Caught a showing of "Inherit the Wind" on cable. It is both amazing, and amazingly depressing, how timely the subject matter of that film and play is. As Spencer Tracy speaks passionately of a time when narrow-minded religious dogma will actually cause progress to be reversed, one considers that people in power are opposed to everything from stem cell research to a woman's right to choose to global warming to...yes...Darwin's theory.
Meantime creationists are trying to sneak Genesis back into the schoolroom through the notion of Intelligent Design, trying to position it as being as equally valid as Darwin, when of course all they're really trying to do is put the Bible back in the classroom.
To paraphrase Douglas Adams, progress is an illusion...and human progress doubly so.
PAD
(PS--Uh, guys...please don't start telling me that the Scopes Monkey Trial was a set up by the ACLU and that local businessmen put Scopes up to it and that he probably didn't even actually teach evolution. I know all that. None of it detracts from the fact that "Inherit the Wind" is a brilliant drama in its own right with a lot to say to modern thinking...or lack thereof.)
Posted by Peter David at October 9, 2005 01:08 AM | TrackBack | Other blogs commentingThe thing I often wonder ... what if the religious right had everything they wanted? If Roe v. Wade is overturned, if Hollywood turned out nothing above a PG-13 level product, if the Ten Commandments were in every public area and religion was okay in school ... what would they do then?
I think, as Christians, they just pick the wrong battles. They love "right to life" but seem to lose interested in the living. How many of those same people fighting for the unborn are helping the thousands of young children in American that are living on the street, poor and hungry?
If you truly follow Jesus' teachings, you wouldn't be driving your Escalade to a book-banning meeting, would you? Isn't it "the meek shall inherit the earth?"
Just a few thoughts.
PS - PAD, you must surely have some comment about GW picking Harriet? I mean, how low can we sink?
I mean, how low can we sink?
Well, politicians keep trying to dig us straight to Hell, but somehow they haven't dug deep enough yet. :)
Ugh, stem cells. Many of Duhbya - excuse me, President Duhbya -'s fellow Republicans even support the research. Leftover embreyos from in-vitro fertilization - they either can be used for research, which could potentially help millions of afflicted people; or they will be THROWN IN THE TRASH. WHICH is "pro-life", now ?
BTW, PAD, the "Inherit the Wind" review reminds me - is there no "Serenity" review - saw it again today, SO good - because you are now, through your Spike work, in a working relationship with Mutant Enemy; or just because you don't have the time, with all of your many (many) projects?
I just watched a fun movie "What the !@#$ do we know". Had some fun comments on God.
What pisses me off about people deeply into religion in any aspect is when it gets shoveled at me. People have different views of the world I enjoy hearing about it, but dont sell me your reality.
It's not even stupidity or ignorance that impedes progress. It's fear. It's abject, universal, irrational fear. It's fear of anything that doesn't fall into one's worldset. It's fear of anything that might contradict a "cherished" idea. It's the fear that unless everyone believes what you believe, it will stop existing.
The last I heard, most people are opposed to global warming.
I haven't taken a poll, so I can't determine "most people," but it's kind of hard to be opposed to something that supposedly doesn't exist. But there are certainly people who are stridenly opposed to trying to reverse it.
PAD
This is something that has me worried at a profound level. There are museums opening up in the South that show dinosaurs living in the Garden of Eden. It's bright and colorful, and easy to understand, even if the velociraptors with their three dozen razor-sharp teeth are depicted eating plants along with the brachiosaurs. Intelligent design is an easy pill to swallow as well ("All we're really saying is that SOMEONE must have been behind the universe's creation"). These are the first steps to a massive running-jump backwards. What we have here are people who want to abolish science in any form, replacing physics textbooks with annotated copies of the Bible.
I understand that many of us need to believe in some God - frankly, I'm one of them. I do believe that God had a hand in the creation of the universe. But I also believe that God used the scientific method. From the Big Bang to stellar formation to evolution to bring about life on all the myriad worlds, I have been able to convince myself that there was always a higher intelligence directing it all. What I don't believe is the literal interperetation of Genesis (or nearly any book/story from the Bible for that matter, but that's another post altogether), that the entirety of the Earth, life and all, took only six days to finish. Although, I will state that I have no idea what the equivalent of one "Divine Day" is. Who knows? Maybe to God, it did take six days - maybe to God, one day is a couple of billion years.
But what I will oppose, at every level I can, is the replacement of scientific pursuit with religious dogma that leaves no room for questions or explorations. With any luck, there will be enough of us who feel this way to keep such a thing from happening.
I think I agree with you some, Adam.
God controls time. I remember reading a verse where the Isrealites asked for more time during a battle so He let the day be twice as long. Can't find the verse now. I believe in Evolution and I believe in Creationism. Why must they be separate? During those six days of creation, God made those days as long as he needed them to be. If He needed a billion years for day four.. who's going to stop him? Even if we didn't spring from Cro-Magnum or Homo Erectus.. etc.. maybe that was God just practicing.
Abortion.. yeah, I think its murder. But, why is my opinion more valid than yours? I'm Pro-Choice because I shouldn't have to be the one to make that decision. If its a sin, than lets let God handle it. I think our focus would be better spent in preventing the pregnancy to happen in the first place. At my job, they do a lot of preventative maintenence on the equipment we use.. it saves us money later. The same holds true to people, catch the problems before they become problems.
I got more, but I am about to head out to church,
Eric
I want to know why you post this thing, when I just spent the morning reading Connie Willis' novella "Inside Job." Which, in case you're curious is about two sceptics who discover a medium who can channel H.L. Mencken... for real.
Good fun story, highly recommended.
What bugs me the most about all this controversy is how so many of the religious who end up in the spotlight are so...fanatical. Contrary to what all of them seem to believe, it is not our place to judge.
I am a Christian, but I find it hard to comprehend the fact that others in power call themselves the same and then portray that faith in such a bigoted, closed-minded way. (I doubt closed-minded is an acceptable phrase to use, but you all know what I mean.)
Perhaps we are stepping backward. Maybe, though, if we get back far enough, we can pinpoint the place where we lost our path and start off right again.
PAD -
I haven't taken a poll, so I can't determine "most people," but it's kind of hard to be opposed to something that supposedly doesn't exist. But there are certainly people who are stridenly opposed to trying to reverse it.
It's interesting, but from what I've read over the last few months, it seems like most people DO think global warming is occuring.
It's just more of a matter of how much is the human race contributing.
It also seems like more and more people want to do something to stop/reverse the human contribution.
Eric Recla -
If its a sin, than lets let God handle it.
If only more thought this way.
I always liked George Burns' line in "Oh God" about the relativity of days:
"You gotta remember, my days aren't the same as yours. When I woke up this morning, Sigmund Freud was in medical school."
PAD
I think this is an example of the old knowledge vs. faith problem. Knowledge is limitless, but faith has boundaries.
How many people would choose to live in a wall-less location? Capricious weather conditions would make that impractical and potentially dangerous.
How many people would like to live in a nation without laws? Rampant crime would make that EXTREMELY dangerous.
I personally believe that the Creationists advocates are trying to live within comfortable boundaries that don't make them feel stupid and powerless. Without this restructured belief system, they'd probably feel as naked and vulnerable as they would if they lived in the above conditions without clothing! Isn't that what they would have said happened when Adam and Eve ate the Fruit of Knowledge? They were AWARE of their vulnerability?
Excellent movie choice, Peter! A film about small-town folks and how one man who could see beyond the town's borders, both physical AND intellectual, was persecuted for it! Timeless indeed!
Peter, It opened Friday in limited release a movie you might be interested in:
George Clooney's
GOODBYE AND GOOD LUCK
About the confrontation between Edward R. Murrow and a Senator Joseph McCarthy.
George Clooney, son of a "newsman" now it would be a "news reporter", is the power behind it, tho the starring role is for David Straitham as "Edward R. Murrow". Clooney took the role as "Fred Friendly" one of the behind the scenes types at CBS (tho he is legendary in his own right).
Posted by David S. at October 9, 2005 12:39 PM
I think this is an example of the old knowledge vs. faith problem. Knowledge is limitless, but faith has boundaries.
How many people would choose to live in a wall-less location? Capricious weather conditions would make that impractical and potentially dangerous.
How many people would like to live in a nation without laws? Rampant crime would make that EXTREMELY dangerous.
I personally believe that the Creationists advocates are trying to live within comfortable boundaries that don't make them feel stupid and powerless. Without this restructured belief system, they'd probably feel as naked and vulnerable as they would if they lived in the above conditions without clothing! Isn't that what they would have said happened when Adam and Eve ate the Fruit of Knowledge? They were AWARE of their vulnerability?
Actually, I would think the reverse opinion has been more popular that Faith is infinite while Knowledge is limited--which is why knowledge-seeker seek ... knowledge, while believers are satisfied with Faith is everything and thus are content.
Also many would prefer and have preferred to live without walls since they have the FREEDOM to move as opposed to being walled into one locale despite the SECURITY it seems to provide.
We already live in a nation of many laws and crime is still widespread--worse are acts that many consider immoral or unethical but you are lawful. "My client has the contract signed, dated and notarized, making a fair trade, Manhattan island for 24 dollars in beads."
It wasn't merely the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge but the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad. It depends on the meaning of "knowledge". One meaning is "judgement" as in I may not be an art expert but I "know" what I like aka I "know" porn when I see it. You're making a judgement call. They already "knew" God's ruling on eating from the one Tree in the middle of the garden of Eden, but they chose differently for themselves--which is what the serpent told Eve, that they would be just like God "knowing" or judging good or bad on their own independent of God.
Then again, I it's sometimes a false debate. People have the same ideas, different labels: "God" / "Universe.
People feel small and vulnerable in the presence or at least in the concept of God or the Universe itself. We can't ever completely know the "mind of God" or the "nature of the Universe", but we keep searching.
And then again (if I haven't worn out that phrase) sometimes God is blamed for things that may happen simply at random--by some supporters and some critics alike.
-- Ken from Chicago
I was lucky enough to see Inherit the Wind on Broadway with the brilliant George C Scott in the lead with umm I think it was Charles Durning in the other lead (the big fat white haired actor) :) Besides the play/movie/book just being brilliant....I sat there in awe that things like this actually go on. And I consider myself a moderate republican...and things like this make me want to pick up a gun and shoot these morons for being so close-minded.
There isn't anyone nowadays who wants to have any sort of open-minded discussion. No one is open to any new ideas. Everyone from cousin-marrying redneck to pot-smoking-hippie comes to the table with her or her own ideas and agenda and believe that either they are right for believing what exists is whats good, or for believing change is good. Before i get completely off topic...Inherit the Wind made me realize and see that everyone is wrong. No one is ever right. The people that want things to stay the same are never right, nor are the people who want change for changes sake. The answer always lies down the middle, not to compromise to suit everyone and give everyone a little bit of something, but because SLOW progress is good, if there is just cause behind it. And people can adapt to change...but it takes them time.
Mike
(And as an aside...I dont believe global warming, as it is explained, justified, and blamed, exists) :)
I personally believe that the Creationists advocates are trying to live within comfortable boundaries that don't make them feel stupid and powerless. Without this restructured belief system, they'd probably feel as naked and vulnerable as they would if they lived in the above conditions without clothing! Isn't that what they would have said happened when Adam and Eve ate the Fruit of Knowledge? They were AWARE of their vulnerability?
Well, actually, that was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil - apparently, being nekkid is supposed to be evil in and of itself. God's big panic at that point was that his pet humans would eat of the Tree of Life, become immortal, and realize that they were being kept as pets. (Now there's an interesting story hook for somebody out there...)
Of course, some of us deal with this "exposure" problem by trying to learn as much of the knowledge as we can. Once you grasp the knowledge, that metaphorical "area" is mastered, and no longer threatens you. If you're content to huddle next to the campfire of faith, and turn your back on the vast spread of knowledge beyond, you will never truly know anything. Of course, to pursue the metaphor further, the fire can certainly illuminate part of the area - provided you have the courage to turn around and look into the darkness, and investigate it for yourself...
Hmmm...I suppose global warming is progress. Or at least a progression from the "global cooling" environmentalists were trying to sell us on a generation ago.
As for "a woman's right to choose" being progress, I dunno. Let's consider what we have right now:
1) Feticide laws that esentially consider all fetuses to be unborn up until the point they killed by someone other than an abortion doctor, at which point they are retroactively granted life and treated as though they were, say, a 6-year old.
2) Societal mores that dictate that the mother of a fetus not drink or do drugs while pregnant because such actions would harm the fetus, even though it is (according to pro-choicers) not actually alive, and by definition, cannot be harmed.
Confused? Me too. It's easy to say catchy slogans like "a woman's right to choose", but I'm not sure how one can hold a pro-choice attitude without vehemently opposing the two, which I suspect they do not.
-Dave OConnell
Read "The Case for a Creator" and tell me that ID is anti-science. It isn't. Science - finding naturalist solutions to naturalistic problems - points to a creator, IMO.
Robbnn, a Creator is, by definition, super-natural, and thus falls into the purview of philosophy and theology, not science. The existence of a Creator cannot be proven nor disproven - it must be believed or disbelieved without hard evidence.
ID is no more science than the Jedi Order, or Dianetics. Just because you co-opt the language of scientific thought, does not mean you have met its rigors. (Not you personally, of course - English has no good objective case. I've seen that misunderstood here before...)
ID stands for Intentional Deception.
The neo-conmen are intentionally deceiving people with words that have no true meaning. Sort of like how admen use words in their advertising: create the perception that something is real or possible, then sell that to a receptive audience.
The neo-nonmen have been screaming for decades about the intellectual elite, so much so that the common man has started believing that the smart people are the cause of all of the problems that the common man suffers. Therefore, scientists have caused all the common man's problems and the scientific community must needs be discredited. Intelligent Design is a means to achieve this.
ID is being sold to the common man and the common man is willing to feast at that trough. A populace that watches such shows as NASCAR Racing, professional wrestling, and so many versions of Law & Order to the extent that they are the highest rated shows on television and cable is not capable of discerning the difference between a gourmet meal and swill.
Intelligent Design is really Intentional Deception.
ID is not, by the current limiting definition of science, science, but science DOES point to a Creator. It is a look at the conclusion of evidence, not the evidence itself.
ID is not, by the current limiting definition of science...
Well, that's the point. ID proponents wants to change the definition of science so they force their view on religion onto everyone.
Sorry, guy, but you're dead wrong. ID is not science because there's no evidence for it AND DOESN'T HAVE A WAY TO GET EVIDENCE FOR IT.
And if you don't have a way to get evidence for it, you're not doing science in any way, shape or form.
Damn, Dave, that's weak.
"Hmmm...I suppose global warming is progress. Or at least a progression from the "global cooling" environmentalists were trying to sell us on a generation ago."
You're looking at what caught the fancy of the press back then and not what the serious scientist were saying. Most serious scientists did feel that a cooling was going to happen, like the ice age, but they weren't doing the doom and gloom stuff that magazines like Time were making covers out of.
They were also still working at figuring out what could create this cooling. The answer that they've worked out, strangely, a warming trend. If enough of the arctic and Antarctic ice melts into the sea it will affect things like the warm water currents and move them away from land masses. Warmer air will also create warmer surface water and create additional changes in current's flow. For places like The United Kingdom this would mean an almost twenty to thirty degree drop in temperature in less then four months. Think that might screw with their lives a bit?
Other areas would also have a similar problem. As ocean surfaces change they would then affect the air that affected them. Weather patterns would be shifted so that some areas' normal weather would grow stronger and more extreme while other areas' weather will flip to something foreign to their normal cycles and environment.
Most of the hard science from the 70's was still being banged out and tested. It hasn't really changed as much as it's been fleshed out and studied a bit more.
Oh, and for the "it's just a theory" crowd....
Up until about two or so years back we only had a theory about a nice little thing called Black Holes. We had never seen one and had no first hand proof of them for the longest time. It was a theory that was proven with mathematics and scientific study followed by new science and more study on the subject and the original theories. When about two years ago, after decades of this theory being touted and used as accepted fact, we finally got first hand proof of their existence and it was almost 100% what the scientists said for all those years.
You know... The same scientists that conservatives tout and believe in until the day they say something that the conservatives don't like or want to hear. Then they become morons that don't know anything or people just trying to push a political agenda to get more cash and attention
"As for "a woman's right to choose" being progress, I dunno. Let's consider what we have right now:
1) Feticide laws that esentially consider all fetuses to be unborn up until the point they killed by someone other than an abortion doctor, at which point they are retroactively granted life and treated as though they were, say, a 6-year old.
2) Societal mores that dictate that the mother of a fetus not drink or do drugs while pregnant because such actions would harm the fetus, even though it is (according to pro-choicers) not actually alive, and by definition, cannot be harmed.
Confused? Me too. It's easy to say catchy slogans like "a woman's right to choose", but I'm not sure how one can hold a pro-choice attitude without vehemently opposing the two, which I suspect they do not."
See, this is a favorite of mine to poke holes in. Why do so many conservative/anti-choice people seem to want to go brain dead on purpose here? There is this really fun thing called "intent" involved with so many laws in the U.S. that conservatives love. How is it that so many of them can't remember what that is or how it's used when it comes to this issue?
If it is the mother's intent to carry the pregnancy to term and have a baby then you treat the fetus, from day one, as the baby that the mother intends it to be. See, there's no conflict or confusion in that concept at all.
Plus, you're ignoring what went on when they were trying to pass some of those laws back during the debates centered around Lacy Peterson and her baby. The major objection that many Democrats had, massively distorted by the Fox News crew and others, was that the wording was very much in the tone of the pro-life/anti-choice crowd in describing basically anything as legally a human life and defining it in ways that went beyond the needs of the law required. It was almost so bad as to be one step removed from the Roman Catholic's view that birth control is wrong (i.e. a sin) because it destroys "man's seed" that is life. Democrats and moderate conservatives were very clear in wanting the law to take intent into account.
Again, just to beat the point to death, pro-choice people were all for those laws. Pro-choice people just wanted the laws to be written with some level of common sense and consideration for intent. Seems some conservative can't figure that and get themselves all confused when they try and think about it.
Like you it seems.
Here's a great concept.
Why not teach math, science and history in school. We teach all those fun things to the kids when they go to the community school and they get the training and education that they need to compete in the workplace and the world.
You want your kids to get an education in faith? Start sending them to church (those places with dropping attendance) and teaching them about it at home.
It can then be up to the family and the child growing into adulthood to decide if they believe in science or that they believe that God created everything by snapping his fingers and that, despite that pesky science stuff, the universe revolves around a stationary Earth.
Oh, and then they can decide if their children will be taught other languages or taught about the space program. How are they connected? The Tower of Babel was destroyed by God because man was building it so high that they were running the risk of touching Heaven. I'm sure the shuttle has gone higher and I seemed to have missed the news of it (or the Lunar Lander) passing through the Pearly Gates on the way to outer space. And God (short version of verse) scrambled the tongues of man when he scattered them to the far corners of the Earth so that they could not join and do something like that again. Seems to me that teaching your kids a foreign language might be seen by some as contrary to God's wishes.
Seems to me that teaching your kids a foreign language might be seen by some as contrary to God's wishes.
I asked a pastor at a previous church this once. She was unable to answer.
BTW, I love the space shuttle analogy. I'm filing this away for future use.
I've been thinking that, on the first day of the school discussion of where we came from, the teacher could talk about the Creation as told in GENESIS. Then, the creation stories from Greek and Roman mythology, Norse mythology, Mayan, Incan, and Aztec beliefs, Asian cultures, African cultures, etc., could all be told for anyone who wanted to chose one. And, then, the teaching of evolution could start.
All of which would be fine, Kim, if the course was comparative literature or the development of society. The problem is...it's science class.
PAD
Folks should really look at the Dover, PA trial. Interesting stuff coming out about intelligent design and its backers. For example, there are early drafts of the intelliegent design textbook, OF PANDAS AND MEN. Only, instead of the term "intelligent design", the authors consistently used "creationism" (all they did was a search and replace edit).
You know... The same scientists that conservatives tout and believe in until the day they say something that the conservatives don't like or want to hear. Then they become morons that don't know anything or people just trying to push a political agenda to get more cash and attention
Well, to be fair, the anti-science crap comes from both the left and right, just on different issues. It's the extreme left that has crippled animal testing in England and probably lead to unnecessary starvation in the developing world due to their hysteria over genetically modified lifeforms. Liberal Canada bans not only human cloning but the insertion of inheritable genes as well as paying egg or sperm doners. The reasons given for this seem to be more kooky far left humbug than right wing religious quackery.
An avian flu on the lot of them.
Tang,
1. A bloody knife is on the floor.
2. A body has a bloody wound in it.
3. The knife has finger prints on it.
4. The prints belong to David Hyde White.
5. DHW had a primal hatred for the dead guy.
Now, compartmentalize all those facts. Make a "classroom" around each one. Never examine them together.
Or, instead, bring the dispirit facts together and have a look for truth and you'll likely send DHW to jail for awhile.
My beef with those people saying ID is a farce or "there's no evidence for it" is that they probably don't know what ID actually is. They look at young Earth theorists, and creationist claims of dubious merit and think "ah ha! That's ID!" Except it isn't.
In our society, we've tried to replace Truth with Facts, as if they are interchangable. ID takes its conclusions from science by decompartmentalizing the findings and discovering that when that line over there is aligned with this shape over here, and that color up there, then by-golly a picture forms.
Do ID'ists believe in Evolution? Some of it, but not all. They look at the Cambrian Explosion and Consciousness and say, um, nope, evolution doesn't work here. They may or may not agree that "junk DNA" is actually junk. Some may have spurious ideas, some do not.
The evidence of cosmology falls hard in the creator camp. So do physics and biology.
Some things WILL defy natural explanation because they have a supernatural component. The beginning of life, and matter, and consciousness, for example. ID can't identify the how of that anymore than you can.
Kim Metzger:
You forgot Flying Spaghetti Monsterism
http://www.venganza.org/ (for anyone who hasn't heard of it yet)
My beef with those people saying ID is a farce or "there's no evidence for it" is that they probably don't know what ID actually is.
I doubt that. If there was evidence for it, there would be a fair amount of literature and research in the scientific literature.
Problem is...there isn't.
They look at young Earth theorists, and creationist claims of dubious merit and think "ah ha! That's ID!" Except it isn't.
Well, when the folks behind ID and the folks who wrote the main ID textbook do simple search and replaces of "creationism" with "intelligent design", it's really, really, really hard to say that ID isn't creationism.
In our society, we've tried to replace Truth with Facts
No, the problem is that some folks are confusing Truth with facts. Not the same. Science and religion do not perform the same function in the world...and the problem comes with people trying to make them perform the same function. They AREN'T interchangeable, and what ID is trying to do is to treat them as interchangeable.
Do ID'ists believe in Evolution? Some of it, but not all. They look at the Cambrian Explosion and Consciousness and say, um, nope, evolution doesn't work here. They may or may not agree that "junk DNA" is actually junk. Some may have spurious ideas, some do not.
Sorry, but folks who mix talk about Cambrian "explosion" (which it wasn't) are kinda fact-challenged themselves (and, in fact, the pre Cambrian fossils are pretty much a textbook example of evolutionary theory). Not sure if they have any business talking about facts and truth when they're so shaky on facts.
And saying that biology points to a creator is simply oiverstating the case. Many of the majot examples that ID proponents point to as examples of design actually have evolutionary explanations developed for them.
Sorry, but ID doesn't qualify as science. It doesn't have evidence. It doesn't have testable hypotheses or mechanisms. ANd it doesn't suggest new research programs to pursue. Saying that some things "WILL design natural explanation" is assuming your conclusions ahead of time.
By the way....are folks aware that some ID proponents will state that ID doesn't have testable hypotheses yet?
Some things WILL defy natural explanation because they have a supernatural component.
seems like a bit of an assumption there.
you know what you do when you make an assumption, don't you? that's right, you make an ass out of u and mption.
but seriously, your argument relies upon the existence of supernatural forces. many do not believe in the supernatural. myself for one.
i acknowledge that our understanding of reality is incomplete. there are aspects of nature that we cannot currently explain, or possibly even comprehend. that doesn't make those things supernatural.
your argument relies upon an unproven (and perhaps unproveable) condition, the existence of the supernatural. as such, your logic is far from airtight.
"1. A bloody knife is on the floor.
2. A body has a bloody wound in it.
3. The knife has finger prints on it.
4. The prints belong to David Hyde White.
5. DHW had a primal hatred for the dead guy."
Now, prove that David Hyde White exists in the first place. Keep in mind that there is a possibility that the dead man may, in fact, have been carrying the knife downstairs, and fallen upon it. Meanwhile, the only evidence you have for Mr. Hyde White's existence is the fact that you have hypothesized him in order to explain what seems, to you, to be a murder.
Meanwhile, experienced forensic scientists are telling you that this was actually an accidental death, and that David Hyde White doesn't show up in any databases at all, except some six-thousand-year-old religious texts.
Which hypothesis seems the more probable?
Robbnn: Read "The Case for a Creator" and tell me that ID is anti-science. It isn't. Science - finding naturalist solutions to naturalistic problems - points to a creator, IMO.
Luigi Novi: No it doesn’t. Real science requires solid evidence, which must be viewed through the Scientific Method and the Peer Review Process. Nothing that creationists point to as “evidence” has ever survived either of those two things. All of creationism’s arguments are based on Straw Men, distortion, lies, Arguments from Incredulity, and other fallacies. The Case for a Creator is no different, employing the usually creationist myths and lies about evolution, including the fallacy of Haeckel's drawings, the “everything has a cause” argument, Michael Behe’s Irreducible Complexity argument (which is just an updated version of William Paley’s Watchmaker argument, and which was debunked in Richard Dawkins’ book The Blind Watchmaker), etc.
One of the greatest banes of the creationist movement is its lack of newness. It just recycles the same old arguments over and over and over, long after they’ve been debunked, without any responses given to the debunkings. Every now and then someone will come up with a book or something that will make it seem like creationists have something “new” to say, but it always turns out to be the same tired, long-dismantled canards. At www.nitcentral a couple of years ago, a fellow poster asserted to me that he was not ignorant of science or the debate, so I humored him by encouraging him to tell me what insight or info he had into the E v. C debate. Putting aside his poorly written posts, his deliberate misquoting of my statements, his attempts to assert that he didn’t remember a previous exchange that I would point out as damning to something new he said, and his overall intellectual poverty, NOTHING he said was new. He parroted the exact same creationist literature that I’ve read many times before from different sources. When I confronted him with how the Scientific Method worked, he had nothing to say. When I brought up the Peer Review Process, he didn’t know what that was, or claimed that it was “[my] stupid qualification”, not his, and later even tried to pass off a study as a Peer Review-one, even though that study, while submitted to a journal for PR, was rejected by because it was completely unscientific.
Now you’re trying to tell me to read this book, as if there’s anything in it that hasn’t already by debunked by evolutionists. You’d think creationists would adapt to the debunkings, at least by refuting them or explaining why the counterarguments don’t work, but then again, that sort of adaptation might be seen as……………………….evolution?
Robbnn: ID is not, by the current limiting definition of science, science, but science DOES point to a Creator. It is a look at the conclusion of evidence, not the evidence itself.
Luigi Novi: LOL!!!!!!! So now we’re NOT supposed to look at the evidence, but just what you and other creationists decide it means?
Sorry, but no thanks. You obviously have no clue what science really is, given that idiotic statement, so pardon me for not taking you seriously when you tell me what science “points to”. Religion “points” to a creator. Not science.
LOL. :-)
Robbnn: My beef with those people saying ID is a farce or "there's no evidence for it" is that they probably don't know what ID actually is. They look at young Earth theorists, and creationist claims of dubious merit and think "ah ha! That's ID!"
Luigi Novi: Nope. Untrue. I know what ID is, and it has nothing to do with Young Earth Creationists, at least not specifically.
Robbnn: Do ID'ists believe in Evolution? Some of it, but not all. They look at the Cambrian Explosion and Consciousness and say, um, nope, evolution doesn't work here.
Luigi Novi: And they are wrong, because they confuse the current lack of an explanation for something (consciousness) with the notion that a prevailing paradigm doesn’t work. The idea that evolution “doesn’t work” because we don’t know what causes consciousness is a non-sequitur. It’s like saying that astronomy “doesn’t work” because we don’t know the exact nature of dark matter, or that the viral theory of infection “doesn’t work” because we don’t know where exactly the AIDS virus came from.
Robbnn: The evidence of cosmology falls hard in the creator camp. So do physics and biology.
Luigi Novi: No they do not. Merely saying that they do, as creationists enjoy doing, does not make it so. If what you’re saying is true, then why don’t creationists submit their date for Peer Review?
"Abortion.. yeah, I think its murder. But, why is my opinion more valid than yours? I'm Pro-Choice because I shouldn't have to be the one to make that decision. If its a sin, than lets let God handle it."
Everytime I see or hear a comment like this, it makes me spit my coffee. I can understand the viewpoint of people who don't believe a life begins as conception, so therefore don't believe abortion is murder. However, when someone says they believe it IS murder, but that it should be legal? I'm assuming then that you believe all murder should be legal? Theft too? Rape? Torture? Let God sort it out?
If what you’re saying is true, then why don’t creationists submit their date for Peer Review?
The usual creationist reply to this question is that they will be shot down by the scientific establishment since, as we all know, they are reluctant to accept anything that will require them to "rewrite the textbooks".
Which always gets a good chuckle out of me. Scientists LOVE to rewrite textbooks. It's the only way you ever get to put your own name in one!!!
Is there a scientist alive who wouldn't give half his fingers and both his thumbs to be able to write something like "Darwin thought he had it all figured out, until Sidney Applebaum proved him wrong. Praise me! Praise me!"
The idea that scientists know that evolution or any other scientific theory is wrong is right up there with the one about doctors knowing how to cure AIDS or cancer but not wanting to do so because they can make money off of treatment of the diseases (apparently you can't charge for a cure in Crazy World).
Bill,
"Well, to be fair, the anti-science crap comes from both the left and right, just on different issues. It's the extreme left that has crippled animal testing in England and probably lead to unnecessary starvation in the developing world due to their hysteria over genetically modified lifeforms."
Fair enough. I was thinking more in terms of the U.S. here. Sure, there is some here too but not as bad as I've seen mess from the left elsewhere.
But fair point.
My beef with those people saying ID is a farce or "there's no evidence for it" is that they probably don't know what ID actually is.
My beef with people like you is that you prefer to be deaf, blind, and dumb to reality.
If you don't think ID is creationism in (a poor) disguise, you're obviously off in your own little world.
Luigi Novi: LOL!!!!!!! So now we’re NOT supposed to look at the evidence, but just what you and other creationists decide it means?
Sorry, but no thanks. You obviously have no clue what science really is, given that idiotic statement, so pardon me for not taking you seriously when you tell me what science “points to”. Religion “points” to a creator. Not science.
LOL. :-)
Luigi,
You're normally better than this. I never said don't look at the evidence, I said ID draws conclusions from scientific evidence.
I am not the best person to put forth the case for ID. I've pointed you to a book that I think does an excellent job of it, though.
I am "deaf, dumb and blind to reality." Yet, I'm willing to have a discussion, while you are only interested in slamming the poor, dumb, ignorant savage who believes the case for a creator is compelling.
I'm slammed because I "just say so" yet you have done no differently. "There is no evidence." "It does not!" "You're an idiot!"
The ID you're all arguing against is a straw man. It is beyond my ability to demonstrate that in this small space (and with my limited knowledge) but feel free to feel superior looking down on a shadow of ID.
If, on the off chance you do decide to look into real ID, remember the scientific importance of not assuming your conclusions before looking at the arguments. Just a suggestion.
Robbnn:
The major difficulty with "Intelligent Design" is that it immediately brings up the question of "Who designed the designer?" And then the automatic next question is "Who designed the designer of the that designer?"
And if you are going to answer that question with the standard Creationist "the Designer always was" - then the counter argument (with the same amount of evidence) is "The universe always was".
To accept "ID" (aka Creationism), it begs the question that one must accept that there was a "designer" - of which *absolutely no evidence has ever been given".
And until one can show that piece of evidence, it's nothing but the fundamentalist Christians attempting to get there interpretation of their holy book into schools masquerading as science.
And if you are going to teach creationism as science, you also must teach all of the thousands and thousands of other creation myths that have arisen over the course of history.
Because they all have the same amount of evidence and backing as your does - exactly zero.
Okay, it's been said on this thread that proponants of ID want to change the definition of science so that ID can be included.
Personally, I think this is a phenominally bad idea, however, I'll make a deal...
I'll be willing to accept that the definition of science can be changed to include ID if they would be willing to accept the definition of marriage can be changed to include people who marry a same-sex partner.
Deal?
"Well, to be fair, the anti-science crap comes from both the left and right, just on different issues. It's the extreme left that has crippled animal testing in England and probably lead to unnecessary starvation in the developing world due to their hysteria over genetically modified lifeforms. Liberal Canada bans not only human cloning but the insertion of inheritable genes as well as paying egg or sperm doners. The reasons given for this seem to be more kooky far left humbug than right wing religious quackery."
Bill: That's not anti-science, that's anti- animal cruelty. I'm not going to take the side of PETA, as I find most of their positions to be completely nuts, but do not mischaracterize their position as anti-science. And your points about Canada come completely out of nowhere.
In the US, the outrage about human cloning comes primarily from the right on religious grounds. I, myself, find the whole idea to be rather creepy, but that's me (and most definitely no on religious grounds).
Also, Canadian law doesn't ban payment of donors. What they appear to be trying to do (from reading the law itself) is preventing an industry of sperm and egg donation. People cannot sell their eggs and sperm, and people cannot offer to buy eggs and sperm for the profit of the donor. Donors are allowed to be reimbursed for expenses (and I'd wager that is a rather grey area).
I'd say the downside to their act isn't that they are trying to regulate these things, but that it lays the groundwork for a black market of the same due to over-regulation.
I teach biology at a university, so I think I'm somewhat qualified to jump into the fray. The others have explained the scientific method very well. My question is for the ID/creationist camp. Can you please explain to me WHY, if we are the products of such intelligent design, we have sinuses that drain from the top? Why do we have an appendix that serves no function (but is very useful to herbivores?)? Why does photorespiration occur at all? (That's where plants fix O2 instead of CO2 during photosynthesis.) And why does our eye have the bizarre setup of the neurons being in front of the retina? That means that light has to pass thru the machinery of the eye in order or to reach the rods and cones. If the Designer is so danged intelligent, why do we have such obvious design flaws abounding in nature? I can list many more examples of poor engineering, but I'm interested in your explanation. To me, the theory of natural selection and nature working with what is available, not designing with an end-product in mind, makes these circumstances completely comprehensible. But if this is Intelligent Design at work, I think we need a better architect!
I am "deaf, dumb and blind to reality." Yet, I'm willing to have a discussion, while you are only interested in slamming the poor, dumb, ignorant savage who believes the case for a creator is compelling.
Well, your reading comprehension certainly isn't up to par at the moment, since I made the above comment, not Luigi.
As for who wants to be the "poor, dumb, ignorant savage", this is the position, the high moral ground, that ID supporters assume about those that don't believe.
Oh, and that we're going to hell.
Robbnn: ID is not, by the current limiting definition of science, science, but science DOES point to a Creator. It is a look at the conclusion of evidence, not the evidence itself.
Luigi Novi: LOL!!!!!!! So now we’re NOT supposed to look at the evidence, but just what you and other creationists decide it means? Sorry, but no thanks. You obviously have no clue what science really is, given that idiotic statement, so pardon me for not taking you seriously when you tell me what science “points to”. Religion “points” to a creator. Not science.
Robbnn: Luigi, You're normally better than this. I never said don't look at the evidence, I said ID draws conclusions from scientific evidence.
Luigi Novi: I didn’t say that you did. You said “It is a look at the conclusion of evidence, not the evidence itself.”, which is a nonsensical statement, since you cannot draw a conclusion from evidence without looking at it. That is the only statement of yours I responded to.
Robbnn: I am not the best person to put forth the case for ID. I've pointed you to a book that I think does an excellent job of it, though.
Luigi Novi: And as I’ve stated, that book merely repeats the long-debunked fallacies that creationists incestuously parrot from one another. Nothing in it is new. Creationists simply believe what they want to believe, not what an objective and unbiased look at the evidence truly shows, and books such as that merely provide a propagandistic excuse for them to continue doing so.
Robbnn: I'm slammed because I "just say so" yet you have done no differently.
Luigi Novi: No, your statements are being refuted because they’re based on falsehoods.
Robbnn: The ID you're all arguing against is a straw man.
Luigi Novi: No it isn’t. I’ve read about creationism/ID from different sources in books, magazines, websites and on TV, and I’ve heard the arguments for it. I’ve read the statements by Michael Behe, the author of Darwin’s Black Box, and his Irreducible Complexity argument is bunk, which people like Richard Dawkins and Michael Shermer have shown.
Robbnn: If, on the off chance you do decide to look into real ID, remember the scientific importance of not assuming your conclusions before looking at the arguments.
Luigi Novi: That is a lesson that the creationists need to learn. Not evolutionists. People did not begin accepting evolution until the evidence for it began to accumulate and be explained, and the evidence for it is so great that it is correctly called a fact in the scientific community, just as heliocentricity, plate tectonics, etc. By contrast, creationists like those in the ID movement argue their cause entirely on an a priori basis, and will not allow themselves to conclude anything other than their predisposed creationist belief, or revise their position, regardless of where the evidence leads them. The accusation, therefore, that evolutionists assume their conclusions before looking at the evidence is so hypocritically perverse, it is akin to O.J’s assertion that Nicole was responsible for her own death.
But if you’re one of those creationists actually interested in looking at the evidence, I would suggest you read Chapters 9 - 11 of Michael Shermer’s People Believe Weird Things, which focuses on the E v C debate. Pages 141 – 153 in Chapter 10 in particular contain answers to 25 Creationist Arguments. One of arguments addressed is the Irreducible Complexity Argument, which argues that we are too complex to have evolved. Shermer, taking his cue from Richard Dawkins, points out that complexity can evolve if it does so in small incremental steps.
The book is about skepticism, critical thinking, and the Scientific Method, and also contains much material about other pseudoscientific ideas, including UFOs, psychic abilities, past life experiences, Holocaust denial, the recovered memory movement, the Bell Curve, etc., and how these ideas can be viewed via the Scientific Method.
kawherp: I teach biology at a university, so I think I'm somewhat qualified to jump into the fray. The others have explained the scientific method very well. My question is for the ID/creationist camp. Can you please explain to me WHY, if we are the products of such intelligent design, we have sinuses that drain from the top? Why do we have an appendix that serves no function (but is very useful to herbivores?)? Why does photorespiration occur at all? (That's where plants fix O2 instead of CO2 during photosynthesis.) And why does our eye have the bizarre setup of the neurons being in front of the retina?
Luigi Novi: Or why we get goosebumps…
Ack. Michael Shermer's book is called Why Pepole Believe Weird Things. Accidentally left out the word "Why".
I suppose that since evolution doesn't exist according to ID (even though it has something ID lacks called evidence) that the next time one of these people become seriously ill they won't go to the hospital or see a doctor, because ID doesn't believe in that sort of thing because it is based on science, backed and up by evidence.
As I mentioned before, Paul Nelson is one of the more prominent people who support ID. He's consistently held that ID does not have a theory yet to conduct a research program. Given that....why the hell should we be teaching ID in anything below the college level?
And if you think ID isnt' creationism, why did the writers of OF PANDAS AND PEOPLE simply do a cut and paste of "intelligent design" for "creationism" in their book? And why are so many ID arguements simply recycled creationism arguments...down to the same wording and use of phrases?
"our understanding of reality is incomplete. there are aspects of nature that we cannot currently explain, or possibly even comprehend. that doesn't make those things supernatural."
Actually..isn't that pretty much the definiton of it?
"our understanding of reality is incomplete. there are aspects of nature that we cannot currently explain, or possibly even comprehend. that doesn't make those things supernatural."
Actually..isn't that pretty much the definiton of it?
depends on the definition you go by. i'm taking the word pretty literally.
from dictionary.com
1. Of or relating to existence outside the natural world.
2. Attributed to a power that seems to violate or go beyond natural forces.
3. Of or relating to a deity.
4. Of or relating to the immediate exercise of divine power; miraculous.
5. Of or relating to the miraculous.
i'd go with definition two, but i'd argue for taking the word seem out of there. if something is truly supernatural, it would actually violate or go beyond natural forces, not just seem to.
so, going with my modification of definition two, or any of the other definitions, no, that doesn't fit.
That's not anti-science, that's anti- animal cruelty. I'm not going to take the side of PETA, as I find most of their positions to be completely nuts, but do not mischaracterize their position as anti-science.
I have to completely disagree. I've had dealings with these kooks. They do far more than claim that a rat is a pig is a boy which, while nuts, is an opinion that one can legitimately have (assuming one is, as mentioned, nuts.) But they go further, claiming that not only is animal experimentation cruel, it also is bad science, that no invention or medicine has been discovered by animal experimentation and that, in fact, animal experimentation has actually held back medical research. They claim that anything that can be done with an animal can be done with tissue culture or computers. Since my skill when I was in bio research was in cell culturing I only WISH that were true, but it isn't.
They are far far more hostile to real science than you think. I don't know if they actually believe the crap they spew or if it just serves their agenda to pretend they believe it. And I don't much care.
Also, Canadian law doesn't ban payment of donors. What they appear to be trying to do (from reading the law itself) is preventing an industry of sperm and egg donation. People cannot sell their eggs and sperm, and people cannot offer to buy eggs and sperm for the profit of the donor. Donors are allowed to be reimbursed for expenses (and I'd wager that is a rather grey area).
That seems like hair splitting. Yes, you can pay for the taxi ride to the hospital but you can't pay a woman for the not at all fun procedure of egg removal? How much research is going to be able to take place if we have to depend on women who are willing to do that for nothing? And what is so terrible about it anyway? This sort of thing plays right into the hands of those who want to paint pro-choice people as totally out of it--abortion is a fundamental right that must be protected at all costs but selling an egg to help an infertile couple get pregnant is somehow sick and wrong?
your points about Canada come completely out of nowhere.
If I misstated reality of Canadian law I apologize but what I've read indicates that A- they have banned the sale of eggs and sperm--reimbursing for expenses doesn't cut it. B- the insertion of inheritable genes into embryos C- using sex selection (and how do they determine this? Unless a woman announces that she's getting an abortion because her fetus is the "wrong" sex how would you know? And anyway, once you say that there are "wrong" reasons to get an abortion why stop there?) and D- human cloning is banned.
All of which seems far more damaging to science research than what we have in the USA.
As far as the whole ID vs evolution debate...I pretty much got exhausted arguing all this years ago. The arguments never change, just the packaging. Proponents of ID should, if they really believe that they are on the right track, hit the labs and start brainstorming ways to test and find evidence for their hypothesis (I'll be generous and call it a hypothesis). If they are correct the truth will come out and fame and honor will be theirs forever, like the great men and women of science before them as well as the Iron Chefs. Forget trying to strong-arm some pitiful school board--do what it takes to walk across the stage in Stockholm and grab the Noble Prize, drop trouser, and invite the collected assembly to "kiss my God-fearing ass".
Personally I don't think it will happen but if I were a believer in ID that's the scenario I'd be shooting for.
No, Craig, my reading comprehension is just fine. I started with Luigi and generalized from there.
Luigi, did you read the book or just the table of contents online?
Bill: The point I'm making is that the lunatic fringe of the left, particularly when it comes to animal "rights" is NOT representative in any way of most people who are against animal cruelty. PETA is not PAWS, just like ELF is not the Sierra Club. You are comparing apples to kiwis here.
Knuck...Who's PAWS? If PETA are eco-terrorists, is PAWS eco-manson-familyites or eco-protestors?
Proponents of ID should, if they really believe that they are on the right track, hit the labs and start brainstorming ways to test and find evidence for their hypothesis (I'll be generous and call it a hypothesis). If they are correct the truth will come out and fame and honor will be theirs forever, like the great men and women of science before them as well as the Iron Chefs. Forget trying to strong-arm some pitiful school board--do what it takes to walk across the stage in Stockholm and grab the Noble Prize, drop trouser, and invite the collected assembly to "kiss my God-fearing ass".
Amen [irony intentional].
That's the hard way, that's the right way, and that's the ONLY way that ID can be presented in school as science....when it DOES science.
Robbnn....don't be insulting. If YOU understand the arguments, and if they're valid, you can handle the defense yourself. For example, if ID is valid science, where are the peer reviewed research papers and research programs?
Scav: Neither. PAWS is basically an animal welfare agency (you know, adopts out cats, dogs, iguanas, etc.) that has come out publicly against animal testing. PETA, on the other hand, has made very public their opposition in the manner as suggested by Bill. Sort of the Sinn Fein to groups like the Animal Liberation Front.
Knuckles, I appreciate that pETA is way on the fringe of even the animal rights crowd.n I', not sure what PAWS you are talking about (there are many) but if they advocate pets they are already on PETA's enemy list (pets are like slaves, you see).
If the PAWS you speak of is the progressive animal wlefare society, their position is as follows--PAWS is opposed to the use, abuse and exploitation of animals for human benefit, therefore PAWS is opposed to the use of animals for both cosmetic testing and medical testing and research. So saying they are against animal testing is accurate but incomplete. Lots of folks might be willing to forego testing cosmetics on rabbits. Outlawing using mice to test AIDS vaccines...not so much.
They may not use PETA's methods but the chilling effect on science would be the same. In some ways the animal rights arguments remind me of the creationist crowd. They find a few scientists who support them but ignore the fact that the overwhelming majority of researchers advocate the use of animal research.
This is perhaps a debate for another time but I think I am on very safe ground when I suggest that the loss of animal test subjects would set back science to a degree vastly beyond what creationism could ever do.
By the way, I didn't mean my comments above to be a swipe at Canada, especially on their holiday. Happy Thanksgiving!
"PAWS is opposed to the use, abuse and exploitation of animals for human benefit, therefore PAWS is opposed to the use of animals for both cosmetic testing and medical testing and research."
Which is what I said above. It's not an unreasonable position for an organization such as theirs to have. However, they do not (to my knowledge) actively support legislation to ban animal testing (like that would ever pass, anyway) nor do the PAWSWAT team go out firebombing Mary Kay and bioresearch labs as groups like PETA and ALF do. If they did, a very large part of Seattle would be toast (ELF actually firebombed the UW's botanical library back in 2001).
Knuckles,
Ok, I don't want to be splitting hairs here but...
I'm not going to take the side of PETA, as I find most of their positions to be completely nuts, but do not mischaracterize their position as anti-science.
You were the one who brought up PETA and said that they are not anti-science. They are. Totally. It may be in the service of their larger goal but they are anti-science.
Other animal rights groups may or may not be. It depends. If they say that they oppose animal experimentation because they are against it, damn the consequences--well, I disagree but I can respect that. If they lie about the advances in science that were made possible by animal experimentation, if they lie about how there are better alternatives available, if they lie about how getting rid of animal research will make advances come even faster than before--they are anti-science.
Again, I don't know which of the many PAWS organizations we are talking about here. The Progressive Animal Welfare Society has a link to PETA as one of their sites promoting vegetarianism...which is like someone giving a link to Operation Rescue as a pro-adoption group. The only other thing I could find was a pro-animal research site that claims The Progressive Animal Welfare Society, an animal rights organization, targeted one of the researchers involved in the effort to study in-utero transmission of simian immunodeficiency virus in macaque monkeys, and managed to halt the research that was a precursor to the use of AZT to block HIV transmission from human mothers to their babies. PAWS called the work redundant. I cannot verify the accuracy of this. The PAWS site does not seem terribly extreme on the issue.
Personally I hate to see the Animal Welfare groups aligned in any way with the PETA crowd. It will end up hurting humans and animals, humans because of the harm it does to scientific advances and animals because it will make people like myself very reluctant to donate to animal welfare groups without assurances that I won't end up regretting it.
As for the rest of your post...you don't have to bomb science labs to be anti-science. Creationists aren't bombing my classroom but I have no problem labeling many of them as anti-science. Anyone that advocates laws against science research under false presences, even if they are unlikely to pass, deserves the same label.
ELF also burned a WSU botanical research field in Puyallup, apparently under the impression they were growing gengineered crops. In fact, they were growing a new blackberry hybrid, created by time-honored techniques like grafting.
If you really want to watch a Washingtonian boil, though, mention Earth First! That's the organization that likes to spike trees to stop logging (which tends to injure or kill the loggers, when the chain on the saw breaks). They're also infamous for an incident in the '70s, when at least one of their number decided that the best way to protect Earth was to plant a pipe bomb in a gate on one of the forest access roads. It would seem that this misguided soul thought that the bomb would deter harvesting of the trees. In the event, however, it detonated when a Forest Service employee opened the gate, while patrolling for anyone harvesting trees illegally...
On a more humorous front, there's Greenpeace. When the US Navy was sending some of the first Ohio-class nuclear missile submarines to the Bangor base in Washington, Greenpeace attempted to blockade the passage with a flotilla of Zodiacs and similar small craft. The captain saw the blockade ahead, ordered a dive - and the sub glided smoothly under the flotilla, surfacing on the far side. I guess the "experts" who advised Greenpeace about how terrible the Ohio-class boomers were, forgot to tell them why they're called "submarines". :)
Robbnn: Luigi, did you read the book or just the table of contents online?
Luigi Novi: I read the descriptions of the book at Amazon.com, which clearly indicates that it uses the exact same debunked arguments that every other creationist uses, some of which I mentioned above.
Robbnn: Luigi, did you read the book or just the table of contents online?
Luigi Novi: I read the descriptions of the book at Amazon.com, which clearly indicate that it uses the exact same debunked arguments that every other creationist uses, some of which I mentioned above.
Here is an intersting article on the question of abortion from a popular, philosophical and legal point of view.
About Intelligence Design -- a thought experiment:
Let's assume that evolution is wrong for the sake of argument. We're back to square one as far as explaining biological phenomena. If we resume the search for an explanation in the realm of natural sciences, i.e. in nature (not faith, the bible etc.), all we could say is that nature is complex. Refering to a creator would be pointless, since it tells us nothing about the mechanism that causes the phenomena in question, nothing about the said creator or the way he works.
Now the ID supporter can complain that natural sciences seek only mechanistic explanations, not ones involving intelligences. That's why the idea of inteligence designers will never be considered real science. But even if we generously allow the possibility of an explanation refering to the possible influence of intelligences (that's the way we explain pyramids, cathedrals and watches for example), he still couldn't tell us anything valuable about the designer or the designing mechanism, while archeologists and historians can tell you about pyramid and cathedral builders.
The creationist can then complain that we are ignoring an important historical source, the bible. But then, if we study the bible in a scientific way (that is without faith that it is the world of God), than it is not a very good source for biological information.
The last option of the creationist is to say that there are things beyond our understanding of nature -- supernatural. But supernatural can mean one of two things. (a) aspects of nature that can be discovered and explained scientifically and rationally but have not so far because of the flaws of our theories or limitation of our technologies. In which case we can only wait for science to learn about them in the future. (b) supernatural in the sense of miraculous, going beyond the way the natural world works. In which case the explanation goes beyond science, and cannot be explained in rational terms, and has therefore no room in science classes.
In short, even if evolution was not a sufficient explanation for the way living organisms developed, talking about an intelligent designer would be as meaningful as saying that they were designed by aliens or sorcerers.
The classic fallacy that informs the "logic" of the Intelligent Design group is to assume that the end result of a long chain of random operations was, indeed, the intended result of a chain of guided events, and is, also, the only possible result.
That is, they look at the end result (themselves) which their religion teaches them is the imazge of God, and aver that such a thing could not happen due to Mere Random Chance.
That the human shape is the Image of God and no other shape is possible for the Highest Being on the Food Chain.
Of course, since no-one would (i hope) seriously argue that man is, indeed, the exact *physical* image of God, but rather that the "our own image" means a reasoning being capable of intelligently understandig hs/its surroundings, it's my opinion/contention that, assuming God exists, that we would still be the "image of god" if we were seventeen-foot purple-and-pink spotted rhinoceroids with a fifty-foot wingspan, so long as we were reasoning, intelligent etc.
And exponents of creationism (or, "Intelligenr Design", as they'd call it to claim it was science) would say that nothing so wonderful and complex as the ourselves could have possibly come about by Mere Chance -- that the Big Snorklewhacker In The Sky, between sessions bugging that weird-looking creature, Binkley, must have Intelligently Designed us.
Intelligent Design is a refuge for people who can either not accept or parse an intelligent logical argument, and are scared of the fact that it's a big Universe, it's real strange, and it really doesn't give one single very small fraction of a part of a miniscule damn whether one irritating race on one insignificant mudball in a thoroughly undistinguished galaxy lives or dies.
Once you accept that fact, though, you know, it's fun trying to figure out how the Universe works and maybe -- just maybe -- actually accomplishing something bigger and grander than just infesting a sigle small mudball.
Maybe a few hundred mudballs...
Here's the issue.
Intelligent Design is a theory that current scientific methods cannot yet prove. And may never be able to. And in fact, current scientific methods actually DISprove it. It's like someone coming along and saying the force that keeps us all glued to the earth is in fact a form of glue, which we currently have no way of measuring, but it's there. While science tells us that gravity is in fact some form of matter attraction caused by superdense bodies. We don't fully understand yet how that works, but scientific proofs have told us that the statement is true. And that the undetectable glue theory is in fact false.
Creationists have adopted ID because it allows them to debunk the idea of evolution. You can't have a scientific debate between a creationist and a scientist on evolution: creationism is an idea of faith, not science. Evolution starts with a series of hypothosis, and works through the observable and measurable evidence of FACT to rework and refine that hypothosis. The Creationist starts with the faith that the Bible contains a factually true statement about the origins of the world, then goes home, has dinner with the wife and kids, watches some TV, heads to bed, gets up in the morning and shakes his head at the silly scientist that has stayed up all night studying his bones and fossils and missed the latest episode of Lost.
The only debate you can have between a scientist on evolution and creationism is a philosophical one, because the creationist isn't intersted in the scientific method. Literal creationists have the hardest time, because science tells them that their faith is wrong...that the Earth is far older than 14,000 years, that dinosaurs did not live with man in Eden, and that the unisverse did not begin with a massive voice-over of "Let Ther Be Light..."
The biggest mistake ID makes, aside from claiming to be good science, is that evolution says that life is the way it is because of some random happenstance. Evolution says nothing about why things happen, only that they do happen. Science doesn't tell us WHY the first protiens combined to form those rudimentary life forms, only that it probably DID happen. It is a fallacy, so far as I know, to claim that science or evolution makes any claim as to the forces behind what we observe, but it is a fallacy that is essential for the ID theory to remain valid in the scientific landscape.
Actually, Bill, what I intended to say was that MOST anti-animal cruelty groups are NOT anti-science. I had intended to highlight PETA as one that is. It's what I like to call "bad writing".
As for the rest of your post...you don't have to bomb science labs to be anti-science. Creationists aren't bombing my classroom but I have no problem labeling many of them as anti-science. Anyone that advocates laws against science research under false presences, even if they are unlikely to pass, deserves the same label.
I'm not saying you do. I agree with you wholeheartedly that Creationists (I'd also argue that they are, in fact, intellectually carpet bombing the classrooms, but that's a different subject altogether) are anti-science. It appears to me that our definitions of what constitutes "anti-science" are just a bit different (kind of like Leviathan's definition of science fiction).
My issue with ID is the notion that it deserves equal footing with evolution. Sorry, it doesn't. It took the theory of evolution decades of research and testing before it was commonly accepted as the most likely theory. ID hasn't any such background. If people want to teach ID, fine. Do it in a Christian school. Offer it as a liberal arts course in college. But don't pretend it is science, as the methods employed to "prove" the theory are anything but scientific.
True science doesn't need a school board action to get it taught in the classroom. That's the function of peer review...to validate the claims and conclusions drawn from science. The fact that the only reason intelligent design is being discussed in a science class is because the school board said so should tell anyone all they need to know about the validity of ID as a scientifically verifiable idea.
True science doesn't need a school board action to get it taught in the classroom.
That's a great statement, Bobb, and very, very true (in my opinion).
In 1995 while I was living in Kansas City, I wanted to see "Inherit the Wind" (I hadn't seen the film for some time). So I went to my local Blockbuster and searched but couldn't find the video.
I asked a clerk if their copies were out and was informed that Blockbuster did NOT carry the film. He told me that the movie did not fit Blockbusters' criteria of the kind of films they felt were proper to rent to it's customers.
Sure, and the 30 copies of "Porky's" did.
"I sat through every filthy frame of that movie. Twice."
Is it sad that of all the things from Porky's that I could remebmer, that's the one that sticks out the most?
You know, everybody seems to have quickly forgotten an important piece of evidence in the evolution vs ID debate:
George W. Bush.
He proves that neither theory is true. :)
I don't know, Craig.
The fact that we sometimes have people pop up who are such obvious victims of throw back traits & genetics may actually go a long way at helping to back evolution here. Seeing George in action makes it much easier for me to believe that we came from some chimp like creature a long time ago.
There's a "missing link" comment here that I just feel I'm above making.
There's a "missing link" comment here that I just feel I'm above making.
*chuckle* Might take a few links to find the path between Bush and his ancestors.
Even worse, is that Bush Sr and Jeb seem to actually have a pretty good level of intelligence.
So maybe it's just that evolution does not account for an alkie, coke-head somehow surviving such "youthful indiscretions".
FYI....
A UMinnesota biology prof. comments on Behe's talks:
Think it gives a new meaning to the term BS detector.....
[b]I asked a clerk if their copies were out and was informed that Blockbuster did NOT carry the film. He told me that the movie did not fit Blockbusters' criteria of the kind of films they felt were proper to rent to it's customers.[/b]
I believe Blockbuster is owned by the Waltons, the "good christian family" that owned the small town buisness killing Wal-Mart. So go figure why such a vile movie would be availible to rent.
Damn Dirty apes...
I believe Blockbuster is owned by the Waltons, the "good christian family" that owned the small town buisness killing Wal-Mart. So go figure why such a vile movie would be availible to rent.
According to Blockbuster's website, they were aquired by Viacom in 1995.
And their founder wasn't a Walton either.
>And their founder wasn't a Walton either.
I dunno, with the way that my local Blockbuster is run and the people employed there, I wouldn't blink if grampa or Ellie May walked out of the back office.
Out of curiosity, I just called three Blockbuster stores near where I live. None of them carry _Inherit the Wind_. The clerk at the first store, just a few blocks away from home, told me that they used to carry it on video; the clerk at the second store simply said his store didn't carry it.
When I called the third store, and got the same, "we don't carry it" answer from the woman who answered the phone, I asked if she knew why- that I'd now tried three stores. Her answer was that A) it was only released on DVD three years ago; and B) that there's a _lot_ of stuff released on DVD, and they can't stock it all right away; but that C), they_would_ be carrying it at some point. She seemed pretty confident about that last point.
For what it's worth, she also seemed to know the movie, volunteering, "with Spencer Tracy?" The other two clerks didn't say anything to indicate whether they were familiar with the film.
So, of the three stores I called, one had carried the movie at one time; another expected they would be carrying it in the future; and the third didn't give any indication one way or another.
So, perhaps it was just a particular Blockbuster store in Kansas City that didn't carry _Inherit the Wind_, rather than a company-wide ban of the film. At least one store in Michigan has carried it, and it's currently available through Blockbuster online.
Rick
I wouldn't blink if grampa or Ellie May walked out of the back office
Ellie May is a Clampett and the Walton that he was referring to was the Sam Walton family not the TV Waltons.
Oops on rhe first and I didn't miss that fact on the second.
I remember a story my mom told me about when she was in school in the '40s. Priest/teacher up in the front of the class talking about God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, so my mom, ever the curious one, asked the ubiquitous question, "Who was God the Father's Father?" Never did get an answer. Other than the equally ubiquitous "D'oh!"
My big problem with ID being taught in school is a question of faith. No, not what you're thinking. Kids are in the class, teacher is up there talking about ID, the kids are going to have questions, which from everything I've read about ID, the course materials are ill-equipped to answer, the kids still have their questions and then they start to think that maybe the rest of what the teachers have been saying over the years doesn't have any solid basis either and they decide to just stop learning altogether.
One last thing-to indestructibleman (and no this isn't for stealing my schtick because I'M the indestructible one and I have the windshield pieces in my face and the car pictures to prove it) Is it that you don't accept the supernatural because you believe that nothing is supernatural and we just don't have the proof yet, or is it more material If I Can't Eat It Or Kill It Or Carve My Initials In It Doesn't Exsist?
[i]Is it that you don't accept the supernatural because you believe that nothing is supernatural and we just don't have the proof yet, or is it more material If I Can't Eat It Or Kill It Or Carve My Initials In It Doesn't Exsist?[/i]
it's the former and not the latter.
btw, i've been hit by a car as a pedestrian (rode on the hood for a good 20 yards) and run my motorcycle into an oncoming van. both without sustaining more than a scratch.
"My big problem with ID being taught in school is a question of faith. No, not what you're thinking. Kids are in the class, teacher is up there talking about ID, the kids are going to have questions, which from everything I've read about ID, the course materials are ill-equipped to answer, the kids still have their questions and then they start to think that maybe the rest of what the teachers have been saying over the years doesn't have any solid basis either and they decide to just stop learning altogether."
This a good point, and why you don't want to bring up ID in SCIENCE CLASS. Science is all about proofs...the things you learn, the experiments you do, all go toward proving that what you read is verifiable. It's part and parcel with the process. To introduce, as science, something that scientific methods cannot observe, cannot measure, cannot prove or disprove, calls into question all the other things you're teaching as SCIENCE.
When the proponents of ID can start publishing work ready for peer-review, and that can stand up to the scrutiny of peer review, then we can start introducing it into our science classes.
Blockbuster's previous owner was Harry Wayne Huizenga, who bought the company from David Cook. Huizenga owns the Miami Dolphins and the Florida Panthers. He also used to own the Florida Marlins.
He sold the company to Viacom years ago and, while the company has done to the local video rental places what Sam Walton has done to the local drugstores, Blockbuster has never had a connection to Wal-Mart.
I'm wondering what progress can be found in Inherit The Windo or what progress was moved against?
Was it all just pitting one religion against another?
Science is all about proofs
Substitute "evidence" for "proofs" and you got it. Proof is for math, not science...in science, you just accumulate so much evidence that it would be foolhardy to withhold agreement.
[Not that there aren't a lot of foolish people in this country...]
I'll be willing to accept that the definition of science can be changed to include ID if they would be willing to accept the definition of marriage can be changed to include people who marry a same-sex partner.
No deal. The latter is a societal norm which (IMO) is gradually going to change over time anyway. The former is fundamentally at odds with the nature of science, and taking up class time already at a premium with something that's not science.
So sorry, no deal. The losses do not justify the gains. :-)
And from our friendly colorful arachnid...
Was it all just pitting one religion against another?
Scientific theories aren't religions. Sorry to burst yer bubble.
TWL
I get irritated in these discussions at folks who try to treat science and religion as equivalents. They're not. They're tools...one for the spiritual world, one for the material world. Why in heavens name would you want to use one tool for both worlds? There just aint a fit....
Because, Roger, this is Bush's word and anything that doesn't point to a 100% literal interpretation of the account in Genesis is the mark of Satan.
I live in Harrisburg, PA. This is where the federal court hearing the Dover case is located and I am sick to death of people trying to convince me that science is just another kind of faith or that they're just trying to offer an alternative view. They're not. If you look at the statements they're making (one of the Dover school board members said that putting ID in the classroom was "the least they could do for Jesus"), their true motive is to push us all towards theocracy.
Wow. Den, was that comment made inside or outside the courtroom? Because it's hard to imagine any more clear evidence that some governmental body is attempting to put their religon's stamp on education.
Bobb, go to
And you'll get all sorts of summaries, transcripts and jaw droppingly stoopid(tm) things allegedly said by the Dover school board (although the Kansas Board of education gives them a run for their money; one of THEIR experts was complaining about "science getting in the way of education.").
I hear ya, Den. And I get a sinking feeling that Bush nominated a creationist for the Supreme Court; if Dover appeals it all the way up, we may all rue the day that those bozos thought up intelligent design. If you thought American education was bad before....
Here's today's local article. It gives some choice quotes from some of the school board members:
"Three weeks after Alan Bonsell was appointed to the Dover school board, he said one of his objectives was to bring creationism into the science classroom. Bonsell, described as a creationist who believes God created the world 6,000 to 10,000 years ago, wanted to "bring prayer and faith back in the school" and believed that the "Bible and creationism" should be a "fair and balanced part of the curriculum.""
"School board member William Buckingham, in defending the Dover policy, said, "Two thousand years ago, someone died on a cross. Can't someone take a stand for him?" He called the constitutional principle of the separation of church and state "a myth" and described a biology textbook as "laced with Darwinism." He objected to the mention of Charles Darwin's name and said the textbook lacked a balanced presentation on evolution because it did not contain "the theory of creationism with God as the creator of all life." After a school grounds employee burned a large mural depicting the evolution of man, Buckingham said, "I gleefully watched it burn," according to a teacher."
Isn't that sweet? The people who claim to be for "fair and balanced" teaching are "gleefully" burning anything that contradicts their views.
Don't tell me these people aren't working towards a theocracy.
http://www.pennlive.com/news/patriotnews/index.ssf?/base/news/112945457499050.xml&coll=1
BTW, last week, the attorney for the defense accused one of the plaintiff's witnesses of being a "card carrying member of the ACLU" and tried to question her about ACLU allegedly defending child pornography. Fortunately, the judge had the sense to rule those questions irrelevant.
I was pondering the efforts of the anti-science crowd the other day when I realized just how terrifying it would be if the lazy thinking evident in the efforts to put ID forth as science were to spread to other sciences.
One of the primary arguments I've read over and over again in support of ID boils down to, "I just can't comprehend how it could have happened randomly, so it MUST have been Go... er... a higher power."
Now, how scary would it be if "It's inconceivable that a man would just up and eat his family, so the devil must have made him do it," were an acceptable legal defense? Or, how would anybody like it if their doctor were to say, "I've never seen this disease before, and I have no idea how you got it. God must have made you sick."
-Rex Hondo-
I imagine the future of science classes in this country becoming something like this:
Teacher: "Well, the eye is too complicated to have occurred randomly, so it must have been designed intelligently. This concludes biology for year. Now, onto astronomy: There are still numerous holes in the heliocentric theory. Newton's laws of gravitation become too complicated to work out when you add a third gravitational body. Even he gave up trying to do the math for four or more bodies. So it must be intelligently designed."
Billy raises his hand.
Teacher: "Yes, Billy?"
Billy: "If we're all intelligently designed, why is a baby's head so much larger than the birth canal? Why do we have appendixes? Why do men have nipples?"
Teacher: "Billy, did you take your ritalin today?"
Billy: "I'm not taking ritalin."
Teacher: "You are now."
Billy never asks another question in class again for the rest of his life.
If the world exists because of intelligent design, how do you explain Pauly Shore's career?
PAD
If the world exists because of intelligent design, how do you explain Pauly Shore's career?
Witchcraft! Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live! Burn him! BUUUUURRRRRNNNN HIM!!!
-Rex Hondo-
With all the creationist theories and counterarguments of "Who created the creator", I'm reminded of what Douglas Adams said (which I read reprinted in "The Salmon of Doubt"). Something about the universe flowing from the bottom-up rather than the top-down. It was a brilliant speech.
Pauly Shore was basically born into the business, like certain rich kids who use their status as legacies to get into Yale.
A better question is how do you explain Rob Schneider's career?
I was pondering the efforts of the anti-science crowd the other day when I realized just how terrifying it would be if the lazy thinking evident in the efforts to put ID forth as science were to spread to other sciences.
Forget other sciences -- think about having it spread to the field of law. If the rules of evidence in science have to be changed to allow supernatural phenomena, then demonic possession and homunculi automatically become legitimate legal defenses and prosecutors despair of ever winning cases.
TWL
"A better question is how do you explain Rob Schneider's career?"
He's good friends with Adam Sandler, who funds all of his movies.
All right then, how do you explain Adam Sandler's career?
Well, Tim there's an historical precedence for what you described. During the Salem Witch trials, the local tribunals permitted the introduction of "spectral evidence," that is the idea that once you make a pact with the devil, he could appear before his victims in your form. That only your accusers could see the devil floating around looking you was considered proof that you had made an infernal pact.
As soon as the colonial government brought in outside judges who didn't believe in spectral evidence, the trials came to a halt.
Naturally, our legal system is already not immune to the introduction of pseudosceintific evidence, insofar as there are judges who do not understand what consitutes scientifically-accepted information. For example, while polygraphs are not admissable in American courts of law, our government relies on them for pursuit of spies and criminals and pumps money into their use, even though they do not work as lie detectors.
Another example from John Stossel's Junk Science program from several years ago involved a dentist who claimed that he could see bite marks on corpses that no one else could see when using a UV light. At least one person was wrongfully convicted and sent to prison for muder on this quack's testimony, even though the marks he saw were not and could not have been bite marks, because it would've been anatomically impossible someone to make them in the way they alleged. The man sent to prison was eventually released, but his life was destroyed.
"All right then, how do you explain Adam Sandler's career?"
I have no answer for this question. :(
"All right then, how do you explain Adam Sandler's career?"
Opera Man...turning 3 minutes of good comedey into major bankroll. The entertainment equivilent of inventions like Makin Bacon.
"Forget other sciences -- think about having it spread to the field of law. If the rules of evidence in science have to be changed to allow supernatural phenomena, then demonic possession and homunculi automatically become legitimate legal defenses and prosecutors despair of ever winning cases."
CSID Dover
Somebody should suggest teaching the Islamic version of creation in science classes.