decades after the events allegedly took place. You could just as well say that a young boy became king of the Britains by being the only able to pull a magic sword out of a stone or an infant half-god throttled two snakes in his crib.

That is not say that any of these events absolutely could not have happened, just that since they is no direct evidence that they did happen, you cannot say with scientific certainty that they did. That is where science and faith part company. The fossil and geologic record is evidence left behind of both the age of the Earth and the fact that life on Earth has looked very different at different time periods than it has today. Therefore, the logical conclusion is that species do change and evolve over time. Otherwise, we're back to mental constructs like the devil did it.

I would suggest that we should not be so quick and certain that something "supernatural" does not exist.

And my counter argument is that we shouldn't be so quick to simply accept a supernatural explanation. Let's assume for a minute that God did set the universe in motion by whatever mechanism you want and that we are the end product of that mechanism. A simple fact is that we have minds capable of perceiving the world around us and drawing rational conclusions. Observation tells us that the universe behaves in a manner that is consistant with predictable equations and logical conclusions. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that God wishes us to observe and learn about the way the universe works. A something that seems supernatural could be actually something that is outside of known scientific and natural explanations or it could be something that we just haven't found the correct natural explanation for. Believing that the sun and all the stars revolve around the Earth might be a fine explanation for nomadic shepherds, but it doesn't serve NASA's needs very well. Likewise, other things that we think are supernatural may actually be the result of someone have more advanced knowledge than we way. A man reattaches an ear not by magic, but by a skill he learned from some source unknown to us at this time.

To believe in a supernatural explanation for anything we don't as yet understand closes the door on further knowledge. If God is out there, I believe that he wants us to explore how life began on this world because that will bring us closer to truly understanding him.

I agree that my theological discussion would not be appropriate in a science class if you are talking about the nature of "god." But neither is it appropriate to say in a science class that "god" does not exist and that he/she/it does not ineract with our natural universe.

And I would agree with that. In thirteen years of teaching, I've never once spoken as a teacher to say "God does not exist." If asked, I'll talk about my own opinions on the matter, but I make it exceedingly clear that they're my own opinions and nothing more. If the issue comes up, I usually try to say that science and religion are different things examining different spheres of thought, and don't have to be in conflict unless individuals choose to make it such.

If that's really your only problem, then it's an issue of teacher sensitivity and nothing more. Why does the teaching of evolution bother you in the first place, then?

TWL

Hey, Den, what do you teach? Just curious.

TWL

Anyone remember the Far Side there the kid is raising his hand in class saying "teacher, may I be excused? My brain is full and it hurts..."

Jim said "I agree that my theological discussion would not be appropriate in a science class if you are talking about the nature of "god." But neither is it appropriate to say in a science class that "god" does not exist and that he/she/it does not ineract with our natural universe." And I agree with you. But where are these science classes that say God doesn't exist? I think your statemet sums up the whoe creation vs evolution argument: creationists say evolution is a false statement not borne out by the Bible and their faith, and evolutionists say a literal 6 day creation isn't borne out by the evidence we have before our eyes. But whil creationists want evolutionary theory to go away (since it's considered "wrong,") evolutionary proponents just want to be able to continue their research, and maybe provide a scientific explanation for the story of creation...where the Bible just uses 6 days as a metaphor for the billions of years science tells us it took for the Earth to form. There's nothing inherant in the evolutionary study that says "there is no God." It's only when literal creationists start saying that the Bible is the literal and true Word of God, and that creation took a literal 6 days (24 hour periods), and that suggest anything else is to deny God, i.e., evolutionists say God does not exist.

But it's the creationist that imposes this belief onto the evolutionist. Many spiritual people (myself included) hold a very deep belief in an ultimate creator (God), and look for ways to fit our understanding of the world into that Religious belief. When you lack the science to examine the creation story, you accept that it's true. When you uncover evidence that the Earth can't possibly be only 15,000 years old, you adapt. Which isn't all that different from what literal creationists do, they just adapt the other way.

(somewhere, a lightbulb goes off over Bobb's head)

And if THAT little religious split isn't an example of macroevolution of a religious belief, I don't know what is.

I teach Introduction to Environmental Science.

I teach Introduction to Environmental Science.

Cool -- we need more good teachers in that field.

TWL

Jim, you also suggest that, even with billions of years, microevolution won't result in the type of macroevolutionary change required to go from a T-rex to an eagle. On what basis? You suggest that we can oberve things like a beak getting longer. Let's say that change takes 100 years to observe. So other similar, somewhat cosmetic, albeit physically different, changes take around the same time. Like plumage differences, etc.

There are 10 million 100-year intervals in a billion years. For that matter, there are 3 million 100-year intervals in 300 million years. That leaves room for 3 million microevolutionary changes for dinosaurs to have experienced over time. And evidence indicates that at least 2 (or is it 3) massive extinction periods occured during the 300 million years covered by dinosaur fossil records (massive extinction is important because rapid changes tend to occur during these periods). Let's say a 40' T-Rex shrinks 1% every 100 years. In just 20 100-year periods, 40' long T-Rex has shrunk to just shy of 33'. In 40 periods, 27'. In just 60 100-year periods, 40' T-Rex has shrunk to just shy of 22', nearly half the size it was 60,000 years ago. We've not even hit 1 million years yet, and there are 299 million more years to go through, and already T-Rex is starting to look like a totally different species. Imagine what other 50% changes have occurred...it's tiny front arms, proportionaly growing at a similar 1% every 100 years. After 100 100-year periods, T-Rex has evolved into a creature not even 15' long. In just 100,000 years, T-Rex has undergone a 63% reduction. In another 100,000 years, at that rate, T-Rex's descendants could be as small as 6'.

Bobb: Yeah, I remember that Farside. Wasn't there a Farside where the professor was writing out this huge equation on the board, and about five steps before the end, in the equation he had written "And then something magic happens" and then proceeded with the rest of the equation to the answer? I've thought of that one during this whole discussion several times...

Ah, I miss the Far Side. My only recent run-in with Mr. Larson's insanity was to have to explain to my wife why we needed to keep the intact Off the Wall Calendar. I told her it was the last one ever made (not that exact one, but the last version published). I hope that's true, cause if not, it's going to be Clean Sweepsville for some more of my junk.

Jason,

If it's the cartoon I'm thinking of, it's not a Far Side -- it's a Sidney Harris cartoon. A professor has lots of math, then "Then a Miracle Occurs...", then more math. The caption is simply a second person saying, "I think you should be more explicit here in step two."

I have a T-shirt with that on it; I wear it every final exam. The kids aren't impressed, but it's not for them. :-)

TWL

Thanks for the feedback. I am leaving town so can't keep up with all of it. :-) But I hope to read it when I get back. I don't have time to go out and read 300 page books right now, but I welcome links to websites that give more explanation than we should bother posting on PAD's site.

Iowa Jim

Tim, it very well could be something other than a Farside comic. I enjoy all kinds of humor in that vein, so it's hard to keep it all straight sometimes.

Jim, I hope you have a good trip. I will say that this debate has been very refreshing and educational for me; while probably not resulting in conclusions you agree with, I did go and research ID because of this. This is the kind of conversation I love coming to this blog to find and sharpen my own skills with, so I will look forward to another opportunity to debate something with you.

Yeah, this has been SO much better than the usual creationist/evolution debate. Maybe there is something good that will come out of the ID thing after all. personally, I don't dread having to discuss ID vs Darwin because, for me, Darwinism is the obvious winner. Creationism has thrived, in part, because science has ignored it, in much the same way that paranoid theories about the kennedy assassination or the 2004 elections have been able to flourish. When the mainstream has no interest in shining a light on a subject it is better able to fester and grow. (Not that I expect legitimate science to waste much time dismissing ghosts as a cause of cancer).

Most science classes and scientists would rule out any possibility that "god" was involved and say it had to have a natural explanation. I would suggest that we should not be so quick and certain that something "supernatural" does not exist.

I teach bio and environmental earth science. I spend a bit of time in the first few weeks on pseudoscience and the differences between western science and other views of why things happen. I freely admit that I can't disprove the effectiveness of voodoo or the view, which is probably held by a mojority of the human race, that curses and spirits can affect our health. Neither can I say with absolute assurance that the rock which I am telling them is the result of lithification of organic sediments wasn't actually formed by God saying "Hey, let's put some coal over there." But can you imagine what rubber room I'd be put into if I spent any time talking about how Hawaii was formed by a fight between the fire goddess Pele and her sister Na-maka-o-kaha‘i ?

Someone mentioned transitional fossils or missing links. You can't win wioth this one. If you have creature A and creature Z and you find transitional creature M the creationsists will now demand that you find the missing links between A & M and M & Z. When you oblige and find fossils D and T you will be startled to discover that you now are expected to find the missing links between A&D, D&M, M&T and T&Z. Every success results in the creationsists claiming that there are even more "missing" links.

"I freely admit that I can't disprove the effectiveness of voodoo"

Well, , was worried you were going to ruin my plans to take over the world with zombies.

"When you oblige and find fossils D and T you will be startled to discover that you now are expected to find the missing links between A&D, D&M, M&T and T&Z. Every success results in the creationsists claiming that there are even more "missing" links."

The funny thing is, they're right...there are countless missing links that we'll never find, because they were never fossilized. But even with those gaps, we can see the patterns of evolutionary change, and conclude that these changes stretched over great lengths of time result in some rather dramatic evolutionary links.

Compare this to DNA...we have only a small percentage of the human DNA strand mapped. Yet you don't really see people running around claiming, simply because it's an incomplete picture, that the whole idea that DNA holds the building blocks of life is bunk. Mainly because admitting DNA has this information doesn't challenge any closely held religious beliefs. Not so with evolution, as to accept the findings means a stark re-structuring of the literal creationist view.

Off the topic we were discussing off topic but it turns out that all that talk about Americans flocking to Canada to escape the terrors of 4 more years of republican rule turned out to be, well, not so much--actual numbers of people actually moving actually fell by about 1600 people.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050804/wl_canada_nm/canada_canada_usa_immigration_col_1

Wow, that hockey strike last fall had far-reaching ramifications of which we're only now feeling the impact...

Either that or a bunch of Californians discovered the true meaning of the word "cold".

Luigi Novi,
Thanks again. You are my favorite poster on this board, even though we disagree quite often. And no, I did not hear (or hear about) the incident with the radio caller you mention, so I cannot comment one way ot the other on it.
Truth is, I have NEVER listened to Hannity's radio show, or O'Reilly's. The only one I can currently receive on my radio is Rush Limbaugh's, and I have not listened to him in years.

Tim Lynch,
"Yes, Jerome, bigotry is ugly no matter who it's directed towards"

Well, at least we agree on something:)
I will respond to the rest of your post later tonight.

Hmmm... Just thought I'd throw a somewhat random thought out there that occurred to me catching up on posts. It's seemed to me for quite some time, that anything that is witnessed to occur within the observable, real universe is, by definition, natural. Anything not natural is likewise not possible, because we all know, "Ye canna' change the laws of physics."

Now, if we accept the presence of an IDOC (Insert Deity Of Choice) which, on occasion, intervenes in small ways from time to time, and accept that such a being/force is of nearly or truly infinite intellect and wisdom, it would surely have had the foresight to design the universe in such a way that 1) Things like life would have turned out the way it wanted with minimal interference, and 2) It would have had a set of natural laws built in that it alone could use when it chooses to do so. Sort of a cosmic debug mode. Still perfectly natural, just beyond our comprehension.

On a personal note, that's one of the reasons it upsets me when the fundies use the word "unnatural" in reference to anything they don't like. Just because their little primate brains can't comprehend it doesn't mean the universe has to comform to their view.

Well, best get back to work before I start to rant...

-Rex Hondo-

Someone mentioned transitional fossils or missing links. You can't win wioth this one. If you have creature A and creature Z and you find transitional creature M the creationsists will now demand that you find the missing links between A & M and M & Z.

Well, I don't think you actually "win" in an arguement with a creationist no matter what point you try to make because their default thinking is that you are either lying or being deceived by the devil.

Off the topic we were discussing off topic but it turns out that all that talk about Americans flocking to Canada to escape the terrors of 4 more years of republican rule turned out to be, well, not so much--actual numbers of people actually moving actually fell by about 1600 people.

I think it's already been well-documented that most of that was just post-election grumbling. When Democrats lose elections, they make empty threats to move. When Republicans lose, they start drafting impeachment resolutions. ;)

Interestingly enough, I picked up this month's issue of Analog and Stanley Schmidt wrote and essay about the assault on education by the anti-science crowd. He touches on many of the points that I tried to make here.

Some thoughts on a couple of points that have cropped up:

Luigi, just for the record, I think you're confusing the Spanish and Roman Inquisitions. The CDF, which the then Cardinal Ratzinger headed, was indeed the descendant of the Roman Inquisition, but the history of that organisation bears no comparison with the infinitely more agressive Spanish Inquistion, with which it wasn't, in any case, connected.

Jack, your potted history of backpedalling in the creation debate is genuinely amusing, and in some respects not far off the truth, but it's a bit trickier than that, especially if you look at the Fathers of the Early Church. Origen and Augustine, for example, recognised that time was as much a creation of God as space is, and argued for the creation account in Genesis to be of theological rather than historical value.

There was a creation debate, sure, but it tended to be over whether the Genesis account ought to be taken literally or not, and even whether it mattered, in a historical sense. The modern creation debate is a very different matter, mind, and I do rather approve of your caricature on that one.

It's interesting seeing how intense the feelings are that this debate stirs up over on your side of the Atlantic. Here in Europe there's no 'creationist' lobby at all, except perhaps on the smallest of scales. Evolution is basically accepted across the board, in one sense or another.

As for Peter's initial question? In general I'm with Churchill on jaw-jaw being preferable to war-war. On the other hand, I tend to agree with all those who talk about the IRA and Al Qaeda being almost incomparable.

The IRA's a structured paramilitary organisation, inextricably entangled with Sinn Fein, a legitimate political party. What's more, it's always had practical and realisable goals, the kind of goals that can be negotiated towards.

You can, roughly speaking, divide the organisation into Realists, Idealists, and Gangsters. All three have a record of being willing to kill to achieve their aims, but the Realists have tended to see such action as largely futile; the Idealists are the die-hard 'Brits out by any means necessary' brigade, and the Gangsters have been simple criminals, using the organisation as a way to gain money and power; the other two factions have largely tolerated them on the principle that it's better to have them in the tent pissing out, for now.

The Realists, led by Adams, have been trying to shift the overall organisation towards a conventional political struggle for about twenty years, and have made slow and steady progress in that direction, bringing most of the Idealists and most of the Gangsters with them. The organisation has, in effect, been on ceasefire for a decade. What the Realists have been trying to do is to persuade the organisation to stand down with dignity - and in effect that's what's happened.

Idealists who had broken from the main organisation overplayed their hand with the Omagh bombing a few years back; it became pretty much clear then that physical force Republicanism was dead, that it had lost support across the land. This grouping was to get into further trouble after the Al Qaeda attacks on the Eleventh of September, as traditional American funding and support for terrorism in Ireland began to dry up, and probably suffered further when Islamic terrorists hit London a month back.

The Gangsters overplayed their hand at the end of last year, first with the bank robbery and then with the McCarthy murder; these events caused the British and Irish governments to lose patience with the IRA-Sinn Fein leadership and the ordinary people of Northern Ireland, the traditional grassroots supporters of the organisation, to threaten to turn away.

The recent UK elections massively strengthened Adams's hand, as Sinn Fein replaced the (far more admirable) SDLP as the main party of Northern Irish Catholics, while Ian Paisley's DUP replaced the UUP as the main party of Northern Irish Protestants. Bear in mind that the DUP were the only significant Northern Irish party to refuse to engage in the talks that led to the Good Friday Agreement, an agreement that was endorsed by a huge majority of the Northern Irish people. The DUP have a record as a party that refuses to deal with people, and are widely viewed as anti-Catholic bigots. Whether that's true or not isn't necessarily important.

So what's Adams done? He's publicly dropped the IRA card from his hand, and by doing so has staked everything on constitutional politics. The IRA is, in effect, gone. It can't come back without thoroughly discrediting its leadership. He's put the ball firmly into the DUP court, who now have to chose between working within agreement they opposed from the start, or revealing themselves for the Seventeenth Century bigots they surely are.

It's hard to see any comparison between the IRA's actions and Al Qaeda's. We'd need Al Qaeda to be a structured organisation, for starters, rather than a loose network, linked mainly by ideology; as things stand, Bin Ladin looks mainly to be an inspirational figure, rather than a leader, and you can be sure that many of his followers are far more loyal to the cause than to the man. Even if he changed his mind and offered to help, so what? Could he bring those he has inspired with him?

But yes, if all the necessary conditions were in place, and if such an offer were possible, then yes, surely if Al Qaeda wanted to talk, then it'd be irresponsible not to respond. It might be a case of supping with the Devil and using a long spoon, but you'd have to do it nonetheless.

"Of course, I've come to believe we exist in six dimensions. But that's a discussion for another time, I think. :P"

No time like the present. I for one would love to hear the reasoning behind that...I think I see some of it, but I would like to see your line of logic. I am sure that a few others here would too.

and to go a little theological here, as far as I can tell, the actuallity of the Creation has nothing to do with Christianity. As far as I can tell; I and all other Christians believe that Jesus Christ was the son of God, that he died for our sins, and was resurrected, and will come again.

I see nothing in there about when the world was created, how it was created, or anything else.

In my experience as an actor, there is a term used for when you do something simply because you want to, and not because it advances the action or adds to the character. That is called theatrical masturbation. In my mind, a lot of what Jerry Falwell and cronies do is theological masturbation: It is for their own pleasure, serves no useful purpose, and freaks people out when they see them doing it.

It is a really, really, really, REALLLY big universe, that has been around for a really, really really REALLLY long time, I think that life is not only here, but a lot of places. There have been some interesting thought experiments done that have turned up Silicon instead of carbon based life forms, seeing as silicon is actually more common then carbon. ID is, as an old saying goes, "Niether fish nor Fowl, nor good red meat," it is not science, or theoology, but simply an attempt to attack what doesn't exactly jive with the world as they want it to be. I believe it was Augustine who argued that, once God had created a universe with certain laws, he could not violate those laws, so it isn't hard to see that God could have placed certain protocols for life in place, or possibly "nudged" evolution at times. this would eliminate the problem of when/where/how/why/who for God created the world, and also allow the evolutionists to feel happy. Personally, I feel that God made the thing, so he can do whatever the hell he wants to with it, ol' Jerry notwithstanding.

As for the original subject of this thread, one point I haven't seen discussed is the posibility of an Islamic/NATO coilition against a common threat, such as China. If China decides that they are the new USSR, and that there is all this great land and oil to be had in the Middle East, then we might very well end up not only calling a truce with Al-Qaida, but actually working with them, similar to how we armed them against the Soviets. O'course we might go back to fighting, but there is an interesting tendency in history for nations that have fought together to remain (somewhat) at peace afterwards. England and France are excellent examples of this.

This is all not to mention the fact, that, despite the fact that we would be "supping with the Devil and using a long spoon" (I like that, remind me to steal it sometime.)to negotiate with AQ, we would have no choice but to come to the table, if only to avoid looking bad on the world stage. Really, that would be a Win-win for AQ. If we come to the table, then we are negotiating on their terms, and they get a cease-fire/breating space. if we don't, then we are bad guys for not wanting to bring peace and unity to Iraq/the Middle East. Our best bet would be to issue a standing offer to negotiate a peace settlement at any time. That way, if they do come, it is on terms, and we look good for trying to bring peace at any cost, even if we have to accept some evil to get it.

Well, I'll try not to ramble too much. I've come to think of time not as the fourth dimension, but the next three, through a, to my knowledge, somewhat unique combination of philosophies.

First off is reincarnation, and more specifically, past life regressions and other such experiences. I know here in the west, a great many don't believe in such things, but I'm not here to debate it. There are more things in Heaven and Earth, etc... Going on personal experience, strong anecdotal evidence and realizing that 1) Memory is stored chemically in the brain and therefore does not start "recording" until an as-yet undetermined time post-conception, and 2) a being existing in one dimension would be incapable of witnessing anything at any other point along the line, time must at the very least be curved to allow those gifted with the ability or who can learn to see, however faintly, other lifetimes.

*Whew* Stick with me, I'm getting there.

Now, the other piece of the philosophical puzzle I'm assembling is the concept of free will. Even the Christina fundamentalists will have little problem with this one. In order to allow people to choose their own path amongst literally infinite choices, lateral movement must be allowed along the time stream as well as forward movement. (Not backward, as nobody has figured out how to counteract temporal inertia yet)

So, what we end up with, or at least the way I envision it, is time being an infinite sphere, or, if you like the thought of time being cyclical a la The Wheel of Time, a merely immensely huge sphere.

-Rex Hondo-

Wow. I think I follow what you are saying, Rex, that in essence we move along the time stream in three dimensions, similar, or at least analagous, to how we move in our own three dimensional space. Time is in essence another three dimensional "sphere" that we move in, along with our own, familiar three dimensional world. You could almost view this as one of the original models of the cosmos, the medievial one, with the speres-within-spheres concept.

As for you worrying that eastern mysticism is out of place here, you obviously haven't read a little tome called "The Tao of Physics!!" It really helps to understand some of the freakier crap in the universe if you can get out of the western mindset.

I was thinking about what you said about past life digression. If, for simplicity, you view traveling along the timeline as a two dimensional map, you would see these as long curves from the past suddenly intercepting the future, and if you expand it into three dimensions, you get a series of loops, and curves as someone passes through time, or as past intercepts present. This would look almost exactly like quantum foam. I don't know how familiar you are with quantum physics, but this is the idea that, at its smallest, the universe is a constanly shifting "Foam," in which particles can appear out of nowhere, and pretty much anything goes. the point is, is that when you graph or draw this, it looks pretty much like what your idea of time would look like.

or maybe I misunderstood you. But I don't think so.

actually, also just realized that if what you say about not being able to travel backwards in time is true, your model might look more like a cone, with the tip of the cone coinciding with the big bang, and expanding out from there. Hawking did some stuff with this idea in "A brief history of time."

just an idea.

Origen and Augustine, for example, recognised that time was as much a creation of God as space is, and argued for the creation account in Genesis to be of theological rather than historical value.

Indeed, there is certainly a long and healthy history in both Christianity and Judaism of understanding Genesis in a less-literal fashion than do modern fundementalist Christians. I'd even go so far as to say that a great many ancient religions distinguished between mythic truth and day-to-day truth. They had no trouble believing in myths that contradicted each other, or contradicted observable facts, because the truth of the myths was on a different level.

After all, if God is all-powerful, can't He make contradictory things true? If He can be simultanously Father, Son and Holy Spirit, couldn't he have formed man from dust a few thousand years ago AND had him evolve from other apes millions of years ago? Seems a rather limited conception of God if He's bound by human logic.

A very nice evaluation of the IRA, I might add. One of the most difficult aspects of al-Qa`ida is that they DON'T have any realistic goals. They can't possibly hope to bring down Western civilization, no matter how many planes they crash.

Even if you could explain the evolution of man from the formation of the universe billions of years ago, you are still left with the question of where the universe came from.

You, on the other hand, are left with the far more difficult question of where God came from. From an Occhamian perspective, yours is the more complex solution, since you assume something MORE COMPLEX than the universe (i.e., God) exists without a creator, while I simply assume that the universe itself exists without a creator. You cannot use the complexity of the unverse as an argument for a creator without implicitly requiring that the creatory have a creator as well.

Sceince doesn't know "where the universe" came from. Such a question may very well be meaningless, since it relies on a very conventional model of time. Time doesn't necessarily function in quite the same way on the quantum level, or when dealing with massive amounts of matter or energy. And, as Tim mentioned, there may be a simple limit before which there simply exists no information. It may not be possible, from a scientific perspective, to know where the universe came from, although we might learn a lot about what happened almost immediately after that.

Bottom line, you are left with either the belief/faith that nature itself is in some way eternal, or that a "designer" / "god" of some sort exists and designed it all.

That is a false dichotomy. There is also the option of simply admitting ignorance. That is the fundemental difference between scientific and religious epistemologies: science doesn't claim it has all the answers.

You may argue we are not there yet, but my question is what do you do if this were to happen?

I would collect my Nobel Prize and be deeply satisfied that I had INCREASED mankind's understanding of the physical world, even if I couldn't complete it.

Evolution is a much bigger and all encompasing theory then gravity alone.

Come now. Gravity (or what we call gravity) spans the entire universe, affects all matter, energy, space and time, and may be a manifestation of the literal fabric from which all things are formed. Evolution explains why there are so many kinds of bugs on one particular chunk of soggy rock.

I again ask where you we can actually observe evolution itself in action?

Go hang out in a hospital and see the nasty new strains of bacteria they have to deal with.

The few examples I have read are weak stretches (such as the change in the length of a beak of a bird) that do not demonstrate the formation of a new and more complex system.

How much more complex do you need? It's an incremantal process. To argue that these incremental changes can't add up to significant canges over time is like Zeno's arguing that an arrow can't ever reach its target. If you admit 1+1 is 2, you have to admit that 1+1+1+1... is EVENTUALLY going to add up to a million.

But if God does exist, he by definition exists in a higher plane/dimension than ours.

Were that the case, then science could tell us nothing about this god, since science deals exclusively with observable, measurable, repeatable phenomena. If your god isn't bound by physical laws, it is not possible for it to be measured, so it isn't within the realm of science. Saying a god created the universe is, from a scientific perspective, like saying love makes the sky blue. There is no way to test it.

Miracles are not "tinkering" with the laws of physics, but just the intervention of a higher dimension on a lower one.

If the laws of physics can be tinkered with, they aren't laws. Science relies on these laws in order to draw conclusions and make predictions. Every time we've checked, light has moved through a vacuum at just under 300 m/sec, so science assumes it will continue to do so. If a god is not bound by these laws, science can't gather any reliable, objective information about it.

But when you quantify that the monkeys can type X keystrokes a minute, and that when you add up the keystrokes needed to write perfectly the sonnet, you suddenly realize that it is statistically an impossibility.

The problem with the monkey/typewriter analogy is that evolution is NOT a random process. Evolution takes place because there are various pressures which make some individuals more likely to pass on their genes than others. The "monkeys" who happen to type in real "words" get "bananas", and the closer they get to "Shakespeare", the more "bananas" they get.

Well, I don't think you actually "win" in an arguement with a creationist no matter what point you try to make because their default thinking is that you are either lying or being deceived by the devil.

Like evolution, it's an incremental victory. The very development of "Intellegent Design" and before it "Creation Science" are victories, in that the creationists were conceding the validity of scientific method and, eventually, of the more glaringly obvious aspects of evolution. If we can keep them from ruining science education, each generation will see more and more concessions until they come to accept the facts.

Like evolution, it's an incremental victory.

My choice of words was bad. Evolution is incremental, but it isn't a "victory", since it has no specific goal or purpose.

Jack,

That's why i keep coming here--thanks to you I now have read up on Zeno's paradox.

And my head hurts.

That's why i keep coming here--thanks to you I now have read up on Zeno's paradox.

All of it, or just the first half?

TWL

see, zeno's paradoxes, while fun academic exercises, never really make a point. For instance, take his first, most famous paradox. achilles and a turtle get in a race. since achilles is a nice guy, he gives the turtle a 100 yard lead. For sake of convience, we will say achilles runs exactly ten times as fast as the turtle. so achilles runs the 100 yds, by which time the turtle has run ten, achilles runs the ten, and the turtle has run one....and so on ad infinitum.

My problem with this is that it ignores phyisical reality. Achilles cannot run 1/10,000 of a yd.

Supposing that his strides are a yard long, and that he takes one a secong, and that the turtle's are 1/10 of a meter. at some point, achilles would simply take a single stride that put him past the turtle.

Physical reality trumps intellectual gibbering any day of the week. and twice on Saturday.

James, there's no problem with Achilles running 1/10,000 of a yard. There's no condition that each of these events occurs in a single step.

The real problem with Zeno's paradox is that it's possible for an infinite series to have a finite sum. Saying "it takes an infinite number of steps" isn't a problem unless you're also arguing each step takes the same time.

That's the real difficulty, I think. The paradox is cool, but more as a what's-wrong-with-this-picture exercise than anything else.

TWL

All of it, or just the first half?

Are you TRYING to give me an embolism?

James, Actually, I don't look at past life regression so much as past intersecting present as looking at a different spot back along the timescape, thus the analogy of traveling along an (nigh) infinite sphere.

Of course, this is all purely in the realm of philosophy since, as yet, we do not truly percieve time itself, merely witness evidence of time's "passage" and impose arbitrary units of measurement for our own convenience.

-Rex Hondo-

Jack, I don't think intelligent design is a concession by the creationists, it's merely their attempt to acheive in incremental victory first by generating doubt about the validity of evolution and use ID as a bridge to bring people back to standard creationism.

So much to comment on, so little time...

"Jim, by its very nature, science HAS to look at natural causes and can't look at anything else. It HAS to be quick and certain to rule out "supernatural causes" by its very definition. Anything that's supernatural is inherently outside of science, and trying to force that into science is an exercise in futility."

That's always been my difficulty with science: if there IS the supernatural, then science is limited and its answers may be wrong. It's a little bit like a cop saying "aha! A murder has been committed and it MUST be someone in this room!" He could find motive, opportunity, and means for someone within the room - enough even to convict the guy - but that doesn't mean the accused was guilty. It could be someone across the street, but since the cop isn't investigating that, oops! (Don't read into this that I am "anti-science" it's just a quibble. Nor do I think a scientist can investigate across the street in the supernatural. It can't even rule out the supernatural because it doesn't have the tools).

I rather like Micha's observation of the watchmaker starting with simple mechanisms and it evolving to a more complex watch. That IS creationism. I'm not a 24/7 creationist. I've had the same problem with teaching creation in school as others...(okay, now what will you teach on the second day?). I think ID is a good way to force thought on evolution (how can an allegedly irreducibly complex eye evolve? What would the transition look like?). But the depth of evolution in public schools almost does more harm than good because it is so simplified that it's practically a straw man (we had the poster of the horse's evolution on the wall with the fact that the stair-step progression of the animal's size wasn't representative of their order in the fossil record. Knocking that down doesn't falsify evolution, it just points out the simplicity of the level taught.) So using ID in schools, while interesting (I loved it when Creationists came into our science class - I was an atheist at the time and it was amusing. Truth was, I didn't know enough to be arrogantly amused, so the joke was on me) it would be a limited value as a litmus test for evolution, and doesn't belong in a biology class as anything else. A logic course, maybe...

I do disagree that gravity and evolution are analogous, though. Both are complex, yes, but an apple drops from a tree to the ground. When my dip-headed nephew uses that to believe in gravity, that's cool. When he says he 100 percent believes in evolution but can't tell me a single thing about it, he believes only by authority not by observation.

One of the concepts of creationism that I find interesting, but I'm not knowledgeable enough to believe one way or the other, is that common design is mistaken for common decent and that new "information" doesn't evolve, but that all "information" already exists within the DNA and just isn't yet expressed. Do we know enough to say that isn't true?

Showing my ignorance yet again, let me ask: is the taxonomy classification just an overlaid representation? That is, do we have evidence that one classification has turned into another classification? Or is "life" really a continuum with somewhat arbitrary demarcations of class? That would make macroevolution a bit more hard to pin down since speciation is hard for some of us to swallow (at what point does Tim's shrinking T-Rex become a different species? We like to say "a long billed finch is still a finch" is it appropriate to say "a T-Rex is still a T-Rex even when he's a swan?") Since we don't know what "Kinds" refers to in the Bible account, there's all sorts of wiggle room in what that meant. Does evolution exist within kinds but not across kinds? Is a T-Rex and the majestic swan a single kind, but a T-Rex and a billy-goat are not the same kind?

For me, God is literally self-evident. I have less problem with science and faith working hand in hand than many of my Christian friends, but I don't just give a pass to any evolutionary thought, either.

Last question: Have mutations ever been proven to be beneficial (X-Men notwithstanding?)?

"at what point does Tim's shrinking T-Rex become a different species?"

At the point where their genes are so different they can no longer produce fertile offspring. For instance, a Mastiff and a Chihuahua could (in theory) have puppies who were perfectly fertile, thus, they are both still Canis lupus familiaris.

Lions and tigers on the other hand, can produce offspring, called ligers ( no "Napoleon Dynamite" jokes!) or tigons. These however, are sterile, thus the lion and tigers are different species. (Panthera leo and Panthera tigris respectively.)

"Last question: Have mutations ever been proven to be beneficial."

Most aren't. 99.9% are really, really bad. (cancer, anyone?) it is the .1% that can be benificial over looooong times or many generations. an excellent example of this is the flu. In 1919, there was a massive flu pandemic that killed millions. there have been none since, partially because of improved hygine and medical knowledge, but also because the flu virus mutated into a less deadly form. It isn't good for a virus to kill it's host, a virus wants the host to live and spread the virus. Thus, a less lethal form of the virus was a very benificial form of mutation.

if there IS the supernatural, then science is limited and its answers may be wrong.

See, the difference between science and religion is that, when science is 'wrong', it makes an effort to correct its stance on where it was wrong. :)

then science is limited and its answers may be wrong

Guess what. Working scientists are keenly aware of this.

The shrinking T-rex example, by the way, wasn't mine -- I believe it was Bobb's.

And as for the "how could the eye evolve?" question you mentioned -- you might want to go back and look at one of the links I posted earlier in the thread, as there's a very nice discussion of exactly that.

TWL

Showing my ignorance yet again, let me ask: is the taxonomy classification just an overlaid representation? That is, do we have evidence that one classification has turned into another classification? Or is "life" really a continuum with somewhat arbitrary demarcations of class? That would make macroevolution a bit more hard to pin down since speciation is hard for some of us to swallow (at what point does Tim's shrinking T-Rex become a different species? We like to say "a long billed finch is still a finch" is it appropriate to say "a T-Rex is still a T-Rex even when he's a swan?") Since we don't know what "Kinds" refers to in the Bible account, there's all sorts of wiggle room in what that meant. Does evolution exist within kinds but not across kinds? Is a T-Rex and the majestic swan a single kind, but a T-Rex and a billy-goat are not the same kind?

One should keep in mind that much of our way of classifying life is comepletely arbitrary. We say, for example, that anything with a feather is a bird and all birds have feathers and right now that works out ok. Since there is ample evidence that at one time there were many reptiles that had feathers it should be obvious that this is not a hard and fast written in stone definition.

I'm a bit amazed when creationists talk about the second part of your comment--the idea that "kinds" could be a very broad based thing. So, as one explained to me, Noah took just two turtles on the ark and from these basic turtles came about ALL of the speices of turtles that exist today--from box turtles to sea turtles to giant Galapagos Tortoises, etc.

And I mean WOW! Talk about macroevolution! From feet to fins (or visa versa) in just 5000 years! And there's your answer to "Have mutations ever been proven to be beneficial?" If you throw a box turtle into the ocean or drop a sea turtle in the sands of a desert you'll find out tragically fast that each is very well adapted to its own environment and not so much for the others. It's kind of like the story of the City Mouse and the Country Mouse, only with dead turtles.

Now I'm not saying that one has to believe in Noah's Ark to be a creationist but for those that do there is a major problem--way too many species of animals exist now for the story to be true and any attempt to lower that number requires evolution on a scale undreamed of by Darwin himself.

But, Bill, aren't turtles an example of natural selection rather than mutation? Or am I misunderstanding mutation? The environment begins to select flatter feet, and flatter feet until it's completely flat. A mutation would be foot to fin in a single generation (or a couple, I don't know).

That's always been my difficulty with science: if there IS the supernatural, then science is limited and its answers may be wrong.

Well, if you define what is apparently supernatural as anything that is outside of natural law, then yes, science does paint an incomplete picture. I prefer to think of it as simply something that is natural, just not 100% understood.

For instance, a Mastiff and a Chihuahua could (in theory) have puppies who were perfectly fertile, thus, they are both still Canis lupus familiaris.

I actually use the chihuahua-mastiff crossbreeding as an example to define what is a species. For one, they are two extreme body types within the same species and for two, I think anything is funny when you throw in a chihuahua.

Lions and tigers on the other hand, can produce offspring, called ligers ( no "Napoleon Dynamite" jokes!) or tigons.

The more classic example is the donkey-horse crossbreeding to produce a mule.

One should keep in mind that much of our way of classifying life is comepletely arbitrary. We say, for example, that anything with a feather is a bird and all birds have feathers and right now that works out ok. Since there is ample evidence that at one time there were many reptiles that had feathers it should be obvious that this is not a hard and fast written in stone definition.

While this is true to some extent, biologists are turning more and more towards genetic similarities to define species rather than just gross physical similarities. For example, while it was known for a long time that the two major groups of orangutans in Borneo and Sumatra didn't mate when brought together, it's only been recently that biologists have considered the possibility that they are in fact two separate species. Of course, genetic similarity is not without controversy, as some biologists have argued that chimps should be reclassified as hominids because of their genetic similarity to us.

aren't turtles an example of natural selection rather than mutation?

What exactly do you think natural selection IS, Robbnn? How do you think it occurs without some sort of mutation?

If you think mutations have to be huge (a la the example you gave), then I respectfully submit that you've been reading too much comic-book science and not enough of the real thing.

TWL

"The more classic example is the donkey-horse crossbreeding to produce a mule."

well, yeah, but which is cooler, a mule or a liger?

"A mutation would be foot to fin in a single generation (or a couple, I don't know)."

noooooo...that would be a deformity. A mutation would be a slightly flatter foot, which aided in walking in wet sand, and gradually getting flatter, until they served as flippers, opening up a new source of food and/or shelter in the ocean, thus making that turtle more likely to live to mate and pass on it's genes, which have the flat foot gene.

as for eyes, many creatures, right down to protazoa, have light sensing capabilities.
The development of the eye was most likely an improved way to avoid pradators. As camoflage got more sophisticated, so did the eye. For instance, in a picture of a tiger in a forest, you can pick out the tiger based on its color. An animal which sees in black and white would have a much harder time just seeing the pattern. More highly developed eyes are a very useful survival tool, which is why virtually every creature that doesn't live deep in a cave has them.

well, yeah, but which is cooler, a mule or a liger?

Well, can a liger pull a heavy cart up a steep mountain road?

But, Bill, aren't turtles an example of natural selection rather than mutation? Or am I misunderstanding mutation? The environment begins to select flatter feet, and flatter feet until it's completely flat. A mutation would be foot to fin in a single generation (or a couple, I don't know).

Ahhh, I begin to see where you've gone wrong (no offence intended and you are far from alone). To get back to something that Tim said earlier, I might disagree that 99.9% of all mutations are bad--most are probably neutral, since most of our DNA does nothing more than sit there and take up space. Most mutations in actual gene sequences are likely to be damaging as well--a box turtle born with slightly flattened feet has little or no advantage in walking on sand. But if conditions change--say, the climate begins to get wetter--those feet, ever so slightly better at navigating short distances in water, might help him escape from the ever increasing number of flash floods. Continue this process over millions of years, with the former desert now the edge of a great ocean and natural selection always favoring those random mutations that make feet better at swimming and the descendents of our desert friend now are completely different turtles.

The idea that one could go from a box turtle to a Leatherback in one generation would require so many random spontaneous mutations as to be almost mathematically impossible. But that's not the only kind of mutation that happens--mostly it's just a few base pairs of DNA. I can't say that no "hopeful monster" ever existed but there is the added problem of finding a mate--even if one lucky (?) sea turtle was born in a clutch of box turtle eggs and managed to crawl to the ocean (and it's unlikely that his turtle brain would figure that out as the correct course of action) he would face a lonely life waiting for that same extraordinary set of events to happen again, this time with a female.

Also keep in mind another common fallacy--if a box turtle eventually mutated into a sea turtle, why are there still sea turtles, I am often asked. Well, it isn't like all box turtles mutated at once or even that going to the sea was the ONLY way to survive. A small subset of the overall poulation may have been subjected to different natural selective pressures than the rest of them and thus would be sent off in a different direction (it helps if they are isolated, to keep their genes from mixing with the parent population). Best example--the giant tortoises of the Galapagos, freed from competition with mammals, able to reach gianormous proportions. (I'm aware that "gianormous" is not an actual word but I've spent about 2 months now with my teen daughters, so stop the hating, beyoches.)

Thanks, Bill.

"What exactly do you think natural selection IS, Robbnn? How do you think it occurs without some sort of mutation?"

Well, I figured that natural selection would be a characteristic, such a beak, changing shape over generations to make it more successful. As in a bunch of short-beeked finches hatching out an odd-looking (to them) bird with a bit of a narrower, perhaps longer beek that in time of famine allows the critter to last a little longer than his siblings. Then it mates with another outcast beeky bird and has a still beekier bird, and so on until there isn't a bug in a tree that's safe. There is not mutation in the classic sense in this scenario. I don't think any genes or base pairs change, it's just that weird looking birds have weirder looking birds that might be helpful traits someday.

Isn't mutation as Bill suggested, a new expression of genes? I don't just mean the hopeful monster - which we don't have any examples of... something caused the pre-cambrian explosion, didn't it? If it wasn't radioactive spider-bites, what was it?

Bill, I have to compliment you on your explanations for how evolution works. I find that one of the many of the misconceptions about it revolve around things like you've illustrated, such as expecting mutations to be dramatic (ie, a foot turning into a complete flipper in one generation) or that a species converts en masse into a new species.

I love teaching evolution and I'm starting to get itchy to get back to school (not that I won't be keening for my lost free time. I will be.).

I think an awful lot of the controversy about evolution is due to misunderstanding. Some of it is due to deliberate misinformaion spread by creationists but, in all honesty, much of it is also due to the condescending treatment given to doubters by evolutionists. I've long argued in our political discussions that the left has lost power in large part because of its arrogance towrad those not on their bandwagon and I sure as hell want to make sure that I don't replicate that mistake in my teaching.

Robbnn,

The thing is, the reason that birds have different shaped beaks at all is because of DNA differences. Not all of this is due to mutation but some of it is. Ay amy rate, evolution is actually defined as a change in gene frequency of a population--if increasing cases of skin cancer favor darker skin and as a result the percentage of black people goes from 12% to 15% of the population, the population has evolved. That's not "classical" as you say, but what if a white kid is born with a few more copies of the melanin gene than either of her parents, which gives her the same protection? That would be an example of a gene mutation contributing to natural selection.

something caused the pre-cambrian explosion, didn't it?

great question. I don't know. One aspect that might have been a factor was that we are talking about a world that was ripe for the plucking--I think that if we dropped a few sspecies on a virgin world that was rich in organic material and had the right temperature range we might very well get the same result--an explosion of new life exploring every available niche, followed by the inevitable implosion as the more successful phyla outlast the also-rans.

Hmm... Ok, I have to ask a question because my genetics knowledge on the detailed level is very rusty. When we're talking about genetic speciation versus the genetic mutations that fuel natural selection, is it correct to say that while all members of a species share the same options in the number and functional assignments of genetic base pairs, their individual genetic expressions could be quite different, depending on which options are chosen in their base pairs? For example, say the Pontiac Grand Am is a species of car, with the same options available to each individual member, but the choice of options (mutations) the buyer picks presents them with a unique expression of that species. I'm reading Robbnn's post and Bill's post and am wondering if this is a point of confusion for others or just myself.

Off off topic but there's an intriguing trailer for a new indie film called JUNE & JULY at http://www.juneandjuly.net/

Without giving much away, if you are a comics fan and/or an idie film buff, it looks like a winner. If 3 of us buy a copy it will instantly be more succesful than THE ISLAND or STEALTH.

Hmmm... ok, further thinking... in the car analogy, would the mutation come in when I win a spot on "Pimp My Ride" and West Coast Customs mutates the car with a host of new options? Back the genetics would that entail the addition of a base pair(s) of genes, making the new thing a one-off of the original species?

"is it correct to say that while all members of a species share the same options in the number and functional assignments of genetic base pairs, their individual genetic expressions could be quite different, depending on which options are chosen in their base pairs?"

As far as i can understand.

There can be some variation within the genes that make up a specie without making a seperate specie.

For instance, humans can have white, brown, black, reddish-brown, and ever shade inbetween skin. we can have many eye colors, and variations in height. we can even have variations in the number of appendages (I am thinking of the tendancy among the Amish to have six fingered kids.) all while remaining homo sapiens.

I do not know though, that they can be "Quite different." one to two percent variation is probably about the norm. I am not sure how big the variation is. I know chimps are about 96% the same as us, but where that 4% lies could make all the difference.

To answer your question: you can have variation in the looks/size/behavior of a specie while not changing the fact that it is a specie. The "options" you speak of are called "traits" in bio-speak, and some nerd named Mendel did a lot of work with this in pea plants. He apparently had nothing better to do. Its like the man was a monk or something.

In more bio-speak: some alleles can be expressed, while others aren't.

"Well, can a liger pull a heavy cart up a steep mountain road?"

I forget, is the liger the bigger one, or is that the tigon? Either way, judhing from their size, they could...the more important question is: Would you survive trying to hook a liger up to a cart, and would it then do the work of pulling the cart, or would it just lay down until you took the harness off?

At which point, if it didn't kill and eat you before hand, it probably would now.

"Back the genetics would that entail the addition of a base pair(s) of genes, making the new thing a one-off of the original species?"

Well, if they pimped your car out to the extent that it was no longer recognizable as a Grand Am, then it would be a different specie of car. To determine EXACTLY when it became a new specie, you would have to see at what point it stopped being a grand am.

To apply this to genes: It might have gotten a new base pair, but that is unlikely, unless it changed from a car to a motorcycle. more than likely the genetic drift was so "large" that it was no longer within the factory specs of a grand am.

to drop the car analogy....if a million years ago two groups of the common ancestors of humans and Orangatangs had been stranded on opposite sides of a chasm, and their ancestors met today, it would be obvious that this was two totally different species, despite the fact that their genes were very similar.

Well, I figured that natural selection would be a characteristic, such a beak, changing shape over generations to make it more successful. As in a bunch of short-beeked finches hatching out an odd-looking (to them) bird with a bit of a narrower, perhaps longer beek that in time of famine allows the critter to last a little longer than his siblings.

True enough -- but as Bill's already said, the only way you get an "odd-looking" bird is via the expression of some mutation or other. Mutations don't have to be huge.

TWL

Let's also keep in mind that the definition of species is quite fluid. Even if Luions and Tigers could produce fertile offspring, the fact is that they do not do so normally in the wild, so the definition still holds.

There are probably many species of animals that COULD produce fertile hybrids but don't, for a variety of reasons--different mating times, different mating dances, wrong smell, whatever. And then you have a situation where there are 6 closely related seagulls. #1 can mate with #2 and #3, which can mate with # 4 but #4 can't mate with #1. So are #1 and # 4 different species while #1 and #3 and #3 and #4 are the same?

I just point this out to show that nature is way more complicated than we tend to make it out to be and our desire for tidy explanations will probably be thwarted more often than not.

"Back the genetics would that entail the addition of a base pair(s) of genes, making the new thing a one-off of the original species?"

Yeah, this should have read "Back to the genetics, would that..." I left out a "to" and a "," initially - sorry about that...

And thanks for the clarifications. I was using the car example for fun; don't think I'm all hung up on cars or anything.

I'm not arguing, Tim, just trying to understand. Is that mutation? It seems to me that it's dealing in existing genes (resessive versus dominant). Mutation would be like blue hair, where there wasn't a gene or allele and through cosmic drift there is now (okay, not through cosmic drift, but it sounds good).

Robbnn:

your missing the point. Unless you change it somehow, your genes determine how you look. pug nose? gene. Brown hair? gene. Freaky blue hair (undyed) Gene. Mutation is a change in a gene. For instance, cancer is caused when the part of a gene that slows a cells growth is removed by a mutation. The cells then grow out of control, causing cancer.

now, if you get a benificial mutation, and pass that on to your kid through your genes, the gene may be recessive. Say you have trait a. but your mate has trait A (the dominant one) your offspring will show trait A (say, brown hair) but will carry the trait a (red hair) now if your son gets together with someone else who carries the a gene, then their kid should have red hair.

now, you could, possibly, have a mutation through exposure to cosmic rays that would create blue hair, and you could pass that on to your kids, but it would still have to be a genetic change.

I don't really see how having significantly flatter feet than has shown up in either "family tree" (for want of a better phrase) is going to be a simple dominant/recessive issue. At least some of the changes you're talking about are going to have to be mutations.

This isn't really directed at you, Robbnn (and certainly not solely towards you in any case) -- it's just that an awful lot of people out there seem to think that "mutation" has to mean something huge and vastly different. It's really not. There could be some mutation that affects how efficiently an organism gets energy from its food, for example; you wouldn't see any sign of it externally, but it would almost certainly provide a huge evolutionary advantage over others of the species.

In any case, I think Bill's doing a better job on this than I am (which he'd better, being the biology teacher and all :-), so I'll leave it to him.

TWL

That's always been my difficulty with science: if there IS the supernatural, then science is limited and its answers may be wrong.

Science is built on the assumption that the universe operates in a consistant manner. If the universe does NOT operate in a consistant manner, because of some magic, undetectable force, then, well, we can't have much predictive knowlege of ANYTHING. We can't assume that just because gravity has kept our planet in orbit for billions of years, that it won't suddenly send us shooting into space tomorrow. We can't assume that the chemical bonds that hold our bodies together won't dissolve, or that the light reaching our eyes has really bounced off of the objects around us.

Luckily, the laws of physics seem to be holding. The nice thing about science is that IT WORKS. Because it relies on OBSERVATION and REPETITION, it can provide very accurate predictions of future events even if the underlying mechanisms aren't known, or are misunderstood. And it corrects itself when new data are discovered.

If you can find a better means than science of learning about the world, if you can come up with a way to measure the "supernatural" in such a way that you can produce a predicative model that is more accurate than the naturalistic ones, go for it. Until then, science is far and away the best tool we have. I call it the Wish-In-One-Hand-Shit-In-The-Other-Principle. Even if the supernatural exists, naturalistic, scientific, empirically-based knowlege has produced a LOT more practical applications.

It's a little bit like a cop saying "aha! A murder has been committed and it MUST be someone in this room!"

No, it's like a cop saying "A murder has been committed and it must have been committed by SOMETHING."

Showing my ignorance yet again, let me ask: is the taxonomy classification just an overlaid representation? That is, do we have evidence that one classification has turned into another classification? Or is "life" really a continuum with somewhat arbitrary demarcations of class?

All demarkations are by their nature arbitrary and artificial, but they are usefull. It used to be that animals were grouped by shared characteristics, but the trend now is what is called "cladistic" taxonomy. It attempts to categorize animals by their lines of common descent. Therefore, all mammals and birds are seen as a branch off of reptiles. The demarkations are ideally based on genetic evidence of the last common ancestor. This has lead to having to re-work the tree. The best-known example is that Chimpanzees are more closely-related to us than they are to Gorillas, but it also looks like Guinea Pigs' ancestors branched off from the rest of the rodents much earlier than previously suspected.

At the point where their genes are so different they can no longer produce fertile offspring. For instance, a Mastiff and a Chihuahua could (in theory) have puppies who were perfectly fertile, thus, they are both still Canis lupus familiaris.

It's not that cut-and-dried. Speciation can take place even if two populations are CAPABLE of producing fertile offspring, but simply do not do so in the wild, even given opportunity. This can happen because of differing fertility cycles (especially in plants), anatomical difficulties (as would be the case with theoretical wild mastiffs and wild Chihuahuas), or simple sexual selection.

Taxonomy isn't an exact science. If it were, we'd have trouble justifying placing chimps in a separate genus from ourselves.

"Speciation can take place even if two populations are CAPABLE of producing fertile offspring, but simply do not do so in the wild, even given opportunity."

I wasn't aware of that definition, I was simply taught the fertile off-spring part. Thanks for the info. My point (whatever it was) still holds.

I'm a bit amazed when creationists talk about the second part of your comment--the idea that "kinds" could be a very broad based thing. So, as one explained to me, Noah took just two turtles on the ark and from these basic turtles came about ALL of the speices of turtles that exist today--from box turtles to sea turtles to giant Galapagos Tortoises, etc.

Someone observed that the size of a "kind" is inversely proportional to how familiar the creationist is with the animal in question. The 85,000-odd species of flies might be a "kind", but humans and apes are seperate "kinds".

I forget, is the liger the bigger one, or is that the tigon?

The liger is larger, larger in fact than either a lion or tiger. Lions get one of their growth-regulating genes from the mother, while tigers get it from the father. Ligers, having a lion father and a tiger mother, don't get the gene at all. Tigons, conversely, get two copies, and are smaller than either parent.

Forgive me for not knowing how to post it as a link, but here's some info on ligers. They're FREAKIN' HUGE. Enjoy.

http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/liger.asp

And, yeah, I don't care if they could pull a cart or not; they kick a mule's ass... well, its posterior, not its parent...

Hey, we settled up with the Klingons, didn't we?

In any case, I think Bill's doing a better job on this than I am (which he'd better, being the biology teacher and all

Thank you. I only wish it were true (I'm mostly teaching Earth/Environmental now but obviously Bio is my first love and I sneak it in as much as possible).

Here's another Liger photo showing off it's massive size: http://www.scumpa.com/~art/king-richards-sep02/liger-med.jpg

I'm really doubting the "Can run at 50 mph" claim. I suspect that, in the wild, it would have trouble finding enough to eat (there's a reason the Smilodon died out, more's the pity). Awfully cool though, the nitwits at the Sci Fi Channel should have slapped a couple of fangs on these guys for their dopey SABRETOOTH movies.

Nice to know that even with me out of town for 5 days, this post has managed to stay off the original topic and still dealing with (at least in part) ID, evolution, and the reason why the earth really is flat after all (just kidding).

Unfortunately, I leave on another trip Wednesday, so I will just enjoy your posts. Keep at it! It is rather entertaining and even educational.

Iowa Jim

Bill, your pic of a liger is so big, by organization has chosen to screen it out while I'm at work. (Ok, they mean the file size in data bits, but it still works).

Safe Travels, Jim.

I'm also off on a trip for a week-and-a-half, so while I won't be commenting, I'll read with pleasure when I get back.

Fun stuff.

Oh, by-the-by, I didn't think anyone had tried to define what a biblical Kind is. It would be a conceit if anyone does. The Bible gives no indication of what a kind is.

And, Jack, I agree with your assessment that science is a big deal. I've seen miracles, though, so I don't believe it is the ONLY big deal.

I don't know if anyone's going to see this, since the link to it's since gone off the main page, but I got this in the mail a day or two ago after Bush's statement in favor of teaching "both sides" -- it's from the president of the American Astronomical Society and is an open letter from him to President Bush. Interesting reading.

TWL
-------

August 5, 2005

The President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

As President of the American Astronomical Society, I was very disappointed by the comments attributed to you in an article in the August 2nd, 2005 Washington Post regarding intelligent design. While we agree that "part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought," intelligent design has neither scientific evidence to support it nor an educational basis for teaching it as science. Your science adviser, John H Marburger III correctly commented that "intelligent design is not a scientific concept."

Scientific theories are coherent, are based on careful experiments and observations of nature that are repeatedly tested and verified. They aren’t just opinions or guesses. Gravity, relativity, plate tectonics and evolution are all theories that explain the physical universe in which we live. What makes scientific theories so powerful is that they account for the facts we know and make new predictions that we can test. The most exciting thing for a scientist is to find new evidence that shows old ideas are wrong. That’s how science progresses. It is the opposite of a dogma that can’t be shown wrong. "Intelligent design" is not so bold as to make predictions or subject itself to a test. There’s no way to find out if it is right or wrong. It isn’t part of science.

We agree with you that "scientific critiques of any theory should be a normal part of the science curriculum," but intelligent design has no place in science classes because it is not a "scientific critique." It is a philosophical statement that some things about the physical world are beyond scientific understanding. Most scientists are quite optimistic that our understanding will grow, and things that seem mysterious today will still be wonderful when they are within our understanding tomorrow. Scientists see gaps in our present knowledge as opportunities for research, not as a cause to give up searching for an answer by invoking
the intervention of a God-like intelligent designer.

The schools of our nation have a tough job—and there is no part of their task that is more important than science education. It doesn’t help to mix in religious ideas like "intelligent design" with the job of understanding what the world is and how it works. It’s hard enough to keep straight how Newton’s Laws work in the Solar System or to understand the mechanisms of human heredity without adding in this confusing and non-scientific agenda. It would be a lot more helpful if you would advocate good science teaching and the importance of scientific understanding for a strong and thriving America. "Intelligent design" isn’t even part of science – it is a religious idea that doesn’t have a place in the science curriculum.

Sincerely,

Robert P. Kirshner
President, American Astronomical Society
Harvard College Professor and Clowes Professor of Science at Harvard University

Like Tim, I doubt this will be seen, but what they heck.

I just read The Case for a Creator by Lee Strobel. Outstanding book, and it opened my eyes to what Intelligent Design really is. I have my doubts that it should be taught side by side in science class, but it would make a dandy comprehensive introduction to science classes.

ID isn't a one-to-one with evolution, it covers a lot more than that, although some of the irreducibly complex components within biology should be examined. (And that most of the evidence for evolution is also evidence for ID.) That a cell could evolve from nothing is silly. The only arguments I've seen about IR attack the mousetrap anology, but none confront Behe's claims that cells, cilia and numerous other complex structures of the body are irreducibly complex.

Further, the Cambrian explosion, as admitted by Bill, is a problem for the evolutionist. 35 to possibly all 40 of the animal forms "suddenly" appear within 10 million years (I think that's the right number). Nowhere near enough time for evolution to make those changes.

Much of ID is philosophical. When studying cosmology, astronomy, physics, and self-consciousness, just to name a few, the next logical inference from the facts is that this was designed, and in the manner it is designed, one must logically conclude that the designer is a single being with will, still active, and that the universe was designed and Earth particularly placed for Man to make discoveries.

Our schools teach science akin to showing a single line on the board in one class, another line in another class, etc. But the lines put together show a Da Vince drawing, and that we DON'T show the kids.

Tim, Bill, I'd love to hear your perspectives of the Case for a Creator.