In the film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, narrator Ben Stein poses as a "rebel" willing to stand up to the scientific establishment in defense of freedom and honest, open discussion of controversial ideas like intelligent design (ID). But Expelled has some problems of its own with honest, open presentations of the facts about evolution, ID—and with its own agenda. Here are a few examples—add your own with a comment, and we may add it to another draft of this story. For our complete coverage, see "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed—Scientific American's Take.

1) Expelled quotes Charles Darwin selectively to connect his ideas to eugenics and the Holocaust.
When the film is building its case that Darwin and the theory of evolution bear some responsibility for the Holocaust, Ben Stein's narration quotes from Darwin's The Descent of Man thusly:

With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. Hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.

This is how the original passage in The Descent of Man reads (unquoted sections emphasized in italics):

With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.

The producers of the film did not mention the very next sentences in the book (emphasis added in italics):

The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil.

Darwin explicitly rejected the idea of eliminating the "weak" as dehumanizing and evil. Those words falsify Expelled's argument. The filmmakers had to be aware of the full Darwin passage, but they chose to quote only the sections that suited their purposes.

2) Ben Stein's speech to a crowded auditorium in the film was a setup.
"Viewers of Expelled might think that Ben Stein has been giving speeches on college campuses and at other public venues in support of ID and against "big science." But if he has, the producers did not include one. The speech shown at the beginning and end was staged solely for the sake of the movie. Michael Shermer learned as much by speaking to officials at Pepperdine University, where those scenes were filmed. Only a few of the audience members were students; most were extras brought in by the producers. Judge the ovation Ben Stein receives accordingly.

999 Comments

1. 1. jmarbas 10:19 PM 4/16/08

   Face it guys. The whole debate...infact MOST debates brought about by human beings is about 'power'. For history eternal even before we came down from the trees all the way up to the middle ages we created groups - strong groups - of individuals that wanted power, to expouse and force their view on us. For example in the dark ages we would be thrown into a dungeon or killed for our views that did not fit in with those in power. For millennia the people who wanted power used religion, pegan beliefs or other ideologies to hold people prisoner lest they should disagree. I THANK GOD that through the hard work of OBJECTIVE PEOPLE and through scientists, mathematicians, physicians, physicists etc we now have a society that can no longer be ruled by a few people who use religion for their own needs. I am on the side of science and oppose the struggle of these oppresive people(who are trying to use religion) to get the power back. Its not about ID. Its about power. They must be stopped.

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2. 2. skreezy 10:38 PM 4/16/08

   Darwin can say all he wants that neglecting the poor and weak is evil, but such neglect is still the logical conclusion of his theories, especially "survival of the fittest". If he wants to go about making such a religious statement, that neglecting the weak and poor is evil, he better be able to back it up.
   In addition, he should be able to provide reason for WHY men are to be differentiated from other species when it comes to protecting the weak and poor instead of allowing them to die off.

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3. 3. Glen Davidson 10:38 PM 4/16/08

   Another thing he doesn't want you to know--that he'd like to silence Darwin. From an interview:
   
   "5. What would you like to say to Darwin?
   
   [Ben Stein replies]"You are a wealthy man, you married a wealthy
   woman, why don't you just live quietly out in the countryside and not
   torture us with your half-baked suppositions, which have caused so
   much misery?"
   
   http://www.citizenlink.org/content/A000007058.cfm
   
   There you are, Stein would essentially tell Darwin to shut up, not to
   publish his science. It's the complete opposite of the freedom-fighting persona that he's trying to put over onto a gullible public.
   
   This alone indicates that Stein is primarily interested in repressing
   freedom of inquiry, and freedom of speech, at least where this goes
   against his prejudices.
   
   Glen Davidson
   http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

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4. 4. gomper 10:45 PM 4/16/08

   What do you want from a Nixon speech writer?

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5. 5. richardmumolo 11:00 PM 4/16/08

   Without disputing any of the article content, the simple existence of this article shows that Scientific American has an agenda.

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6. 6. punninglinguist 12:15 AM 4/17/08

   skreezy: In fact animal altruism is well-known. Non-human mammals, for example, take care of the weak and poor all the time: not just their own young, but other members of their social groups. Vampire bats, for instance, willingly feed other bats who have not managed to get enough to eat that day. Walruses adopt orphans (even though they don't spread their genes that way), bonobo chimps care for the sick and injured, etc.
   
   If you're curious how Darwin applies, Google altruism +animals
   
   "Darwin can say all he wants that neglecting the poor and weak is evil, but such neglect is still the logical conclusion of his theories, especially "survival of the fittest". If he wants to go about making such a religious statement, that neglecting the weak and poor is evil, he better be able to back it up.
   In addition, he should be able to provide reason for WHY men are to be differentiated from other species when it comes to protecting the weak and poor instead of allowing them to die off

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7. 7. Dr. Cosmic 12:37 AM 4/17/08

   Evolution, change and diversity go hand in hand. All of them are dangerous to the powers that be. Evolution is a dangerous idea and must be squashed by those in power. Obviously they will use all means necessary to bring back the dark ages so that fear can rule again.

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8. 8. Tommo0809 01:05 AM 4/17/08

   @ richardmumolo: are you serious?

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9. 9. rooseveltdecosta 01:07 AM 4/17/08

   Richardmumolo,
   Very intuitive conclusion. A scientific journal that publishes an article that refutes ignorant and intolerant right wing Christian propaganda that cannot even poorly masquerade itself as a psuedoscience. Indeed they have a clear agenda, science. Well done.

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10. 10. girl athee 01:21 AM 4/17/08

    I havent seen this "movie" and not planning to. This "Expelled" movie really is a very lousy attempt to monetary gains but not to be shrugged off and dismissed as this will really affect those who are "mentally challenged" in the evolution part at least. May Ben Stein's "god(s)" bless him a thousand fold for his very very exemplary work. I salute Scientific American for pointing out these very important facts. Keep blogging on evolution. I always visit your site everyday,

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11. 11. crazimyke 02:01 AM 4/17/08

    First to skreezy: Not to offend you, but you clearly have a poor understanding of just how the theory of evolution works. This is a common problem in today's society as groups with religious agendas intentionally (or perhaps even stupidly) misconstrue what evolution is saying. Darwin never actually used the words "survival of the fittest" (although in the proper context, this is a perfectly adequate phrase), he actually believed in "survival of the best adapted". Being "fit" has nothing to do with physical strength. Rather, whether or not you are fit is a question of whether your physical (or in mankind's case, mental) attributes are beneficial to you in your environment. Whether these attributes make you better able to survive and reproduce. Mankind's "altruism" and "good-will" for each other is quite beneficial because it allows us to be collectively strong despite the fact that we're individually weak. A world of doctors would have nothing to eat just as a world of farmers would have no one to heal them. Furthermore (and this is something that Darwin was most likely unaware of since it regards genetic mutation which was hardly even suspected at the time) according the modern theory of evolution, mutations [or changes] in an animal's (or person's, if you don't consider humans to be animals) genetic structure [which determines our physical and mental attributes] are RANDOM. DNA is such a fragile (but still reliable) compound that even in humans--who have very strong and stable DNA--a mutation could take place in any child at any time. This means that a stupid/weak person is just as capable of giving birth to an intelligent/strong person as an intelligent/strong person is of giving birth to a stupid/weak person. Therefore, eliminating those that some might label as "weak" or "inferior" would actually be counter-productive according to the Theory of Evolution because it would reduce the available genetic pool and, in turn, the probability of a "superior" person being born. I think that this is all plenty of justification for how the success of mankind, in the context of its character, do in fact perfectly correlate with the Theory of Evolution.
    
    And finally, to girl athee: that sounds like a rather religious commitment to science, no?
    
    --
    Edited by crazimyke at 04/16/2008 7:01 PM

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12. 12. Dr. Cosmic 02:19 AM 4/17/08

    Maybe Stein and his supporters also want to go back to saying that evil spirits cause disease.

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13. 13. frgough 11:22 AM 4/17/08

    This makes, I think 5 or 6 articles SA has run on the front page of their web site in the past week concerning Ben Stein, and all of them have been hysterical rants.
    
    I think SA is doing an excellent job of showing how anyone who even dares question Darwinism in any way whatsoever is witch hunted and burned at the stake.
    
    Darwinism. The only supposed theory without direct experimental evidence in existence that cannot be questioned.

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14. 14. Tommo0809 11:26 AM 4/17/08

    @frgrough:
    I think all they are ranting about are the inaccuracies that Stein shoves forth as some sort of supposed truth, coupled with the dishonest means used portray them. And then calls it a documentary for religious types to have something to cling to and/or shout about as opposed to attempting to rationally understand or even learn about evolution.
    
    I would imagine them having no problem with questioning darwinsim if the creaters of expelled were to do so in a responsible, rational manner. Bashing evolution for what they believe are the consequences of the theory is not a questioning of darwinism, its a half-assed attempt at riling up the bottom 5% and others who's heads begin to hurt upon undertaking any type of serious inquiry, throw up their hands and say...well I can't figure this out, god must have done it.
    
    --
    Edited by Tommo0809 at 04/17/2008 4:27 AM
    
    --
    Edited by Tommo0809 at 04/17/2008 4:50 AM

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15. 15. redearthbonsai 01:35 PM 4/17/08

    And if god is just a scientist in a white lab coat and we just "one" of his/he experiments,(think rats in a maze") what do you call it then?
    What if we have been tinkered with (think genetic modafide food)_
    If the lab rats thought they could explain where and why the cheese (mana) just appeared..... would we not have a great laugh....
    So yes you can have it both ways, both are wrong to think they are the only ones who are right.

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16. 16. brianwood1 01:37 PM 4/17/08

    frgough, you have got to be kidding, man! Here is your statement:
    
    Darwinism. The only supposed theory without direct experimental evidence in existence that cannot be questioned.
    
    The best reply to such a statement is probably just to ignore it. For those of us who actually payed attention in high school and university biology, have critically thought about the research, and done our homework, it is just a concise statement of your scientific ignorance. But feel free to publish that thesis in a major journal, after all, if you were correct, well, you'd have a scientific revolution on your hands. If you don't have much success in that track, maybe you can publish that thesis where it belongs: on a bumper sticker, which if you are lucky might end up on a few minivans.

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17. 17. cew719 02:52 PM 4/17/08

    > This makes, I think 5 or 6 articles SA has run on the
    > front page of their web site in the past week
    > concerning Ben Stein, and all of them have been
    > hysterical rants.
    >
    > I think SA is doing an excellent job of showing how
    > anyone who even dares question Darwinism in any way
    > whatsoever is witch hunted and burned at the stake.
    >
    > Darwinism. The only supposed theory without direct
    > experimental evidence in existence that cannot be
    > questioned.
    
    Hysterical rants???? Do you often try to make an argument by exaggerating to the point of being ridiculous? Your opening statement makes the rest of your scrawl less believable, but upon reading that as well, you're merely parroting the typical ID-proponent mantra, which are all false.
    
    Evolution is one of the most researched and questioned theories in biological science. If you weren't a parrot you'd know that.

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18. 18. logica 03:10 PM 4/17/08

    richardmumolo .... are you serious with this statement?
    You said.....
    "Without disputing any of the article content, the simple existence of this article shows that Scientific American has an agenda. "
    
    You're right, there is a massive conspiracy at Sciam to advance the public knowledge & understanding of science.
    
    This article is a perfect example of that.
    
    --
    Edited by logica at 04/17/2008 8:10 AM
    
    --
    Edited by logica at 04/17/2008 8:11 AM

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19. 19. jsward 03:13 PM 4/17/08

    It is interesting to think about logical necessity for creating scientific perspectives. If it trule is necessary to create these perspectives, one would have to admit that evolutionary scientists can prove through observation that certain types of human beings existed, but cannont analyze or study how they came to exist. This is a question rarely asked. The how is at best still conjecture.

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20. 20. leomoore 03:14 PM 4/17/08

    One of the more interesting observations I have of [u]Expelled[/u] is that the attempt to tie Darwin to eugenics and euthanasia is how neatly "survival of the fittest" fits in with modern American conservatism. It seems the American conservative movement's emphasis on individual responsibility and the perfect power of market forces to solve all problems is precisely a form of the doctrine of survival of the fittest.

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21. 21. Peter Mc 03:44 PM 4/17/08

    That pic is of Mr Stein staring at Darwin in the Natural History Museum, London. There's a caption contest running over at the Beagle Project blog.

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22. 22. Blake Montie 03:55 PM 4/17/08

    Here's an idea, instead of attacking the small details of the movie, discuss the overarching purpose of the film, which is that evolutionary science is attempting to push away all the theories that irritate their theory. True science has always irritated the theories of it's day, and thats what this movie is talking about, that this new theory is being discriminated against because it's different, and that is just wrong. Maybe this theory of ID deserves a second look, they have some excellent points to a solid theory that are rarely mentioned in your articles, and I can't help but feel that you're being slightly hypocritical in these hate articles you're writing in the "scientific american". I only read about how this movie irritates you, rarely a word about the science involved. How's about you step off your pedestal, return to the humble realm of science, where people are proven wrong all the time, and attempt to prove the ID movement wrong instead of just writing hate propaganda.

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23. 23. magichj 04:28 PM 4/17/08

    To Blake,
    
    Did you read this article or are you simply responding out disgust for all who do not believe as you? It plainly states in the article that one of the major flaws with Intelligent Design as a scientific theory is that there is no way in which to attempt to disprove it. This does not mean that the theory is right, it simply means its a great idea but not something that can be proven or dis-proven and therefore resides outside of the realm of science. Yes, scientific theories are proven false all the time, but that is why they are theories... they can be supported or falsified by evidence gathered in experiments. When they are not supported by the evidence new theories are formed to explain the new data, this process cannot occur with ID.
    
    I personally believe ID, but the idea that it should be thought of as Science is foolish at best.
    
    --
    Edited by magichj at 04/17/2008 9:30 AM

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24. 24. Renofighter 04:31 PM 4/17/08

    I still think, even with the italics, the point of Darwin was that people would always try to wipe out the lessers if given the chance. The sooner we realize we are all monkeys the easier it is to pull the trigger.
    Without having seen the movie, I would guess Ben is using this quote to show how the 'higher ups' are trying to use survival of the fittest to abolish the 'lower ideas' of ID without really providing concrete fact - mostly just bullying.

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25. 25. sirdarkat 04:34 PM 4/17/08

    Awesome comment Blake, Except the writer does hit on the main problem with ID its the whole UNSCIENTIFIC part. Frankly Evolution can be observed, reproduced, and validated. That is the point of Science the ability to validate someone's claim. ID theories rely on you to accept an unverifiable idea than accept a conclusion on that made up idea with no proof beyond I say its true. That type of illogical, irrational, mindset is better left for the Dark Ages than for a period that understands the concept of the Scientific Method. Frankly to expect educated individuals to accept ID without the ability to reproduce, validate, and observe is not only silly but against the entire purpose of Science. If we are to accept ID with no more substance than the air I breathe than you must accept that magical monkies are holding you down and not this made up idea called gravity. My proof because I said so, you can validate it by asking me and I will say it again.
    
    Side note good article.

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26. 26. frgough 04:44 PM 4/17/08

    Brianwood,
    
    Show me the re-creation of an evolutionary pathway in the laboratory (say like re-evolving eukaryotic bacteria) and I'll shut up.
    
    We can create the random mutation, we can reproduce the environmental pressures. Run the experiment and reproduce the evolution.
    
    We don't do it because it can't be done. It can't be done because DNA mutation is totally unrelated to morphological evolution. SA themselves ran the article discussing that finding a few weeks ago.
    
    I stand by my statement.

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27. 27. itemforty 04:47 PM 4/17/08

    Although I feel this article might be taken with a bit more venom than intended, I personally appreciate the tone at which it is presented. Thank you for that.

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28. 28. frgough 04:49 PM 4/17/08

    To magichi,
    
    An evolutionist criticizing ID because it is not falsifiable is laughable.
    
    Name to me anything that evolution cannot be invoked to explain. It's invoked to explain everything from the presence of junk DNA, to the lack of junk DNA to human morality, to lack of human morality.
    
    In fact, it's invoked to explain everything. Evolutionary theory is the most unfalsifiable theory ever proposed. There isn't a single piece of biological data that evolution cannot and will not be invoked as an explanation for.

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29. 29. emiller829 04:57 PM 4/17/08

    I fail to see how point #1 actually changes the interpretation substantially. Of more use might be a quote from Darwin's "Descent of Man":
    
    At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked (18. 'Anthropological Review,' April 1867, p. 236.), will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.
    
    (edited to fix newline issues in the quote, and add the following)
    
    It would appear to me that Darwin is espousing the idea of races that are "higher" and "lower" on the evolutionary scale within mankind. And truly, as evolution is a gradual process, it would seem necessary for such distinctions to exist, at least in the sense that they would be observed in retrospect as making one group of humans more likely to propagate their genetic material in a given environment, taking into account social and environmental factors.
    
    --
    Edited by emiller829 at 04/17/2008 10:18 AM

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30. 30. AtheistRev 05:07 PM 4/17/08

    Natural Selection is an undeniable process. It is happening today and will continue to happen throughout the natural world. Man is no longer part of this process because society has taken on the role of helping those in need, trying to give everyone opportunity, and health care....all great things. Natural Selection is not at odds with ID......reason is.
    
    http://www.atheistrevolution.com

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31. 31. Matt W 05:17 PM 4/17/08

    @frgough
    "Show me the re-creation of an evolutionary pathway in the laboratory (say like re-evolving eukaryotic bacteria) and I'll shut up."
    
    Hmmm... Design an experiment that re-enacts a billion years of random mutation and selection and arrives at the same result. Might as well ask for a laboratory demonstration of the birth of a star. Difficult as those sound, however, I can imagine a clever person designing an experiment to do just that. However, I can't for the life of me, imagine how to demonstrate, in the laboratory, the creation of eukaryotic bacteria by a Designer.
    
    "It can't be done because DNA mutation is totally unrelated to morphological evolution."
    
    This is news to me. I don't really understand how you can come to this conclusion if you grant inheritance and phenotypic expression through DNA. Maybe you're suggesting that selection operates only at the molecular level and not at the level of the phenotype? I can think of several counter-examples. Could you elaborate?

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32. 32. MrTasses 05:22 PM 4/17/08

    emiller829 - Basing the validity of a scientific theory on the scientist proposing it will always be tenuous. Should we reject the Haber-Bosch process because Haber was the father of chemical warfare? Certainly not. Rejecting Evolution based on Darwin would also be silly. I was often disturbed by accounts in the Voyage of the Beagle, but I was just as disturbed by medicine of that era. Good science should be based on the validity of the hypothesis.
    
    That is not always immediately the case because respected scientists will always be given more credibility than young or unknown scientists. However, with time, the good science rises to the top. The resistance to new theories is one of necessity. If the rules under which science operated were constantly in flux, experimental design and procedure would become much more difficult than it already is.

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33. 33. emiller829 05:29 PM 4/17/08

    MrTasses:
    
    I'm not really basing it on Darwin's comments so much as I see no other valid course of reason than the one he outlines. If one is to assert that certain genetic traits make one individual more likely to pass on his genetic material than another, then I'd welcome a more rosy view of future happenings to be submitted.
    
    Let me describe the scenario I am picturing, to perhaps explain the stance I’m taking a bit more thoroughly. This is more of a philosophical question than a scientific one, I’m aware.
    
    If we view the races of mankind as Darwin did in the previous quote, as existing on some sort of continuum from less advanced to more advanced, such that distinctions can be made about one group being more evolutionarily advanced than another (and it seems necessary to do so, even if those types of judgments can only be made in retrospect), then it seems that one or more of several outcomes become likely:
    
    1. Genocide by those who are deemed (or deem themselves) more evolved than others will be rationalized as a continuation of survival of the fittest and a belief that the ends will justify the means.
    
    2. The “less evolved” members may be subjugated by their “superiors” into slavery or a working caste.
    
    3. If, as I would hope, part of what we consider more “advanced” about the human mind is its capacity for compassion and institution of certain laws and rights endowed mankind, we will actually retard the pace of our own evolution by artificially propagating the genes of those less suited to survive, eventually being “caught up to” by other species.
    
    4. Non-violent eugenics may be employed to continue advancing the gene pool, possibly by leaps and bounds far beyond what natural selection would provide. The most advanced of these procedures would no doubt be available to only the countries/individuals with the means to finance them, turning the “class divide” into a “gene divide.”
    
    5. Eventually, in any case, if we assume that evolution is indeed a fact, mankind will produce offspring that are unable to mate with humans and give rise to a new species. It seems to my admittedly meager intellect at this point unavoidable that at some point in the future of that species, they will come to look at homo sapiens as we might a neanderthal. Further still, a chimpanzee, and at some point long after, a dog. Will the self-awareness of homo sapiens be enough to grant us equal rights by that time, assuming our branch of the evolutionary tree still survives? I don’t know, but at that point, more than ever, I can see the cycle begin anew at #1.
    
    This is why it seems to me that it is fair to draw the relationship the film does. It seems inevitable that at some point, genocide is the end result. The only question is whether or not those doing the killing are far enough removed evolutionarily from those being killed for it to be classified as genocide, or something akin to the woolly mammoth’s extinction. The core flaw in Hitler’s “logic,” so far as the logic of a madman can be called so, is that he wrongly perceived this line to have already been crossed and therefore dismissed the ethical quandary.

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34. 34. KARANO 05:29 PM 4/17/08

    When did the S A of my youth become a liberal political rag?

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35. 35. oxilite 05:36 PM 4/17/08

    @Matt W
    "Design an experiment that re-enacts a billion years of random mutation and selection and arrives at the same result"
    
    Please, lets not confuse these poor misguided souls any more than they already are. Evolution has nothing to do with randomness. That is a word IDers like to throw around to discredit evolution.
    
    "Might as well ask for a laboratory demonstration of the birth of a star."
    
    http://gizmodo.com/380291/inside-the-largest-laser-and-fusion-chamber-in-the-world ... Soon enough

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36. 36. logica 05:38 PM 4/17/08

    Blake,
    
    "Here's an idea, instead of attacking the small details of the movie, discuss the overarching purpose of the film, which is that evolutionary science is attempting to push away all the theories that irritate their theory"
    
    Ok. I highly doubt the ID proponents on the message board will take this seriously but let's give it a try. The problem is ID is not a scientific theory. Claiming that high complexity or the appearance of complexity could not have occurred through natural forces and therefore must be the act of a Designer or intelligent agent has nothing to do with science, it is not falsifiable. ID makes no predictions except the existence of a highly advanced "designer" because of the "appearance" of design in nature. ID is not unfalsifiable, nor does it make predictions therefore it does meet the minimum criteria to be a scientific theory. ID might be a philosophy but it fails the minimum criteria to be a science.
    
    Many ID proponents will say well "evolution is a just a theory". Theory in science is a cohesive description of a phenomenon that attempts to make predictions. The lay usage of theory is more akin to "educated guess". Scientific theories lie on a continuum from barely-supportable to damn-near-certain. Evolution is at the tail-end along with the theory of gravity and the heliocentric theory of the solar system.
    
    There are a number of problems with "design" theories in general. For example if you follow the ID argument, if a structure is too complex to have occurred naturally it must designed, the appearance of design means it was designed. Following the next step, a designer (who created the designed structure) must be extremely complex... who designed that designer? etc.... it is a never ending problem.
    
    The interesting thing is an article like this exposes the practices of the ID movement for what it is, misdirection and misinformation. Lying to PZ Myers and Richard Dawkins about what they are being interviewed for.... paying extras to make it look like Ben Stein is doing a college speaking tour..... Misrepresenting the works of Charles Darwin and aligning him with eugenicists and the holocaust…. All the ID proponents are attempting to do is cry for fair play and obfuscate the issue with misdirection and misinformation.

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37. 37. logica 05:41 PM 4/17/08

    KARANO SAID
    
    "When did the S A of my youth become a liberal political rag?"
    
    Is science and the search for truth considered politically liberal?
    
    --
    Edited by logica at 04/17/2008 10:49 AM

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38. 38. Matt W 05:52 PM 4/17/08

    @oxilite
    "Please, lets not confuse these poor misguided souls any more than they already are. Evolution has nothing to do with randomness. That is a word IDers like to throw around to discredit evolution."
    
    I see your point, but there's no getting around the fact that mutation is necessarily random, even more so than Darwin thought (because he didn't understand the digital nature of genetic material.) I don't know that it's useful to dissemble about that. We just need to emphasize that [i]evolution[/i] is not random, guided as it is by unbiased selection, similar to the way that the random motion of free electrons can be guided by an electric field to produce current. (I think it's fascinating that though mutations themselves are random, that the [i]rate[/i] of mutation is not, and is subject to selection pressure.)

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39. 39. StepUp 05:57 PM 4/17/08

    :-D
    I find the whole ID argument entertaining just trying to image some supreme being "Intelligently Designing" everything.
    
    "hmm...I got bored of those big lizards, decided to run with those furry things I was playing with, now what? I know, let's see if I can get them to stand on two legs! It worked to make some of those dinosaurs fun, why didn't I think of that before?"
    
    "Platypus?! Dodo?! Man, that must of been one heck of a party because I don't remember making those. Looks like I didn't give the Dodo enough brains to stay alive. Well, should be good for a bit of a chuckle."
    
    "hmmm...this two legged thingy just looks kinda funny. A bit too hunched over. I'm just not sure where to go with this one. I guess I'll make a few models and see which one works for me."
    
    Sounds more like a kid with a pack of Play-dough. If there really is an intelligence behind it all, our doctors would probably have some real good tips on some redesigns. The learning curve obviously stalled out.
    
    As far as previous comments about having an inteliigent conversation without nit-picking the movie - sure, let's start by selectively cut out sentences from all texts to prove our points. Then, ever time you say "God did it" ,I get to say "Evolution did it" and not have to pull out all the empirical proofs that support evolution. Since you get to ignore all real world and laboratory tests that support evolution, I get to ignore...well, since "God did it" is all you have, then I guess I still come out ahead if I just get to ignore one thing on your side.

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40. 40. John_Toradze 06:12 PM 4/17/08

    One can argue that the presentation of Darwin is wrong, but not with evolution itself. There is this phrase, [i]survival of the fittest[/i], which isn't quite correct, although it is close to correct.
    
    Evolution occurs as an entirely negative process. It removes that which cannot survive to reproduce - period. Everything else is allowed. The greater the possible range of survival of forms, the greater the range of forms may appear. It is only when there are strong selective pressures that we see narrow "fitness".
    
    Thus, a more accurate phrase is [i]non-reproduction removes associated genes[/i]. (But it has to be as a class, individuals can give their reproduction up for a gene group and improve overall reproduction.)
    
    But it also isn't true that humanity is no longer under evolutionary selection. We are. But the selection is quite complicated. Look around. What do we see today that is causing low or no reproductive success?

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41. 41. magichj 06:18 PM 4/17/08

    Blake,
    
    There is no real need to change the topic at this point. The question at hand is whether or not intelligent design is science. Arguing the "holes" in the theory of evolution does not elevate the concept of intelligent design. I assume therefore that by changing the subject you concede that ID is not in fact science as otherwise you would likely have some argument supporting its validity as such.
    
    To your points on Darwin's Evolution, yes there are a number of studies being done and a number of theories out there that are based on Darwin's theories and expand upon them. There is no real need to discuss these as it just muddies up the waters for most. Suffice it to say that science is always evolving and trying to explain more and more about our universe. It does this by building on what is known and theorizing as to what is unknown.
    
    Intelligent Design (if you do not mind me getting back to the point) just takes all that is unknown and figures we don't really need to know about it. That is all well and good and 99% of people who believe evolution to be true will not try to dissuade you in your beliefs. There are zealots on this side of the aisle as well as on yours, but the vast majority of us will leave you alone.
    
    What is baffling to me, however; is how believers in intelligent design somehow believe that it should be taught as science as an alternative to evolution. You have already ceded the point that ID is not science and so I assume you do not hold this viewpoint.

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42. 42. Kent_Geek 06:28 PM 4/17/08

    It's pretty clear to anyone who has seriously studied history that there's no link between Darwin's work and the Holocaust - however, even if that link could be proven, it's important to note that this link would have no impact on the truth of evolution. A truth is independent of its societal impact.

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43. 43. OneEye 06:38 PM 4/17/08

    A major scientific problem with proposed atheistic explanations for life is that their proponents cannot suggest any good way to disprove them. Atheistic "theories" are so vague that even if specific explanations are disproved, proponents can simply search for new signs of purposelessness. Consequently, investigators should not generally consider atheism to be a productiveor useful approach to science.
    
    --
    Edited by OneEye at 04/17/2008 11:39 AM

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44. 44. Matt W 06:46 PM 4/17/08

    "It would appear to me that Darwin is espousing the idea of races that are "higher" and "lower" on the evolutionary scale within mankind. And truly, as evolution is a gradual process, it would seem necessary for such distinctions to exist, at least in the sense that they would be observed in retrospect as making one group of humans more likely to propagate their genetic material in a given environment, taking into account social and environmental factors."
    
    This is nonsense and has been discredited for a century or more. 'Race', though a real phenomenon, is a social construction and not a biological one. Your use of the classification 'Caucasian' in your post (and your hint that Caucasian refers to the currently 'highest' racial classification) completely expose your anachronism (and, to put it bluntly, racsim.) The genetic disparity between groups of white people is often greater than that between groups of different skin color.
    
    There are several problems with your supposed options for the future of humanity (eugenics, active selection, or genocide.) 1) Evolution supplies no moral imperative; it is a force of nature, not a program or agenda. 2) Selected traits are inherently unpredictable. Why, for instance, in a species so obviously reliant on sight, is myopia so prevalent? Perhaps there are other traits which render perfect vision less important. 3) 'Race', 'savage', 'civilized' are all cultural constructions that are completely unrelated to cladistics or selection fitness, and therefore are not useful in any way for evolutionary speculation.

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45. 45. emiller829 06:53 PM 4/17/08

    Matt W:
    
    I'm assuming you are referring to me in your post.
    
    That was not my use of the term Caucasian, it was Darwin's. Aren't you familiar with Descent of Man?
    
    Here's the quote from my original post -- again, note the attribution:
    
    I fail to see how point #1 actually changes the interpretation substantially. Of more use might be a quote from Darwin's "Descent of Man":
    
    At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked (18. 'Anthropological Review,' April 1867, p. 236.), will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.

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46. 46. Matt W 06:54 PM 4/17/08

    > A major scientific problem with proposed
    > atheistic explanations for life is that
    > their proponents cannot suggest any good way
    > to disprove them. Atheistic "theories"
    > are so vague that even if specific
    > explanations are disproved, proponents can
    > simply search for new signs of
    > purposelessness. Consequently, investigators
    > should not generally consider atheism
    > to be a productiveor useful approach to
    > science.
    >
    > --
    > Edited by OneEye at 04/17/2008 11:39 AM
    
    I don't know of any atheistic explanations for life. Which ones are you referring to?

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47. 47. Matt W 06:56 PM 4/17/08

    "That was not my use of the term Caucasian, it was Darwin's. Aren't you familiar with Descent of Man?
    
    Here's the quote from my original post -- again, note the attribution:"
    
    Ah sorry, missed that it was a quote.. no quotation marks you know (and you can't get this board to indent properly.) My apologies.

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48. 48. OneEye 06:58 PM 4/17/08

    I don't know of any atheistic explanations for life. Which ones are you referring to? - MattW
    
    Darwinism.

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49. 49. sykotik 07:08 PM 4/17/08

    "Darwinism" doesn't attempt to explain the origin of life, it attempts to explain the EVOLUTION of already EXISTING life. And technically, it's not "Darwinism" it's "Biological Evolution." You silly, silly, uninformed people, wikipedia.org is right over there.
    
    Criminey, I get so emotional reading this drivel, first it's anger, then outrage, then pity, then I go and cry myself to sleep because of the pure ignorance still out there in the world.
    
    I love the internet, but man, it really popped my cherry about how, let's say "intelligent" or "informed," most people are NOT the first time I hit a message board/forum.
    
    --
    Edited by sykotik at 04/17/2008 12:09 PM
    
    --
    Edited by sykotik at 04/17/2008 12:16 PM

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50. 50. Matt W 07:09 PM 4/17/08

    > I don't know of any atheistic explanations for life.
    > Which ones are you referring to? - MattW
    >
    > Darwinism.
    
    Ah. It's best to be clear. Your vague statement about how 'atheistic theories' are vague left me confused. Problem is that Darwinism (by which I assume you mean the explanation of the origin of species through mutation, inheritance, and unbiased selection) is held to have considerable explanatory power by many people of faith (including me.) In fact, had you read the article more closely, you'd find that this is one of the author's major points.
    
    Not that this probably matters to you, but if you did some exploration, you'd find that 'Darwinism' is a fairly detailed framework of thought. Darwin's [i]Origin of Species[/i] itself contains a fairly thorough and precise description of the process. Since then it's been expounded and expanded upon by many orders of magnitude. What examples of vagary in this framework can you provide?

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51. 51. Chaosqueued 07:11 PM 4/17/08

    > Here's an idea, instead of attacking the small
    > details of the movie, discuss the overarching purpose
    > of the film, which is that evolutionary science is
    > attempting to push away all the theories that
    > irritate their theory. True science has always
    > irritated the theories of it's day, and thats what
    > this movie is talking about, that this new theory is
    > being discriminated against because it's different,
    > and that is just wrong. Maybe this theory of ID
    > deserves a second look, they have some excellent
    > points to a solid theory that are rarely mentioned in
    > your articles, and I can't help but feel that you're
    > being slightly hypocritical in these hate articles
    > you're writing in the "scientific american". I only
    > read about how this movie irritates you, rarely a
    > word about the science involved. How's about you step
    > off your pedestal, return to the humble realm of
    > science, where people are proven wrong all the time,
    > and attempt to prove the ID movement wrong instead of
    > just writing hate propaganda.
    
    This is the biggest problem with ID-ers. You do not understand the terminology of those in the world of science. The use of the word "theory" is the biggest faux pas committed.
    
    Theory in a scientific sense means "A logical structure that enables one to deduce the possible results of every experiment that falls within its purview."
    
    Theory as the ID'ers use it mean "An unproven conjecture."
    
    Now you see with these two very different meaning of the word one sees no confusion between The "logical structure that enables one to deduce the possible results of every experiment" of Evolution and the "unproven conjecture" of Intelligent Design.
    
    Now we can set ID off to the side as completely unscientific since it can not deduce any experiment under it's preview. One can not walk into a lab and say ID made it happen and have that as a plausible deduction.

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52. 52. StepUp 07:12 PM 4/17/08

    So called "vague" versus "God did it"; I think I'll go with vague since it doesn't extend itself to the realm of fantasy. Science only does credit to itself by admitting that we do not know all, as opposed to making up "magical" reasons for what we don't yet understand.

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53. 53. OneEye 07:17 PM 4/17/08

    > Problem is that Darwinism (by which I assume you mean
    > the explanation of the origin of species through mutation,
    > inheritance, and unbiased selection) is held to have
    > considerable explanatory power by many people of
    > faith (including me.)
    
    I'm not sure what your faith is, but the fact is that Darwinism (incl. neo-Darwinism, punctuated equilibrium, etc.) is committed to the idea that life is not the result of any supernatural influence (or now even of any natural intelligent influence) whatsoever. This is the methodological assumption of Darwinism (which the article makes clear): Life is the purposeless accident of blind forces interacting in aimless ways. Evolution assumes that no God is involved in the universe, and then seeks to prove that fact by creating godless accounts of the origin and elaboration of life. It is not a case of "God or science," but of "God or Darwin."
    
    But perhaps you are a deist and this is all okay with you.

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54. 54. OneEye 07:21 PM 4/17/08

    > So called "vague" versus "God did it"; I think I'll
    > go with vague since it doesn't extend itself to the
    > realm of fantasy. Science only does credit to itself
    > by admitting that we do not know all, as opposed to
    > making up "magical" reasons for what we don't yet
    > understand.
    
    The universe looks more like a designed artifact than a random event. Life looks more like the product of design than it does of random chance. Everyone, even Richard Dawkins, agrees with that. The difference between the atheist and the theist is not one of faith versus fact. The difference is that atheists refuse to believe the obvious evidence. The tautology lies with atheism: Metholodogical naturalism assumes that there is no God, then goes on to interpret all of the evidence in light of that assumption. In the end, guess what? They come away believing that there is no God! Hmmm. Surprising.

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55. 55. Chaosqueued 07:33 PM 4/17/08

    > The universe looks more like a designed artifact than
    > a random event. Life looks more like the product of
    > design than it does of random chance.
    
    Really? you compared it to anything else?
    
    You see i can go roll a six sided dice, once and state that this die only rolls 3's. You have a probability of 1 in 6 before you roll the dice. you have a probability of 1 in 1 after you roll the dice.
    
    You ID-ers are looking at the dice after it has been rolled and saying "3 is the only number."

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56. 56. Matt W 07:49 PM 4/17/08

    > The tautology lies with atheism: Metholodogical
    > naturalism assumes that there is no God, then goes on
    > to interpret all of the evidence in light of that
    > assumption. In the end, guess what? They come away
    > believing that there is no God! Hmmm. Surprising.
    
    Disproving the existence of God is not the agenda of the natural sciences. There's no a priori assumption to that effect; the underlying assumption is that the natural world is comprehensible, i.e. that there are principles, which can be logically deduced from what we can observe, that can provide a unifying framework for both existing and future data. So far, it seems that the comprehensibility assumption is correct. If you want to assert that this is evidence of design in the universe or that it proves that God is rational, that's fine, but that is metaphysics, not physics; it has no bearing on scientific inquiry. Neither does it justify positing an outside 'intelligence' that had a role in the origin or development of life on earth.
    
    If an intelligence intervened in Earth's evolutionary history, when and how did it occur? It should be possible, at least theoretically, to find evidence of such intervention, and perhaps make predictions about whether and how it will occur again.

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57. 57. StepUp 07:59 PM 4/17/08

    > The universe looks more like a designed artifact than
    > a random event. Life looks more like the product of
    > design than it does of random chance. Everyone, even
    > Richard Dawkins, agrees with that. The difference
    > between the atheist and the theist is not one of
    > faith versus fact. The difference is that atheists
    > refuse to believe the obvious evidence. The
    > tautology lies with atheism: Metholodogical
    > naturalism assumes that there is no God, then goes on
    > to interpret all of the evidence in light of that
    > assumption. In the end, guess what? They come away
    > believing that there is no God! Hmmm. Surprising.
    
    And on what grounds do you base your statement that the universe more closely resembles an artifact than a random event? You seem to equate the concepts of Order and Chaos with that of inteligence. That because there is a semblance of order, that it must be bound to an intelligence. That is a pretty huge leap. Do you not allow that it is more likely that what we percieve as order is because we are created of this universe and therefore cannot perceive it in any other way? We are an expression of the base nature of the universe.
    
    What obvious evidence do you refer to? If you are suggesting that I must first believe in something before I can see any evidence supporting it, then your logic is highly flawed. That does not stand up to a basic test of logical truth.
    
    Of course it is not suprising that someone that does not believe in your God would come away still not believing in a god. Its because time and time again we realize that so called divine miracles of all of the diety based mythologies are in truth, facts that can be truely understood by us, given the time to actually discover them. Or perhaps you believe that thunder is still the work of Thor's hammer? (sorry, likely wrong god for you, but its a mythology just the same)
    
    So what irrefutable evidence do you have to offer me that would satisfy a basic truth of logic? This is not a sarcastic question, if you truly have one solid piece of truth that can equal with the numerous laboratory tests, fossil records, and real world, real time observations that "seem" (to make you happy) to support evolution, please share it here and now. Please know that the flawed arguements of "you have to first believe" and "it is too complicated to have just happened on its own" do not and cannot hold water. Just because YOU do not understand something, doesn't mean it had to be done by a divine being.
    My two year old can do some amazing things with his finger up his nose that I am sure that you and I do not immediately understand, would you like to come worship him sometime this week?;-)

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58. 58. StepUp 08:04 PM 4/17/08

    Also a quick note to all who keep arguing Darwin as if he is the end of and be all of the current evolutionary picture. Darwin just put us on the track, and that was well over 100 years ago. Yes there are flaws in his theories, epsecially concerning the "races" of man, however current "Theory" has also EVOLVED (gasp!).
    
    Pick up a recent book, hopefully something under 100 years old.
    
    --
    Edited by StepUp at 04/17/2008 1:04 PM

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59. 59. shadesofred 08:06 PM 4/17/08

    Yeah... their agenda is science. Ben Stein is attacking and skewing science, so this refutation of his claims belongs here.

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60. 60. Red Fault 08:29 PM 4/17/08

    All right:
    
    #1) Evolution does not in any way preclude belief in Intelligent Design or promote atheism. If you want to believe in an Intelligent Creator, you could easily say that "something intelligent" was necessary to BEGIN the process of life in the first place. Although this still falls outside the realm of science, at least it fits in with it a bit more neatly. But not a single ID zealot has tried to offer up something logical like that. You are all making this an "either/or" debate on your own.
    
    #2) Let's take the ridiculous idea that "Darwinism" caused the Holocaust at face value for one stupid minute and pretend it makes sense. "Darwinism" did not cause the Inquisition, the Crusades, or September 11. If you are going to discredit evolution based on the assumption that it inspired Hitler, then you must also discredit organized religion based on the countless slaughters, wars, and attempts at genocide that have been inspired in the name of God.
    
    #3) As SciAm themselves pointed out back at the beginning of all this, there's a good possibility that "Expelled" only contacted them in the first place to inspire controversy. I'm inclined to go with that. This is not an attempt at an intelligent debate. It's a scam for money. It's a known controversial topic, and a bunch of clowns are exploiting the really intelligent people reading SciAm as vehicles to instant infamy. If you take this debate seriously, the most important thing you can do is NOT pay to see this movie.
    
    #4) If anyone posting here has not heard the audio of SciAm's conversation with associate producer Mark Mathis, spend the hour and a half to do so. If you can come away from that experience still believing that this movie and its makers actually take themselves seriously, then you've missed something. Mathis faces a barrage of intelligent questions powered by actual facts, and shrugs them off with the most ridiculous NON-answers I've ever heard. My personal favorite: "I'm only the ASSOCIATE producer. I didn't make that decision."
    
    This whole issue is a farce, and while it's nice to see intelligent people debating here in the forums, it's painful and embarrassing to see how wasted all of the good points are here. No one with a serious interest in Intelligent Design was involved in the making of this movie.

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61. 61. StepUp 08:34 PM 4/17/08

    > #1) Evolution does not in any way preclude belief in
    > Intelligent Design or promote atheism. If you want
    > to believe in an Intelligent Creator, you could
    > easily say that "something intelligent" was necessary
    > to BEGIN the process of life in the first place.
    
    ***ghahhh*** (sound of me choking on my coffee, lol) :-D

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62. 62. rooseveltdecosta 10:07 PM 4/17/08

    Re: frgough and others who espouse similar points of view.
    
    I humbly beg of you enlightened beings to provide me with one shred of reputable peer reviewed published scientific evidence that would allow ID to be allowed into a scientific discussion of the evolution of man. Quite clearly, this website discusses science related issues. Granted, there are several interpretations of evolution, however, as far as I have witnessed, proponents of ID have not produced one piece of convincing, at least to an educated person, I'm not so sure about yokels, research that shows that ID should be included in a scientific discussion. Please refrain from quoting "reports" from snake oil salesmen who disguise themselves as "researchers" from such progressive institutions such as the inappropriately named Discovery Institute. I am amazed at the fact that educated people waste their time even acknowledging these zealots in a scientific arena. You see, the reason that modern science has ostracized ID and its supporters is because it has no place in science or the classroom. Its value, however, resides in the historical context in that it should be included in a discussion of the creation myths of different societies along with those of the Native Americans, Buddhists, Hindus, and Christians etc. I do pray that all of you will someday “discover” a grade school science textbook, and catch up with your brethren who have moved on from the Middle Ages.

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63. 63. Tommo0809 10:18 PM 4/17/08

    Rooselvelt: I would say that I 100% agree with everything you just said, except that a more appropriate historical context in terms of mass-irrational behavior would be the small town farmers toting their shotguns onto the front porch whilst waiting for Well's aliens to come tearing through timbuktu.

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64. 64. Red Fault 11:06 PM 4/17/08

    > Quite clearly, this website discusses science
    > e related issues. I
    > am amazed at the fact that educated people waste
    > their time even acknowledging these zealots in a
    > scientific arena.
    
    
    Exactly!

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65. 65. girl athee 01:22 AM 4/18/08

    [b]@frgough,[/b]
    
    These arent hysterical rants. Just because one is free to express his opinion does mean he can just blame one person, one theory or one principle for causing something tragic or in Stein's case claiming Darwinism as imperialism of biology. Pathetic to ever write speeches and in the end just come up with something as irresponsible and as fallacious as Expelled. By all means question Darwinism, question science but do it in a responsible way.
    
    In the end, we all have our blind spots and crotches, I am just appalled that there are a large number of people out there whose blind spots are the things that make the most sense. Very sad indeed. :-(
    
    [b]@Tommo0809,[/b]
    
    Very well said. I couldn't agree more with you.

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66. 66. XpoPen 01:25 AM 4/18/08

    Ben Stein did in fact do some events on college campuses. He hosted a terrible debate between Christopher Hitchens and Jay Richards at Stanford University. The event was put on by the Office for Religious Life and simulcasted to churches across the U.S. It was pretty clear to me that Hitchens was not chosen because he's a talented and level-headed debater (he's not), but because he's a polemicist with a talent for insulting the religious. Throughout the debate, Richards put up poor arguments that Hitchens could have rejected with reason and explanation. Instead he responed with petty slights. His rhetoric only served to bolster the opinion among conservatives that atheists are foolish and spiteful people. I will never get those four hours of my life back. I am definitely NOT going to see Expelled.

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67. 67. Barry Lakin 01:51 AM 4/18/08

    I agree that Ben Stien doesn't have a clue what he's talking about, but wasn't this the magazine that gave Al Gore an award for an exaggerated scare the masses global warming movie. Where was the scientific scrutiny then? Sciam has lost its own objectivity and is ruled by its politics.

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68. 68. Tommo0809 02:14 AM 4/18/08

    Without reaching the merits of whether the asserted facts in Al Gore's movie (Im not very familiar with it) were exaggerated, the underlying problem is Ben Steins movie is attempting little more than passing off superstition as science, and taking it one step further to bash an established, documented theory merely because it is antithetical to his arrangement of beliefs.
    Hypothetically speaking, if the facts represented in gore's movie did turn out to be exagerated, he was at least speaking about a set of hypothises that are falsifieble and to which a dissenter could present relevant evidence.

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69. 69. BanSlug 02:28 AM 4/18/08

    Scientific reasoning does reject religion. Look what happens when the bible is put up against scientific evidence. A scientist can chose to be Catholic but then they will believe in two philosophies that contradict each other.
    The reasoning behind Evolution does promote Atheism.

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70. 70. jungledoctor 04:27 AM 4/18/08

    Mr. Rennie and Steve Mirsky offer their evenhanded, integrity-loaded review of Ben Stein’s “Expelled”. Since I missed their evenhanded, integrity-loaded review of the Nova’s docudrama: “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial” (a contra media advocy job preceding “Expelled”) I thought we could apply their same evenhanded, integrity- loaded standards to it too?
    
    Let’s see, Stein’s speech to an audience was really a movie setup, and Dawkins didn’t know what he was getting into when he expressed his views and took the money?
    
    So was there equal outrage when NOVA’s show didn’t let ID proponents speak for themselves at all and when they did they were “selectively quoted” and displayed by actors! Now there is a great stage setup, and some very selective use of ID’s words!
    
    Sternberg didn’t loose his job, you see he never had a job, (now he might have had a job if he hadn’t screwed up) but he never really had a job. So, we didn’t fire him, we just softened him up a bit?
    
    “Science doesn’t reject religious ideas because we are atheists, we reject them because religion doesn’t play by our rules,” sounds a lot like real estate agents saying to black customers, “You can’t buy a house on this street, not because you are black, but because you have a different culture than we do….” It is still segregation to not allow alternative ideas of whatever motivation onto the table.
    
    “Tons of evolutionists are religious, and we love them all!” Unless they allow their religious ideas to motivate alternative explanations to what we all know has to be the case in our dogmatically religion free universe.
    
    This conversation seems to be full of a lot of people whose minds are made up before they see the film? Isn't anyone here self aware enough to see how close minded, dogmatic, and narrow that makes you appear, while decrying ID's proponents as narrow minded Yahoos?
    
    --
    Edited by jungledoctor at 04/17/2008 9:29 PM

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71. 71. Bob Holmgren 06:19 AM 4/18/08

    Darwin's cousin Francis Galton did indeed contect eugenics with Darwinian evolution. Whether Ben Stein quoted the entire passage or not. Eugenics was popularly promoted up until it's unsavory aspects became obvious in the hands of Nazi's. Thus Ben Stein is correct in his point.

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72. 72. jspiers 10:21 AM 4/18/08

    >Please refrain from quoting "reports" from snake
    > oil salesmen who disguise themselves as
    >"researchers" from such progressive
    > institutions such as the inappropriately
    >named Discovery Institute. I am amazed
    >at the fact that educated people waste
    > their time even acknowledging these
    > zealots in a scientific arena.
    
    So... I have to show you proof, but anyone who shows an opposing view is a "snake oil salesman"??? My guess is that it would be hard to find proof if I have to use only researchers that you approve of. I guess that's why movies like this are made.

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73. 73. Dr. Cosmic 12:03 PM 4/18/08

    Another reason that the establishment types in the US might want to squash evolution is because they don't want parents to think there is a struggle for life. They want people to pop out all the kids they can so that they can have more fodder. Be happy,don't worry about limited resources--- have those future toilers and tax payers for the good of the empire! Just like many these days, our leaders speak against social Darwinism and then engage in their own form of it.

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74. 74. Dr. Cosmic 12:08 PM 4/18/08

    Some of these comments are ad homenium arguments about Darwin or his cousin, not really arguments against evolution. Henry Ford had some strange social ideas --does that mean people shouldn't drive cars? The trouble with this movie and ID in general is that they promote very poor thinking skills for the public. It is irresponsible and in my opinion, intentional. The producers of this movie want the viewers to remain ignorant .

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75. 75. GL1800Rider 12:58 PM 4/18/08

    Complaining that science does not allow for Creationism or Intelligent Design is like complaining that the Royals are not allowed to kick field goals. Imagine making a movie attempting to show that major-league baseball refuses to allow its players to kick field goals. The gall of MLB, not even wanting to open discourse on the subject!

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76. 76. bobhunter 02:31 PM 4/18/08

    None of these 6 reasons had anything to do with scientific reasons intelligent design isn't true!

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77. 77. Amrikiyya 02:40 PM 4/18/08

    Ben Stein is a hypocrite. He is a Neocon whose belief in the "free market state" is nothing other than political and economic Darwinism. He needs to clean his own house before taking on the Darwinists.

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78. 78. Chaosqueued 03:12 PM 4/18/08

    > None of these 6 reasons had anything to do with
    > scientific reasons intelligent design isn't true!
    
    They aren't trying to say if ID-ism is true or not. They are pointing out that it is not science. ID-ism can not be used to predict experiments from formed hypothesi and gives no more information into the natural world. ID-ism is the null answer, it has no substance whatsoever. It is a dead end for any research.

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79. 79. JonathansCorner 04:33 PM 4/18/08

    I'm wary of calling the movie "humanities scholarship"--I'm not sure it's worthy of the honor--but in the humanities, one perennial annoyance is wanting to quote at length and unabridged, but being under constraints that restrict long quotation. As someone who's wanted to give long quotes and needed to give shorter quotes, the quotation example could be explained by indefensible motivations, but I can see less strange reasons, and I was underwhelmed at the context that was supposed to clearly dissociate Darwin from eugenics and the like. There's a lot less grey that I can see in some other areas--i.e. a staged debate with a standing ovation from extras--but the "quoting out of context" is consistent with attempting something that people attempt for honest and legitimate reasons.

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80. 80. Bobthedude 06:40 PM 4/18/08

    How can intelligent design possibly have a place in scientific discussion when Aquinas' first mover argument is implemented. A theologian, trying to position religious dogma within the confines of empirical observation is commendable. Through logical reasoning, he was able to make his case for the existence of a omniscient and omnipotent being as a first mover. However, his reasoning is not testable. Therefore, we would call his line of thought as theology or philosophy, but not science. Thanks to Darwin, we now have a unanimously supported theory to explain the mechanism of life in the context of our planet. The disputes that are stemming from evolution's irrefutability, seem to have animosity toward the established scientific consensus of a theory. Theories can be refuted, however Darwin's theories have stood the test of 140 years of smart people.
    I would love to see if this conversation even exists in Europe. America's fundamentalist tendencies are showing their ugly head in our scientific conversation. If ID does make it into the American education system, we might as well hand the torch of scientific progress to Europe. The religious right has no right to rewrite the unfinished story of human society and culture, and then call it science. They can rewrite human history any way they want and put the topic in the private funded theology classes.
    My education is in Anthropolgy, and there is no bigger topic than the evolution and ID debate. If ID were to gain ANY ground within our country, my heart would deflate. The same feeling I get when I watch FOX "news".

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81. 81. rooseveltdecosta 07:46 PM 4/18/08

    To jspiers:
    
    Ah you poor misguided soul, let me put this in words that you may understand. I was simply challenging any supporter of ID to provide tangible evidence that would lend it credibility to be accepted as a scientific theory. However, I merely stated that said evidence must come from a reputable researcher or institution. Propaganda and misinformation from people such as Dr. Stephen Meyer, the head of the "Center for Science and Culture" would not be acceptable evidence. You see, he has no background in science, yet feels compelled to publish "scientific research" promoting ID. I only made the comparison that his tactics are eerily similar to those of the snake-oil salesman from the 19th century. I hope this clears up your confusion, please do not hesitate to ask, next time, if you have any other questions. Hopefully, one day you may understand the real reason why movies like expelled are made, I wish you the best of luck!

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82. 82. mbonano 08:16 PM 4/18/08

    The more relevant question to ask is not "What, concerning the content of this film, is cinematic embellishment?", but rather, "What is the point of this film?" Most people, know very little about evolution or religion. Are the authors of this article proposing that, due to Ben Steins editorial adjustments, the questions proposed by the film have no merit? If so, the authors are as foolish as the arguments they are attempting to refute. As a stark agnostic, I have no vested interested in defending Darwinism or Intelligent Design, but as a student of Philosophy I find it pivotal that people question that which is proposed as truth. Maybe Darwins theories will collapse under their own weight or, maybe, they hold some merit. Either way, dont be as short sighted as the authors of this article and venture to ask the questions. In doing so, I guarantee that you, as I have, will see that neither religion nor science can provide the Absolute Truth that both seem quite willing to present.

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83. 83. Gurgle 08:23 PM 4/18/08

    Bullshit sells; producers of expelled have figured out half the Americans are idiots already and since there's neither factual support nor scientific support for ID they can make a quick money by making a pop movie selling the ID conspiracy.
    And conspiracy sells; the producers of Expelled are professional liars trying to make some easy buck by duping the gullible Americans.

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84. 84. logica 09:10 PM 4/18/08

    "What is the purpose of the film?"
    
    It is part of the Discovery Institute's / ID movement's "Wedge Strategy"... plain and simple.
    
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_strategy
    
    --
    Edited by logica at 04/18/2008 2:20 PM

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85. 85. Chuck Darwin 09:19 PM 4/18/08

    > This makes, I think 5 or 6 articles SA has run on the
    > front page of their web site in the past week
    > concerning Ben Stein, and all of them have been
    > hysterical rants.
    >
    > I think SA is doing an excellent job of showing how
    > anyone who even dares question Darwinism in any way
    > whatsoever is witch hunted and burned at the stake.
    >
    
    What a perfect Creationist tautology. Even when a proponent of Creationism/ID is shown to be a fraud, well, "that just shows how those dirty scientists have it in for us." Beautiful.
    
    (BTW, evolutionary biology is not "Darwinism" any more than cosmological physics is "Einsteinism". The field has advanced far beyond Darwin, who knew nothing of genetics.)
    
    > Darwinism. The only supposed theory without direct
    > experimental evidence in existence that cannot be
    > questioned.
    
    Wrong. That statement is a stock Creationist lie. There are tons of experimental evidence for evolution. E.g.:
    
    [url http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_evolution]Wikipedia entry on experimental evolution notes Lenski's 40,000+ generation e.coli evolution experiments and Garland's 50+ mouse evolution experiment[/url]
    
    [url http://myxo.css.msu.edu/cgi-bin/lenski/prefman.pl?group=aad]List of dozens of published peer-reviewed papers from e.coli experiments[/url]
    
    [url http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080402071538.htm]Natural selection speeds up speciation in walking sticks[/url]
    
    [url http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/11/061106094904.htm]Novel experiment documents evolution of e. coli genome in realtime[/url]
    
    [url http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-research.html#mullers-rna]Experimental support for Muller's Rachet (theory of evolution of sexual reproduction)[/url]
    
    [url http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-research.html#reversal]Experimental reversal of parental investment in katydids[/url]
    
    [url http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/99/22/14274]Experimental evolution of learning ability in fruit flies[/url]
    
    Oh and by the way, there is also at least one instance of [url http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-research.html#observed-speciation]observed speciation in nature[/url]

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86. 86. logica 09:53 PM 4/18/08

    Chuck Darwin said:
    
    "(BTW, evolutionary biology is not "Darwinism" any more than cosmological physics is "Einsteinism". The field has advanced far beyond Darwin, who knew nothing of genetics.)
    "
    
    Right on... We do not refer to Calculus as Newtonism or Leibnizian Mathmatics.... The whole Darwinism term used by ID'ers is so annoying. I conveys a fundemental lack of understanding of evolutionary biology.

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87. 87. sunspot 10:15 PM 4/18/08

    The past few weeks of endless attacks on Ben Stein's movie prove how SciAm editors always overreact to this topic. OK, all the readers expected M. Shermer to react this way; it's his job, and honestly, he did it well enough in his article. But the editor, John Rennie? It's a movie, for God's sake! If you restricted movie making (and writers) to telling the absolute truth, you'd all be out of work! You all bend the truth to push your own agenda.
    Here's a great example: SciAm continues to promote the inacurate use of the words "Intelligent Design" and "Creationism". These phrases were hijacked by the biblical literalists. Intellectual honesty demands that you refer to "literal creationism" as a fringe belief, and allow mainstream scientists the dignity of believing that we just don't know the whole truth about how we got here.
    Leave the attacks to Shermer, and get back to real science!

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88. 88. jmarbas 11:29 PM 4/18/08

    ID is not a viewpoint. ID is 'tool' used by a certain group of people who cant pick up a text book harder to read than 5th grade and actually do any 'work'. The hardest thing they do is probably something artsy. I dont know what the average salary of people who follow ID are....but the religious leaders in ID who do make money, make money because they TRICK their lazy followers to SUPPORT THEM(by going out and watching movies like this) and GIVE THEIR LEADERS FUNDS to gain more LAZY followers. For me the discussion is not about ID....but about really large groups of people ....LAZY people.... that want power to be able to CONTROL OTHER PEOPLE....and force these people into BELIEVING what they believe....without thinking, or actually doing any actual WORK. The good news is these kinds of people are losing their traction but they dont actually KNOW they are losing. Im talking about all religious groups here. They consist of an extremely large and scary group. Thank GOD religious groups no longer have power, say, rule....etc....and the reason that they no longer have power is because they are LAAAAAAAAZZZZZZY. ...Here's the reason why they will no longer have the power they had in the past. --Even-- if the hordes of the millions of backwards christians, catholics, muslims etc were to somehow decide to miraculously join together one day as one large army to fight the secular world...and each one of those LAZY people were to suddenly STOP BEING LAZY and decide to actually pick up a text book and read it...and learn genetics...or study mathematics and rocket science....and build computers and an advanced army of their own to fight the rest of secular society...(in order to force their ideas on secular society)....It wont matter. You know why? BECAUSE...they will still be BEHIND the REST OF SECULAR SOCIETY....and will LOSE the war in the end....because the REST OF SECULAR SOCIETY has been reading books, studying, building computers, rockets, mathematical algorithyms, discovering genetic secrets etc etc etc FOR A LONG LONG LONG TIME ALREADY........The REST OF SOCIETY has STOPPED BEING LAZY A LONG TIME AGO. So for all those religious people out there....please, if you cant read a book....stop wasting everybody's time with your LAZYNESS.... do something usefull like......blow yourself up. You are LOSING more and more ground every day and Im glad NO ONE is telling you this!.....well....except me...just now....i just told you with this rant......but you'll probably stop reading this half way and give up cause its too difficult to read and go watch tv.....so YAY!!! you will never find out the secret to success!!! Ok. Go watch tv now....or read a book with no math and no hard theories in it.... or threaten to kill someone because they drew a cartoon that your group doesnt like... or go out and enjoy your evening by watching this movie!
    
    --
    Edited by jmarbas at 04/18/2008 4:31 PM
    
    --
    Edited by jmarbas at 04/18/2008 4:34 PM
    
    --
    Edited by jmarbas at 04/18/2008 4:34 PM

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89. 89. denmartin7 09:06 AM 4/19/08

    "The science vs. religion debate is over"- Craig Mello, 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine - commenting on the book "Thank God for Evolution" by Michael Dowd.

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90. 90. remnant 10:14 AM 4/19/08

    The desperation this author shows, in trying to discredit this documentary, reminds me of a child scraping the bottom of a pudding pot. The points made are about as devoid of meaningful substance as the fossil record is of transitional fossils. The science academy emperor has no clothes and is desperate.

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91. 91. MrPeach 04:43 PM 4/19/08

    > Darwin can say all he wants that neglecting the poor
    > and weak is evil, but such neglect is still the
    > logical conclusion of his theories, especially
    > "survival of the fittest".
    
    So you believe it logical that observing nature and what happens to natural creatures over time is somehow prescriptive or provides guidance in the social behavior of intelligent creatures?
    
    That one should have the slightest effect on the other is ludicrous in the extreme. Just because some misguided individuals in the (generally scientifically misguided) time shortly after these biological theories were proposed took that ball of crazy and ran with it is not supportive of your notion in any way. We have gotten over that particular bit of craziness.
    
    In short, a biological explanation of life changes on this planet is not and cannot be interpreted as a social plan. To do so is IDiotic.
    
    > If he wants to go about
    > making such a religious statement, that neglecting
    > the weak and poor is evil, he better be able to back
    > it up.
    
    Oh so typical. Making a moral observation is somehow religious? WRONG! Religion isn't the sole arbiter of evil. Morality can exist apart from religion quite well thank you.
    
    And the arrogance! If he's gonna do this (made up association) then he better do this other thing (because I said so). And making demands of a dead guy? Preposterous! Pox and botheration to you sir.
    
    > In addition, he should be able to provide reason for
    > WHY men are to be differentiated from other species
    > when it comes to protecting the weak and poor instead
    > of allowing them to die off.
    
    Oooo, I see what you did there.
    
    You're trying to get someone to say that people are different from animals. But you know what - we are. We are the only self reflective social creature on this planet (that we are aware of). As such, we have discovered ethics and social responsibility, and these inform our behavior.
    
    You cannot deny our choice in following an ethical path by your "logic" or by your incessant demands that religion be given more than it's due (which is nothing).
    
    Not can you deny natural reality because it conflicts with your fantasies.
    
    Sorry, but thank you for playing.

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92. 92. MrPeach 04:57 PM 4/19/08

    Pay attention much? He said he personally believed in ID.
    
    Geez.

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93. 93. LynnEllen 05:06 PM 4/19/08

    There have been gaping holes in the evolutionary theory - as in many "theories" - but the problem comes when science is not allowed to follow or is ridiculed for attempting to follow the evidence where it leads. If one were to remove all emotional attachment and personal opinion, one could see that there is no real evidence of evolution. It can neither be proven nor disproven. Believing in evolution takes just as much "faith" as believing in Intelligent Design. The issue is censorship and persecution of those who disagree or wish to pursue the evidence where it leads, without prejudice. Free Speech. Free Science.

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94. 94. MrPeach 05:59 PM 4/19/08

    Let's go for the whole quote, shall we, and judge is remarks IN CONTEXT, Hmmm?
    
    "The great break in the organic chain between man and his nearest allies, which cannot be bridged over by any extinct or living species, has often been advanced as a grave objection to the belief that man is descended from some lower form; but this objection will not appear of much weight to those who, from general reasons, believe in the general principle of evolution. Breaks often occur in all parts of the series, some being wide, sharp and defined, others less so in various degrees; as between the orang and its nearest allies- between the Tarsius and the other Lemuridae- between the elephant, and in a more striking manner between the Ornithorhynchus or Echidna, and all other mammals. But these breaks depend merely on the number of related forms which have become extinct. At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked,* will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla."
    
    If we look at that quote IN CONTEXT, what we have is a scientist musing about what has gone before and extrapolating what will be from it. Yes, he was a man of his times with all the inherent prejudices that implies, but he was not saying they should be exterminated, merely that it will probably happen.
    
    And in a way he's right. Few of the savages of his day are still so. Most of them have (or at least are still trying to) rise above their traditional lot and join the civilized world.
    
    People are savages because of lack of knowledge, or in some cases in spite of it. Not because they are inherently savages.
    
    But that is a social problem, not an evolutionary one.

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95. 95. MrPeach 06:08 PM 4/19/08

    We (the "civilized world") have rejected that future, as has most of the rest of the world (except perhaps in places like Darfur). We are all trying to improve the lot of humanity in whatever way we can (as countries).
    
    So, as this has nothing to do with Evolution, nor to (as you've claimed) Darwin's observations of man (at least up to that time) as being a blood thirty conquerer of those weaker (the so-called savages), I fail to see why you have even brought it up here.

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96. 96. MrPeach 06:09 PM 4/19/08

    > KARANO SAID
    >
    > "When did the S A of my youth become a liberal
    > political rag?"
    >
    > Is science and the search for truth considered
    > politically liberal?
    
    Apparently by some.

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97. 97. MrPeach 07:02 PM 4/19/08

    Show the evidence that has been "suppressed" or STFU.
    
    Gaping holes indeed. Evolution is one of the most heavily cross pollinated of all the scientific disciplines. It touches virtually all of the sciences and is strengthened and enhanced by them. Large numbers of predictions have been made in various scientific fields based on evolution, and everyone of them has been proven in the end. To even attempt to throw out even a small portion of evolution is to bring large parts of our science establishment into question - both in their observations and in their scholarship. And this isn't about personal pride or corruption, this is about questioning our ability to observe nature and make conclusions based on those observations. You are saying "you're wrong" and offering little if anything to prove your view superior to what we have amassed over the years and then whine about being suppressed? You insult people with your accusations and you expect moderation? You ignore science and fall back on "the magic man did it" and expect to be taken seriously?
    
    Give me a break!
    
    Or just STFU. Bring some real scholarship, some actual research of the caliber required to challenge the factual bonds we have established. I don't think you can, but you are more than welcomed to try. Just don't be walking in and expecting to be taken seriously because of your unsubstantiated musings about bananas or flagellums.
    
    Oh my science!

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98. 98. razron 08:41 PM 4/19/08

    Looks like the author of the above article may have a few things they didn't want you to now also.
    
    For one, when did evolution become a fact? I thought it was theory.
    
    When did religions become irrational?

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99. 99. locomotivebreath1901 08:55 PM 4/19/08

    I'm going to see the film this weekend. I'm sure it will remind me of an old joke: "A little girl asked her
    father: How did the human race appear? Father answered, God made Adam and Eve; they had children.
    
    The girl then asked her mother the same question. Mother said, Many years ago there were monkeys from which the human race evolved.
    
    The confused girl returned to her father and asked him to explain the 2 different answers. Well, Dear", he
    said, "I told you about my side of the family, and your mother told you about hers."
    
    And that's the whole point of Stein's movie: ~ discussion is key.
    I.D. has serious scientific flaws, darwinism has serious scientific flaws. But darwin dogma is taken for
    inerrant gospel which is then force fed to govt. school children everywhere with little or no facts presented about the flawed evidence, circular reasoning, and out right fraud which peppers the gaping holes in this theory.
    ~ Discussion is key. Why does that make so many nervous???

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100. 100. michaelamorsey 09:02 PM 4/19/08

     Even if you read the entire quote from Darwin, it is still clear that Darwin's reasoning was pointing to the fact that humans try to preserve the weak through extraordinary means, despite the fact that this will "propagate" the weak members of our species. Hitler and Stalin, and the Eugenicists of America were simply applying the argument of Darwin that to allow these lessor races or "weak" humans to "propagate", would be "ignorant". They chose not to "check their sympathy", but instead chose to use their "hard reason...for a contingent benefit" to begin a systematic elimination of those that would bring "degeneration" to humankind. My German mother has told me the story of how the mentally retarded boy in their flat in Stuttgart was taken away and never seen again during WWII. This is not something we can simply ignore. The reasoning behind Darwin's theories and arguments were used by these leaders who had no "God" or sense of "good & evil" to check their plans.

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101. 101. RonB51 09:51 PM 4/19/08

     What is being ignored by the writer is that for decades the belief in a Creator was simply not tolerated in public schools on the most part. And in spite of 30 to 40 years of waiting for evolutionists to prove what they were teaching as fact to be in truth fact they are no closer today than they were then. I'm still going with God.

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102. 102. slopeside 09:53 PM 4/19/08

     John Rennie and Steve Mirsky's claim that the scientific method equates to methodological naturalism is false. In Warrant and Proper Function, Alvin Plantinga proves (in Chapter 12) that methological naturalism and evolutionism entails an undefeated defeater making the mutual embrace of methodological naturalism and evolutionism irrational. Somehow I don't think that John Rennie and Steve Mirsky will let such trifling concerns stand in their way of cheerleading for old Chuck.

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103. 103. marco polo 12:59 AM 4/20/08

     Excuse me, Mr Stein, but where did 'God' come from in the first place?

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104. 104. sologos 03:07 AM 4/20/08

     I do not find much of these six points to be compelling. In the first, for example, the writer indicates that a selective editing of Darwin's words as regards the existence of an entity know as social darwinism, unfairly indicates that Darwin himself was in favor of eliminating he weak. Actually the quote reveals a sufficient awareness on the part of Darwin that his theory could conceivably push the frontiers of such unethical ruminations. His own disclaimers, notwithstanding, the point that Darwinism could be, and indeed would be, in my opinion, invoked by those with genetic "cleansing" agenda stands. regardless of the allegations of biased editing.

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105. 105. sologos 03:31 AM 4/20/08

     The writer's fifth "thing" misses the point entirely. It is precisely the methodological naturalism that is missing from the "science" of evolution that keeps the premise of intelligent inference from dying a "natural" death alive. Whatever legitimate experimental data is used to support the argument for evolution supports Intelligent agency as well, or better. For example,Darwin's finches (which can be viewed as a prototype of more recent experiments illustrating so-called micro-evolution would more appropriately indicate a front loading of potential within the genome itself, especially since the reversion seems to occur when when the environment itself reverts.

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106. 106. SoSaysSunny 05:00 AM 4/20/08

     I have read all of the preceding posts and offer some tools for a more educated discussion:
     
     RESPECT FOR ONE ANOTHER
     
     Cussing and belittling your opponent are very petty tactics in what is supposed to be a scientific discussion. For instance, many of the key proponents of ID have PhDs in fields such as Molecular BioChemistry -- to characterize them as uneducated and unable to read a 5th grade text is untenable.
     
     DEFINING TERMS
     
     Darwinism should be replaced with Evolution in most cases.
     
     A distinction between macroevolution (species scale) and microevolution (adaptation within a species) should be made because microevolution is not being disputed by the ID proponents.
     
     SEPARATION OF INTELLIGENT DESIGN ISSUES
     
     * Weaknesses in Evolution (see next post).
     * Inferring a Designer.
     * Identifying the Designer (ID does not attempt to do this).
     * Repression of dissent.
     * Continued use of universally disproven data/examples/diagrams.
     * Social implications of Evolution.
     
     -- Sunny

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107. 107. SoSaysSunny 05:37 AM 4/20/08

     TWO OF EVOLUTION'S WEAKNESSES
     
     The scientific basis of ID is in the weaknesses in Evolution as it is currently constructed.
     
     Acknowledging these weaknesses does not imply that the theory should be scrapped -- modification may be possible.
     
     INFORMATION
     
     DNA comprises a set of very specific instructions for the construction of proteins and how these proteins should be assembled into parts of cells.
     
     Evolution fails to explain how these instructions could be coded, both in current adaptations and in explaining the origin of life.
     
     GRADUAL PROGRESSION
     
     The mechanisms of random mutation and natural selection provide for a gradual progression of forms, but only if the change benefits the organism in its survival and/or procreation.
     
     One problem arises when many changes have to occur simultaneously to be beneficial. Michael Behe describes these leaps as Irreducible Complexity.
     
     Another problem arises from the lack of intermediate forms in the fossil record, especially the Cambrian Explosion.
     
     -- Sunny
     
     --
     Edited by SoSaysSunny at 04/19/2008 10:51 PM

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108. 108. Pauli Ojala 05:43 AM 4/20/08

     I quote my article from the ABC5, Asian Bioethics Conference 5 book
     'Challenges for Bioethics from Asia'. It is about the father of the vulgarized evolutionary doctrine in the continental Europe, Ernst Haeckel. Race hygiene incarned. In
     http://www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Haeckelianlegacy_ABC5.pdf
     
     Subsequent editions of the Origin
     stated:“[Haeckel]…brought his great knowledge and abilities to bear on what he calls phylogeny,
     or the lines of descent of all organic beings. In drawing up the several series he trusts chiefly to
     embryological characters.”
     
     And so Darwin elaborated in his Descent of Man (1871, p. 203):
     "In attempting to trace the genealogy of the Mammalia, and therefore of man, lower down in the series, we become
     involved in greater and greater obscurity. He who wishes to see what ingenuity and knowledge can effect, may
     consult Prof. Haeckel's works."
     
     In his autobiography, Darwin stated: "Hardly any point gave me so much satisfaction when
     I was at work on the Origin, as the explanation of the wide difference in many classes between the
     embryo and the adult animal, and of the close resemblance of the embryos within the same class.
     No notice of this point was taken, as far as I remember, in the early reviews of the Origin".
     
     Haeckel ascended from infanticide also to genocide: "…the morphological differences
     between two generally recognized species - for example sheep and goats - are much less
     important than those… between a Hottentot and a man of the Teutonic race" (The History of
     Creation 1876, p. 434). He categorized human beings into "Woolly-haired" and "Straight-haired"
     classes. The Woolly-haired people were "incapable of a true inner culture or of a higher mental
     development" (The History of Creation, 1876, p. 310).
     Only among the Aryans was there that
     "symmetry of all parts, and that equal development, which we call the type of perfect human beauty" (The
     History of Creation, 1876, p. 321). "The mental life of savages rises little above that of the higher mammals,
     especially the apes, with which they are genealogically connected. Their whole interest is restricteed to the
     physiological functions of nutrition and reproduction, or the satisfaction of hunger and thirst in the crudest animal
     fashion… one can no more (or no less) speak of their reason than of that of the more intelligent animals." (The
     wonders of life, 1905, p. 56-7).
     Finally, since: "the lower races - such as the Veddahs or Australian Negroes - are psychologically nearer to the
     mammals - apes and dogs - than to the civilized European, we must, therefore, assign a totally different value to their
     lives… Their only interest are food and reproduction… many of the higher animals, especially monogamous mammals
     and birds, have reached a higher stage than the lower savages" (The wonders of life, 1905, p. 390, 393).

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109. 109. jungledoctor 06:43 AM 4/20/08

     I just returned from the movie theatre seeing EXPELLED.
     
     It was interesting, thought provoking, and entertaining.
     
     Mostly it allowed well known atheistic evolutionists to have their say and commented on what they said by music, lighting, and of course editing.
     
     And mostly they allowed ID people to say what they wanted to say, with the bias in the music, angles and lighting, and film editing decisions.
     
     It's motives are fairly clear:
     
     1.) That ID proponents are not permitted to function in orthodox scientific institutions, and that any attempt to publish interpretations of data suggesting the ID hypothesis are supressed.
     
     2.) That evolutionary explanation as sufficient for life as we know it support an atheistic world view, and that religionists who support evolution are welcomed as long as they don't stray into ID.
     
     3.) That evolution provides no coherent explanation for the origin of life. Since there is no such thing as a simple cell, the problem of origins is largely ignored by militant evolutionists.
     
     4.) The evolutionary spokespeople shown clearly will accept almost any explanation, as long as it is not identified with a God type originator. The closing interview with Richard Dawkins is particularly illuminating in this point.
     
     5.) And the film suggests by the inteview of a very pessemistic evolutionist that the theory carried to its logical conclusions negates important human values of free will, hope, and the value of life in general. In this context it also suggests that Darwinian principles were applied by the eugenics movement, including those comandeered by Nazism.
     
     Perhaps this discussion could focus on the points the film is actually making, instead of broadside denunciations of ID as religious fanaticism, backwoods stupidity, or venal moneygrubbing?

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110. 110. Steve Mirsky 02:14 PM 4/20/08

     Jungledoctor writes:
     "Mr. Rennie and Steve Mirsky offer their evenhanded, integrity-loaded review of Ben Stein’s “Expelled”. Since I missed their evenhanded, integrity-loaded review of the Nova’s docudrama: “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial” (a contra media advocy job preceding “Expelled”) I thought we could apply their same evenhanded, integrity- loaded standards to it too?"
     
     Our comments on the excellent NOVA episode can be found at
     
     http://www.sciam.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=3AFA05E8-E7F2-99DF-32715F03F75EAADE
     
     And an interview with a producer of the NOVA episode is at
     
     http://www.sciam.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=173BE356-E7F2-99DF-3E8DA11E99F7F3BE
     
     I strongly encourage everyone to read the entire Jones decision in the Kitzmiller case. It's both informative and entertaining. Available free online at
     
     http://www.pamd.uscourts.gov/kitzmiller/kitzmiller_342.pdf

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111. 111. Tommo0809 02:16 PM 4/20/08

     @ jungle doctor:
     
     It's motives are fairly clear:
     -propagation of the wedge theory
     
     1.) That ID proponents are not permitted to function in orthodox scientific institutions, and that any attempt to publish interpretations of data suggesting the ID hypothesis are supressed.
     
     -because ID does not belong in orthodox scientific institutions. ID is not science, as has been discussed previously in this thread.
     
     2.) That evolutionary explanation as sufficient for life as we know it support an atheistic world view, and that religionists who support evolution are welcomed as long as they don't stray into ID.
     
     -someone's personal beliefs, no matter how irrational or wrong headed need not color their professional work. It would be highly irresponsible for members of the scientific community to support and publicly trumpet a theory that could never be proven or at least evidenced through scientific methods.
     
     3.) That evolution provides no coherent explanation for the origin of life. Since there is no such thing as a simple cell, the problem of origins is largely ignored by militant evolutionists.
     
     -so what. Evolution was never meant to exlpain the origin of life on earth. Darwin's book was called the origin of species and was a baseline for a description of a functional tool to explain the mechanism behind living diversity.
     
     
     4.) The evolutionary spokespeople shown clearly will accept almost any explanation, as long as it is not identified with a God type originator. The closing interview with Richard Dawkins is particularly illuminating in this point.
     
     -because, to most rational thinkers the notion that life was sparked by a seeding asteroid or some superintelligent beings from another galaxy seems just as likely, if not more so, than an all-knowing, all-doing creature who has human features and communicates with every single person on this planet, and whatever others, on a one on one basis.
     
     5.) And the film suggests by the inteview of a very pessemistic evolutionist that the theory carried to its logical conclusions negates important human values of free will, hope, and the value of life in general. In this context it also suggests that Darwinian principles were applied by the eugenics movement, including those comandeered by Nazism.
     
     - again, so what, I mean that this could be an easily addressed argument but what is the point. It has no bearing on the validity of the hundreds of thousands of inquiries providing evidence of evolutionary theory.(not to mention the apparrent complete lack an evidentiary base that would point to an intelligent designers existence.)
     
     --
     Edited by Tommo0809 at 04/20/2008 7:18 AM

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112. 112. webviking6 02:55 PM 4/20/08

     The article's complaint about the film's use of Darwin's quote is completely disingenuous. No one can deny that Darwin said that caring for the weak and infirm was injurious to the human race. Yes, he qualified that statement by saying that to do otherwise would result in the "deterioration of the noblest part of our nature." So what? Darwin's a better man than Hitler, hoorah!
     
     But the fact of the matter is that Darwin's unqualified statement has been used by all kinds of monsters since to justify some of the worst depravities ever perpetrated by man upon his fellow man. That's the point the film was trying to make. And it succeeded. Regardless of the article's banal complaint, it's an inescapable fact that part of Darwin's legacy is the eugenics movements of the Nazi's and others in the 20th century. Movements that cost millions of innocent people their lives.

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113. 113. KAR KAR 03:40 PM 4/20/08

     John Locke once asked this question:
     "What came first, mind or matter"?
     
     For the materialists who do science, the answer is a forgone conclusion and no other answers can be considered. Mindless matter came first and everything from the universe, to evolution to your decisions and actions are mind-less matter in motion. And anybody who presents factual evidence that suggests otherwise is just a toothless, "backwater", snake-handling, idiot who also probably believes in fairies, gnomes and hobgoblins.
     
     Today they don't burn you at the stake, but they do burn your reputation and career at the stake for even questioning materialism.
     
     This documentary exposes most modern scientists for what they are: puppets to this belief system. And by asking simple, direct questions Ben Stein shows his deftness as a masterful puppeteer.
     
     Go see this documentary. It's hilarious!

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114. 114. rooseveltdecosta 04:39 PM 4/20/08

     @Jungledoctor, IDiots et. al.
     
     I believe most of you well-intentioned, humble Americans have been duped by the creators of the ID theory. You see, some time ago a "theory" called creationism attempted to supplant evolution in the public schools. However, knowledgeable judges, with level heads, prevailed and the crackpot theory was rightly banned from public schools. I know that when you received your degrees from whatever online university you purchased them from, they probably didn't require you to take any class that would provoke rational and meaningful thought, much less any type of concrete research. If it had, you would have realized that since the creationists failed in their attempt to force religion into public schools by creating a terribly flawed theory of origin, they decided they needed a new angle. All you need to do is open a few books, you could probably find them at the library, unless they still burn books from where you all are from, and see that many of the institutions that supported creationism simply changed their names and their charters to support ID. In fact, the textbooks authored to teach creationism just had their titles changed and are now essentially the same except that the word God has been replaced by the word Intelligent Designer. This creates quite the enigma however, because identifying oneself as a supporter of Intelligent Design actually belies quite a large lack of intelligence. I wish you Godspeed in quest to obtain a master's degree from the online university of your choice.

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115. 115. good_bud 07:56 PM 4/20/08

     Scientific American is clearly doing its duty. As a politburo for truth it is imperative that counter revolutionaries like Stein be quickly repudiated, and definitively marginalized. SA, we hail you. We pledge our loyaty to your essential doctrines, and only hope we will forever be honored as colleagues and comrades.

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116. 116. Tommo0809 11:59 PM 4/20/08

     good bud: is that sarcasm i'm picking up on?

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117. 117. toltec 12:31 AM 4/21/08

     Wow, I had no idea that there was such a wild debate between two completely unrelated fields. I noticed a lot of fancy terms flying around, and quite bit of bashing too. It is tempting to condescend to those with opposing view points, especially when they don't back them up, but this will only result in further misinterpretation, so I will simply try to narrow down the terminology (using Merriam Webster online).
     
     Science:
     1: the state of knowing : knowledge as distinguished from ignorance or misunderstanding
     2 a: a department of systematized knowledge as an object of study b: something (as a sport or technique) that may be studied or learned like systematized knowledge
     3 a: knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method b: such knowledge or such a system of knowledge concerned with the physical world and its phenomena : natural science
     4: a system or method reconciling practical ends with scientific laws
     5capitalized : christian science
     
     Ok, already I see a problem. I didn't realize that the meaning of the word science would have so many interpretations. Oh well, moving right along.
     
     Religion:
     1 a: the state of a religious [a nun in her 20th year of religion] b (1): the service and worship of God or the supernatural (2): commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance
     2: a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices
     3archaic : scrupulous conformity : conscientiousness
     4: a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith
     
     Ah, now that was more what I expected. Now to my knowledge, religion and the different ideas associated with religion are a very personal thing, meaning that they differ from individual to individual and are generally very important to those that consider themselves religious. For instance, I would never tell someone that the belief in a god (s) (or God, or Allah, or Budah) was stupid, as this is simply insulting and not beneficial to me or them.
     
     That being said I would never begin to use my religious beliefs to justify scientific theory (unless it was Christian Science as above that is one meaning of the word science). My issue with this debate is that ID is not really very scientific in the traditional since of the word. I'm not saying that I don't believe in ID; ever since reading C.S. Lewis's book on Christianity I believed whole heartily in a creator. And that's what this is, another form of creationism. But I am getting off the point. What makes a belief and what makes a theory. A belief is not scientific, it can't be proved or disproved, or weighed, measured, counted, or regulated, like ID or creationism or God. A scientific theory however can be proved or disproved and can be reviewed using agreed upon standards. The argument that the scientific standard need not apply to ID is invalid, they apply to all other ‘fields of study’ (definition of sciences as listed above).
     
     Now, if you believe in ID then you have a choice:
     a. you consider this to be a "belief" and therefore not a scientific discussion topic as much as a religious or social topic.
     b. you consider this to be a "theory" and therefore do not actually believe it, in which case you are not a Christian or are at least a fallen Christian since you do not believe in God as the creator of all, including us.
     
     Now if you do think you are a Christian but still consider ID a theory and not a belief ( I really don't think that something can be both a theory and a belief) then read the next question carefully.
     
     Can God create a stone that is so heavy he himself can not lift it?
     
     Hopefully that will keep you occupied long enough for the adults to finish this conversation :P

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118. 118. SumYungGuy 12:44 AM 4/21/08

     Thanks to SoSaysSunny (post 115) for your call to respectful discourse. Disagreement and debate of ideas here can (and should) be done cordially, without resort to name-calling and personal attacks.
     
     rooseveltdecosta - your remarks above (post 123) may be acceptable in other forums, but are out of place here. We all signed the usage agreement to be able to post comments -- #1 is "Play Nice". The forums at Scientific American, of all places, should be a place of rational discourse about ideas, not hateful personal attacks.
     
     After reading through about half of these 124 posts (don't have time to read all of them) I'm surprised at the number of pro-ID posters... and their reasonable comments and questions. locomotivebreath (post 106) has it right... let's discuss issues! If the anti-Expelled crowd is so sure of their positions, they should welcome honest discussion and debate as a chance to logically outmaneuver the ID supporters.
     
     It should be noted that the official formulation of ID is most definitely a science. The straw man versions of it put forward by its critics (often equating it with creationism, then critiquing creationism) are often not. (ID does not equate to creationism!!!)
     
     Finally, I must disagree with SoSaysSunny on one point... Evolution is not a better term than Darwinism in this context. "Darwinism" refers to the current theory espoused be evolutionary biologists (technically "neo-Darwinism" is the most specific term for the current theory). Evolution is a word with many possible definitions -- most generally, as "change over time", which [i]no one[/i] disagrees with (eg, "the design of the Toyota Corolla has evolved significantly since its inception"). "Evolution", in the context of Expelled and the SciAm articles, is not a sufficiently specific term.

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119. 119. Tommo0809 12:54 AM 4/21/08

     allright sumyunguy, aside from your faulty operating definition of darwinism and evolution....what exactly is scientific about ID-- it looks designed to me so...someone must have designed it?
     And to the C.S. Lewis fan, I read the berenstein bears books when I was a little kid, but Mr. Berenstein never convinced me that there was a community of talking bears in rural michigan (no matter how badly I wanted it to be true)

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120. 120. SumYungGuy 01:14 AM 4/21/08

     toltec - As a Christian who takes ID to be an interesting "theory", not a belief, I must disagree with your previous post. Science and religion are most certainly unrelated fields; but ID falls into the former category, not the latter.
     
     The common misconception that you are under is that ID cannot be "disproved, weighed, measured, etc" -- in fact, it can. For example, ID concerns itself in part with CSI - not the television show, but "complex specified information", a category of data that can be quantified and measured. (See Dembski's book Intelligent Design).
     
     ID is often compared to (or equated with) creationism. Although superficially similar, creationism is clearly linked to Biblical Christianity, and thus is best categorized with religion; ID, on the other hand, not only takes no stance regarding religion (it is espoused by Christians, Muslims, agnostics, atheists, etc), but is a clearly scientific endeavor that examines/measures/categorizes "indications of intelligence" using a rigorous, scientific methodology. It makes falsifiable claims -- the hallmark of scientific theories.

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121. 121. ericbcook 01:17 AM 4/21/08

     Just a point on number 5.
     
     Talking about the ID theory not being falsifiable. How do you falsify punctuated equilibrium? But it finds it's way through peer review and into High school and College Science textbooks.

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122. 122. SumYungGuy 01:22 AM 4/21/08

     > allright sumyunguy, aside from your faulty operating
     > definition of darwinism and evolution....what exactly
     > is scientific about ID-- it looks designed to me
     > so...someone must have designed it?
     
     
     Tommo - see my previous post for the scientific aspects of ID (the measurement of indications of intelligence, via defined indicators such as CSI)
     
     Which aspects of my definitions of Darwinism and evolution do you disagree with?

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123. 123. Tommo0809 01:55 AM 4/21/08

     For starters, Darwinism is not the theory espoused by evolutionary biologists . Darwin's theory of natural selection was merely the beginning of the study of such a mechanism as natural selection. Evolution as you use it may work in a broad sense, but should not be appropriate in a discussion such as this where anyone involved should be presumed to have some sort of baseline knowledge.
     For ID, the supreme court has even said that the base notion of intelligent desing is both inextricably and inexcusably linked with the judeo christian creation myth.
     As for CSI, it seems to be little more than a combination of question begging and goalpost moving, Aside from the fact that Dembski's only publised example has been refuted.

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124. 124. toltec 02:06 AM 4/21/08

     Ok now I'm confused. Darwinsim (or Neo-Darwinism) is a new term to me, so i looked it up. It apparently is the idea that evolution is solely brought on by natural selection and not through enherited traits. But that doesn't make any sense because all creatures inherit traits from their parents' genes. My mom has brown eyes and so there is a good chance that I will (besides recessive genes). So what does that have to do with ID? Is ID counter to natural selection, and why? It's hard for me to imagine natural selection not having anything to do with evolution, if everyone with blonde hair dies then it will become a very rare trait.
     
     I would be very interesting to see some of their quantifiers for intelegence. I don't supposed you use an IQ or other bell curve scale? Please provide more examples, so far you seem to be the most clearly worded proponent of ID in these coments.
     
     If ID is not related to religion at all then I apologize for associating it with something unrelated to science. I still think that arguing it as a point shows a certain lack of faith, but that's just my opinion.
     
     As I said, please elaborate and I realize now I am quite ignorant on the subject.

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125. 125. MorituriMax 02:22 AM 4/21/08

     Ben Stein equates Evolution with aBiogenesis and never says that one has nothing to do with the other, or that Evolution is about what happens AFTER life began and aBiogenesis is about HOW life began.

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126. 126. rooseveltdecosta 02:54 AM 4/21/08

     Mr. Sumyungguy,
     
     Before you post anything else, please do your homework. I know this is asking a lot of you, it is painfully obvious that you failed to do so before stating that, "ID does not equate to creationism" Regarding that point, you may want to get a hold of Dr. Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education. Specifically the lecture she presented at the University of Michigan in January of 2006. I am not sure on what cereal box you received your information, but quite simply, there are no issues between evolution and Creationism/ID. Evolution is a theory based on generations of repeatable experiments and observations that have resulted in a set of concrete conclusions as to how man arrived to the point at which he is today. Creationism, on the other hand, is a vaguely worded and untestable set of beliefs put forth by religious fanatics aimed towards turning America into a theocracy. It has survived so long due to the ignorance and laziness of many Americans, and their inability to pick up a book and do some actual learning. I have no qualms with religion, as I often fancy myself with a righteous day of worship now and again. I digress, however, the point is that the theory of evolution is cold hard science, Creationism/ID is not. When you find yourself caught with your head buried in the sand, you should emerge humbly and seek to enlighten yourself instead of just trying to get everybody else to bury their heads along with you. Do not hesitate, I see great potential within you, and I encourage you to fulfill it to the utmost of your abilities! We'll be waiting for you when the light bulb finally turns on.

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127. 127. MorituriMax 03:04 AM 4/21/08

     One thing I noticed is that ID/Creationism has never actually done any "science" to produce evidence for ID or creationism one way or the other.
     
     The only thing ID / Creationism has EVER done is to attack other (rather, existing Theories since they don't actually HAVE a Theory in the Scientific use of the word) theories. When are they going to actually do science to back up THEIR side of the issue?
     
     --
     Edited by MorituriMax at 04/20/2008 8:05 PM
     
     --
     Edited by MorituriMax at 04/20/2008 8:05 PM
     
     --
     Edited by MorituriMax at 04/20/2008 8:06 PM

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128. 128. SumYungGuy 03:38 AM 4/21/08

     > For starters, Darwinism is not the theory espoused by
     > evolutionary biologists . Darwin's theory of natural
     > selection was merely the beginning of the study of
     > such a mechanism as natural selection. Evolution as
     > you use it may work in a broad sense, but should not
     > be appropriate in a discussion such as this where
     > anyone involved should be presumed to have some sort
     > of baseline knowledge.
     > For ID, the supreme court has even said that
     > aid that the base notion of intelligent desing is
     > both inextricably and inexcusably linked with the
     > judeo christian creation myth.
     > As for CSI, it seems to be little more than a
     > e than a combination of question begging and goalpost
     > moving, Aside from the fact that Dembski's only
     > publised example has been refuted.
     
     Tommo – Many (eg, Richard Dawkins, Encyclopedia Britannica) use “neo-Darwinism” as a synonym for the “modern synthesis” of evolution, a term favored by other evolutionary biologists. I was using them synonymously. Also, I didn’t mean to say I personally use “evolution” to mean “change over time”… just that many could take it to mean that, and as such it is a vague term. Certainly, in a context such as this, readers *should* understand the intended meaning (as a synonym for “modern synthesis” and/or “neo-Darwinism)… but SoSaysSunny was originally referring to its use in the movie, which is certainly not targeting a highly educated audience. [smirk] It seems that avoiding ambiguity by using specific terms (both in the movie, and here where we discuss the movie) is wise… Dawkins himself favors the use of the term “Darwinism” over evolution for the very same reason.
     
     The US Supreme Court has certainly not ruled on any cases involving ID. The main court case to date (the Dover school district case, in 2005) was primarily concerned with a particular textbook, which was clearly (and very poorly) directly adapted from a creationist textbook. Intelligent Design does have its *roots* in the creationism movement, but it is entirely independent at this point. For the reasons mentioned in my previous post, it is *not* connected with Biblical Christianity, but is totally a-religious.
     
     Not sure what you mean by CSI being “goalpost moving”… more on CSI below. And what exactly is Dembski’s “only published example”?
     
     > Is ID counter to natural selection, and
     > why? It's hard for me to imagine natural selection
     > not having anything to do with evolution, if everyone
     > with blonde hair dies then it will become a very rare
     > trait.
     >
     > I would be very interesting to see some of their
     > quantifiers for intelegence. I don't supposed you use
     > an IQ or other bell curve scale? Please provide more
     > examples, so far you seem to be the most clearly
     > worded proponent of ID in these coments.
     
     Toltec – I’m definitely pretty novice to this too. :)
     
     Sorry about the confusion with “neo-Darwinism” – as I mentioned above, perhaps “modern evolutionary synthesis” is the most accurate term, if a bit unwieldy, for what biologists believe today. But either way, modern evolutionary biologists certainly do teach that natural selection is the primary mechanism of change, and ID is *not* opposed to the idea that natural selection operates in the natural world.
     
     As for “quantifying intelligence”… it’s not that ID proposes to quantify the intelligence of the designer. It instead seeks to quantify *indications* that something was (or was not) designed. For example, archeologists must do this … if a human-shaped stone object is discovered, it must be determined whether someone carved it to resemble a man, or whether it is just a random man-shaped stone. Another common example is SETI’s search for extra-terrestrial radio signals…. Random “background” signals must be separated from signals that were designed by somebody out there. (Capt. Kirk?)
     
     One way this is done is by analyzing complex specified information (“CSI”)… if something is *both* highly complex , and highly “specified”, it can be logically deduced that it was designed, not brought about by chance. For example, SETI astronomers might look for a very (very) long, repeating sequence of prime numbers encoded in a radio signal… this signal is both highly complex (incredibly unlikely to originate by chance) and *specified* (it actually contains information… in this case, a list of prime numbers). In this case, ID theorists would be interested in looking at a particular signal and scientifically quantifying how likely it was to have originated by chance, versus by design.
     
     (This is obviously a simplification of the CSI statistical model -- It actually consists of a number of characteristics, including “a probabilistic version of complexity applications to events”, conditionally independent patterns, replicational and specificational probabilistic resources, pattern applicability, and a universal probability bound… see Dembski’s book [u]Design Revolution[/u] for detailed info on each of these).
     
     This all leads into why ID is so different from creationism.... Creationism is a Bible-inspired belief of how the earth began. Intelligent Design is a scientific study of patterns of intelligence... and not just for "origin of life" issues!!! Concepts from ID research (as described above) could easily be applied to research in fields such as cognitive science, artificial intelligence, information technology, code encryption, archeology, linguistics, psychology, etc.
     
     Again, I am definitely a novice in this area… there are lots of others out there that could describe all these things much better. Just tossing out my two cents. :)

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129. 129. rooseveltdecosta 03:54 AM 4/21/08

     "One way this is done is by analyzing complex specified information (“CSI”)… if something is *both* highly complex , and highly “specified”, it can be logically deduced that it was designed, not brought about by chance."
     
     Please "logically" deduce said tenent/foundation of Creationism for me and provide an example from the biological world that provides evidence for this.
     
     On another note, this link will put to rest any notion that ID is independent from creationism. http://www.ncseweb.org/article.asp?category=21 -Simply perusing the articles will allow one to see how Creationism convienently morphed into ID after its rejection from public schools. If you need me to do your homework for you in Newtonianism or Einsteinism please do not hesitate to ask, seeing as how I have already completed much of it for you on this subject.
     
     --
     Edited by rooseveltdecosta at 04/20/2008 8:55 PM

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130. 130. Tommo0809 04:05 AM 4/21/08

     Dawkins use of the word darwinism carries quite a different meaning because in britain the word has not been so severely co-opted by crationist/ID proponents.
     
     The question begging refers to the need to assume that ID is a sound theory in order to apply it. Similar, though not identical, to the Garbage in Garbage out principal in that if you have a unworkable system for analysing a set of data, it doesn't matter what your results are, because the system used to analyse can't be relied upon in the first place.
     
     The goal post moving refers to ID's arguments to any findings regarding evolution is that they are not enough- Creationist claims have fallen back to cellular mitochondria and the bacterial flagellar motor after having given ground on every other front.
     Dembski's example was the bacterial flagellar motor, which has been proven to NOT be irreducably complex
     
     
     In his ruling, Jones said that while intelligent design, or ID, arguments “may be true, a proposition on which the court takes no position, ID is not science.” Among other things, he said intelligent design “violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation”; it relies on “flawed and illogical” arguments; and its attacks on evolution “have been refuted by the scientific community.”
     
     -this is a federal judge applying the supreme court's designated establishment clause tests, quite a bit presumptuous for me to say a supreme court ruling, but it is more than evident as to how the supreme court would rule had they bothered to give any of the ID cases standing.
     
     --
     Edited by Tommo0809 at 04/20/2008 9:15 PM

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131. 131. SumYungGuy 04:21 AM 4/21/08

     > Before you post anything else, please do your
     > homework.
     
     Rooseveltdecosta – I hope the research I did for my last (rather lengthy) post is evident. :)
     
     > I know this is asking a lot of you, it is
     > painfully obvious that you failed to do so before
     > stating that, "ID does not equate to creationism"
     
     On the contrary, my personal opinion that “ID does not equate to creationism” is very well thought out. (For the record, I would describe myself as a anti-creationism, but potentially-pro-ID). See the rest of this post for details. (The opinions of others, including Eugenie Scott, were certainly considered in my decision-making process, but as a scientist I prefer to weigh the evidence myself and come to my own conclusions.)
     
     > Creationism... is a vaguely worded
     > and untestable set of beliefs put forth by
     > religious fanatics aimed towards turning
     > America into a theocracy.
     
     I partially agree with you regarding Creationism… namely, that it is a set of beliefs put forth by honest religious individuals in an attempt to reconcile their faith with mainstream science. (I happen to disagree with their set of beliefs, as you apparently do.) It is certainly *not* vaguely worded (see Henry M. Morris’s book Scientific Creationism, and others). It is untestable in the same ways that evolution is untestable… no one has observed the deposition of the geologic layers, for example, and it is unfortunately not repeatable, by evolutionary scientists or anyone.
     
     > On another note, this link will put to rest any
     > notion that ID is independent from creationism.
     > http://www.ncseweb.org/article.asp?category=21
     > -Simply perusing the articles will allow one to see
     > how Creationism convienently morphed into ID after
     > its rejection from public schools.
     
     Although ID certainly had its origins in creationism, its current formulation is far different. As described in my last post, it is a scientific discipline that seeks to quantify indications that a given object was (or was not) designed. It makes testable predictions. ID research could hold implications, not just for evolutionary biology, but for fields of science such as cognitive science and information technology, among others. It takes no position regarding religion, and is fully compatible with atheistic beliefs.
     
     
     Creation science, according to the wikipedia article of the same name, is fully committed to:
     
     1. Sudden creation of the universe, energy and life from nothing.
     2. The insufficiency of mutation and natural selection in bringing about development of all living kinds from a single organism.
     3. Changes only with fixed limits of originally created kinds of plants and animals.
     4. Separate ancestry for man and apes.
     5. Explanation of the earth's geology by catastrophism, including the occurrence of worldwide flood.
     6. A relatively recent inception of the earth and living kinds."
     
     
     On the other hand, Dembski notes that ID (with respect to biology) is committed to the following propositions:
     
     1 - Specified complexity (SC) and irreducible complexity (IC) are reliable indicators of design.
     2 - Biological systems exhibit SC and IC.
     3 - Natural mechanisms are unable to explain the origin of SC and IC.
     4 - ID constitutes the best explanation for the origin of SC and IC in biological systems.
     
     While their historical connection is undeniable, creationism and ID are currently defined [i]very [/i]differently. I must disagree with Eugenie and Mr. Jones -- creationism is certainly inherently religious, but ID is a non-religious scientific theory.
     
     
     PS - Thanks for toning down your personal attacks somewhat... "I see great potential within you." :)
     
     --
     Edited by SumYungGuy at 04/20/2008 10:44 PM
     
     --
     Edited by SumYungGuy at 04/20/2008 11:01 PM

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132. 132. SumYungGuy 05:54 AM 4/21/08

     Tommo -
     
     > The question begging refers to the need to assume
     > that ID is a sound theory in order to apply it.
     
     In this characteristic, ID is identical to every other scientific theory... you don't try to apply them to anything without assuming that they are sound.
     
     > In his ruling, Jones said that while intelligent
     > design, or ID, arguments “may be true, a proposition
     > on which the court takes no position, ID is not
     > science.”
     
     Again, this ruling is based off of a then-15-year-old textbook [i]originally written as a creationist text[/i]!!! The book was hastily adapted by the authors to the theory of ID (in 1989) following court rulings that creationism is inherently religious (which, of course, it is). While this demonstrates the close ties that ID had to creationism in 1989, the textbook in question is a far cry from ID in its current formulation. Allow me to recommend Dembski's [u]Design Revolution[/u] as a far more current representation of ID theory, or see my previous post for a summary.

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133. 133. Theophilus Zechariah Acer 10:40 AM 4/21/08

     Next, I do have to bring to your attention a very funny example from this page that shows the dishonesty / blind self-deception of the people in the mainstream media  i.e. Scientific American  who write so unscientifically. Nevertheless, the film is wrong to imply that understanding of evolution inevitably or necessarily leads to a rejection of religious belief. Francisco Ayala of the University of California, Irvine, a leading neuroscientist who used to be a Dominican priest, continues to be a devout Catholic, as does the evolutionary biologist Ken Miller of Brown University. Thousands of other biologists across the U.S. who all know evolution to be true are also still religious. Moreover, billions of other people around the world simultaneously accept evolution and keep faith with their religion. The late Pope John Paul II said that evolution was compatible with Roman Catholicism as an explanation for mankind's physical origins.
     
     What a joke! While the rest of us are still entitled to our opinions, these guys who have donned white coats know evolution to be true. Evolution has truly morphed from a theory into a dogma, which we mere mortals who dont wear white coats  as opposed to the mere mortals who do wear white coats  dare not question their knowledge.

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134. 134. Miriameve 12:06 PM 4/21/08

     So What , Get a Life even if you have no intelligent design! It's a MOVIE, Watch the news, no more truth there, if you are not there to see it what ever you hear or read is written or said for the benefit of the one writing or saying it. What ever you believe because none of us know, give your stuff away before you die, because you will not take it with you and you will leave a mess for those you leave behind. Who really cares how we started, Lets look at how we are living and how we are ending. I saw the movie and I said to my husband who is a cancer doctor who works very hard to keep people alive and is the smartest person I know why would anyone besides the three people in the theater go to this movie? I realized when he didn't answer that he was not pondering the question he was merely getting some much needed sleep. With every news clip that starts in the middle of a sentence and ends before the person stops you have someone shaping the story to say what they want said. eve

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135. 135. Tommo0809 12:40 PM 4/21/08

     Theophilus: get over yourself, save the persecution complex for sunday mornings or your therapist's couch.
     
     sumyunguy: Again. No proof for either irreducable complexity or CSI. ID's so called tennents seem to be innocuous enough, however anyone with the vaguest amount of experience with the theory and its proponents can quickly discern the true purpose behind ID-- as evidenced by dembski's etc promotion of the wedge theory. So as opposed to going in another circle, with you providing no proof or evidence, I think its much more appropriate to dismiss ID as creationism attempting to masquerade as legit scientific theory and save it for an "issues in science" class or a comparative religion class.

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136. 136. Caroline572004 03:08 PM 4/21/08

     I saw the movie.
     
     When I see hysteria, arm waving, and name-calling in any argument, I know which side does not believe that it has truth on its side.
     
     I am a fairly rational person and admittedly somewhat of a science snob. I don't blame Hollywood or politicians or the average journalist for misinterpreting or overinterpreting the facts. I do blame the "scientists" (and "scientific journalists") who sell out and cherrypick facts to support one side and discard or denigrate the "inconvenient truths". But, if politics, law, and religion can be corrupt, why not science, too?
     
     At least there is still mathematics.

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137. 137. MallProphet 04:08 PM 4/21/08

     I watched the movie yesterday and heard Dawkins say that Evolutions is fact. When did it become a law? If science is merely based on what can be measured, why do Biology textbooks present the possibility of aliens as the "beginners" of everything as viable?

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138. 138. Armstead 05:11 PM 4/21/08

     Regarding item no. 1: Though I decry Stein's selective use of the Darwin quotation, you have done nothing above to demonstrate falsity in Stein's claim. Darwin does indeed put forth the proposition that man, were he not so ignorant, would prevent his weakest from breeding. Darwin's reference to "evil" in the next paragraph is seen as necessarily errant by the 20th century "enlightened" who make the logical and necessary connection that if we descended from animals there is no such thing as morality or "evil." Darwin's implied proposition to eliminate the weak of the species stands logically, therefore, in the mind of anyone who takes seriously the outworkings of this naturalist philosophy. While I don't condone Stein's trimming of the passage, he has accurately reported its implications. If you embrace Darwin's theory, at the same time calling on the avoidance of evil to stem its implications, you are living in a blissfully ignorant inconsistency.

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139. 139. jacrabbit84 09:10 PM 4/21/08

     Actually, Ben Stein DOES travel around to college campuses and other venues to give speeches. Though the crowd scenes bookending the movie may have been staged, they are typical for Stein, who is a widely coveted (for good reason) speaker!

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140. 140. jcrudd 11:31 PM 4/21/08

     Tommo0809, you accuse ID'ers of moving the goal posts, but, what are you establishement evo's doing?
     
     SumYungGuy's response bears respect, and honest evaluatiion and rational discourse.
     
     I'm not arguing for ID here, I'm arguing for the objectivty the science community so iconoclastically promotes.
     
     Yo'all would be wise to not be quite so dismissive.
     
     Until you can answer the cellular complexity and lack of fossil links for transitional stages between species, beyond, X/Y strings and insects, I would say you are a bit premature in your victory dances.

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141. 141. toltec 12:39 AM 4/22/08

     Wait, why are we talking about fossils? I thought this was about the complexity of the various species and that such complexity implicates a designer. I think just because something is complex doesn't mean it was created by an inteligent being, plenty of complex things happen by chance in fact ID may best be argued against by choas therorists, since it actually has nothing to do with the proponents of Neo-Evolution.
     
     I asked earlier if they were mutually exclusive and was told they were not...then why are we having this debate. Neo-Evolutionists don't believe in ID, that's fine because it's a seperate and unrelated field. Same for ID'ers, no need to cry fowl.
     
     Please help me to see if I am missing something.

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142. 142. jcrudd 12:52 AM 4/22/08

     Point taken toltec, I'll leave fossils out.
     
     But, come on, chaos theorists.
     
     --
     Edited by jcrudd at 04/21/2008 5:53 PM

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143. 143. ppayne 01:08 AM 4/22/08

     As a reply to Armstead, it is not a logical and necessary connection that evolution implies the nonexistence of ethical principles. Behavior that emphasizes survival is ethical behavior chosen genetically. The greater variety of genetic material in the gene pool, the greater the adaptability the species will have. For humans living in a wild state, culling certain types of handicaps might be the more viable practice, but this culling would be done by nature. Clearly, this has nothing to do with the present human civilization. As I have pointed out elsewhere, what most aided the Nazis in coming to power was that they appealed to the hatred of the Jewish people shared by the majority of the Christian populace. This hatred did not originate with Darwinism or the survival of the fittest. The evil that has been generated by Christianity so far outstrips whatever evil may have inadvertently been caused by pseudo-scientific interpretations of Darwins survival of the fittest that far greater humility would be becoming on the part of Christians.
     
     Just for the record, I am a Christian (in a completely non-mythological way), which means that I do not accept the strictly materialistic interpretation of evolution.

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144. 144. tjlharvey 01:09 AM 4/22/08

     Evolutionists are wrong! ID is testable in scientific way. It makes several predictions of events.
     1. Fully developed new species will appear at random points in time. There will be no warning and no past history but a breeding herd of "hiptoplats" may suddenly appear in central park.
     2. The creator is super-powerful and must know that the debate is raging on earth. Look for him to come up with a really big miracle. Something so clear that people will know that he is "da bomb". Maybe instead of a world-wide flood (been there, done that) he could make all the worlds oceans disappear instantly.
     
     Either one of the above will prove ID. Do you think it will happen? Lets all be on the look out.

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145. 145. MrPeach 04:55 AM 4/22/08

     > I'm going to see the film this weekend. I'm sure it
     > will remind me of an old joke: "A little girl asked
     > her
     > father: How did the human race appear? Father
     > answered, God made Adam and Eve; they had
     > children.
     >
     > The girl then asked her mother the same question.
     > Mother said, Many years ago there were monkeys from
     > which the human race evolved.
     >
     > The confused girl returned to her father and asked
     > him to explain the 2 different answers. Well, Dear",
     > he
     > said, "I told you about my side of the family, and
     > your mother told you about hers."
     
     Cute story, but pointless.
     
     > And that's the whole point of Stein's movie: ~
     > discussion is key.
     
     No, the point of that movie is propaganda, pure and simple.
     
     They attacked science, impugned people's motives, and generally insulted anyone who has been involved in serious scientific research for the past 150 years because "they won't let us play with our rules".
     
     > I.D. has serious scientific flaws,
     
     ID has no science.
     
     > darwinism has serious scientific flaws.
     
     Evolutionary theory has some holes, but few flaws. What you are talking about has been superseded by improved science for the past 150 years. Let's stop banging that drum, shall we?
     
     > But darwin dogma is taken for
     
     Broken record. There is no dogma, except for your own. Do not paint science with the brush of religion, we will not be taken down to your level, thank you very much.
     
     > inerrant gospel which is then force fed to govt.
     > school children everywhere with little or no facts
     > presented about the flawed evidence, circular
     > reasoning, and out right fraud which peppers the
     > gaping holes in this theory.
     
     Gaping holes, gaping holes, come see the gaping holes.
     
     I'd take swiss cheese over air anytime. And air is all you have to offer, my friend.
     
     > ~ Discussion is key. Why does that make so many
     > nervous???
     
     No one is nervous, that's what we call a straw man.
     
     Produce the science, come on, we are all waiting. Eagerly.
     
     No science means no discussion, that is the rule you hate the most. You expect to have a place at the table when you come empty handed? When all you have to offer is insults to the real scientists? Grow up.

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146. 146. MrPeach 04:58 AM 4/22/08

     head->hole
     
     If that works for you guy.

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147. 147. MrPeach 05:12 AM 4/22/08

     Constructing straw men and then attacking them is ignoble.
     
     We have truth on our side, we don't have to make up parables about the delusional. Sticking to facts, my friend, is all we need do and this ghost of religions past will eventually wither up and blow away.
     
     All the hand waving and finger pointing in the world will not advance their cause one iota. The scientific method will not be corrupted by their nonsense. It will rise like a scholarly Godzilla and squash their little religious rice shacks flat. Lol.

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148. 148. ncdave4life 05:13 AM 4/22/08

     Rennie & Mirsky didnt read Darwin carefully. What Darwin called evil wasnt neglecting the weak & helpless. That was Darwins description of problems that could JUSTIFY neglecting the weak & helpless. Intentionally neglecting the weak & helpless, in Darwins view, should be contemplated only if it conferred a real benefit, and combated an overwhelming present evil.
     
     Eugenics programs didnt work by neglecting the weak, anyhow, and the movie doesnt say they did. Even the NAZI's didnt neglect inferior people - they sterilized & murdered them!
     
     -Dave Burton
     Cary, NC

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149. 149. MrPeach 05:29 AM 4/22/08

     > Tommo -
     >
     > > The question begging refers to the need to
     > assume
     > > that ID is a sound theory in order to apply it.
     >
     > In this characteristic, ID is identical to every
     > other scientific theory... you don't try to apply
     > them to anything without assuming that they are
     > sound.
     
     No sir, it most certainly is not. It is charlatanism, and no more than that. There is a deep dishonesty behind all of this ID stuff that I personally find repellent.
     
     Your time is now, produce the facts upon which your "theory" is based. I know you have nothing just as you know you have nothing. This wedge tactic will surely fail and all of you who are behind it will find yourselves forever excluded from further serious scientific consideration. Just like Fleischmann and Pons.
     
     It is insulting and denigrating to all real scientists that this "theory" is expected to be taken as a contender to evolution when it is no more than a bag of air pretending to be science.

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150. 150. ncdave4life 05:30 AM 4/22/08

     (Trying again, to fix the typography)
     
     Rennie & Mirsky didn't read Darwin carefully. What Darwin called "evil" wasn't neglecting the weak & helpless. That was Darwin's description of problems that could [u]justify[/u] neglecting the weak & helpless. Intentionally neglecting the weak & helpless, in Darwin's view, should be contemplated only if it conferred a real "benefit," and combated an "overwhelming present evil."
     
     Eugenics programs didn't work by neglecting the weak, anyhow, and the movie doesn't say they did. Even the NAZI's didn't neglect "inferior" people - they sterilized & murdered them!
     
     -Dave Burton
     Cary, NC

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151. 151. MrPeach 05:34 AM 4/22/08

     I LOLD.

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152. 152. ncdave4life 05:34 AM 4/22/08

     The film's Darwin quote was accurate. It's Rennie & Mirsky who rewrote Darwin.
     
     Darwin wrote: "The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy... Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature... [If] we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil."
     
     Rennie & Mirsky claim that means "Darwin explicitly rejected the idea of eliminating the 'weak' as dehumanizing and evil." Not so!
     
     1. Darwin wrote of "neglecting," not "eliminating," the weak.
     
     2. Darwin's expressed ambivalence, not opposition, to neglecting the weak (for "contingent benefits").
     
     Most eugenicists thought themselves humanitarians. Instead of neglecting the weak, they used "humane" methods, like sterilizing "defectives," and Margaret Sanger's practice of putting birth control clinics in black neighborhoods.

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153. 153. oyenmich 09:54 AM 4/22/08

     You're falling into the Expelled trap with sloppy writing yourself... "Thousands of other biologists across the U.S. who all know evolution to be true are also still religious." No one KNOWS evolution to be true. Things cannot be proven with the scientific method, only disproven. Many leading scientists have concluded based on the available evidence that evolution is the most likely mechanism for certain aspects of the questions relating to the origins of life (evolution doesn't actually answer directly how things got started in the first place, only how they changed thereafter!)

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154. 154. cout255 10:58 AM 4/22/08

     "This looks like it was designed, so there must be a designer; we know there is a designer because this looks designed." -- this is not a tautology

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155. 155. dandrews 04:42 PM 4/22/08

     "Darwin explicitly rejected the idea of eliminating the "weak" as dehumanizing and evil. Those words falsify Expelled's argument."
     
     This statement is illogical. The connections between Darwin, Gobineau, Nietzsche, and others to Hitler does not require an identical replication of ideas among them. That's ridiculous.
     
     The only other point in this article that is worth commenting on is #5. The film does a poor job of addressing the nature of science, the nature of philosophy, and how the two are intersecting. This intersection does a disservice to both Science and to Philosophy. At issue is the ideological hostility that exists in the Academy. And, by avoiding the details here, the film pulls a Michael Moore. Despite this, the film has merit for those who are intellectually honest enough to explore the issues more deeply.

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156. 156. toltec 08:14 PM 4/22/08

     >"This looks like it was designed, so there must be a designer; we know there is a designer because this looks designed." -- this is not a tautology
     
     I looked it up, tautology has two meanings. In prepositional logic it means that the statement has to be true regardless of the validity of the it's parts (ex. (A or !A)= TRUE no matter whether A is true or false). In language, it just means you said the same thing twice, which you did.
     
     "This looks like it was designed" we will call this A.
     "there must be a designer" we willl call this B.
     A therefore B is the same as B because of A. It basically said that IF it looks like it was designed THEN it was.
     
     I might not know much about ID, but I am fairly good at logic and reasoning. I figured when I first read this statement that it was a mistake, but since it has been repeated so many times I am assuming you meant to say the same thing twice, again.
     
     I am still unclear why were are debating this, evolution and ID are seperate and not connected. It does seem that ID'ers and Neo-Evolutionist have some sort of log term bone to pick with each other, and perhaps this goes back to the Creationist arguement.
     
     Maybe we need to classify bad ID, like this movie which is obviously attacking and using underhanded techniques to do it, and good ID, which seems to be a science for understanding the complexity of an object and determining whether that complexity implies intelegence or design. I think if you leave people out of it, as in say neither side try and determine where we come from, then maybe people woudln't take it so personally.

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157. 157. Jeepien 08:47 PM 4/22/08

     > Without disputing any of the article content, the
     > simple existence of this article shows that
     > Scientific American has an agenda.
     
     Of course Scientific American has an agenda. It always has. And that agenda is to promote good science, and expose bad science.

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158. 158. HerbSPGR 09:40 PM 4/22/08

     If anyone in my family needed help and I was not there to give it, I would hope that our society would give that help. Anyone might need help at some point in time. Religion is not involved in what I am saying.

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159. 159. CodeQueen1 09:45 PM 4/22/08

     It is unfair to say that all individuals believing in ID want to force their view on everyone just as it would be unfair to claim that all of those in the scientific community are trying to do the same. I do not believe that everyone, regardless of which side their beliefs fall on, is interested in forcing their view on those that believe otherwise (as we are all human and therefore fallible I'm sure that is the goal in some cases). It makes sense that if you believe you have the correct answer you'd want to share. Evolution\Darwinism is a theory. It it is based on someone's beliefs not fact. Creationism\ID is based on faith which doesn't seem much different to me. Since science is supposed to be observable fact and no one was here to observe our beginnings [according to evolution, although according to creationist's beliefs there was - and it was documented], regardless of how you believe that occurred, neither can be scientific "fact". Just as future generations, having only the information they've found in an ancient TV broadcasting station might think all humans were vapid, shop-aholic, sex-addicted, spoiled brats if all they were able to find were broadcasts of the "reality shows" since they do seem to make us appear that way. That would be an inaccurate conclusion if they weren't here to see that is only part of the information. Or, if they decided other broadcasts that weren't "reality" shows must not have accurately represented humans in this day & age. Let's face it: neither ID nor evolution can ever be conclusively and unquestionably proven and as such, there will always be an element of "faith" involved in either belief. Why not teach evolution as the theory that it is and be tolerant of others beliefs as well? I do believe that without God in the mix we devalue life & that is a slippery slope. (Perhaps that was the only correlation trying to be drawn between Lysenkoism, evolution, and the Holocaust?)

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160. 160. HerbSPGR 09:56 PM 4/22/08

     I agree with your statements. Also I think it might be useful to make and study a hypothesis about intelligent design. If that could be profitable why not proceed with that study. That is what the scientist does.

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161. 161. CodeQueen1 10:15 PM 4/22/08

     I keep reading, post after post, those adamantly insisting that evolution can be reproduced, & has been proven to be fact. What do you say to those questioning the very INITIAL beginning which must be accepted in order to thoroughly believe any non-God-involved beginnings? (That bit - to my knowledge - has not ever been reproduced, tested, or "proven" by any other scientific method.) Which means regardless of what has since been observed there is just as much "proof" and faith involved in believing either way [all of this just happened | God is powerful enough to have made it all just as He said in Genesis]. I see harm in believing in evolution {as stated in my prior post} and yet I believe everyone has the right to believe in what they choose. I just want the same respect afforded those around me. I see no down-side to believing the Biblical account since it leads to good (if you follow Him and not individuals claiming to follow Him since we've seen what all of the imperfect humans can cause: The Crusades, The Inquisition, etc...). I've no issue with criticizing a film that claims to be scientific but presents no science. However, that should be the extent of the criticisms relevant to an article about that film and SA.

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162. 162. AGeneYoung 10:31 PM 4/22/08

     Darwin's complete quote is irrelevant to how it was interpreted and implemented by social Darwinists like Hitler.
     
     What we must fight for is to safeguard the existence and reproduction of our race and people, the sustenance of our children and the purity of our blood&so; that our people may mature for the fulfillment of the mission allotted to it by the creator of the universe Mein Kamph, Adolf Hitler, 1924
     
     I might add Darwin considered compassion "an incidental result of sympathy" and contrary to "hard reason". He might have believed a lack of compassion to be evil but he doesn't make a very strong case for it.
     
     A. Gene Young

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163. 163. AGeneYoung 10:31 PM 4/22/08

     I have no idea how these multiple quotes appeared. :)
     
     --
     Edited by AGeneYoung at 04/22/2008 4:15 PM

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164. 164. AGeneYoung 10:31 PM 4/22/08

     good gravy!
     
     --
     Edited by AGeneYoung at 04/22/2008 4:17 PM

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165. 165. AGeneYoung 10:31 PM 4/22/08

     :0 spam!
     
     --
     Edited by AGeneYoung at 04/22/2008 4:17 PM

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166. 166. AGeneYoung 10:43 PM 4/22/08

     I have to admit my geology isn't great. Could you explain the testability of plate tectonics? The theory replaced continental drift yet neither predict a thing nor are they testable.
     
     In the same manner they attempt to explain the past and are theories in geology Intelligent Design attempts to explain the function of biological systems we observe today.
     
     [b]
     "Actually, science avoids design explanations for natural phenomena out of logical necessity. The scientific method involves rigorously observing and experimenting on the material world. It accepts as evidence only what can be measured or otherwise empirically validated (a requirement called methodological naturalism). That requirement prevents scientific theories from becoming untestable and overcomplicated."[/b]
     
     --
     Edited by AGeneYoung at 04/22/2008 4:24 PM

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167. 167. deadstatue 11:27 PM 4/22/08

     so i cant quite figure out what this movie is against, is it evolution? or is it darwins evolutionary process of natural selection? or is it that "big science" gives no credit to intelligent design?
     
     all that "big science" asks for is any sort of material proof, observable proof, or testable proof. thats it. either you have it or you dont.
     
     and codequeen, yes there is evidence for proof of evolution.just because you dont care to look for it doesnt mean its not there. and yes evolution by natural selection is a theory. a theory that all observable data points to.
     
     "I see no down-side to believing the Biblical account since it leads to good (if you follow Him and not individuals claiming to follow Him since we've seen what all of the imperfect humans can cause: The Crusades, The Inquisition, etc..."-codequeen
     
     somebody has never read their bible.if you follow the example set by god in the bible, that means your willing to kill innocents because of what other people did?
     do we really need to get into the atrocities performed by god in the bible? go read leviticus and deuteronomy and then say god is a good role model. id rather have my kid worshiping satan. he only killed about 10 people in the bible.all of jobs kids. on a bet with god. and he got some kids back anyway.
     
     i used to believe in god.i have since grown up and started thinking for myself and demanding proof and reason for everything i see.
     evolution is open for the challenge.if you want to argue against it, prove to us that it is wrong.even if intelligent design is proven right, that still doesnt make evolution wrong.
     you should put more time and effort into creating a theory that can be proven to others,and not worry about taking down another theory just because it conflicts with you religious belief.
     
     i guess all we ask is that you take the religious beliefs out of your mind for a moment and assess the situation with logic, reason, and a desire for the truth.

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168. 168. toltec 12:28 AM 4/23/08

     Still talking about god and evolution?
     
     I just want to know some examples of ID, and not the human body (as I said, I think that is what is getting this out of hand).
     
     Also, in response to the poster asking if they have reproduced the origin of life, I read an article once where they had created a primodial soup (similar to when the Earth was much younger and had more water) and shot some voltage through it (base on that there were large eletrical storms at the time) and they got a totally new micro organism where there wasn't one before.
     
     But, in retrospect, using lightning to create life does sound pretty God like, even if they can reproduce it in a lab.

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169. 169. AGeneYoung 02:14 AM 4/23/08

     I have a question for either John Rennie or Steve Mirsky,
     
     Would you consider archeology a science? What, if any, aspect of this forensic study is testable?
     
     [i]
     [b]Archeology is the study of the human past. Its initial objective is the construction of cultural chronology. Its intermediate objective is the reconstruction of past lifeways. Its ultimate objective is the discovery of the processes which underlie and condition human behavior.[/b][/i]
     
     
     "Actually, science avoids design explanations for natural phenomena out of logical necessity. The scientific method involves rigorously observing and experimenting on the material world. It accepts as evidence only what can be measured or otherwise empirically validated (a requirement called methodological naturalism). That requirement prevents scientific theories from becoming untestable and overcomplicated." . . . from the 5th point of the authors.
     
     If either could speak to the earlier point of plate tectonics I'd appreciate it.
     
     
     A. Gene Young

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170. 170. AGeneYoung 02:40 AM 4/23/08

     Evolution has a theory of the evolution of the horse with no predictive use nor is it testable; additionally the explanation has evolved to the point it's unrecognizable from it's original form. Is this non-science within the field of this science?
     
     
     A. Gene Young

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171. 171. AGeneYoung 03:03 AM 4/23/08

     The Lucasian Professor in A Brief History of Time attempts to explain the singularity among other things. The big bang is hardly testable. Is he off his scientific rocker with these ideas?
     [b]
     A Brief History of Time attempts to explain a range of subjects in cosmology, including the Big Bang, black holes, light cones and superstring theory, to the nonspecialist reader. Its main goal is to give an overview of the subject but, unusual for a popular science book, it also attempts to explain some complex mathematics.[/b][i][/i]
     
     
     A. Gene Young

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172. 172. CodeQueen1 03:22 AM 4/23/08

     I have read those Old Testament accounts but Jesus' example supersedes any conflicting old laws and is what we are to follow. If one believes in a supreme being wouldn't it make sense that it might be possible that we wouldn't actually be able to wrap our minds around what His ultimate plan might be. I have read Old Testament accounts and that is one's own to deal with. I'm not insisting that everyone agree with me. I think it's unfair to tell someone to throw away a huge part of what they believe in order to agree with the "more enlightened and progressive thinking more rationals" (not your quote, have heard that elsewhere). I wouldn't ask someone to set aside their belief that killing is wrong and then ask them to decide the fate of an individual accused of atrocities. We all (scientists too) bring our beliefs and who we are at the core to everything we do. I've not chosen to disregard "proofs". Many of those proofs haven't been proven to my satisfaction or there are entirely logical alternate explanations that support ID. So long as any of that can be proof for either case, to me, it would take a much greater leap of faith to believe it all just happened than that there is Someone who is all-knowing, all-powerful and did just what He said. I am really a very proof-seeking person and I've seen many things that have no scientific explanation (I realize that in many cases that may be only because no one has found it yet) however, I still choose to believe - as you have chosen not to. One wouldn't avoid using electricity or a car simply because they don't fully understand how either works. It is a choice and a faith either way and while many seem to be overly irritated that I do believe I have ill-wishes for those that don't. I only wish that there could be more tolerance for others' beliefs, without acrimony, from both sides.

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173. 173. triplea4 07:21 PM 4/23/08

     As with most political filmmakers, they tend to exaggerate and bend the truth. No surprise here.

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174. 174. jmarbas 10:17 PM 4/23/08

     "I am really a very proof-seeking person.."
     
     I disagree CodeQueen1. You are NOT a proof-seeking person. This is generally what you probably do when trying to "proof-seek" ...
     
     When you arrive at a subject of interest. You read about it for a short while: a day?, a month?, a year? and during or after that short period of time, you may turn to God for some sort of explanation.
     
     This in and of itself is NOT the problem.
     
     The problem is THE FOLLOWING:
     
     After that short period of time: a day, a month , a year...... you STOP studying the subject and just put it on the shelf because it lost your interest....you stop studying it......... Meanwhile there are COUNTLESS other people studying the exact same subject you have been studying, except they study it for many years, dedicating their ENTIRE LIVES to the subject and discussing and writing papers and sharing this information with people who have also DEDICATED a great majority of their LIFE studying that same subject. And BEFORE them, there were countless other people THROUGHOUT HISTORY who have studied that same subject and are now dead but have passed on their knowledge of it to future generations........who will....also spend MOST of their lives studying the subject.
     
     Thats the difference. THEY are the "proof-seekers" not YOU.
     
     Matthew 5:5
     Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
     
     The ID movement and the leaders of ALL the religious movements on earth are not the meek ones. They only do it because of their compelling need to "share" with the rest of the world their own very unique "opinion" (ie their interpretation of the bible, koran etc) onto other people. They think they know what God wants and they are compelled to share their wisdom with everyone else.
     
     In my opinion the scientists, mathematicians, physicists etc who work in cramped, lonely labs getting paid little but only doing it because they enjoy doing it or are looking for the truth are actually the meek ones. And are the ones actually contributing to society.
     
     "Trust those who say they are looking for the truth....be weary of those who say they have found it"

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175. 175. AGeneYoung 05:24 AM 4/24/08

     Baseless presumptive generalizations are what they are.
     
     ::turns to God::
     
     Please God, don't let me be misunderstood.
     
     
     A. Gene Young

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176. 176. DanFrieds 05:52 AM 4/24/08

     The last paragraph of #5 on this list caught my attention. I have had many discussions concerning the importance of 'falsifiability' of theory. It's frustrating when individuals defend theory by making circular arguments, which is what defenders of ID tend to do. Good job, SCIAM.

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177. 177. placeholder 06:59 PM 4/24/08

     The hubris of ID and its believers, and I suspect the reason why people react so strongly to it, is the insistance on being evaluated side by side with evolution as a valid alternative theory. It is not, and has never been a viable "theory" - what it is is an invention by non-scientists that is adapted to sound "kinda" plausible to people who are either ignorant or not interested in science. They then insist on being taken seriously and evaluated as an alternative to evolution.
     
     By this logic, I can challenge any theory, and insist that my explanation be evluated as a viable option to say...the theory of gravity, or thermodynamics. The attachment to the word "theory" also shows a profound ignorance of scientific terminology, as gravity is also labeled a theory. As a satirical article I recently read pointed out, ID is about as logical as arguing that the theory of gravity is fatally flawed and should instead be replaced with theory of "Intelligent Falling." Gravity doesn't exist, it is just God pushing us down so we stay attached to the earth. Sound silly? So does ID...
     
     Finally... claiming that you should be free to believe in anything you want is fine... but don't expect NOT to get judged for it. You are wrong when you say that people should respect your views, because if your views are ignorant and flawed nobody should be obligated to take you seriously. If you believe that the center of the earth is made of cream cheese - go ahead and believe it, but don't expect people to respect that opinion.
     
     All kidding aside... although Evolution may have some unanswered components or flaws it has certinaly gone through far more actual scientific analysis and rigourous study than ID - which is just a story with absolutely nothing to back it up. Questioning or evolving certain components of the theory of evolution is not the same thing as simply replacing it with a totally different and completely unproven "theory."

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178. 178. placeholder 07:13 PM 4/24/08

     Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New 'Intelligent Falling' Theory
     
     
     KANSAS CITY, KS—As the debate over the teaching of evolution in public schools continues, a new controversy over the science curriculum arose Monday in this embattled Midwestern state. Scientists from the Evangelical Center For Faith-Based Reasoning are now asserting that the long-held "theory of gravity" is flawed, and they have responded to it with a new theory of Intelligent Falling.
     
     Rev. Gabriel Burdett explains Intelligent Falling.
     "Things fall not because they are acted upon by some gravitational force, but because a higher intelligence, 'God' if you will, is pushing them down," said Gabriel Burdett, who holds degrees in education, applied Scripture, and physics from Oral Roberts University.
     
     Burdett added: "Gravity—which is taught to our children as a law—is founded on great gaps in understanding. The laws predict the mutual force between all bodies of mass, but they cannot explain that force. Isaac Newton himself said, 'I suspect that my theories may all depend upon a force for which philosophers have searched all of nature in vain.' Of course, he is alluding to a higher power."
     
     Founded in 1987, the ECFR is the world's leading institution of evangelical physics, a branch of physics based on literal interpretation of the Bible.
     
     According to the ECFR paper published simultaneously this week in the International Journal Of Science and the adolescent magazine God's Word For Teens!, there are many phenomena that cannot be explained by secular gravity alone, including such mysteries as how angels fly, how Jesus ascended into Heaven, and how Satan fell when cast out of Paradise.
     
     The ECFR, in conjunction with the Christian Coalition and other Christian conservative action groups, is calling for public-school curriculums to give equal time to the Intelligent Falling theory. They insist they are not asking that the theory of gravity be banned from schools, but only that students be offered both sides of the issue "so they can make an informed decision."
     
     "We just want the best possible education for Kansas' kids," Burdett said.
     
     Proponents of Intelligent Falling assert that the different theories used by secular physicists to explain gravity are not internally consistent. Even critics of Intelligent Falling admit that Einstein's ideas about gravity are mathematically irreconcilable with quantum mechanics. This fact, Intelligent Falling proponents say, proves that gravity is a theory in crisis.
     
     "Let's take a look at the evidence," said ECFR senior fellow Gregory Lunsden."In Matthew 15:14, Jesus says, 'And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.' He says nothing about some gravity making them fall—just that they will fall. Then, in Job 5:7, we read, 'But mankind is born to trouble, as surely as sparks fly upwards.' If gravity is pulling everything down, why do the sparks fly upwards with great surety? This clearly indicates that a conscious intelligence governs all falling."
     
     Critics of Intelligent Falling point out that gravity is a provable law based on empirical observations of natural phenomena. Evangelical physicists, however, insist that there is no conflict between Newton's mathematics and Holy Scripture.
     
     "Closed-minded gravitists cannot find a way to make Einstein's general relativity match up with the subatomic quantum world," said Dr. Ellen Carson, a leading Intelligent Falling expert known for her work with the Kansan Youth Ministry. "They've been trying to do it for the better part of a century now, and despite all their empirical observation and carefully compiled data, they still don't know how."
     
     "Traditional scientists admit that they cannot explain how gravitation is supposed to work," Carson said. "What the gravity-agenda scientists need to realize is that 'gravity waves' and 'gravitons' are just secular words for 'God can do whatever He wants.'"
     
     Some evangelical physicists propose that Intelligent Falling provides an elegant solution to the central problem of modern physics.
     
     "Anti-falling physicists have been theorizing for decades about the 'electromagnetic force,' the 'weak nuclear force,' the 'strong nuclear force,' and so-called 'force of gravity,'" Burdett said. "And they tilt their findings toward trying to unite them into one force. But readers of the Bible have already known for millennia what this one, unified force is: His name is Jesus."

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179. 179. bobrect 09:36 PM 4/24/08

     Very clear rebuttal - thanks. The worst part of film is the inter-splicing of so many clips that are intended to denigrate scientific progress or demonize its adherents. Even before the connection between Nazism and Darwinism is made explicitly, the directors cut in several violent, embarrassing or appalling images that have absolutely no connection to the discussion at hand. They are simply intended to manipulate the emotions of audience members. It is shameful, petty, and bigoted. In fact, it resembles the propagandistic films it decries, and seeks to rile up an audience in the very same way that other propagandistic films have done in the past. To see excerpts of such detestable films, go and see "Expelled". Otherwise, you'll learn more about Darwinism vs. ID if you stop a random 8th grader on the street and ask them what their opinions are.

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180. 180. pstanden 03:55 AM 4/26/08

     --------------------------------------------------------------------------
     Ode to the Intelligent Flying, Falling, Spaghetti Monster
     --------------------------------------------------------------------------
     
     Oh, not so good, not so clear
     You mock those that search for truth
     And invent Flying Spaghetti Monsters
     To mock the power of imagination
     And insult the getting of wisdom.
     
     We are like an infant
     Lying in a room
     Our mother is born when she enters the room
     And dies when she leaves
     Again and again she is recreated
     We can not guess of a father outside
     
     This is your life
     In the material world
     Living in a room
     Walls made of Space, Time, and Matter
     To know this room
     Not just what it Does
     But what it Is
     One must see beyond
     
     That which is needed,
     Is a metaphysical construct
     That construct exists, yet is not real
     Without it, you know nothing
     Without it, science is nothing
     Its name is Mathematics,
     The construct that exists, yet is not real
     Others there are, their names I know
     
     And what of Space, Time, and Matter
     No one knows what these are, only what they do
     In the material world
     Abstractions and entities in the eternal Now
     Blinking in and out of the stretched out fabric
     Who knows the nature of their existence?
     They are real, yet do not exist
     The tangible a dream
     
     So mock the virtual if you will
     
     But all is virtual, all the way down,
     From senses to substance
     From beginning to end
     
     --pstanden

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181. 181. pstanden 03:57 AM 4/26/08

     Take 2:
     
     Acknowledge that the parody is funny. And no, I do not believe that Creation or Intelligent Design should be taught as science.
     
     However, the quote by the putative “ECFR senior fellow Gregroy Lunsden”
     
     “This clearly indicates that a conscious intelligence governs all falling."
     
     is a rather interesting “insight”, compared with the real life Seth Lloyd, MIT Professor in Quantum Mechanics, in this WIRED Magazine March 2006 interview:
     
     "What is the universe computing when we are not hijacking it for our own purposes?
It computes itself. It computes the flow of orange juice as you drink it, or the position of each atom in your cells.
     
     ... Would it be fair to say the universe is a mind?
You could use that metaphor. And if you did, then you and I and my cat are its thoughts. But the vast majority of the universe's thinking is about humble vibrations and collisions of atoms.
     You seem to be saying that the concept of the universe as one huge quantum computer is not just a metaphor - it's real.
Absolutely. Atoms and electrons are bits. Atomic collisions are "ops." Machine language is the laws of physics. The universe is a quantum computer."

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182. 182. Russerford 05:33 AM 4/26/08

     I saw the movie and believe it confirmed what I've witnessed for years as a decided bias and, in my opinion, somewhat blind acceptance of the supposed "established fact" of evolution among those in Big Education, Big Science, and Big Media (yes, I use those terms intentionally, for emphasis). Your "rebuttal" is interesting and somewhat enlightening. I found your comments about scientific objections to ID particularly helpful. I would certainly hope scientists apply this same rigor in evaluating some of the preposterous claims of evolutionists who constantly present as indisputable fact extremely speculative and totally unverifiable assertions about origins of man and other complex organisms.

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183. 183. Russerford 05:43 AM 4/26/08

     Your reply confirms the main theme of the movie. It's actually laughable that you see the Big Bad Creationists, perhaps with that little hole-in-the-wall office portrayed in the movie as their Center, as a threat to your religion. You can speak of God all you want, but it's obvious that your religiously held tenets are being challenged and you find that intolerable!

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184. 184. WillLCC 07:41 AM 4/26/08

     I think that the movie was trying to get to a deeper point than all of this fluff material mentioned. At the end, when Stein is talking with Dawkins, he asks him to put a number on his belief, where Dawkins replies '99%.' Although he was pressured into the question, it still shows he isn't "100%" positive that Darwin's theory is fact. What I took from this is that since the chances of the world coming to life the way it has (1 in a billion trillion or something like that) has the same probability of ID to be fact. So if this is the case, why shouldn't ID be validated in scientific discussions if these two scenarios are just as likely?

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185. 185. shayne.oneill 07:30 PM 4/26/08

     Your censoring my free thought... by being right. Damn science :(

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186. 186. Shinjiru 11:39 PM 4/26/08

     When someone is being [i]intellectually dishonest[/i] with can be quite frustrating. The polarizing that was created was not by the editors of SciAM. If you had actually listened to the interview with Mark Mathus you would have realized this.
     
     This position that the editors had taken on science and religion was that that [u]science and religion do co-exist[/u]. However, Mr. Mathus continued to present the argument that on the you are either support the atheist evolution or believe in an intelligent designer. This continued when the editors attempted to present arguments that both do actually co-exist. Mr. Mathus stated by interviewing an non-atheist who support evolution would confuse the issue. This is being [i]intellectually dishonest[/i].

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187. 187. Russerford 01:08 AM 4/27/08

     I try to live according to the self-imposed principle that my opinion about a matter is worth very little unless I can articulate fairly accurately the opposing opionion. On the issue spoken of here, while my thinking, observations and inclination have become more strongly aligned with the "intelligent design" side, I am trying to educate myself further through reading and discussion of people with different viewpoints.

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188. 188. Russerford 01:15 AM 4/27/08

     One thing that should be abundantly clear to any honest student of history and science is that there have been brilliant scientists through the ages, up to the present, who were variously theists and atheists. For those of you (and it appears there are many) who sneer at the ideas of creation and/or intelligent design and insinuate that one could not be a scientist and hold such "stupid" views, I refer you to the following article written as a rebuttal to an earlier article in Scientific American:
     15 Answers to John Rennie and Scientific Americans Nonsense (By section)
     by Bert Thompson, Ph.D. and Brad Harrub, Ph.D.

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189. 189. Shinjiru 02:57 AM 4/27/08

     I would be hesitant in calling this article a rebuttal to what presented in the movie. This is more because a rebuttal requires something to be a difference of opinion. This article presents information that was omitted or manipulated by the makes of Expelled used to support their argument.
     
     The makes of Expelled used to try to link the Holocaust to the theory of Evolution. In the interview with Mark Mathis, he denies this. Additionally, he takes offense to the fact that some of the editor present that someone could make the conclusion that the Holocaust was a direct result of Darwin's theory. Here is a link to Mr. Mathis true believe of on this issue.
     
     http://live.hollywoodjesus.com/?p=1940&page;=3
     
     Here is a quote from "Mark Mathis interview" which can be found at Worldontheweb (ontheweb)
     http://www.worldontheweb.com/2008/03/28/mark-mathis-interview/
     
     [i]
     [b]Mathis:[/b] Should we shy away from the truth? People are uncomfortable that a materialist philosophy can lead to a phenomenon like Nazism. Just because it makes people uncomfortable doesn’t mean we should leave it out. All the more reason we should leave it in. It’s not a guaranteed outcome, and we’re not saying that. But…we know that Adolph Hitler was a staunch Darwinist, and those ideals consciously drove him. It was a consequence. The unfortunate thing in this is that there are far too many people have misappropriated Nazism to their own agenda. It’s “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” syndrome.[/i]
     
     To me it is more that Mr. Mathis is uncomfortable with the connect after listening to "Roundtable Discussion with Mark Mathis".
     
     There are people who have very deep religious conviction, and this should be commended. It is very troubling when they need to change the world in so that it can be compatible with their religious views. Even when it becomes apparent that they do not have any understanding of the subject matter.
     
     Take for example an article written by Rev. Edith Kaiser is associate professor of Bible at Global University in Springfield.
     
     http://www.news-leader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080426/OPINIONS02/804260305
     
     She is quite harsh towards scientists, but shows no knowledge of various areas of study. This includes astronomy, geology, medical history and of course biology.
     
     In an article by Bert Thompson, Ph.D. and Brad Harrub, Ph.D. (thanks Russerford-reply 196). The authors argue that "[i]If testimony from many of the evolutionists themselves is taken at face value, the study of dinosaurs was the deciding factor in their conclusion to abandon their belief in God and to accept in its place organic evolution.[/i]" You can read the full article yourself.
     
     http://www.apologeticspress.com/articles/15
     
     In this world we have two types of materialism. The materialist world that is the corner stone of scientific and academic inquiry. The other materialist desire to have material goods. These are not the same and it is hard to understand how someone can make such as linguistic error.
     
     The concussion that can be obtained is that the supports of Intelligent Design deeply believe that they are doing the right thing. They believe that they are absolutely correct in their assertions, and that materialism is a great threat to them.

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190. 190. Cool-Braid 12:56 PM 4/28/08

     It is clear here that the writers are themselves ignorant of the fact that Evolution is a totally Faith Based Assumption. What Stein is doing is exposing the fear reactions of an opposing Faith and questioning the closed minds that will not allow an open platform on the beginnings and state of Life but rather chose to direct the student to believe rather than question any Theory presented as Valid.
     Too many Scientists fail to appreciate the Leap of Faith required to understand our beginnings and allow for possibilities that we could All be Wrong in our Theoretical understanding. Many early assumptions have been turned on their head, Open your Minds and think for yourselves. Just as Medicine creates as many problems as it solves, Science is there to Investigate not to Have A Side in any Argument and if you are a true Scientist You'd Know that a closed mind choses not to learn.

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191. 191. atmanning 12:57 PM 4/28/08

     It looks like you have a few valid criticisms of the movie, but you don't seem to be able to dispute the overwhelming evidence of systematic censorship of ID proponents throughout the current 'scientific' community. Your first dispute with the Darwin quote is very weak, as the full quote doesn't reveal a different meaning. The video clips were there to keep the attention of the media-children and interject some humor/satire.

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192. 192. placeholder 07:47 PM 4/28/08

     Cool-Braid - your random capitalization notwithstanding, your reply makes no sense, and is a random string of factually incorrect statements rather than any arguement for or against anything. Advocates like you make ID look worse than it already does.
     
     And no, I do not respect your views or opinions - not because they are different but because they are objectively ignorant and stupid. If you want to argue something with someone, it is worthwhile to at least have a passable understanding of both sides, or least be able to articulate your position beyond listing a random selection of your own statements as "facts."

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193. 193. placeholder 08:10 PM 4/28/08

     WilLCC - not sure I follow your logic. Most scientific theories are not 100% certain. That is why they are called theories in general - because science is not as conceited as religion, and does not pretend to know all the answers to all questions at all times. That said - 99% certain is pretty certain - not to mention that the 1% most likely pertains to the fact that there may be small nuances or differences from in some of the components, and not that the entire theory has a 1% chance of being entirely wrong.
     
     On the other hand - where exactly did you get the statistic that ID is also 99% certain? All that rigorous study it has undergone? all the of the subcomponents of this "theory" that have been proved? All the documentation and evidence? Of course not... since none of those things exist for ID.
     
     So no, they are not equal, they do not have the same probability of being accurate, and your opinion that ID is correct is not even remotely as valid as that of someone who belives in evolution.
     
     It is however a lot easier to believe in ID, or any other theory that ends at "God did it." then it is to actually learn things... like those difficult and pesky theories of gravity, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, etc. ID is for the intellectually lazy and generally stupid who would rather substitute their own theories that don't make them feel inferior to people who actually do the work, learn the science, and take the time to study and understand things.

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194. 194. Kueros 09:52 PM 4/28/08

     It is absolutely disgusting to me that there has been such a large scale resurgence of irrationality within American culture. Not only does it seem that long settle debates are being reignited but an entire generation has been raised in these muddy waters to ensure that this stupid argument will continue. Being scientists means we feel inclined to argue rationally with these people with the intention of persuading them, however they have arisen in a society permeated with persuasive arguments and somehow managed to remain irrational. The fact that a large studio would even bother releasing such drivel bodes poorly for the future of this country.

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195. 195. Chaosqueued 07:29 PM 4/29/08

     > At
     > the end, when Stein is talking with Dawkins, he asks
     > him to put a number on his belief, where Dawkins
     > replies '99%.' ... What I took from this
     > is that since the chances of the world coming to life
     > the way it has (1 in a billion trillion or something
     > like that) has the same probability of ID to be fact.
     > So if this is the case, why shouldn't ID be
     > e validated in scientific discussions if these two
     > scenarios are just as likely?
     
     
     That is bad probability. You are trying to hook one into the other with out combining their probabilities.
     
     Just because you rolled a 3 on one 6 sided dice (1:6) doesn't mean you will roll a 3 again (1:36) or on a different dice (1:36)
     
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dice#Probability
     
     so to say that the probability of the universe forming (1 in a billion trillion) and that it was formed by an intelligence (1 in a billion trillion) is actually (1 in a [billion trillion]^2 ).

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196. 196. Chaosqueued 07:57 PM 4/29/08

     > It is clear here that the writers are themselves
     > ignorant of the fact that Evolution is a totally
     > Faith Based Assumption.
     
     No it is not, it is peer reviewed and the best answer we have at the moment.
     
     > What Stein is doing is
     > exposing the fear reactions of an opposing Faith and
     > questioning the closed minds that will not allow an
     > open platform on the beginnings and state of Life but
     > rather chose to direct the student to believe rather
     > than question any Theory presented as Valid.
     
     What Stein is doing is throwing Oranges on the Apple cart. It is not "open minded" math when 2+2 = 5, it is wrong. Going for the right answer in the face of wrong ones is not closed mindedness.
     
     > Open your Minds and
     > think for yourselves.
     
     All I hear from you ID people is "open your mind and think like me." From the crusades to now, you are all the same autonomous robots, sending out missionaries to destroy the heathens and the heretics. Well you ain't taking over Science-land. Your god has no power here.
     
     > Science is there to
     > Investigate not to Have A Side in any Argument and if
     > you are a true Scientist You'd Know that a closed
     > mind choses not to learn.
     
     So true. Since there is nothing to investigate with ID-ism, it never has an opposing side.
     
     Your ID-ism is not an alternative to Evolution, you are trying to spread an alternative to Science itself and that is hogwash.

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197. 197. bholvey29 07:55 PM 4/30/08

     If those who oppose ID think this movie is preposterous, why do they bother? Please don't tell me that they're concerned for science education, public irrationality, etc. Science and research will continue. Plus, we've got the ACLU to ensure that no one openly questions humanism and/or materialism in the schools. If anything, it seems like liberal evolutionists are just scared. There aren't any other good reasons to elicit the level of concern they do :)

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198. 198. Digoweli 08:47 AM 5/3/08

     Have not and will not see the movie. Have never liked or respected Ben Stein's Utilitarian views of reality and consider him to be a prime example of the movies as a business. There's big business out there in those communities of faith. (think the tune and then sing.....) That's Entertainment. Digoweli

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199. 199. Russerford 08:13 PM 5/3/08

     Chaosqueued stated: "From the crusades to now, you are all the same autonomous robots, sending out missionaries to destroy the heathens and the heretics."
     
     The irony of this statement is so rich! This "argument" is almost always marched out by secular humanists as the trump card which is apparently meant to silence any discussion that opposes their "scientifically established facts". Of course, harking back to the crusades, they never mention who the real enemies of freedom have been in modern times; for example, those in the officially atheistic Soviet state of the 1900's who eliminated an estimated 20 million or so opponents of their version of secular fundamentalism. For this reason alone, Ben Stein's movie, hyperbole and all, comes at an opportune time.

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200. 200. Art for Science 12:29 AM 5/5/08

     Russerford said:
     
     "Chaosqueued stated: "From the crusades to now, you are all the same autonomous robots, sending out missionaries to destroy the heathens and the heretics."
     
     "The irony of this statement is so rich! This "argument" is almost always marched out by secular humanists as the trump card which is apparently meant to silence any discussion that opposes their "scientifically established facts". Of course, harking back to the crusades, they never mention who the real enemies of freedom have been in modern times; for example, those in the officially atheistic Soviet state of the 1900's who eliminated an estimated 20 million or so opponents of their version of secular fundamentalism. For this reason alone, Ben Stein's movie, hyperbole and all, comes at an opportune time."
     
     The trouble is that ID advocates start out by saying they want to engage in a logical discussion of the merits of their point of view, and then proceed to ignore anything that logically challenges their point of view. They descend into circular reasoning, ad hominem attacks and other faulty forms of reasoning, to the point where those of us actually interested in the logic of the "debate" get so frustrated that we spin off into unconnected reasoning ourselves, as did Chaosqueued here. (temper, temper!) LOL.
     
     Having said that, what does anything you have said to do with either evolution or intelligent design? We are talking about science, I thought, not secular humanism. As such, if this is truly--as ID advocates claim--a discussion about the relative merits of 2 SCIENTIFIC theories, shouldn't scientifically established facts have some standing?
     
     Still and more: even the unrelated example you present of the Soviet suppression is riddled with logical fallacies. You are confusing correlation with causation by implying that because the Soviets were atheists they were killers. They were also totalitarians, they also live in a very cold place where maybe the weather had as much to do with them killing people as their alleged atheism.
     
     Chaosqueued's comments were ad hominem (if understandable) but so was your response. So can we all go back to our corners and talk about the actual subject?

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201. 201. Art for Science 01:02 AM 5/5/08

     Russerford said:
     
     "One thing that should be abundantly clear to any honest student of history and science is that there have been brilliant scientists through the ages, up to the present, who were variously theists and atheists. For those of you (and it appears there are many) who sneer at the ideas of creation and/or intelligent design and insinuate that one could not be a scientist and hold such "stupid" views,..."
     
     There are zealots on both sides who denigrate the other side for alternately their beliefs or lack thereof. I am not one. Yes, there are many professed scientists of faith, and always have been. How they reconcile their faith with the scientific evidence that their research produces is between them and their God, and I assume that they tend not to be--with notable exceptions--literalistic in their interpretation of the Bible. It is interesting that the producers of this movie decided not to include any of them in this film.
     
     The problem is not with the personal faith of a scientist, but when they insinuate that faith into what is ostensibly scientific work. Scientific theory BY DEFINITION must be duplicable, testable and refutable. (that is, there must be an experimental way to definitively refute the theory.) As such science must confine itself to the natural world. Intelligent design implies an unknowable untestable outside intelligence; strictly speaking, a supernatural explanation of species development, so by very definition is outside the realm of serious science. There may come a day when science can meet your "god", it's not now however. If that day comes I'm sure we'll get an answer to the validity of intelligent design, because we will be able to test it, and at that point the theory would be science.
     
     The insistence of a hearing in the realm of science for an unscientific theory is at best misplaced, at worst a symptom of an ulterior motive, not to mention completely illogical.

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202. 202. Art for Science 01:22 AM 5/5/08

     bholvey29 wrote:
     
     "If those who oppose ID think this movie is preposterous, why do they bother? Please don't tell me that they're concerned for science education, public irrationality, etc."
     
     Yes, we most certainly are.
     
     "Science and research will continue."
     
     Yes, just not in Amerika-- not once all our children believe that "God did it" constitutes good scientific reasoning.
     
     "Plus, we've got the ACLU to ensure that no one openly questions humanism and/or materialism in the schools."
     
     The ACLU? You mean that little non-porfit orginization with a national annual budget of about $12 million? I wonder how much they spent making this movie?
     
     " If anything, it seems like liberal evolutionists are just scared. There aren't any other good reasons to elicit the level of concern they do :)"
     
     Yes we are. Dick Cheney is running Amerika. Be very afraid.

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203. 203. Art for Science 02:30 AM 5/5/08

     > It is unfair to say that all individuals believing in
     > ID want to force their view on everyone just as it
     > would be unfair to claim that all of those in the
     > scientific community are trying to do the same.
     
     Certainly not the individuals listening to the argument, but those pushing for inclusion of ID in school science curriculums most certainly are. ID is NOT science.
     
     > It makes sense that if you believe you have the correct
     > answer you'd want to
     > share. Evolution\Darwinism is a theory. It it is
     > based on someone's beliefs not fact.
     
     No, it's not. It is a theoretical argument following the rules of logic backed up with--at this point in time almost 100 years of--ongoing scientific, verifiable FACT.
     
     > Since science is supposed to be observable
     > fact and no one was here to observe our beginnings
     > [according to evolution, although according to
     > creationist's beliefs there was - and it was
     > documented], regardless of how you believe that
     > occurred, neither can be scientific "fact".
     
     First, there are many facts that can be observed in the fossil record, in genetic testing and in other natural evidential records. The testing continues. As more data comes in the theory (ANY scientific theory) undergoes changes. That is not a refutation of the theory, but a tightening of it's strictures.
     
     Scientific "observation" doesn't mean some one necessarily had to see it for it to be proved true in the scientific community any more than I have to go to "Turkey" (the only country with a worse education record than the US on this issue) to know that in fact there is such a country. This is not faith, this is logical reasoning applied to empirical data.
     
     Finally, creationists always insist that evolution is a theory about the beginning of life. IT'S NOT. It's about the variation of species. While it may have implications pertaining to the origin of life, that is not strictly speaking what evolution is about.
     
     
     > Let's face it: neither ID nor
     > evolution can ever be conclusively and unquestionably
     > proven and as such, there will always be an element
     > of "faith" involved in either belief. Why not teach
     > evolution as the theory that it is and be tolerant of
     > others beliefs as well? I do believe that without
     > God in the mix we devalue life & that is a slippery
     > slope.
     
     Evolution is NOT faith! It is well researched, well challenged, and a living EVOLVING scientific theory. Theory when spoken of in science is NOT just a "guess". To put ID which IS faith on the same playing field is inherently faulty logic. I promise not to show up at your church and insist you listen to my lecture on the comparative styles of Jane Austin and Emily Bronte as a sermon. All I ask is that you don't show up in my science class and insist on giving a sermon (read ID) on how God created the world. Evolution IS taught as the theory it is. The proponents of ID consistently refuse to understand the definition of" theory" as it applies to science. It's very frustrating!
     
     You are more than welcome to your belief that without God the world would be evil. I have more faith in the innate (even naturally selected for) goodness of the human race than that.

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204. 204. Art for Science 02:41 AM 5/5/08

     > Evolutionists are wrong! ID is testable in scientific
     > way. It makes several predictions of events.
     > 1. Fully developed new species will appear at random
     > points in time. There will be no warning and no past
     > history but a breeding herd of "hiptoplats" may
     > suddenly appear in central park.
     > 2. The creator is super-powerful and must know that
     > the debate is raging on earth. Look for him to come
     > up with a really big miracle. Something so clear
     > that people will know that he is "da bomb". Maybe
     > instead of a world-wide flood (been there, done that)
     > he could make all the worlds oceans disappear
     > instantly.
     >
     > Either one of the above will prove ID. Do you think
     > it will happen? Lets all be on the look out.
     
     LOL!
     
     Oh no! I can see it now--global warming as proof of ID!

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205. 205. miuixtli 08:43 AM 5/5/08

     The consistent problem I see again and again with ID proponents is their immature quality. I've dealt with teenagers who got offended simply because I made them feel insecure while explaining something which was beyond them. Sure this is offensive to ID'ists, but it resonates so much with my personal experience that I can't help making that correlation. It is very akin to discussions I've had with religious zealots when they ask *me* why I believe what I believe. The typical outcome is that my explanations, even if intended as just personal beliefs or stances, will offend and be taken as personal attacks even if that wasn't the intention. I see the same behavior in ID people.
     
     Furthermore, they counter reasonable arguments and questioning with ad hominem attacks, blaming others for the same actions they don't hold back from taking upon, endless amount of posturing, repeated statements yet no evidence to back them up, as well as "No I didn't, you did" childish replies.
     
     It's frustrating because they are deeply impenetrable and vacuous. No matter how much proof has been asked from them (which has never been presented effectively), and how many explanations, demonstrations of data and experiments have been presented, Evolution still only "dogma" because they want it to be.
     
     The psychological "artificial victim" aspect and the constant emotional projection is fascinating to me in a way, but also deeply disturbing because they are dragging others who don't know better with them, and because I fear for the future of an already ill education system.

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206. 206. sephers165 05:58 PM 5/5/08

     I went and saw and expelled and I liked it. The question it makes me think of is why does no one listen to anyone. IDer's refuse to listen to Darwinists, and Darwinists refuse to listen to IDer's.
     
     IDer's are automatically ignorant morons, and Darwinists are atheistic Nazi's. Neither of these are entirely true.
     
     The problem of the issue lies with both sides. Darwinists will not listen to IDer's arguments or read their books. If they did then they would be able to point out the specifics of where their argument is flawed rather than just make a generalization of all IDer's as religious idiots.
     
     IDer's immediately demonize every Darwinist saying they are trying to promote no purpose in life and they're evil and yada yada yada.
     
     Here is the question I want to have answered, You who are IDer's have you read anything by Darwinists, atheists or anything else, or have you only read things supporting your view. You who are Darwinists, what books by IDer's, creationsists, religious philosophers have you read, plus have you even read the Origin of Species.
     
     The reason I ask is because I believe both sides believe what they hear without ever thinking critically about it.
     
     In high school I was told about evolution so I believed it and argued with my Mom that it was true. I became a Christian and then was told God (An intelligent being) designed everything and argued with others it was true. That got me and others nowhere. So what I did was read books by Christian Philosophers (C.S. Lewis Mere Christianity) and articles by IDer's (discovery institute) as well as books by Richard Dawkins (God Delusion) and am planning to read Origin of Species and other articles on evolution.
     
     Although I am biased towards one I would at least like to be informed of the other argument. All I ask of you all is the same. If you want to better argue for Darwin/Evolution/Atheism you had better learn about what the other side has to say, so you know what to refute, same goes for those arguing for Creationism/ID/Christianity. Or are you to afraid to find out what the other has to say?
     
     Seth
     
     
     
     If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.
     C. S. Lewis (former Atheist turned Christian)
     
     
     P.s. Any suggestions for good reading for either side of the argument?

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207. 207. sephers165 06:09 PM 5/5/08

     Said Earlier
     "Scientific theory BY DEFINITION must be duplicable, testable and refutable. (that is, there must be an experimental way to definitively refute the theory.) "
     
     As someone who is purely seeking to be better informed. Can you explain how Evolution does this. I am already aware of how ID doesn't do this but I am unaware of how Evolution does. Once again I'm not being sarcastic or using this as a rebuttal to Evolution but as someone who is ignorant as to why Evolutionists believe so strongly what they do. What are the duplicable testable and refutable experiments that can be done with Evolution?
     
     Thanks,
     
     Seth

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208. 208. Art for Science 08:12 PM 5/5/08

     > Said Earlier
     > "Scientific theory BY DEFINITION must be duplicable,
     > testable and refutable. (that is, there must be an
     > experimental way to definitively refute the theory.)
     > "
     >
     > As someone who is purely seeking to be better
     > informed. Can you explain how Evolution does this. I
     > am already aware of how ID doesn't do this but I am
     > unaware of how Evolution does. Once again I'm not
     > being sarcastic or using this as a rebuttal to
     > Evolution but as someone who is ignorant as to why
     > Evolutionists believe so strongly what they do. What
     > are the duplicable testable and refutable experiments
     > that can be done with Evolution?
     >
     > Thanks,
     >
     > Seth
     
     Seth,
     I, like you, am merely an amateur--although I believe a fairly informed one. There are many better people who can reply to this (and have) in a rigorous scientific way. Having said that, since it was me you were quoting I'll give it a go.
     
     Instance: (and I apologize to the scientists for my poor grasp here) Basically, by following the reasoning of evolutionary biology we can posit a "tree of life" on which all living beings can be placed in terms of their evolutionary relationships. This is a predictive model--in other words, it makes predictions about where a species SHOULD fall even before we have either an example of the existence of such a species or the ability to prove its location on this tree. If we then examine the creature's DNA (which of course wasn't even possible or known at the time of Darwin) we would expect it to be related to the flora/fauna most closely associated to it on the theoretical tree. If this is NOT true, then the theory has a problem--although not necessarily a fatal one--that would depend on the seriousness of the problem, that is, the ability of scientists to adapt the existing theory to fit the new data, or not. i.e.: finding that a bat species is more closely related to an ape than a bird (which it is) probably just indicates that the particular model we were using is wrong. On the other hand if we were to find evidence that an entire species suddenly appeared in the fossil record fully developed with no indications that it developed to or from another species, that would fly in the face of the theory as a whole. Thereby we have a way to prove it wrong, (refute-ability) although this is probably not the best or strongest example, just the easiest one for me to express. And again, in 140 years of research not one shred of evidence has been found to conclusively disprove the theory as a whole, while on the other hand evidence from multiple unrelated fields of science have all added to its confirmation.
     
     As expressed by actual scientists, this IS rocket science, and we all need to educate ourselves about the details if we want to talk meaningfully about it.
     
     I would suggest this website [url http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/][/url] for more in depth information. Hope I helped.
     
     --
     Edited by Art for Science at 05/05/2008 2:04 PM

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209. 209. Art for Science 08:36 PM 5/5/08

     > In high school I was told about evolution so I
     > believed it and argued with my Mom that it was true.
     > I became a Christian and then was told God (An
     > intelligent being) designed everything and argued
     > with others it was true. That got me and others
     > nowhere. So what I did was read books by Christian
     > Philosophers (C.S. Lewis Mere Christianity) and
     > articles by IDer's (discovery institute) as well as
     > books by Richard Dawkins (God Delusion) and am
     > planning to read Origin of Species and other articles
     > on evolution.
     
     Good on you, keep reading, keep an open mind.
     Bear in mind though what is being asked and done here, what it really is that the science community objects to:
     
     Strictly as scientists I don't think anyone objects to a person believing what he or she wants to about the "beginning of life" (which isn't what evolution is about anyway). The problem is with insisting that something which isn't science be taught as science. It's not that ID is wrong (it may or may not be) its that it is untestable, therefore unscientific. You rightly call CS Lewis a philosopher, not a scientist. Keep these distinctions clearly in mind.

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210. 210. Art for Science 09:09 PM 5/5/08

     > The consistent problem I see again and again with ID
     > proponents is their immature quality. I've dealt
     > with teenagers who got offended simply because I made
     > them feel insecure while explaining something which
     > was beyond them. Sure this is offensive to ID'ists,
     > but it resonates so much with my personal experience
     > that I can't help making that correlation. It is
     > very akin to discussions I've had with religious
     > zealots when they ask *me* why I believe what I
     > believe. The typical outcome is that my
     > explanations, even if intended as just personal
     > beliefs or stances, will offend and be taken as
     > personal attacks even if that wasn't the intention.
     > I see the same behavior in ID people.
     >
     > Furthermore, they counter reasonable arguments and
     > questioning with ad hominem attacks, blaming others
     > for the same actions they don't hold back from taking
     > upon, endless amount of posturing, repeated
     > statements yet no evidence to back them up, as well
     > as "No I didn't, you did" childish replies.
     >
     > It's frustrating because they are deeply impenetrable
     > and vacuous. No matter how much proof has been asked
     > from them (which has never been presented
     > effectively), and how many explanations,
     > demonstrations of data and experiments have been
     > presented, Evolution still only "dogma" because they
     > want it to be.
     >
     > The psychological "artificial victim" aspect and the
     > constant emotional projection is fascinating to me in
     > a way, but also deeply disturbing because they are
     > dragging others who don't know better with them, and
     > because I fear for the future of an already ill
     > education system.
     
     Amen sister! testify!

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211. 211. sephers165 03:39 PM 5/6/08

     I mean those are okay responses but it's not like a statement that simple would be enough to convince me. Because let's say I hear an argument for evolution that sounds good, but at the same time isn't stating some of the assumptions they make, if I then hear an argument for ID it sounds good as well. How do you determine which one is true.
     
     Once again I really wish both sides would listen to the other. Telling me ID is stupid and has no merit, doesn't invalidate the good arguments I heard for it, all it does is make me think you haven't heard the same arguments I've heard. For example a video at
     
     [url http://www.whatyououghttoknow.com/show/2008/05/01/darwins-intelligent-design/]http://www.whatyououghttoknow.com/show/2008/05/01/darwins-intelligent-design/[/url]
     
     while poking fun at ID pretending to have nothing to do with God it makes convincing arguments to me that Evolution isn't rooted in as much science as everyone says.
     
     Can someone watch this video and point to me where they are making errors in their views specifically towards [i]Evolution[/i].
     
     Also I am curious to all of those who favor Evolution or favor ID; Have you read Darwin's Origin of Species (maybe append a ""Have read OoS", or "haven't read Oos"). That way we know that those who argue for evolution are knowledgeable in the foundation of their arguments, or if they favor ID they are knowledgeable in the foundation of the argument they are against.
     
     Seth - Currently Reading OoS
     
     (free to read online
     [url http://www.classicreader.com/booktoc.php/sid.2/bookid.107/]http://www.classicreader.com/booktoc.php/sid.2/bookid.107/[/url]
     )
     
     P.S. (By the way someone said Darwin didn't use the term "Survival of the Fittest" that shows they haven't read chapter IV on Natural Selection where he uses it pretty freely. Although Darwin should probably have said " survival of the [i][/i]fitter[i][/i] " since that is more accurate to his argument.

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212. 212. Frank M 05:24 PM 5/6/08

     I find it sad that of the six things pointed to by Scientific American to criticize in Expelled, not one of them related to the science involved. There was not enough time in the movie spent on evidence for ID, in my opinion, but SA didn't address it all, which is typical for the "scientists" who attempt to refute ID by tying it to religion.
     
     Only Sunny and SumYungGuy really brought forth any evidence at all. This ID versus Accident Theory argument gets too religious in most venues, but it shouldn't happen here on an SA blog. Please keep this about science.
     
     On the other hand, mathematics are a valid consideration. The poster who claimed ID uses the roll of a dice to show a 1 out of 6 chance, you fail your math class. The math of ID centers around the ratio between functional and non-functional physiological formations and microbiological systems. Excluding simplistic functionality, such as padding or ballast, there should be quintillions upon quintillions of non-functional mess for every functional formation.
     
     Both fossil and contemporary evidence shows that we are farfrom this number. In fact, there are no tissues in any living thing that seemed to have formed without a purpose. Vestigial organs such as whale "legs" are remainders of a time when the legs did serve a purpose. Even if you want to argue such things as "junk" DNA, the numbers we see are the reversal of Darwin's predictions.
     
     This makes sense because Darwinism is a reversal of mathematical principles. Darwin was wrong.

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213. 213. sephers165 05:33 PM 5/6/08

     > This makes sense because Darwinism is a reversal of
     > mathematical principles. Darwin was wrong.
     
     Frank,
     
     Have you read Origin of Species to make the assertion that Darwin was indeed wrong. Or are you just like evolutionists believing everything you are told without thinking critically , except in your case believing all the ID arguments and saying things like Darwin was wrong.
     
     I believe Darwin makes good points on the theory of Natural Selection, although some of the conclusions he reaches due to Natural selection i disagree with.
     
     Seth - Currently reading OoS.
     
     --
     Edited by sephers165 at 05/06/2008 10:35 AM

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214. 214. Frank M 05:43 PM 5/6/08

     Seth, I admire your open-minded approach. I have always believed that if anyone with a brain (an open one)investigates this issue enough, they will become an IDist. The scientific evidence is overwhelming and conclusive.
     
     I started out (I'm embarrassed to admit) a Darwinist, but as a Biology Major in College I eventually realized it was a fraud.
     
     I recommend Michael Behe's "Darwin's Black Box" to study irreducible complexity (IC). My only contention with Behe is that he defines IC too stringently. By overstating, he says that a system is IC if virtually none of its parts could have been used for something else. All a Darwinist has to do is find any single part and find a use for it to "refute" his IC.
     
     A system should be considered Irreducibly Complex if there is no Darwinian explanation for it. This definition, however valid, makes virtually all parts of all living things IC.
     
     Most attempts to refute IC either start with the irreducibly complex stuff already in place (see Wikipedia's "explanation" of the origins of the eye - though their drawings do not match fossil evidence) or else they take a physical formation and stretch it, move it, alter its tissues, chop it and change its function from something to nothing at all to something else. All of which would have been far easier to start from scratch.
     
     My only issue with IC is that it gives too much credit to "selection", which does absolutely nothing anyway. It is a little like using an atomic bomb to squash the Darwinist gnat, when all you need is a rolled up newspaper.

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215. 215. Frank M 06:10 PM 5/6/08

     Seth, I must say it has been decades since I read OoS. (I'm probably a bit older than you.) I was fascinated with the Materialist explanation for life's formation from 10th grade until my sophomore year in college, when I started to think it all through more.
     
     I am a true IDist by now, and as such I believe in common descent with modification, but the modification is controlled intelligently in the same way other functional proteins are controlled intelligently. I have learned a lot about the properties of life that they will never teach you in school.
     
     My best suggestion for you as you learn is to think and ask questions! If a Materialist claims that something happens because of chemicals, DNA or proteins, ask how it is that we just happen to see that particular chemical reacting at that particular time every time. Make a note of each time matter has to move in order to complete a biological function and ask what moved the matter.
     
     Darwin did not add much of value to the study of evolution. Natural selection as a theory COULD happen, but it rarely, if ever, does. Species from the fittest to the least fit, usually become extinct in mass extinction events, such as famine, climate change or natural catastrophes, few if any of which had anything to do with mutating wrong.
     
     Moreover, Natural Selection is just a subtractive filter with no creative force at all. In chicken and egg terms, it explains why there are no chickens who don't lay eggs (duh), but it doesn't explain the existence of eggs.
     
     When it comes down to it, a Materialist believes that molecules cooperate, animate, reproduce, process energy, self-fuel, heal, feel and think by accident. I reject that ridiculous assumption and so does the evidence.

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216. 216. sephers165 06:51 PM 5/6/08

     Thanks Frank, good responses. I am glad to hear that you think critically of the subject and don't just take one to be true and one to be false without having a reason to believe so.
     
     I won't believe anything just because I'm told it's true and that's why I don't buy into everything Evolution says. For instance I think Natural Selection happens. Thinking Mendelian genetics, there could be a gene for an animal with long hair and a gene for short hair, let's say big 'L' and lil 'l'. Then if it gets really cold, those that get the big 'L' I think would survive more readily than those with 'l'. Over enough time maybe all 'l' genes are gone and the animals all over the planet are only left with big 'L' and are all hairy.
     
     That seems like natural selection to me, but then there is this jump to believing that also means by the same process you get new species. I know how they arrive at the conclusion (mutations, millions of years and the like) but I've never seen how you can prove that actually happened. So although ash on a tree may turn a moth from white to grey, i don't believe it turns a moth to a bug, or a dinosaur or something. I find it easier to believe that God made all creatures how they were than to think that Natural Selection randomly made all creatures from a single living thing billions of years ago.
     
     Maybe I am ignorant but rather than call me so, take the five best arguments the IDer's make and explain why they shouldn't be believed and what five arguments from Evolution best explain the things in their absence.
     
     Seth

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217. 217. Frank M 06:59 PM 5/6/08

     The claim that ID is not testable is completely false. Fossil evidence supports functional life formation, not random chance, so the Darwinists use "selection" and the "millions of years" excuse to create a fictional world of deceased asymettrical freaky mutants that are never seen in evidence.
     
     But evolution and reproduction are ongoing. Beyond fossil evidence, any modern day evidence of evolution can be studied to see if it follows parental lineage and to to see if it meets mathematical probabilities.
     
     Someone mentioned the famous finches of the Galapagos. Family lineage was not documented, but by sheer numbers, the evolution was parallel because there wouldn't have been enough hatches to stay within lineage. The changes to the birds' beaks went back and forth, from one shape to another, generation by generation, in accordance with the drought conditions.
     
     This follows ID's prediction that genetic editing is intelligent and follows a purpose. Darwinian projection that there would be quintillions of messy chaotic mutations for every lucky functional one is obliterated.
     
     Bacteria can be presented with anti-biotics and genetic changes can be observed in a petri dish. Quite predictably, the bacteria will modify their genes in order to gain life-saving resistence to the anti-biotics. Bacteria stay in stasis for millions of years, then suddenly get just the life-saving genetic upgrades just at the moment they need it. This is evidence of intelligent genetics, not random luck.
     
     There is much more. Virtually any evidence of evolution can be observed to see if there are quintillions of pointless blobs for every functional tube or chamber of enzymes. Random chance mutation fails every time.

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218. 218. Art for Science 08:27 PM 5/6/08

     > I mean those are okay responses but it's not like a
     > statement that simple would be enough to convince me.
     > Because let's say I hear an argument for evolution
     > that sounds good, but at the same time isn't stating
     > some of the assumptions they make, if I then hear an
     > argument for ID it sounds good as well. How do you
     > determine which one is true.
     
     If you're a scientist you apply the scientific method and logic. Unfortunately you can't do this with ID because it is untestable and unverifiable.
     
     > Once again I really wish both sides would listen to
     > the other. Telling me ID is stupid and has no merit,
     > doesn't invalidate the good arguments I heard for it,
     > all it does is make me think you haven't heard the
     > same arguments I've heard. For example a video at
     
     
     > http://www.whatyououghttoknow.com/show/2008/05/01/darw
     > ins-intelligent-design/]http://www.whatyououghttoknow.
     > com/show/2008/05/01/darwins-intelligent-design/[/url]
     >
     > while poking fun at ID pretending to have nothing to
     > do with God it makes convincing arguments to me that
     > Evolution isn't rooted in as much science as everyone
     > says.
     >
     > Can someone watch this video and point to me where
     > they are making errors in their views specifically
     > towards [i]Evolution[/i].
     
     I watched it. I'll try to go through this point by point:
     First--Richard Dawkins' work, thoughts, semantics and actual quotes were generally taken out of their original context (quote mining) a very common tactic with the ID crowd supposedly to show how atheistic scientists are disingenuous about their beliefs. The first quote consisted of one sentence with no context, the speaker then built a completely fictional reality of Dawkins' thoughts based on ONE WORD of that quote. Although this quote was not attributed, both of these quotes came from the piece of cinematic trash which is "Expelled:..."
     
     If no one has mentioned it, the scientists interviewed for this movie were interviewed under false pretenses. They were told they were being interviewed for an informational documentary called "Crossroads" intended to illuminate the basic conflict. This is true not only for Dawkins but ALL the other evolutionary scientists interviewed. After a long interview (about 90 minutes for Dawkins) where the interviewer lobbed softball questions looking for some kind of "gotcha!" the actual amount of time included in the film was about 3 minutes.
     
     Which brings us to the second quote--the one where supposedly Dawkins says he believes in an alien "creator". What you are never told or shown in the film is the question which he was asked after a long logical refutation of ID in all its aspects: "Can you think of any circumstance in which Intelligent Design might be true?" after which he ironically presented the now much quoted sci-fi fantasy story indicated here.
     
     When he gets into his critique of evolution itself some of this is just flat out wrong. There HAS been observation of speciation in nature. Evolution IS taking place now. This can be demonstrated through vestigial limbs, etc
     
     He has absolutely no basis for the statement that the odds of evolution happening are "really really really long" he just presents it as fact and moves on. So it's true because he says so? When he comes back to it he says that if you believe it's true then you're screwed because then "we'd have seen evidence of it by now." But of course theres a MOUNTAIN of evidence for it, all of which is dismissed out of hand by IDers. If only the poor deluded scientists and teachers would admit they're deluded ID never would have come up in the first place, he says. So science brought this on itself? This is also untrue, not to mention faulty logic.
     
     I want to know what would constitute concrete evidence to this bozo. There is again, a MOUNTAIN of commonly accepted scientific evidence. If scientific evidence is not concrete enough, then you want a scientific theory to provide what?
     
     As far as his Lucy to Man equals bacteria to another species theory, I think that's his to prove as to its validity and logical reasoning. I'm no expert, but it seems to me presumptuous at best to draw a direct mathematical correlation based on average lifespan and approximate rate of genetic mutation between two different species which are as different on the cellular and sub-cellular level as humans and bacteria.
     
     So after starting with a flawed and unsubstantiated theory as stated above he then insists that unless science can breed not only a new species from bacteria but one he considers "a higher form of life" that somehow the entire theory is invalid? You're kidding, right?
     
     I'm not going to delve into the next Dawkins quote. Read the transcript, listen to the Moyers' interview in its entirety and decide for yourself. He ends with a bunch of unsubstantiated claims stated as fact. There's plenty of ways to verify or debunk them yourself if you want to. I'm too tired of listening to this guy.
     
     > Also I am curious to all of those who favor Evolution
     > or favor ID; Have you read Darwin's Origin of Species
     > (maybe append a ""Have read OoS", or "haven't read
     > Oos"). That way we know that those who argue for
     > evolution are knowledgeable in the foundation of
     > their arguments, or if they favor ID they are
     > knowledgeable in the foundation of the argument they
     > are against.
     >
     > Seth - Currently Reading OoS
     
     I'm glad you're reading Darwin. Please don't think that if you can get through the works of Darwin you somehow understand the theory any more than me or any other amateur. The current state of evolutionary biology is a long way from those books written 140 years ago. There are many dedicated professionals who spend their entire careers immersed in this subject. Unless you think they are as a group disingenuous or deluded we all--whether we agree with them or not--owe them the respect due their dedication and knowledge in this extremely complex field of human en devour.

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219. 219. sephers165 08:27 PM 5/6/08

     "If numerous species, belonging to the same genera or families, have really started into life at once, the fact would be fatal to the theory of evolution through natural selection"
     
     Origin of Species Chapter Ten
     
     When the greatest amount of species found in the fossil record was in the Cambrian era, becoming less in the more recent eras, and practically none in the pre-cambrian era wouldn't that be the fact that is fatal to the theory of evolution. No, because it is explained by the Cambrian Explosion.
     
     This is where I get confused, it seems like the theory is accepted as true regardless of any evidence, (not saying there isn't any) but if there is something missing rather than say the theory is false and there needs to be another explanation they expanded upon the theory further convoluting it till the simple person like me just needs to accept the fact that is true and am not allowed to question it.
     
     Can someone explain to me how the Cambrian Explosion is a better explanation for the evidence given in the fossil record than the simple one of all of the species being created and placed on earth at the same time by God . (Maybe I'm ignorant but I usually choose what seems to be the simplest answer)
     
     --
     Edited by sephers165 at 05/06/2008 1:37 PM

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220. 220. Frank M 09:45 PM 5/6/08

     Seth, I think you are headed in the right direction. Yes, you understand the concept of natural selection, but remember, natural selection did not create the longer hair. Genes had to tell a creature to have all of the appropriate hairs to stop growing at the right length. That takes more bits of information than can realistically happen by luck.
     
     The big problem with Darwinism isn't survival of the fit, but ARRIVAL of the fit.
     
     You say you believe in microevolution by luck, but not macroevolution by luck. You are not alone, by any means, but I will not agree. Microevolution can not happen the way it does without intelligent guidance of some sort.
     
     Even just simple differences from parent to child that most don't think of as evolution, still follows functional, symettrical patterns that don't really fit a "random" arrangement. The only genetic changes that appear random seem to be those altered by radiation, light waves or chemical intrusion, such as alcohol or other toxins. These cause non-inheritable mutations that follow no design. NATURAL genetic changes are not random. Protein swapping along a DNA strand are not "copy errors" as was once thought.
     
     If you believe God did things to cause formation of life, I am going to assume that you believe this for reasons other than scientific evidence. As an IDist, I personally would prefer to keep the conversation pertaining only to scientific evidence or mathematical calculations. The only things we know conclusively are that we are designed and created by a superior intelligence capable of instilling an intelligent consciousness and of moving and forming matter with the intention of sustaining life. If your God can do this, then you might be right, but for all I know, you might be wrong too.
     
     You are on the right track, Seth. Stay tuned.

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221. 221. Frank M 10:32 PM 5/6/08

     Art for Science, if I had a dollar for every time an Accident Theorist claimed that they had "mountains" of evidence in "over 100 years" of "scientific method" by "top experts", I would be a rich man.
     
     But I couldn't buy a cup of coffee with any actual evidence from a Darwinist, because there isn't enough to slide down my couch cushions. Evolution, sure, we all know that, but how can you conclude lucky genetic mutations as a cause?
     
     I have been reading your posts. Could you plase put more substantive arguments forward, rather than just saying "ID isn't science, isn't testable", etc?

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222. 222. Frank M 10:44 PM 5/6/08

     Darwinism isn't a theory with a few gaps to tidy up. It is nothing but a gigantic gap. Still, people complain that all ID proponents do is point out the failings of Darwinism.
     
     Well, isn't that what science is all about? If your theory is fatally flawed (and it is), then why is all criticism silenced? Why do they have to make laws that outlaw dissent from a theory that has already been proven virtually impossible?
     
     Showing the fatal flaws of Darwinism is not just fun...it is the very definition of true scientific inquiry.

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223. 223. Art for Science 11:27 PM 5/6/08

     > Art for Science, if I had a dollar for every time an
     > Accident Theorist claimed that they had "mountains"
     > of evidence in "over 100 years" of "scientific
     > method" by "top experts", I would be a rich man.
     
     Even if you read it and understood it you wouldn't be rich--ask a scientist. I am not a scientist. I have presented what limited knowledge I have because Seth seemed like he was interested in learning more about the theory. My understanding of it is incomplete at best. I have posted a useful link previously. Do you want to see evidence or do you want to dismiss evidence? Here it is again-- care to learn? [url http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/][/url]
     
     > But I couldn't buy a cup of coffee with any actual
     > evidence from a Darwinist, because there isn't enough
     > to slide down my couch cushions. Evolution, sure, we
     > all know that, but how can you conclude lucky genetic
     > mutations as a cause?
     
     I'm not sure what this is refering to. Lucky genetics?
     
     > I have been reading your posts. Could you plase put
     > more substantive arguments forward, rather than just
     > saying "ID isn't science, isn't testable", etc?
     
     I am refering you to more substantive arguements in the links. I am not a scientist and even if I was how do you summarize a century of research in a web forum?
     
     SO if I'm not a scientist why do I care? I care about truth and logical reasoning in the sciences and that's the perspective I try to approach this discussion from. I'm not going to convince any creationist/IDer to give up their god anymore than you will convince me to worship yours. That's not the point. This isn't a debate between 2 equally reasonable explanations, its apples and oranges, and you don't have to be a scientist to know this, just someone with a grasp of the basic laws of reasoning and logic. ID is not science anymore than evolution is religion. But its not scientists trying to get evolution accepted as a religion, this is about IDers trying to get their BELIEF taught as a science. Therefore it remains your burden of proof to produce, not science's.

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224. 224. Frank M 12:09 AM 5/7/08

     Lest anyone claim that all IDists do is show why mathematics prove we couldn't have been formed by accident, I should probably point out that there is also positive evidence for intelligent design.
     
     The code.
     
     The very existence of any sort of intelligible code formed by nature is astounding enough, but this is a 3 billion base pair masterpiece, with enough bits of information to overflow an encyclopedia. The odds of it existing by accident are enough to make some scientists claim that there must be infinite universes. Simply put, it cannot happen.
     
     Now this code isn't a love story (although there are some juicy parts) and it isn't a phone book or a war novel. It just happens to be the very specific and all-inclusive directions for building self-fueling, animating, reproducing machines so complex that no scientist can figure out how it is done.
     
     This by itself ought to at least make you question those who say there is no evidence that we were designed. Yet we haven't even gotten to the best part yet. This code doesn't just passively exist, but it is read and obeyed by unthinking pieces of matter.
     
     Is "obeyed" too strong a word? Not at all, considering that histones actually become the required cell type and even pieces of matter such as phosphates and calcium are brought to the prescribed location.
     
     Did I say location? These pieces of organic materials don't have any navigational devices do they? Yet exactly the right cells, tissues and other matter go exactly where they are told to go, each and every time without fail. If there were going to be a copy error, this is where you would expect it. But whatever the code calls for, it gets. If it asks for a feather to be produced by various connective tissues assembled from nutrients in nearby capillaries, then that is what happens. Even fibrils wrap themselves around groups of cells in blood-tight formations in obedience to the complex spacial directions of the genes.
     
     But it doesn't stop at being just the right thing in just the right place. Genes dictate timing as well. They control all growth from conception to adulthood and they control the timing of such things as when you get your baby teeth. So ribonucleic acids have clocks that enamel reads? Genes also dictate which cells will be replaced if lost and which cells will not.
     
     RNA will be attracted to DNA, seemingly to do nothing other than to imprint itself with this supposedly meaningless accidental code. The RNA also never fails to align perfectly, although this is an even likelier place for errors. Then, once it has the code, it suddenly isn't attracted to the DNA anymore, but it goes off to transfer information. That's when those amazing moving proteins go to work.
     
     So matter animates and forms itself according to the 3-D physical coordinates and timing given to it by a code. All types of matter complies unfailingly with no motive force, no navigational abilities and no intelligence.
     
     There is no question that we were designed (the code) and created (obedience of the code with no motive force, clocks or navigational ability). Sorry, that is hard to accept for some people, but the scientific evidence is irrefutable and conclusive beyond debate.

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225. 225. Frank M 12:53 AM 5/7/08

     Art for Science, I'm not trying to be critical, but I have hard time discussing an issue with someone who refuses to even present any counterpoint.
     
     AFS: "I am refering you to more substantive arguements in the links."
     
     I have read talkorigins many times. There are hundreds of websites all over all sides of this issues, although talkorigins is one of the least reputable. I can not argue against an entire link, so if all you are saying is that someone somewhere disagrees with me, I suppose we can leave it at that. If you care to present a point you feel relates to the subject matter we can discuss it. If not, that's your prerogative. Hey, I just asked, ok?
     
     AFS: "I am not a scientist and even if I was how do you summarize a century of research in a web forum?"
     
     I would prefer, rather than the usual "summary", that you present just a point or two that you feel supports your position. Again, if you feel unable or unwilling to do so, that is fine.
     
     AFS: "I'm not going to convince any creationist/IDer to give up their god anymore than you will convince me to worship yours."
     
     I thought we were talking about science. Why are you bringing anything up about God? I am not a Creationist and nobody said anything about worship (except you).
     
     AFS: "its apples and oranges"
     
     What do you mean by this?
     
     AFS: "ID is not science anymore than evolution is religion."
     
     That is a strange assessment, especially since ID is the theory of evolution by intelligent design. What is not science is to refuse to address the evidence.
     
     AFS: "IDers trying to get their BELIEF taught as a science."
     
     Actually I promote the idea that we should teach only evidence in school, without drawing conclusions for or against accidental materialism.
     
     Now, if you are suggesting that science MUST find a materialist answer, then you ARE injecting your religious beliefs (atheism) into science. I hope you would never do that because we all know science requires an open mind in the search for the truth.
     
     AFS: "Therefore it remains your burden of proof to produce, not science's."
     
     Actually the burden of proof goes both ways (why wouldn't it?) and I have no intention of changing hardened minds. I offer evidence to those who are open minded and searching for who is really right in this controversy. (Hint: It's not you.)
     
     What gives you the authority to speak on behalf of "science"? I am just as much speaking on behalf of science as you are, moreso really, since I actually FOLLOW the evidence. Reading an internet site is not scientific method.
     
     Art for Science, if you don't want to discuss the various arguments for and against accidental life formation, I will respect that.

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226. 226. Frank M 01:16 AM 5/7/08

     Seth, you bring up a great point about the Cambrian explosion. You also noted that Darwin himself understood that the kind of evidence shown in the Cambrian explosion falsifies his theory. One of the reasons I am very against Darwinism but not against Darwin is that he understood what kind of evidence would falsify him. I wish I could say the same for the neo-Darwinists. (Neo-Darwinism is Darwinism with a "neo" which stands for "No Evidence Observed".)
     
     It isn't just the number of new species during the period of time around 530 to 540 million years ago, but also the parallel modifications. Eyes developed in many multiple separate species all at once, not in just one species along a family line. Likewise for internal organs as well. Practically nothing fits Darwin's theory at all.
     
     Seth: "it seems like the theory is accepted as true regardless of any evidence"
     
     I couldn't have said it better myself....

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227. 227. Glen R 02:59 PM 5/7/08

     Frank M said,
     
     >Darwinism isn't a theory with a few gaps to tidy up. It is nothing but a gigantic gap. Still, people complain that all ID proponents do is point out the failings of Darwinism.
     >Well, isn't that what science is all about? If your theory is fatally flawed (and it is), then why is all criticism silenced? Why do they have to make laws that outlaw dissent from a theory that has already been proven virtually impossible?
     >Showing the fatal flaws of Darwinism is not just fun...it is the very definition of true scientific inquiry”
     
     And later responding to Art for Science’s statement,
     >"ID is not science anymore than evolution is religion."
     
     Frank M said,
     
     >That is a strange assessment, especially since ID is the theory of evolution by intelligent design. What is not science is to refuse to address the evidence.”
     
     So if the Theory of Evolution, or Darwinism as you call it, is nothing but a gigantic gap and is fatally flawed, doesn’t that put a big hole in ID since it is the Theory of Evolution by Intelligent Design? (Perhaps I misunderstand and it's a different theory of evolution that you speak of.) Or maybe it is just Creationism with a fancy new name. Or maybe we should just call it Beheism.
     
     Frank M said in his May 6, 2008 8:09 PM post,
     
     >The very existence of any sort of intelligible code formed by nature is astounding enough, but this is a 3 billion base pair masterpiece, with enough bits of information to overflow an encyclopedia. The odds of it existing by accident are enough to make some scientists claim that there must be infinite universes. Simply put, it cannot happen.”
     
     There may be infinite universes. Just because you believe it cannot happen doesn’t mean it cannot happen.
     
     And then Frank M concludes the same post with,
     
     >There is no question that we were designed (the code) and created (obedience of the code with no motive force, clocks or navigational ability). Sorry, that is hard to accept for some people, but the scientific evidence is irrefutable and conclusive beyond debate.”
     
     Sorry, the appearance of design doesn’t conclude a designer and just because something currently can’t be explained doesn’t mean it’s unexplainable. I think that’s how religion got started in the first place.

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228. 228. Chaosqueued 07:53 PM 5/7/08

     > The poster who claimed ID uses the
     > roll of a dice to show a 1 out of 6 chance, you fail
     > your math class. The math of ID centers around the
     > ratio between functional and non-functional
     > physiological formations and microbiological systems.
     > Excluding simplistic functionality, such as padding
     > or ballast, there should be quintillions upon
     > quintillions of non-functional mess for every
     > functional formation.
     
     That'd be me. In response, do you actually realize how much variance there is to "functioning"? Take a look at the aftermath of Chernobyl to see how imperfect a human body can be and still be functional.
     
     For example let's look at something ID'ers love to use as an example of something that was intelligently designed... The eye.
     
     Now if I were to create an eye from nothing, I'd certainly not place the opaque retinal veins in front of the light sensitive rods and cones. Since the veins would block the light from reaching the light respecters this would be counter productive. This is the Human eye. I'd place the retinal veins behind the photo receptors so that the light coming in could be absorbed to maximum efficiency with out being blocked by something. This is the Squid eye.
     
     So from a design standpoint the human eye is inferior to the Squid eye.
     
     And in response to all of Frank M's posts:
     You say to question everything, yet your IDism leaves out one major thing that evolution doesn't. Why? You said, as an example, to ask why chemicals do what they do, but answer it with "cause god said so." Scientists take the same question and say, "gee i don't know, let us find out together". And that is what makes evolution science and IDism metaphysics and philosophy.

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229. 229. Frank M 11:11 PM 5/7/08

     Glenn R, the Darwinists, lacking in any evidence of any sort and already proven to be catagorically falsified, love to use definitions to rhetorically argue. You seem to be using the same... er, "scientific method".
     
     Glenn: "So if the Theory of Evolution, or Darwinism as you call it..."
     
     I'll stop you right there. Evolution means nothing more than "changes over time". By that definition, even slight changes from me to my kids counts. So everybody believes in evolution. Moreover, IDists are evidence-based, so of course we promote the fact that we are descendants from other primates and, going back, from single cell. So IDists are evolutionists. Sorry if it was easier to fight against the Creationists, but we follow the evidence and you don't.
     
     Evolution was understood before Darwin. Darwin just added some serious flaws to concepts regarding the cause of evolution. Darwinism and evolution are not synonyms. Darwin thought evolution occurred because of random chance mutation and survival of the fittest. (Sorry, I don't use the term "natural selection", another misleading term.)
     
     So Darwinism is flawed and a poor explanatory model, but evolution is certainly fact. If you still don't understand the distinction, let me know and I'll be happy to elaborate.
     
     Glenn: "There may be infinite universes. Just because you believe it cannot happen doesn’t mean it cannot happen."
     
     What I know is mathematically impossible is a code of such complexity and length happening by sheer accident in just a few billion years. Are there infinite universes? Perhaps, but then all things are not just possible, but certain. If there are infinite universes, then there is a God, but also a Zeus and virtually all possibilities. Infinity is a big number.
     
     I would be happy if they teach students that Darwinist evolution is fact, but only if there are infinte universes. At least let students know the mathematical impossibility as nearly all mathematicians agree. An entire conference of mathematicians shot down a team of so-called "biologists" at the Wistar Academy of Anatomy and Physiology. There is no factual truth to Darwinism whatsoever. It is, after all, nothing more than a mathematical flaw.
     
     Glenn: "Sorry, the appearance of design doesn’t conclude a designer"
     
     Appearance just gets you to sit down and do the math. From there it is in the hands of the mathematicians, moreso than the scientists. Once a physiological change is proven to be mathematically impossible as accident, intelligent design can really only be rebutted with a general refusal to believe the evidence.
     
     Glenn: "and just because something currently can’t be explained doesn’t mean it’s unexplainable."
     
     No, but it means you shouldn't teach it as fact in a science class and it means you ought to open your mind to possibilities that are not proven to be virtually impossible.

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230. 230. sephers165 11:28 PM 5/7/08

     The problem with almost everyone here is they are only concerned with winning arguments. Why doesn't everyone look openly at the strong points for Evolution and ID, and then look at the weak points for Evolution and ID and then discuss them.
     
     If you think Evolution has no weak points you are wrong. If you think ID doesn't have any weak points you are also wrong.
     
     And for those of you who assume the other side is just ignorant and just doesn't understand because they're too close minded to listen don't worry because they think the exact same thing about you.
     
     Both sides are so sure they're right they don't even have to listen to what the other side has to say. That makes for really great discussion doesn't it.
     
     I have an Idea rather than say how the other side is wrong lets do this:
     
     IDers list the weakest parts of your theory and why people may have trouble considering it science (Example very closely tied to GOD), and then explain the weak parts and then discuss your reasons why it is okay.
     
     Evolutionists list the weakest parts of your theory and why there are numerous people who don't accept it despite the "mountains of evidence" and then go on to explain why you think it's correct despite the weak parts (Example, all species seemed to pop up in one time era)
     
     Thanks
     
     Seth
     
     "The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts."
     C. S. Lewis
     
     --
     Edited by sephers165 at 05/07/2008 4:40 PM

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231. 231. Frank M 11:45 PM 5/7/08

     "do you actually realize how much variance there is to 'functioning'?"
     
     Lots, but the important number to consider is the ratio of functional to non-functional. Put some foodstuffs in a crock pot and start stirring. Watch the mixture every second and see how many times it forms something functional in a more complex way that just taking up space and weight. No need to create a muscle attached to a tendon attached to a hand, just any tubular structure or bad of enzymes, interlocking vertabrae or even something that you feel COULD assist in a life form.
     
     People say there are trillions of non-functional formations for any functional one, but this is far from the correct number. It is more like trillions of zeros in scientific notation and that is being very generous with the term "functional".
     
     You also make the hiarious assessment that you would have done a far better job of designing the eye. The eye, however, is irreducibly complex and couldn't have been formed by accident, let alone in parallel evolution, in multiple species at the same time. The blind spot is easily overcome in the same way the inverted image is overcome, by the way the brain reads images. See how it works when YOU aren't designing?
     
     Rods and cones and a complex microbiological system feed into optic nerves which just happen to go to the place on the brain that just happens to read and understand these chemoelectric impulses. My brother in law works on a team trying to reproduce vision for blind people, and despite decades of work, cannot reproduce what you say fell together by sheer accident. Why are optic nerves so strategically placed, but found nowhere else? I could have dozens of them in my forearms and it wouldn't affect my survival a bit. My in-law would have a much better time of it if he had ID training while doing graduate work.
     
     "You said, as an example, to ask why chemicals do what they do, but answer it with 'cause god said so'."
     
     You owe me an apology for so blatantly changing what I actually said into a quote that is entirely the opposite of what I said. No true IDist would say anything about God as a causal force or mechanism. Is that your best argument- to invent words and put them in my mouth?
     
     Well I suppose it is easier to argue against words you made up yourself. Kinda pathetic, though...

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232. 232. Frank M 02:47 AM 5/8/08

     A couple more thoughts on this desperate attempt to disprove design with features that are supposedly so horribly designed that they must have fallen together by random accident.
     
     First, it is amazing how far you have to reach to claim "bad design". It seems like you could come up with something better than that.
     
     More importantly, you show a complete inability to understand design inference. A minor flaw, or even a major one, in no way refutes design. If an O-Ring design flaw caused the destruction of the space shuttle, do you insist that the shuttle wasn't designed? Or perhaps just the O-Ring snuck in there by accident?
     
     This reminds me of Ken Miller's hilarious extinct pachyderm fallacy. He claims that any species that is extinct proves they were never designed. When you go to a junkyard, do you presume none of the vehicles were designed? Virtually everything that has ever been designed had flaws and will eventually fail and break down.
     
     I may find your logic abyssmal, but I am not so unflattering as to assume that you haphazardly tapped keys on your keyboard. If you have coherent language structure or a code such as in DNA, it was intelligently designed.
     
     If a structure is functional and complex, it is virtually certain that it was designed. You could mix metal and ink, repeatedly heating and cooling it for billions of years but you would never get a ball point pen. Consistent tubular structures forming by luck could never happen even for a few inches and we have enough of them to circle the globe, without a leak, going exactly where they are needed.

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233. 233. Art for Science 03:27 AM 5/8/08

     Frank M: “I have read talkorigins many times. There are hundreds of websites all over all sides of this issues, although talkorigins is one of the least reputable.”
     
     If you say so. Maybe I was misled by the 300+ references to scientific articles in the bibliography.
     
     Frank M: “I can not argue against an entire link, so if all you are saying is that someone somewhere disagrees with me, I suppose we can leave it at that. If you care to present a point you feel relates to the subject matter we can discuss it. If not, that's your prerogative. Hey, I just asked, ok?...
     
     “I would prefer, rather than the usual "summary", that you present just a point or two that you feel supports your position. Again, if you feel unable or unwilling to do so, that is fine.”
     
     
     Well, I do feel unable currently, although not unwilling, however that’s going to take more time and reading if I’m really going to present the science as I would like to, since, as stated before, I’m not a scientist. I really don’t mind if you feel the need to rip me or my arguments apart either, I have no scientific reputation to protect and am not afraid of playing the fool, but I’ll have to get back to you on that one. I’m working very long hours in a totally unrelated field, so this is all on my own time; I hope you understand. The one thing I do ask as ground rules is that we can agree that exposing the shortfalls of one theory (evolution in this case) does not [i]a priori [/i]constitute any kind of confirmation of another.
     As far as the link goes, I was under the mistaken impression that we were talking about educating ourselves, not debating. So actually no, I wasn’t asking you to argue against it.
     
     
     Frank M: “AFS: ‘I'm not going to convince any creationist/IDer to give up their god anymore than you will convince me to worship yours.’
     
     “I thought we were talking about science. Why are you bringing anything up about God? I am not a Creationist and nobody said anything about worship (except you).”
     
     Fine—I withdraw the word worship. You’ll notice I did say god, not God. Designer if you prefer. I find the distinction between ID and creationism more semantic than actual, since presumably the Intelligent Designer also created, yes? Or did he/she/it have an Intelligent General Contractor?
     
     Frank M: “AFS: ‘its apples and oranges’
     
     “What do you mean by this?”
     
     Um… actually I meant what I said next. ID is not science anymore than evolution is religion; therefore, apples and oranges.
     
     Frank M: “AFS: ‘ID is not science anymore than evolution is religion.’
     
     “That is a strange assessment, especially since ID is the theory of evolution by intelligent design. What is not science is to refuse to address the evidence.”
     
     I am working on addressing the evidence, but it takes more research than I can reasonably devote to it at the moment. What I can say is that the stuff Seth was talking about regarding the Cambrian explosion does appear to be problematic to the theory, but I am far from feeling like I have a complete grasp on the arguments surrounding that particular issue at the moment. I am glad to see that you do have a distinct understanding of evolution as opposed to common descent.
     
     Frank M: “AFS: ‘IDers trying to get their BELIEF taught as a science.’
     
     “Actually I promote the idea that we should teach only evidence in school, without drawing conclusions for or against accidental materialism.”
     
     Or Intelligent Design either then? If that’s truly how you feel, can you explain how we teach science at all? Teachers can’t teach theory, only evidence? “Gravity holds us to the Earth’s surface because it does”? And I should have taken exception to your use of “accidental materialism” long ago, but I let it slide. More on that later.
     
     Frank M: “Now, if you are suggesting that science MUST find a materialist answer, then you ARE injecting your religious beliefs (atheism) into science. I hope you would never do that because we all know science requires an open mind in the search for the truth.”
     
     Actually, yes, strictly speaking science must find a materialistic answer—though not necessarily a materialist’s answer. Since science (according to the Wikipedia entry) “refers to a system of acquiring knowledge based on scientific method, as well as to the organized body of knowledge gained through such research.” And scientific method “seeks to explain the events of nature in a reproducible way, and to use these reproductions to make [b]useful[/b] predictions.” (same source, my emphasis.) So if science is about natural phenomenon it must confine itself to the material world. When it doesn’t, it fails to make useful predictions because so far material and the material world are all human beings can work with in any predictable, verifiable and repeatable way. So no, I’m not injecting atheism—which strictly speaking is not a religion, but lack of one.
     
     Sure, science requires an open mind, but that’s not the same as an indiscriminate one.
     
     
     Frank M: “AFS: ‘Therefore it remains your burden of proof to produce, not science's.’
     
     “Actually the burden of proof goes both ways (why wouldn't it?) and I have no intention of changing hardened minds. I offer evidence to those who are open minded and searching for who is really right in this controversy. (Hint: It's not you.)”
     
     The burden of proof would go both ways if Intelligent Design has proved that it is in fact a scientific theory. It has yet to do so as far as I can tell. I have not seen anything showing that the theory of Intelligent Design can be scientifically verified or falsified or that we will gain any useful scientific insights into the workings of the universe by adopting it. As such the burden of proof IS on the proponents of ID. I don’t claim to know everything about it, so if you know how to prove or disprove it or how we will scientifically benefit from it, please do enlighten me.
     
     You’re entitled to your opinion about the openness of my mind, we obviously are working from different definitions of that term.
     
     Frank M: “What gives you the authority to speak on behalf of "science"? I am just as much speaking on behalf of science as you are, moreso really, since I actually FOLLOW the evidence. Reading an internet site is not scientific method.”
     
     I don’t think I’m speaking on behalf of science, just in defense of it. Reading an internet site is certainly not scientific method, but it is research which is supposed to be the first step of the scientific method. And, no, my research is not concluded.
     
     Frank M: “Art for Science, if you don't want to discuss the various arguments for and against accidental life formation, I will respect that.”
     
     It’s not accidental life formation, unless you are specifically and only referring to the fact of genetic mutation. I assume we can at least agree that genetic mutation exists? Natural selection, sexual selection, genetic drift, etc.—the mechanics of Darwinism or evolution—are not random. They provide a predictive model of how speciation occurs, which has been shown to be correct enough for most scientists to accept the theory as practical fact. There is nothing intrinsically unusual in having inconsistencies and areas of controversy in any scientific theory and I am more than happy to discuss them as far as I can and I’m sure I will learn much from you as you seem well read on the subject. So as long as you agree to the ground rule above, I’ll get back to my research. Meanwhile can you tell me why ID should be considered a scientific theory?

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234. 234. Frank M 06:57 AM 5/8/08

     Art for Science, I would caution against reliance on Wikipedia as well as talkorigins. Content for Wikipedia is from any individual who chooses to input data. There are citation requirements and other constraints, but the opportunity is there for extreme one-sidedness on an issue. In general, the scientific community has plenty of opportunities for circular citation, so I recommend to people that they listen to the arguments, not the number of citations and think for yourselves with an open mind.
     
     AFS: "The one thing I do ask as ground rules is that we can agree that exposing the shortfalls of one theory (evolution in this case) does not a priori constitute any kind of confirmation of another."
     
     Can't agree. First, there are no shortfalls to evolution, and I am an evolutionist. The mechanism for Evolution is intelligent design, not random accident as Darwin thought, but please don't try to put me against evolution.
     
     That said, I disagree with the premise of your ground rules. We were either formed intentionally or unintentionally and I believe the former. There is no third option, so to prove intent, one must disprove accident. If it is a combination of intentional and unintentional, the existence of intelligent design is reality, so they are mutually exclusive theories.
     
     This is not "a priori", which means a pre-drawn conclusion. I started out a Darwinist, so my original beliefs were wrong.
     
     AFS: "Fine—I withdraw the word worship. You’ll notice I did say god, not God. Designer if you prefer."
     
     You said god, not me. I rarely even refer to a designer, because we don't know if this is something personified at all, and we don't know if it may be a group of entities or just an immaterial force that has no being. It might be a "what", not a "who". So even the word "designer" is jumping ahead of the evidence a bit.
     
     AFS: "I find the distinction between ID and creationism more semantic than actual"
     
     Creationism starts with a belief in God. Materialism starts with a pre-drawn conclusion that there isn't one and ID takes the neutral agnostic approach that all scientists SHOULD take if they want credibility.
     
     AFS: "since presumably the Intelligent Designer also created, yes? Or did he/she/it have an Intelligent General Contractor?"
     
     The design is being implemented, of course, but whether or not a different force or entity is involved in the implementation is uncertain. Some intelligent motive force evidence is conscious, some sub-conscious and some extra-organismal.
     
     AFS: "Um… actually I meant what I said next."
     
     I probably should have picked up on that. Sorry.
     
     Frank: “Actually I promote the idea that we should teach only evidence in school, without drawing conclusions for or against accidental materialism.”
     
     AFS: "Or Intelligent Design either then? If that’s truly how you feel, can you explain how we teach science at all? Teachers can’t teach theory, only evidence?"
     
     Yes. There is too much disagreement between the two camps and forcing either as the ONLY government approved answer, eliminating all contradicting evidence is intellectual dishonesty and a detriment to science. Moreover, with the religious implications, the only constitutional answer is to present evidence and not draw final conclusions. Let the students think for themselves and inspire them to persue this further, perhaps as a profession.
     
     AFS: "Actually, yes, strictly speaking science must find a materialistic answer"
     
     What? Why? What if life is an immaterial thing? (as it certainly appears to be and most believe it is) Then we are doomed never to find any answers. There is no reason to exclude possibilities a priori and any pre-drawn conclusions corrupts the findings anyway. That is NOT how science works, unless it is determined to fail.
     
     You seem to be trying to equate "natural" with "material", but they are two different constructs. Gravity and kinetic energy are natural, but not material. Whatever animates matter in living things is likewise natural, but not material, and it needs to be studied as such, not ignored.
     
     AFS: "So no, I’m not injecting atheism—which strictly speaking is not a religion, but lack of one."
     
     Wrong. Agnosticism is the lack of religion. It neither says there is or is not a God, but just doesn't know.
     
     Atheism is the quite religious belief that there is no God. A true Atheist will refuse to believe in God despite heavy evidence showing the existence of a god. The infusion of Atheism into the life sciences has done more harm than the Christian simpletons, because it attempts to force Materialist answers where there are none. It is persued with a religious zeolotry and it is a form of religion.
     
     AFS: "I have not seen anything showing that the theory of Intelligent Design can be scientifically verified or falsified or that we will gain any useful scientific insights into the workings of the universe by adopting it."
     
     Are you kidding? Please see my post on page 15. Useful insights are huge! The advancements to medical technology in understanding the immaterial and intelligent nature of life are incalculable. Even if it weren't, finding the truth is reward enough for diligently seeking it.
     
     AFS: "I don’t think I’m speaking on behalf of science, just in defense of it."
     
     Trying to stifle evidence in favor of Materialism is not science or a defense of science.
     
     AFS: "It’s not accidental life formation, unless you are specifically and only referring to the fact of genetic mutation. I assume we can at least agree that genetic mutation exists?"
     
     Genetic editing exists. Protein swapping during reproduction is not the least bit random.
     
     AFS: "Natural selection, sexual selection, genetic drift, etc.—the mechanics of Darwinism or evolution—are not random."
     
     Yes, they are. You have it backwards. The only thing random in evolution is the chaotic, myriad and unpredictable causes of death and extinction, which are almost exclusively unrelated to genetic mutations.
     
     AFS: "Meanwhile can you tell me why ID should be considered a scientific theory?"
     
     Is anything I'm saying to you NOT science??? I haven't heard you utter a scientific word yet. How could it NOT be science to discuss irreducible complexity or the impossibility of a genetic code? You're not making any sense here.
     
     We may disagree, but although I think your lack of evidence makes your theory a load of crap, the subject matter remains science nonetheless. I don't get you, sorry.

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235. 235. sephers165 04:25 PM 5/8/08

     This is a question for the Evolutionists out there (not you Frank :-) )
     
     What do [i]you[/i] believe to be the weak points in the argument for Evolution?
     
     and
     
     Do you believe your theory to be infallible?
     
     If you can't answer this question then I will go on continuing to believe what they said in the Expelled movie, that Evolutionists don't leave any room for argument.
     
     Thanks,
     
     Seth
     
     ( If you want to answer though Frank you can explain to me why I am wrong being a Creationist, since I guess that is what I am, rather than an IDer. I myself always thought, like the Evolutionists, that ID and God creating all the species were one and the same. )
     
     --
     Edited by sephers165 at 05/08/2008 9:27 AM

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236. 236. sephers165 04:51 PM 5/8/08

     One more question what is the usefulness of Evolution as a Science?
     
     Reason being: Let's take two subject you might study in college, English, what my wife did, and Electrical Engineering, what I did. One allows you to actually produce a product, while the other just gives you more knowledge but you can't actually do much with it.
     
     When Scientists learned that doping Silicon with Boron or Phosphorous allowed them to make the Silicon either conductive or resistive, that allowed us to make microchips which was useful.
     
     That is what I see the role of scientists doing, and I don't see how Evolution does that. You might argue that Evolution tells us chimps and humans descended from a common ancestor which allows us to know that chimps and Humans have similar genetic structures therefore we can test drugs and stuff on chimps and get an idea whether they will work with humans.
     
     This is incorrect though because it wasn't Evolution that tells us chimps and Humans are similar it was observations and genetic research, which in turn led people to support Evolution. But after we learn that chimps and Humans have similar genes we don't gain any extra (engineering or scientific) value from inferring that they descended from a common ancestor.
     
     That doesn't mean it isn't a good question to ask why they have similar genetic structures (Evolved Common ancestor or, in my view, God used similar building blocks) it just means it doesn't benefit us scientifically; much like how English doesn't benefit us the same way Engineering does.
     
     Any constructive thoughts?
     
     -Seth
     p.s. Notice I'm not calling one wrong or right, just asking about the usefulness, also the same thing goes with ID, i would like to see it taught but not in Sophomore Biology in HS.
     
     --
     Edited by sephers165 at 05/08/2008 10:25 AM
     
     --
     Edited by sephers165 at 05/08/2008 12:16 PM

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237. 237. Natedog 08:24 PM 5/8/08

     >Reason being: Let's take two subject you might study in college, English, what my wife did, and Electrical Engineering, what I did. One allows you to actually produce a product, while the other just gives you more knowledge but you can't actually do much with it.
     
     LOL are you serious?!? Take about being close minded. Like yourself I am an engineer (Mechancial) and I cannot even begin to imagine how you came to have such little regard for important scientific research let alone your wife's English degree.
     
     To quote Professor Ricky Rylance of the Higher Education Academy with regarding to the study of English.
     
     "In no hierarchical order, there is, first, the cultural aspect, in which students and teachers engage primarily with literary texts (though engagement with other sorts of text is possible and, I think, desirable) in order to enable discussion of issues and values."
     
     "Second, there is the functional or instrumental aspect in which students and teachers acquire and understand modes of communication and how to operate them successfully."
     
     "Finally, there is the creative aspect. This is of increasing importance and includes not only ‘creative writing’, but also the broad appreciation of intellectual and aesthetic creativity and originality."
     
     The rest of the arguments in our post are simply a continuation of your close mindedness.
     
     >Any constructive thoughts?
     
     Yeah, get over yourself.
     
     --
     Edited by Natedog at 05/08/2008 2:19 PM

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238. 238. sephers165 10:07 PM 5/8/08

     Hey Natedog,
     
     I by no means meant to imply that English was useless. Simply that you can't apply the way you would engineering. I see how the question of Evolution is useful to Philosophy but what does Philosophy have to do with science.
     
     
     "The rest of the arguments in our post are simply a continuation of your close mindedness."
     I wasn't being close minded, I was simply asking a question. I believe myself to be somewhat Ignorant of the subject and that is why I appreciate Art for Science, and Frank M, because they both try to answer my questions.
     
     Anyways,
     
     I see the usefulness (in an engineering way) in finding similarities between our genetic structures with those of chimps but I don't see the usefulness(in an engineering way) of saying humans and chimps had a common ancestor.
     
     So what is the usefulness of Evolution as a science? (It's not useful is not the answer I'm looking for, so don't say it IDer's.)
     
     Seth
     
     --
     Edited by sephers165 at 05/08/2008 3:08 PM
     
     --
     Edited by sephers165 at 05/08/2008 3:14 PM

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239. 239. Natedog 10:19 PM 5/8/08

     >So anyways, you didn't answer my question, what is the usefulness of Evolution as a science (from an engineering perspective)?
     
     If that is your cup of tea I highly recommend you look into genetic programming. Basically the researchers take a computer model of an object (a telescope lens for example) and apply minor random adjustments over thousands of generations. Those modifications which produce a better product are kept and those that produce negative results are discarded. At the end of the run the final product is generally far better than the original.
     
     Now natural evolution is far more complex but even a simple evolutionary model has produced very real and patented consumer products.
     
     --
     Edited by Natedog at 05/08/2008 3:27 PM

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240. 240. sephers165 10:41 PM 5/8/08

     > >So anyways, you didn't answer my question, what is
     > the usefulness of Evolution as a science (from an
     > engineering perspective)?
     >
     > If that is your cup of tea I highly recommend you
     > look into genetic programming. Basically the
     > researchers take a computer model of an object (a
     > telescope lens for example) and apply minor random
     > adjustments over thousands of generations. Those
     > modifications which produce a better product are kept
     > and those that produce negative results are
     > discarded. At the end of the run the final product
     > is generally far better than the original.
     >
     > Now natural evolution is far more complex but even a
     > simple evolutionary model has produced very real and
     > patented consumer products.
     >
     > --
     > Edited by Natedog at 05/08/2008 3:27 PM
     
     Hmm, that is interesting. I definitely see the use in that. But I am, and probably will be forever doubtful as to how that says it is a fact that we ourselves evolved.
     
     Sometimes the same evidence gives two different interpretations.
     
     
     
     [i]What do you see an old woman, or a young one?[/i]
     
     
     That is OK though, I will continue to think critically of ID and Evolution till I throw them both out or decide one is more true than the other.
     
     Thanks Nate,
     
     Seth

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241. 241. Frank M 11:45 PM 5/8/08

     I gotta agree with Natedog that knowledge is always a good thing and it is important to understand how evolution works. To use a loose analogy about history: Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Learning about how life formed teaches us more about how we form today and in the future (and vice versa). Learning and knowledge are great joys even if all we get is enlightenment, but I do feel there is much to be gained, particularly in the medical fields, by understanding the immaterial, intelligent nature of how life works and forms.
     
     I must add that we don't always know in advance what we will gain by turning unknowns into known. My father was an engineer who was in a small but important way among a team of pioneers in the fields you mention, fiber optics and microchips. He said they had no idea what their knowledge was going to lead them to.
     
     A question for you as an electrical engineer. First, do understand the electrical aspects of life's sustenence? Such as in thoughts, sight, muscle activation, heartbeat pace and sense of touch?
     
     If so, how many bits of information in a code do you think it would take to spell out the precise regulation of capacitance, resistance, electrical generation from electrolytic reactions, current flow etc. that is needed to keep us alive at all times?
     
     If you were writing this information in words, how many pages of information do you think would be required? Rough estimation or general thoughts would be appreciated.

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242. 242. Frank M 12:11 AM 5/9/08

     Seth, you ask if you are a Creationist. Creationism is generally considered to be the belief in the Biblical explanation of the genesis of life. I would also include anyone who believes their deity created life if they are so entrenched in this belief that no evidence would deter them.
     
     Likewise, a Materialist is one who will refuse to accept any and all evidence that could lead one to believe in immaterial aspects of life, such as a soul, God or miracles.
     
     Both of these approaches are too close-minded to reliably find credible answers, and neither approach is how science is supposed to work. An open mind is absolutely essential to learning and to science.
     
     In either case, you can determine if you have this pre-determination by honestly asking yourself if there is any possible evidence that would change your mind.
     
     You sound like a theist IDist, which simply means that, although you are open-minded in your scientific research, you do believe in God. That is not Creationism as it is popularly described. One can be theist, atheist or agnostic and believe in either Evolution by Intelligent Design or the Accident Theory. However, to be a Creationist, you have to be a theist.
     
     You say you don't understand the distinction between ID and Creationism. It's huge. Part of it is the starting point and part of it is the end point. ID starts with a neutral agnostic approach and follows wherever the evidence may lead, neither for or against any religion. Creationism starts with the Bible and attempts to make the facts fit it. The endpoint of Creationism is exactly where it started, as with Materialism, since refusal to accept contrary evidence will always lead you nowhere.
     
     ID ends when we run out of evidence. We may still believe in God, but we draw a hard line distinction between where science runs out of factual evidence and such things as faith, morals or gut feelings take over. ID is compatible with your belief that God created all life. But it is also compatible with much less religious sounding concepts, such as a superior intelligence that is not all-powerful, loving or moral.
     
     The evidence shows intelligent guidance in the formation of life. Those forces appear powerful and certainly capable of matter animation, but they also appear limited (or self-limiting) and we certainly have no evidence putting any religion over another, nor any religion at all.

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243. 243. Frank M 12:35 AM 5/9/08

     Seth, you ask for a weakness in both ID and Materialism. I had a hard time with that as I feel that ID is virtually certain.
     
     I would say that, since ID requires an intelligence capable of animating matter, we are setting up a very bold and bizarre hypothesis, which should be easily proven wrong. It is very testable. Simply show quadrillions of messy, incongruous and pointless mutations for every functional one and you have clinched the deal.
     
     But I do not feel that we should consider it impossible for an intelligence to animate matter. We witness it happening every day. When we think we form neural pathways and cause dendrites to stretch, chemicals to react and electrical impulses to energize. When we want our legs to move, they do so by our will. Protein animation is an incredibly functional constant shuffling of molecular elves in a show shop, that only stop animating when we die. Virtually all protein movement works toward sustenence of life in a very intelligent way.
     
     Matter animates in all living things, plant, animal, prokaryote and eukaryote, in all reproduction. Therefore abiogenesis of a reproducing being is a virtual impossible in a laboratory setting.
     
     Intelligent motive force is scientifically certain and we must stop this "comedy of errors" charade and teach students the truth about the immaterial intelligent nature of life and life formation.

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244. 244. neil.woodcock 09:24 AM 5/9/08

     I don't see any of the arguments supporting intelligent design listed here at all, which seems to support the movies thesis that the theory is, in fact, being suppressed for some reason. It makes me wonder why. Is the theory so strong that it can't be addressed at all?

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245. 245. tekkie 11:24 AM 5/9/08

     "Actually, science avoids design explanations for natural phenomena out of logical necessity. The scientific method involves rigorously observing and experimenting on the material world. It accepts as evidence only what can be measured or otherwise empirically validated (a requirement called methodological naturalism). That requirement prevents scientific theories from becoming untestable and overcomplicated."
     
     The above quote literally caused me to laugh out loud. The major tenets of evolution are totally unproved and unprovable. How life initially began, how complex organ systems "evolve" and huge, unexplained gaps in the fossil record are just a few examples. What science can't possibly verify, it simply fills in with the infamous "computer model." If evolution apologists truly accepted "only what can be measured or otherwise empirically validated," the theory of evolution would evaporate instantly.

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246. 246. Natedog 01:39 PM 5/9/08

     >"I don't see any of the arguments supporting intelligent design listed here at all, which seems to support the movies thesis that the theory is, in fact, being suppressed for some reason. It makes me wonder why. Is the theory so strong that it can't be addressed at all?"
     
     If a scientist could either proof the theory of intelligent design or at least disprove the theory of evolution they would be famous. They would be on the cover of every single scientific magazine and journal in the world. Science rewards those that increase our understanding it does not suppress them.
     
     If the theory of intelligent design was even remotely valid groups all over the world would be racing to be the first uncover its secrets.
     
     Why is none of this happening? Because there is no evidence to support such a claim, absolutely NONE! You would be just as well off spending your time researching leprechauns.
     
     >It makes me wonder why.
     
     Instead of simply pondering the matter why don't you try picking up a book?
     
     --
     Edited by Natedog at 05/09/2008 7:52 AM

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247. 247. sephers165 03:04 PM 5/9/08

     If we actually listen to either side we would understand they both have evidence for their theory, the question is are the conclusions they reach based on the evidence logical and/or factual.
     
     The truth is ID and Evolution have research done on both of them. IDer's try to find incredibly complex things and say that is proof that it didn't evolve, and Evolutionists try to find similarities between genes to prove they had a common ancestor.
     
     What both have failed in doing is proving via a controlled experiment, that their side is true. (And proving that animals adapt to their environment doesn't prove that they evolve into entirely different species).
     
     Can anyone tell me of the active controlled experiments going on currently in the world of Biology?
     
     --
     Edited by sephers165 at 05/09/2008 8:05 AM
     
     --
     Edited by sephers165 at 05/09/2008 8:06 AM

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248. 248. sephers165 03:22 PM 5/9/08

     Thanks Frank, I appreciate the answers.
     
     And I guess I would be labeled as a Creationist but I hope I am not as close minded as you make some of us out to be, because I genuinely desire to know the other arguments out there, even if not because I am going to believe them, but I believe it is important to know what the other argument is. As Honest Abe said
     
     "When I am getting ready to reason with a man, I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself and what I am going to say and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say"
     
     It is true I accept the Bible and try to interpret the evidence through that.
     It is also true though that everybody sees thing through their own presuppositions.
     In order to prove things using science, you need to pre-suppose that the scientific method is a valid way of proving things. Most of us agree the scientific method does prove things but I think what a lot of the argument on is whether our pre-suppositions are true.
     
     A good quote to explain my personal beliefs (and maybe if you replace Christianity with your own beliefs it would be for you too)
     
     I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.
     C. S. Lewis

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249. 249. EastwoodDC 03:39 PM 5/9/08

     After reading just a bit of the discussion thread, I feel I should point out that this is not a new argument, but a very old one. Science and religion have been in conflict for centuries. This is no surprise - by their very definition faith and reason lead us to different conclusions. In the year 1633 Galileo Galilei was ordered to stand trial for heresy for his support of heliocentrism, because it was contrary to the holy scripture. Nearly 400 years later we all know that Galileo was right. Was this the end of faith and religion? Not a bit. We simply learned to accept that science and religion tell us different things.
     Evolution is science and reason. Creationism is religion and faith. They are inherently contradictory concepts, and there is no logical reconciliation of one with the other.
     Deal with it people.
     
     --
     Edited by EastwoodDC at 05/09/2008 8:52 AM

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250. 250. Natedog 04:32 PM 5/9/08

     >IDer's try to find incredibly complex things and say that is proof that it didn't evolve.
     
     Yes, that is exactly what they do. They say that incredibly complex things are proof that things didn't evolve but they do not prove that incredibly complex things did not evolve. You can SAY anything, proving something is a completely different matter. To date supporters of ID have not proved a single thing through research and have no evidence to support their claims.
     
     >and Evolutionists try to find similarities between genes to prove they had a common ancestor.
     
     They do that along with a number of other things such as proving (with evidence) that incredibly complex things evolved from less complex things...
     
     --
     Edited by Natedog at 05/09/2008 9:54 AM

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251. 251. sephers165 06:26 PM 5/9/08

     > To date supporters of ID have not proved a single
     > e thing through research and have no evidence to
     > support their claims.
     
     Now that is a little reaching. They have lots of evidence but they just make a different interpretation (which you may or may not agree with) of it. It is more appropriate to say that the take evidence of things and use illogical reasoning to arrive at their claims. (Like the eye is so incredibly complex and irreducibly complex that it had to be designed? But what about all the imperfections with the eye, aren't those evidence of more random events?)
     
     > They do that along with a number of other things such
     > as proving (with evidence) that incredibly complex
     > things evolved from less complex things...
     
     As I asked earlier however was I am aware of the evidence Evolution has, there is lots of it, but the conclusions reached by the evidence I don't necessarily agree with. Since you so strongly support this claim above, I would be interested if you could point me to some links (besides talkorigins they are not very objective, in my opinion) that I can read about the evidence that proves Evolution. That way I can see whether this evidence truly supports Evolution objectively, or if it pre-supposes Evolution to be true and then shows how the evidence supports Evolution.I am not one to believe something just because someone tells me, but if the argument is good I won't cling to something that is false.
     
     What I wanted to know is what controlled experiments for Evolution are currently going on in Biology (that either support evolution or don't support it, i dont care, I just want to look up more info for myself)
     
     Seth,
     
     P.S. Nate, just because scientists say there is evidence of something doesn't mean it can't be questioned. For instance if there was statistics that said 80% of people think George Bush is a great president, but then you actually looked at the evidence and saw that the 1000 people polled were from a town that is entirely Conservative you wouldn't necessarily agree with the claim would you?

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252. 252. Natedog 07:19 PM 5/9/08

     >"Nate, just because scientists say there is evidence of something doesn't mean it can't be questioned.
     
     I fully support those who challenge scientific theories but you have to challenge science with science. Science vs. religion is a dead end road because they mostly deal in completely different subject matter.
     
     >For instance if there was statistics that said 80% of people think George Bush is a great president, but then you actually looked at the evidence and saw that the 1000 people polled were from a town that is entirely Conservative you wouldn't necessarily agree with the claim would you?"
     
     You are talking about two completely different things. Scientific discoveries are peer reviewed and are rigorously tested before they even begin to gain any level of acceptance. Even afterwards those discoveries may be continuously challenged and ultimately revised or discarded as new information becomes available.
     
     Some theories are popular in the scientific community and as a result get more attention and some are unpopular and receive less attention but they each have scientific evidence supporting their claims.
     
     Evolution isn't a popular theory because it is the offical status quo or because scientists are afraid to go against the establishment. It is popular because the evidence supporting it is so overwhelming. Either way the evidence exists regardless of peoples opinions which is completely different than your example which is a scenario that deals exclusively with people's opinions.
     
     >It is more appropriate to say that the take evidence of things and use illogical reasoning to arrive at their claims.
     
     Actually it would be far more appropriate to say that they use unscientific reasoning to arrive at their claims.
     
     I am not claiming that the theory of intelligent design is false; I am simply claiming that it is unscientific. Maybe someday ID will produce scientific evidence to backup their claims but they haven't yet.
     
     If anyone wants to argue for or against ID be my guest but the argument is purely philosophical.
     
     >What I wanted to know is what controlled experiments for Evolution are currently going on in Biology (that either support evolution or don't support it, i dont care, I just want to look up more info for myself).
     
     The best place to look for the most current information is scientific journals. In some cases they can be quite expensive to purchase so I would recommend visiting your main library branch and/or local universities to see about gaining access to their copies.
     
     --
     Edited by Natedog at 05/09/2008 1:35 PM

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253. 253. EastwoodDC 08:35 PM 5/9/08

     Natedog wrote> I am not claiming that the theory of intelligent design is false; I am simply claiming that it is unscientific. Maybe someday ID will produce scientific evidence to backup their claims but they haven't yet.
     
     This is giving ID more credit than it deserves. In order for ID to have evidence there must first be a hypothesis. ID has no hypothesis - There is no theory of ID under which the available data can be evaluated. Arguing against the "evidence" for ID is to tacitly assume there is a testable hypothesis to be evaluated, and there simply is not.
     ID is a belief, a philosophy, a religion (choose all that apply). It is a comforting one too. However, it cannot ever be science, because it requires a hypothesis about that which simply cannot be defined.
     
     On the other hand, the theory of evolution has been (and continues to be) refined from a series of hypotheses that are well supported by the data. Certainly there aspects of evolution that we do not yet understand, but that does not imply the entire theory is wrong, rather it means there are further refinements so be made.

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254. 254. sephers165 08:45 PM 5/9/08

     > I fully support those who challenge scientific
     > theories but you have to challenge science with
     > science. Science vs. religion is a dead end road
     > because they mostly deal in completely different
     > subject matter.
     
     Well maybe I am confused on what the definition of science is. If it doesn't have to involve controlled experiments (still looking for one for evolution...??) then does it merely take a belief and then making observation about the world and then seeing if they're "consistent with that belief within a logical reasoning? I still don't see how ID doesn't do that. (Sorry if I go on and on, I just deal with things concretely, I need specific examples and arguments that are made that are not scientific)
     
     
     > You are talking about two completely different
     > things. Scientific discoveries are peer reviewed and
     > are rigorously tested before they even begin to gain
     > any level of acceptance.
     
     I agree that they should be but it seems like the scientific discoveries are all peer reviewed by people who already accept Evolution. Therefore they presuppose Evolution to be true so when they find evidence (i.e. a fossil that looks like the combination of two species of today that share DNA), that supports their belief that the two must have evolved from the one. (And everyone makes some presuppositions about the world, some are just a little more far fetched. Like Aliens Intelligently Designed all the earth, lol.) But if you didn't pre-suppose Evolution to be true you might explain it differently.
     
     
     > the evidence supporting it is so
     > overwhelming.
     
     But I've been looking for the evidence for it and I am still not overwhelmed. I'll keep digging though, but at some point if you search an area enough you either find something or decide nothing is there. Help me out people.
     
     
     > Actually it would be far more appropriate to say that
     > they use unscientific reasoning to arrive at their
     > claims.
     >
     
     Still you have to at least admit Evolution does require assumptions, and I am not necessarily saying they are unreasonable either, just you have to assume some things. For instance in a controlled experiment you have to assume that what happens commonly continues to happen commonly under the same conditions.
     
     > If anyone wants to argue for or against ID be my
     > guest but the argument is purely philosophical.
     
     So are you willing to argue with me about the Philosophical reasons for believing things were created as is, vs them being randomly appearing. I would definitely be more knowledgeable there than here. Alas this website isn't called Philosophic American. I'm still willing though if you know a good site to argue Philosophically.
     
     Here is an assumption many people make, scientific proof, is more important than philosophical truth. But that is a matter of opinion.
     
     "I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else" - C.S. Lewis

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255. 255. sephers165 08:57 PM 5/9/08

     > On the other hand, the theory of evolution has been
     > (and continues to be) refined from a series of
     > hypotheses that are well supported by the data.
     > Certainly there aspects of evolution that we do not
     > yet understand, but that does not imply the entire
     > theory is wrong, rather it means there are further
     > refinements so be made.
     
     Ooh, ooh, you are the guy I'm looking for then. What are the hypotheses that are well supported by the data? Please give me examples, websites, journals, articles. Also are these hypotheses that are tested done in controlled experiments in a lab, or are they just observations of things in the world?
     
     If the former, I definitely doubt ID does or can do that, (maybe though, I won't be so close minded to say it is impossible and can't)
     but if the latter then ID kind of does that, it is just whether or not you agree with their conclusions. IDer's say things like this.
     
     "We hypothesize that the world was designed intelligently because it is so complex, therefore if that is true we should be able to find things in nature that show things being so complex that they can only exist as part of a whole but not individually. Then they go use the eye as an example and say see if you take away one single part the eye wouldn't work so it had to be designed otherwise had would all the individual parts come together to form the eye."
     
     Not that that is even a good argument, but nonetheless it supports an observational hypothesis that does no actual controlled experimentation. By the way I'm not saying this to prove ID, I don't think it can be proven in the way I want, but I'm just trying to reason that Evolution might not be an infallible theory.

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256. 256. Natedog 09:17 PM 5/9/08

     EastwoodDC claims that "[ID] cannot ever be science, because it requires a hypothesis about that which simply cannot be defined."
     
     sephers165 claims "...everyone makes some presuppositions about the world, some are just a little more far fetched. Like Aliens Intelligently Designed all the earth, lol.)"
     
     For my part I think aliens intelligently designing life on earth is the only way someone could possibly make a scientific case supporting intelligent design (for life on this planet specifically). That however doesn't answer the question of how those aliens were created and does nothing to bolster religious views.
     
     I do not think it that life on our planet was intelligently designed by aliens or gods but again that is just my opinion.
     
     >Here is an assumption many people make, scientific proof, is more important than philosophical truth.
     
     I never really studied philosophy but philosophers have no single definition of truth on which the majority of professional philosophers and scholars can agree.
     
     For a guy so interested in answers I would think you would find philosophy rather frustrating as philosophical questions only lead to more questions.
     
     >Then they go use the eye as an example and say see if you take away one single part the eye wouldn't work so it had to be designed otherwise had would all the individual parts come together to form the eye."
     
     That is a pretty common argument from supporters of ID but there really isn't any truth to that claim. Just ask someone who is partially blind if they think their eyes are useless. Seeing something even anything is better than seeing nothing.
     
     In that line of reasoning imagine a creature that develops the ability to sense the difference between light and dark but nothing else. As far as eyes go it would be extremely basic but it would still give that creature an advantage over other creatures. For example it may be able to sense a predator (or prey) passing over by the reduction in light. Now imagine a creature that develops the basic ability to detect motion. Again it would have an advantage over other creatures.
     
     Every new ability gained can give a creature certain advantages and it is hardly an all or nothing scenario. Eyes becoming more complex over time is exactly what you would expect from natural evolution.
     
     >For instance in a controlled experiment you have to assume that what happens commonly continues to happen commonly under the same conditions.
     
     There are certain assumptions that must be made but they are on a very fundamental level. For example I do not think it at all unreasonable to expect an experiment to obey the laws of motion, thermodynamics and gravity, etc.
     
     --
     Edited by Natedog at 05/09/2008 3:33 PM

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257. 257. sephers165 11:29 PM 5/9/08

     You are being very foolish if you don't think you are required to make a single presupposition in order to make any useful claim about Evolution.
     
     What about the second law of thermodynamics?
     
     Also do you know of any controlled experiments for Evolution?
     
     Last, have you watched the expelled movie?
     
     --
     Edited by sephers165 at 05/09/2008 4:31 PM

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258. 258. sephers165 12:33 AM 5/10/08

     Alright I'm done here. I came in trying to be better informed but instead I have mostly been criticized for not believing something before I have the evidence personally for myself. I feel like I'm being called a fool for not believing something just because "There is a bunch of scientific evidence" and I don't just accept that but want to see and study the evidence for myself.
     
     When I was in high school they pretty much just simply told us we're here because of Evolution but never explained why. At the time I just accepted it but after I got to college and learned to think critically I decided not just believe things because it is the majority opinion. When I began actually looking at the evidencet, it brought many questions to my mind. I've been trying to find answers for these questions but I've just been told I'm dumb for not just accepting it. Well I guess I will leave here now continuing in my ignorance. I hope others out there will learn to not just believe everything they here (religious people, and Evolution people) but will learn to ask questions till they find answers.
     
     Thank you to those who have been helpful and did their best to answer my questions. I appreciate it.

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259. 259. Ditches 02:53 AM 5/10/08

     Frank,
     
     I am confused by your use of the term Intelligent Design to represent your beliefs.
     
     "I believe in common descent with modification, but the modification is controlled intelligently in the same way other functional proteins are controlled intelligently."
     
     This suggests that you believe in intelligently guided evolution, which is not the consensus among ID proponents, though it seems you're trying to present it as such. In fact, you are the first person I've seen waving the ID flag who actually argues from that perspective. Most flat-out reject the possibility of macoevolution, guided or not. They insist that new species were "poofed" into existence at different times throughout history. These are the people at whom most of the comments in this forum have been directed thus far. Might I suggest using a different label so as to avoid lumping yourself in with people whose ideas you seem to be in fundamental disagreement with?
     
     While I find your arguments concerning the efficiency of evolution to be very interesting, I honestly loathe the stance that such efficiency can only be due to the influence of some outside being. That has been the quintessential cop-out since humans have had the ability to communicate their thoughts. It's an insultingly simplistic and horrendously outdated approach to the rational explanation of phenomena.
     
     You could simply say that our knowledge of evolution is incomplete and that you believe evidence points to some unknown contributing factor(s) which help(s) to more efficiently guide evolution down advantageous paths. I think most scientists can respect such a viewpoint, and, indeed, are perpetually searching for such factors.
     
     Claiming that you KNOW this influence to be an intelligent designer, however, borders on lunacy. Why must intelligence be involved here? Water flowing down a hill will follow the path of least resistance, as will the flow of electric charge. Would you attribute these things to the guidance of some unknown intelligent being merely because they have the appearance of willfully seeking out the easiest path? Of course not, they're merely obeying the laws of nature. Why, then, would you do so to the evolution of life, which, essentially, seeks out the least resistant path to survival/propagation? Before humans became aware of the physics involved, rivers formed where they did because "God" put them there, people were struck by lightning because "God" was angry with them, life developed the way it did because "God" made it so.
     
     As a note, arguing for ID from a probablistic standpoint is absolutely useless. If you posit that life on Earth could only become this complex through the intervention of some superior being, then you are implying that such a being, which by necessity must be more complex, must also require a creator. This would then have to be expanded into the existence of an infinite chain of exponentially greater intelligences, as no complex lifeform could originate naturally (i.e. unguided). The odds against such circumstances must surely approach infinite. While the odds against the evolution of life on Earth through unguided means to its current state might be very large, they are still finite, which makes them infinitely more likely than the existence of an indefinite chain of unfathomably intelligent beings.

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260. 260. Ditches 03:10 AM 5/10/08

     Sephers,
     
     Here is a good paper about experiments with microorganisms: http://ecology.tiem.utk.edu/~gavrila/AR/elena_lenski_03.pdf

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261. 261. Art for Science 03:57 AM 5/10/08

     Frank: “Art for Science, I would caution against reliance on Wikipedia as well as talkorigins. Content for Wikipedia is from any individual who chooses to input data. There are citation requirements and other constraints, but the opportunity is there for extreme one-sidedness on an issue. In general, the scientific community has plenty of opportunities for circular citation, so I recommend to people that they listen to the arguments, not the number of citations and think for yourselves with an open mind.”
     
     Alright—give me your definition of science then. I chose Wikipedia because it was more or less in line with what I believe is an accurate definition of science and scientific method and—ironically—because I thought you would object to it less than something emanating from some more arbitrary authority like “Webster.” I am thinking for myself, but part of the scientific process involves peer review and consensus—like it or not. Arguments that site articles from peer-reviewed journals should hold more weight. Speciation by natural selection has already gone through a lot of this type of scrutiny over the years and has stood up remarkably well. I don’t think it unreasonable to require that a theory purporting to be better than it should be able to go through the same.
     
     Frank:
     “AFS: ‘The one thing I do ask as ground rules is that we can agree that exposing the shortfalls of one theory (evolution in this case) does not [i]a priori[/i] constitute any kind of confirmation of another.’
     
     “Can't agree. First, there are no shortfalls to evolution, and I am an evolutionist. The mechanism for Evolution is intelligent design, not random accident as Darwin thought, but please don't try to put me against evolution.”
     
     EDIT: After reading this I went and looked at an earlier post of yours that I had missed. If I am reading it correctly—and correct me if I’m wrong—you believe in genetic mutation, you believe in a phylogenetic system (whether or not it’s the standard model), you believe in common ancestory, it’s merely the mechanics of natural selection you dispute? Forgive me, but I don’t see how the design force/being/whatever fits in in your view. Is it tweaking the genetics? Is it causing speciation? This is obviously not the generally presented view of IDers, so more details would be helpful. If this is an accurate reading, then it seems a little trivial really.
     
     Frank: “That said, I disagree with the premise of your ground rules. We were either formed intentionally or unintentionally and I believe the former. There is no third option, so to prove intent, one must disprove accident. If it is a combination of intentional and unintentional, the existence of intelligent design is reality, so they are mutually exclusive theories.
     
     “This is not "a priori", which means a pre-drawn conclusion. I started out a Darwinist, so my original beliefs were wrong.”
     
     I disagree that there is no third option, just because we can’t come up with it. You should be able to prove intent without disproving “accident”. In fact it should be easier since it’s always more difficult to prove a negative. (By the way, I was using [i]a priori[/i] in reference to this debate, not your personal beliefs.)
     
     This is a logical fallacy of false correlation. By your logic, all you have to do is show that natural selection didn’t cause some specific genetic speciation and can’t currently provide a viable explanation for it to [i]a priori[/i] state that it was therefore intelligent design.
     It’s already understood that natural selection is only one mechanism of speciation, including sexual selection, genetic drift, bottlenecking, etc. It seems reasonable to speculate that there may be more mechanics undefined currently that have nothing to do with ID.
     
     Frank:
     “AFS: ‘Actually, yes, strictly speaking science must find a materialistic answer’
     
     “What? Why? What if life is an immaterial thing? (as it certainly appears to be and most believe it is) Then we are doomed never to find any answers. There is no reason to exclude possibilities a priori and any pre-drawn conclusions corrupts the findings anyway. That is NOT how science works, unless it is determined to fail.
     
     “You seem to be trying to equate "natural" with "material", but they are two different constructs. Gravity and kinetic energy are natural, but not material. Whatever animates matter in living things is likewise natural, but not material, and it needs to be studied as such, not ignored.”
     
     Here we are at the crux of the matter. We obviously are working from two different definitions of science. There are many good reasons to exclude possibilities that are impractical to test in the admittedly limited, imperfect, human endeavor of science. Just because we are unable to prove or disprove large primary questions doesn’t mean we can’t find any answers—just the answers to those large questions. ID may or may not be true, but it is un-testable given the current state of scientifically applicable technology.
     
     Historically, pre-drawn corrupting conclusions of science are generally those things that are apparently and believably true. The earth is flat. The sun orbits the earth. These are apparently true through gross observation, and at some point were widely believed to be so, but of course aren’t.
     
     I do not equate natural and material as you presume. Certainly gravity and energy are not material but we have reliable material ways to measure their effects and based on those measurements produce hypotheses to predict outcomes. The proof or disproof of an individual hypothesis about an aspect of gravity, for example, does not [i]a priori[/i] disprove the larger theory attempting to explain gravity as a force to which the particular hypothesis subscribes. Yet by rejecting my proposed ground rule you indicate that you think this type of reasoning is perfectly acceptable. We don’t know if life is animated by material or immaterial means. We simply don’t have any way to currently test it. It is illogical to presume that because we haven’t found evidence of one we have proven the other, or that we are doomed to never be able to prove one over the other. We may be able to prove or disprove ID at some point, currently we can’t, which makes its usefulness as a scientific theory moot.
     
     I apologize that I simply don’t have the time currently to go through the rest of this point by point. Apparently I missed some of your posts—I will go look at those when I get a chance.
     
     I may not be well versed in science or in the particular arguments; however I do understand logic and debate very well. If we can’t even come to a mutual agreement as to what the basic terms like “science” actually mean, then I am afraid we will be doomed to continually talk at cross purposes. My statement that I was speaking in defense of science, for instance, included the assumption that the term science encompasses the body of knowledge historically collected and collectively acknowledged to be science; an assumption which it seems you reject. Admittedly I haven’t provided a lot of “scientific” arguments. I am not a scientist while you at least have had much more study in science, so it takes me more time—which I currently lack—to cogently produce an argument in a realm where you will always have me personally at an educational disadvantage.
     
     Having said that, a commonly agreed upon field of play is essential to good, fair, logical debate, something which apparently we currently lack. It seems like jumping the gun to start presenting arguments in favor of one or the other points of view before establishing some sort of common ground.
     
     Science is a purpose based, evidence driven field of human endeavor. As an imperfect human activity, it depends upon collaboration and consensus (i.e., peer review) for quality control. It does not include all possible realities that can be imagined. That is philosophy or theology. I have presented a definition of science which I agree with and which I believe is a relatively accurate reflection of how the scientific community would define it. When held up against this definition, any theory that seeks to explain phenomenon by supernatural (that is outside of or above nature) forces or beings such as ID is [i]primae facea [/i] not science. If, as it seems is your interpretation, this is actually an immaterial but natural force, then eventually we will find natural, material, direct or indirect evidence for it. If and when we do, I am confident that scientific hypotheses and/or theories will be adapted, adopted and/or discarded as required by the evidence. If we don’t then it still may be true but it would be (as it currently is) scientifically trivial, as it doesn’t add any unique measurable, predictive information to our understanding of natural processes, and would remain basically un-provable and un-falsifiable.
     
     If ID doesn’t fit the accepted definition of science then its proponents must come up with an acceptable alternate definition if it is to be taken seriously in the scientific community. Michael Behe, whom you cited earlier, has tried this, but upon scrutiny it was shown that the definition he proposed would also place such things as Astrology and Alchemy in the realm of science. You don’t have to be a scientist to see how patently absurd that is.
     
     There are many other arguments and assumptions from your last post that I would contest (including your assumption that I am an atheist which I have never stated or denied as I think it absolutely immaterial to the questions at hand), but I’m out of time and it seems a little pointless anyway. I do not think my ground rule in any way unreasonable. If we can’t find common ground even with such basic things like the definitions of “science”, “scientific method” and “scientific theory”, then this discussion will inevitably descend into rants and name calling. I have no desire to play out that particular endgame, my friend. So perhaps it’s best that we simply agree to disagree and leave it at that.
     
     Seth, it seems you may have given up on this discussion, but if not check out this link: http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoEvidence.html especially the section on human and great ape common ancestery.

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262. 262. Art for Science 04:07 AM 5/10/08

     I agree ditches, you certainly picked up on the differences in his views from common ID quicker than I did. I feel a bit the dolt.

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263. 263. EastwoodDC 04:17 AM 5/10/08

     sephers165, if you are still out there:
     I'm sorry if you feel that you were unjustly criticized, but critical thinking is needed if you really want to understand.
     I have found that when I don't understand the answer to something, it is generally because I don't fully grasp the meaning of the question. This seems to be the cause of the entire evolution/ID debate. People (on BOTH sides) get so tied up in the details of the science they fail to understand that the science is barely relevant, and the heart of the matter is actually the conflict between science and religion.
     
     The real issue is differentiating between what we can reason for ourselves and that which we must accept on faith. We teach math and science in schools not because we expect every pupil to go on to become a research scientist, but because we want our children to learn to reason for themselves. This causes a big uproar when ID/Creation, fundamentally a matter of faith, is presented as science in some schools.
     I believe that faith needs to be taught as well, but this is the province of church and family and not public education. I have no expectation that other people will draw the line between faith and reason in the same way I do, but I think it is vital they understand the difference.

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264. 264. Pigeon 06:17 PM 5/10/08

     There is no such thing as scientific truth. No scientific theory is infallible, that is the nature of science. Nothing is ever proved in science; rather the successful theories are the ones that have withstood years of testing and have not failed, and have also predicted new phenomena that have since been observed. This goes back to what others have already said: a hypothesis must be falsifiable to be the basis of a scientific theory. A theory can never be proven, only validated beyond various degrees of doubt. They can, however, be disproved.
     
     It is physically impossible to prove a theory to be the absolute truth - to do that a theory would have to be validated to infinite accuracy and precision in every possible scenario. No single one of the above is possible, let alone all three. There is no, nor will there ever be, a single experiment or observation that can be made to prove a theory to be the absolute truth.
     
     Therefore, to answer the people who have asked if the scientific theory of evolution is infallible, the answer is of course not. No scientific theory can, by the very nature of what it is, be infallible.


     
     As an example (I will draw from physics, as that is what I know best), take Newton's First Law, F = ma (Force = mass times acceleration). It is not only fallible, but wrong! Newton's laws are the approximate equations of motion at the scales and speeds that are relevant to our every day lives. F = ma does not give the absolute correct answer, even if exact values were input into it! Instead, it will yield an approximation to the real answer (albeit an extremely good approximation).
     
     However, if you go down to very small scales, very large speeds or very massive objects, then quantum mechanical and relativistic processes become dominating effects and Newton's approximations no longer hold; they are replaced by more complete equations that are perfectly consistent with Newton's Laws in the relevant scales. It is important to note, however, that our understanding of the extremely small and extremely large is nowhere near complete nor perfect, and the equations we have for them are also approximations. Just because these theories are incomplete and imperfect does not mean they are worthless. They are very good models and are the reasons why we have things like computers and GPS navigation systems.
     
     The point of science is not to come to some absolute truth of the way the world or anything else works - that is not realistic or possible outside of religion. Instead, the goal is to model the various processes that we see as best we can, and hopefully use them to predict new effects.

     
     The prediction of other effects is actually a cornerstone of a good scientific theory. A theory that describes one phenomenon well but doesn’t manage to predict anything new is generally, but not always, proscribed to be fairly unsuccessful. The prediction of new phenomena that are then actually observed is the single most convincing way of validating a hypothesis, and this can be done in or outside of a laboratory. For example, many astrophysical and cosmological theories rely heavily on observations of uncontrolled systems in space - but we can observe so many different systems that, using sophisticated statistical analysis, implementing experimentally validated theories, etc, we can draw meaningful conclusions from them.
     
     Now I’ll get back on point, using the above as a framework. The theory of evolution is based on several complicated hypotheses and I don’t claim to be expert in the field. My understanding, however, is that these hypothesis can be used to predict certain things, some of which have been experimentally or observationally validated. Similarly, there are many things that, if discovered, could disprove the theory of evolution, such as the sudden appearance of new species that did not ‘evolve’ from any other life-form. Such a discovery would essentially disprove the entire evolutionary theory of speciation. There are other discoveries, however, that would merely force the theory to change, and adapt to include the new discovery. That is how science evolves.
     
     However, Intelligent Design’s hypothesis states that because life is too complex to have evolved by random or semi-random chance, then an Intelligent Designer must be responsible for it. Therefore, the evidence that must be provided is merely that life is too complex to have evolved by random or semi-random chance. I hope it is clear why this hypothesis does not fall under the same category as that of evolution. It is not possible to prove that something is impossible to occur by chance without proving that the event is impossible by any other means. And even if it could, that wouldn’t preclude other notions such as replacing the designer with aliens or something equally fantastic. And, as has been pointed out already, who created the necessarily more complex designer?
     
     Then there is the problem with those who accuse the theory of Evolution of claiming that life developed [read: not originated] via a sequence of purely random events, which is not at all the case. It claims that random mutations play just one part in the process that leads to diversification of life. Any other description is a gross oversimplification, and thus an argument based off of it has no base to stand on.
     
     Frank M: Your argument that many biological processes, such as protein swapping and indeed most of microevolution, happen too ‘intelligently’ to not be controlled by some intelligence is flawed. You are right that these processes are being controlled in some form, but your immediate jump to a Designer is vacuous. Instead it is a form of machine intelligence, specified by the cell’s and body’s DNA, RNA, and the chemical structure of their (and every other molecule’s) components. You would apparently be amazed at how powerful molecular structure can actually be. The structure of chemicals in the blood stream determine whether or not they can enter certain types of cells - some can pass right through the phospholipid bilayers that form the cell walls; some can pass through certain transport protein structures that are embedded in those cell walls whose functional forms, and thus functions themselves, depend on the concentrations of certain chemicals and pH.
     
     The fact is, enormously complicated processes are understood extremely well in terms of chemical structure, and it is, for lack of better words, silly to assume that the aspects of these processes that are not yet understood must necessarily be due to supernatural intelligence. To give an example, a major research topic in biophysics is biological computing: using man-made molecular structures (usually mimicking DNA) to act as digital gates. This is not theoretical, it is practiced. If we, in our limited knowledge of biological physics, can create artificial molecules that behave in different ways depending on their environment (pH, concentration of other substances, etc), why can’t natural molecules do the same? We could get into an argument about how these complicated molecules arose in the first place, but that is a discussion of abiogenesis and is largely irrelevant to validity of the theory of evolution and ID.

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265. 265. Art for Science 07:03 PM 5/10/08

     This discussion appears to have died out, and Seth—who this is primarily in response to—seems to have gone, but I’ll post it here anyway in the hopes that it may be glanced at for what it’s worth.
     
     I recently read an article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by J. William Schoptf of UCLA that I felt succinctly described the history of the scientific search for Pre-Cambrian fossils. It is called “Solution to Darwin’s Dilemma: Discovery of the missing Precambrian Record of Life” and is available as a free pdf on the PNAS website. (I’m sorry I don’t have the link handy at the moment.)
     
     The upshot of the article is that although saying that there is a lack of fossil record for the Precambrian period may have been true until the 1960’s, that statement is no longer true at all. In fact, the article contends, the real question is why, given how many precambrian fossil examples are now on the scientific record, it took scientists so long to find them. The answer to that seems to be a combination of factors including misclassified and misidentified early findings, lack of (until relatively recently) a reliable methodology, the microscopic nature of most of the fossils, and the chilling effect on the search by statements (now shown to be wrong) of at least one very influential scientist of the early 20th century.
     
     The oldest fossil currently (as of the presentation of the paper in 2000 anyway) on record is dated at almost 3500 million years ago—almost ¾ the estimated age of the planet. As far as I can tell other then the latest of these they are all of a microscopic nature, and the earliest “megascopic eukaryotes…are now known not to have appeared until shortly before the beginning of the Cambrian—except in immediately sub-Cambrian strata, the hunt for large body fossils in Precambrian rocks was doomed from the outset.”
     
     This article deals primarily with the history of and trends in the field work of Precambrian paleobiology and does not concern itself with making explicit explanations of how, for instance, natural selection would explain the jump from microscopic to macroscopic life seemingly more or less simultaneously across divergent branches of the phylogenetic tree.
     
     Let’s be clear though: this level of evidence for life in the Precambrian puts the lie to the ID claim that the lack of life in the Precambrian combined with the Cambrian explosion proves that complex multi-cellular life sprang into existence in its completed form.

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266. 266. Art for Science 07:16 PM 5/10/08

     Pigeon,
     Thank you for this well reasoned and insightful response to the more scientific arguments that Frank was making and which I felt unqualified to address.

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267. 267. sologos 12:51 AM 5/11/08

     Pigeon states:
     
     However, Intelligent Design’s hypothesis states that because life is too complex to have evolved by random or semi-random chance, then an Intelligent Designer must be responsible for it. Therefore, the evidence that must be provided is merely that life is too complex to have evolved by random or semi-random chance. I hope it is clear why this hypothesis does not fall under the same category as that of evolution. It is not possible to prove that something is impossible to occur by chance without proving that the event is impossible by any other means. And even if it could, that wouldn’t preclude other notions such as replacing the designer with aliens or something equally fantastic. And, as has been pointed out already, who created the necessarily more complex designer?
     
     
     
     I can't comment on whether ID theory is accurately reflected in Pigeon's comment but I believe that some of the statemets made in the subsequent comments about scientific plausibility do not cary the absolute certainty stated and need further clarification. It is most certainly possible to prove that something cannot occur by purely Darwinian mechanisms mathematically. You do not have an infinite amount of time to accomplish the human organism, or any other "final product" for that matter..There must be a sufficient number of selective environments as compared to the number of generations possible to select a better fit and to de-select a precursor. The offending environment must accomplish both, or precursors would still be intermingling diluting the gene pool with their own. Furthermore, precursors that could not interbreed, but could survive, wouldstill be around unless a more restictive environment supervened, but there is no reason why the selected species would not also succumb to tat environment since the trait thqat had been selected was specific only to the earlier sective environment. One then would have to determine the number of changes that have occurred in the period since that Genus or Family (or kingdom) separated out. How many generations, for example, have there been, conservatively estimating, since Pan separated from Homo. Have there been sufficient generations along with environmental changes to account for the differences in the genetic makeup of chimps and man?
     This, of course, is only one possible approach to the falsification of the Darwinian paradigm of chance and necessity.
     Replacing a Designer by some other intelligence, simply pushes the question of the original source of the intelligence back further, rather that eliminate it.
     Darwinism will ultimately fail, not by religious opposition, but by sound scientific process, but it is certainly interesting that the opposition has been spurred by religious considerations, while an entire scientific community tows the party line of evolution.

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268. 268. sologos 01:18 AM 5/11/08

     Pigeon states:
     
     However, Intelligent Design’s hypothesis states that because life is too complex to have evolved by random or semi-random chance, then an Intelligent Designer must be responsible for it. Therefore, the evidence that must be provided is merely that life is too complex to have evolved by random or semi-random chance. I hope it is clear why this hypothesis does not fall under the same category as that of evolution. It is not possible to prove that something is impossible to occur by chance without proving that the event is impossible by any other means. And even if it could, that wouldn’t preclude other notions such as replacing the designer with aliens or something equally fantastic. And, as has been pointed out already, who created the necessarily more complex designer?
     
     
     
     I can't comment on whether ID theory is accurately reflected in Pigeon's comment but I believe that some of the statemets made in the subsequent comments about scientific plausibility do not cary the absolute certainty stated and need further clarification. It is most certainly possible to prove that something cannot occur by purely Darwinian mechanisms mathematically. You do not have an infinite amount of time to accomplish the human organism, or any other "final product" for that matter..There must be a sufficient number of selective environments as compared to the number of generations possible to select a better fit and to de-select a precursor. The offending environment must accomplish both, or precursors would still be intermingling diluting the gene pool with their own. Furthermore, precursors that could not interbreed, but could survive, wouldstill be around unless a more restictive environment supervened, but there is no reason why the selected species would not also succumb to tat environment since the trait thqat had been selected was specific only to the earlier sective environment. One then would have to determine the number of changes that have occurred in the period since that Genus or Family (or kingdom) separated out. How many generations, for example, have there been, conservatively estimating, since Pan separated from Homo. Have there been sufficient generations along with environmental changes to account for the differences in the genetic makeup of chimps and man?
     This, of course, is only one possible approach to the falsification of the Darwinian paradigm of chance and necessity.
     Replacing a Designer by some other intelligence, simply pushes the question of the original source of the intelligence back further, rather that eliminate it.
     Darwinism will ultimately fail, not by religious opposition, but by sound scientific process, but it is certainly interesting that the opposition has been spurred by religious considerations, while an entire scientific community tows the party line of evolution.The question is what will replace it. There is no doubt that some other naturalistic explanation will supervene. We live in a physical world, that God, in His infinite nature allows us to explore by natural methods whether we credit Him with it's existence or not. Never, will this naturalistic explanation, however, eliminate the Source, because methodological naturalism cannot cross from the finite natural world to the infinite supernatural Source that gives it existence.

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269. 269. Frank M 04:56 AM 5/11/08

     (Intelligent Design proponents) "say that incredibly complex things are proof that things didn't evolve but they do not prove that incredibly complex things did not evolve."
     
     Essentially we know that life evolved, but we assert that the evidence shows that it could not have happened by accident.
     
     Based on some of the messages left in the past couple of days, I see that there is quite a bit of confusion on this issue. I assure you that all IDists believe in common descent. I have no ties with DI at all, but every time I have heard an IDist from DI being interviewed they are asked this question and they all ascribe to common descent. Berlinski, Behe, Dembski, Sternberg - they all adamantly support common descent, as does every IDist I have ever read.
     
     We also are not claiming any deity did anything (can't say they didn't either), nor is this some Creationism in disguise mega-conspiracy.
     
     So why do we keep being misrepresented? It seems that both Darwinists and Creationists feel they have something to gain by lumping us in with the religious set. Creationists call themselves IDists to gain credibility and Darwinists call IDists Creationists to lower our credibility. We follow the evidence more stringently than any Darwinist or Creationist ever did, yet we don't get nearly as much media play that the extremists get, nor the funding.
     
     Seth is a Creationist. He believes the Biblical explanation of Creation in the Book of Genesis. I believe that the evidence disproves the Old Testament's version (both of them).
     
     We came from apes, but is it mathematically possible to pick up a new genome with a coherent set of over 100,000 base pairs of genetic information, a 21st amino acid chain and entirely new genes by random chance mutation?
     
     In a word, no. Mathematically, it couldn't have happened gradually or suddenly. BTW, Gradual step-by-step is an even bigger loser than sudden leaps, but Darwin didn't realize that. Gradualism limits the births and requires an astronomically impossible but curiously similar repeating of "copy errors" that keep progressing in the same direction.
     
     Sologos, you are quite correct when you say that the claim of random chance mutations are very much testable and falsifiable by mathematical means. Look guys, evolution is an ongoing thing. It is profoundly simple to examine any evidence of evolution and see if there are quadrillions of messy, asymmettical, pointless, incongrous blobs for every one amazing functional lucky break. (as Darwin predicted) The evidence shows more the opposite. Accident versus Intelligence is very testable and very easy to discern who was right.
     
     You just have to be open-minded enough to accept what the evidence is telling you.

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270. 270. nlaney 12:33 PM 5/11/08

     With two threads dealing with religion and science, I'm curious if sciam has ever published any articles outing Carl Sagan's atheism, the lies of any Michael Moore's or Al Gore's films, or are these enlightened ones sciam heroes? Unfortunately, I suspect the latter. But to get to the point, science cannot disprove God, but God sure can explain science. When science becomes a religion, is when cracks start appearing in scientific validity, because after all, there is only one true God, the God and father of the Lord, Jesus Christ, Amen.

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271. 271. EastwoodDC 03:57 PM 5/11/08

     > We live in a
     > physical world, that God, in His infinite nature
     > allows us to explore by natural methods whether we
     > credit Him with it's existence or not. Never, will
     > this naturalistic explanation, however, eliminate the
     > Source, because methodological naturalism cannot
     > cross from the finite natural world to the infinite
     > supernatural Source that gives it existence.
     
     We seem to agree, though perhaps we reach this conclusion in different ways. By definition, science cannot explain the supernatural. What then is ID, if it cannot be science?
     
     Science cannot prove the validity of faith, but neither can it disprove it. Faith therefore must stand on its own merits, and from my perspective faith is doing just fine without efforts to repose it as science. That, however, that is another discussion.

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272. 272. Frank M 09:11 PM 5/11/08

     Natedog: "If a scientist could either proof the theory of intelligent design or at least disprove the theory of evolution they would be famous."
     
     As far as I'm concerned both of these challenges have been met and conclusively so.
     
     You have a lot of faith in the ability for scientists challenging existing paradigms to be readily accepted. A little history lesson would correct you. Or try reading Thomas Kuhn, a critic of how the empowered who review papers for journals will reject anything that opposes the theories they have spent their lives advancing. It isn't just the church, but the majority of the scientific community who reject new and revolutionary theories.
     
     This one is going to be even tougher than most, because mainstream academia sees this as a religious challenge, which it isn't. But make no mistake, the Darwinist regime WILL fall for all the right reasons - Because it hopelessly flawed and has been easily falsified.
     
     Natedog: "Why is none of this happening? Because there is no evidence to support such a claim, absolutely NONE!"
     
     Are you not paying attention or is this "selective" attention?
     
     The evidence for Intelligent Design is pouring in from many directions and it is overwhelming, undeniable and conclusive.

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273. 273. jamesu 01:06 AM 5/12/08

     I haven't seen "Expelled", but I probably will. However, I'm less than empressed with Scientific American's response, starting with the the title of the article. "Six things in Expelled that Ben Stein Doesn't Want You to Know . . ." isn't a rebuttal but an attack on Ben Stein's character. Is this an attempt to bias the readers before they read your article? Otherwise, why not: "Six Errors in Expelled". How about this for a title: "Six Things that Scientific American Wants You to Think"? See the difference?
     
     The unedited Charles Darwin extract really isn't that sigificantly different from Stein's edited version. It simply makes it clear that Darwin believed that human beings tend to let their emotions get the best of them and act in ways that don't necessarily follow the natural order of things. To put it another way, human emotion causes humans to behave in ways that, in the long run, inhibit man's evolution. If that is what Stien essentially said in his movie, then you really don't have an issue here, and you're down to five things Ben Stein doesn't want you to know.
     
     Why take issue with the obvious fact that some people interviewed didn't know the purpose of the movie? Would their answers have been different if they had known? Would they have refused to be interviewed? It appears to me that since they didn't know the purpose of the movie, they were more likely to answer honestly. Could it be that some of those interviewed regret saying what they actually thought? I think you're down to four things Stein doesn't want you to know, and if I were Stein I wouldn't mind at all if people know that certain individuals might have given quite a different answer if they had known the purpose of the interview. Ever heard of a hidden camera?
     
     "Ben Stein's speech to a crowded auditorium in the film was a setup." A setup? You say that viewers "might think" that Ben Stein has been giving speeches on college campuses. . ." You're use of the words "might think" is an interesting choice of words. You're down to three things Ben Stein doesn't want you to know. There is no logical reason why Stein would care what you thought about his audience.
     
     "Science does not reject religious or "design-based" explanations because of dogmatic atheism." I would suggest that those who are dogmatic about their atheism are predisposed to reject ID. It wouldn't be logical to suggest otherwise. People's actions are influenced by their beliefs. However, I'm not sure here what Stein would not want anyone to know here. If you believe, as I do, that the supernatural is outside the scope of science since it can't be tested, then scientists can neither confirm nor deny the supernatural. I think IDers would agree with that; their arguement is that the design of the universe requires a designer. So since design is testable, it really all boils down to which explanation is the most reasonable scientifically, natural forces or a designer. Unfortunately, that arguement has been badly distorted and has resulted in the allowance of only one possibility. Who really needs evidence if you're allowed to consider only one possibility. How about a criminal investigation where the police only allow for one suspect before they look at the evidence? That's not science; that's pure dogma.
     
     You had a couple of other things Stein doesn't want you to know, but I'm tired of typing.

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274. 274. Frank M 01:07 AM 5/12/08

     Ditches: "...I honestly loathe the stance that such efficiency can only be due to the influence of some outside being."
     
     I don't think ID is settled on an "outside being" or even a "being" at all. It may be the primary consideration, but you used the word "only", so I would have to say that there are many IDists who see the intelligence as innate or instinctive or nothing more than intelligence itself. You will notice that I use the word "design" but not "designer". It may seem like a trivial distinction or no distinction because any verb needs a subject, but this may be an exception. I am open-minded on the nature of the causal force of intelligent design. In fact, I would sooner use the word "force" than "designer".
     
     Ditches: "That has been the quintessential cop-out"
     
     In what way is it a cop-out? If the question is accident or intent, why is one answer wrong by default because it is a "cop-out" while the other is "right" no matter what the evidence shows?
     
     Are you one of those people who believes the scare tactic that admitting the intelligent nature of the properties of life somehow mandates that all science comes to a halt? Quick, hide the test tubes, right?
     
     It's nothing like that. Accepting intelligent design opens up new avenues of study and closes the book on nothing except the "accident" excuse. If anything is a cop-out, it is deeming something an accident, even though it could not have been.
     
     Even if what you say were true, and I highly disagree, isn't the more important consideration using the evidence to discern the truth? If the evidence shows ID (and it does) you won't get anywhere with a falsehood as a premise.
     
     Ditches: "You could simply say that our knowledge of evolution is incomplete and that you believe evidence points to some unknown contributing factor(s) which help(s) to more efficiently guide evolution down advantageous paths."
     
     I do say exactly that and I wish that was what we teach in school, because it is true.
     
     Ditches: "Claiming that you KNOW this influence to be an intelligent designer, however, borders on lunacy."
     
     Any attempt at explanation of our existence will at least border on lunacy because it defies explanation at this point. In scientific terms, nothing is "known" (proven), but yes, I do personally feel that some sort of intelligent involvement is beyond question at this point.
     
     Can I ask if you are open to the possibility of intelligent design as a scientific study or are you excluding it as a "cop-out"? If you rule it out a priori, then it is you who needs to open your mind, not me.
     
     Ditches: "Why must intelligence be involved here? Water flowing down a hill will follow the path of least resistance, as will the flow of electric charge."
     
     Because in life water is flowing uphill. Matter animation in living things goes against the grain of any known motive force.
     
     Could there be some other unintelligent force that we know nothing about? Perhaps, but we aren't going to find it by listening to Materialists pretending that matter isn't animating in living things in ways that are unlike non-living.
     
     You alluded to electromagnetic force and gravity, but life's ability to animate MUST be studied as a fifth (or more) force(s) of nature. By Newtonian Laws, if something moves, there must be a REASON for the movement, a causal force.
     
     Science ignores this basic fact at its own peril. Then the Materialists wonder why they keep banging into impossibilities. This leads me to another reason why I attribute evolution to intellgience and that is mathematics. Too much of the matter animation that keeps us alive does just the right thing at just the right time. I am too mathematically inclined to buy into the accident claim. The odds against life existing by luck is way beyond the realm of statistically impossible, even if we didn't already know that we have an intelligent consciousness.
     
     I segue to the next reason I see this as an intelligent causation: We HAVE intelligence. We already know that intelligent thought leads to movement and formation of matter - in nerve formation, voluntary muscle flexing and chemical reactions to feelings show that our conscious and/or subconscious intelligence controls matter, not the other way around.
     
     If intelligence itself isn't a sign of intelligence that what could possibly be?
     
     Ditches: " Why, then, would you do so to the evolution of life, which, essentially, seeks out the least resistant path to survival/propagation?"
     
     I do apply an unknown force to life, so please re-direct your very appropriate inquiry to people like Richard Dawkins and others who say Darwinistic accident explains everything?
     
     I agree that life seeks the least resistent path to survival, but the question is HOW can it "seek" anything without intelligence or the will to live?
     
     I may be two steps ahead of those who still claim that life is an ongoing series of indescribably incredible accidents, but if you are ready to discuss a life force, you are way ahead of the Materialists.
     
     This life force is not 2-dimensional as the two natural forces you mentioned. It is 4 dimensional, using 3-D spacial placement and quite specific timing to accomplish its many tasks of survival. It seems to pick and choose according to a purpose. This is evidence, if not "proof", of intelligence.
     
     Do you at least agree that the natural force causing animation in living things COULD have an intelligence?
     
     Ditches: "As a note, arguing for ID from a probablistic standpoint is absolutely useless."
     
     Are you serious? Why? If the most probable answer is that intelligence has a hand in life's functions and formation, why would this be "useless"? Even if it is "useless", and it is far from it, once again I must ask: Isn't the goal here to find the truth, not "usefulness"?
     
     Ditches: "If you posit that life on Earth could only become this complex through the intervention of some superior being, then you are implying that such a being, which by necessity must be more complex, must also require a creator." (My term is "intelligence", not "being".)
     
     What you call "by necessity" and "must also require" is not as certain as you claim it is. We don't know if the causal force is more complex or that it has a creator. We know that there is intelligence involved.
     
     Again, the goal is to find the truth. If we find out that an intelligence IS at work in life formation and function, at least we have gotten that far. That it may bring up further questions does not refute the progress made by following the evidence. Some times you have to peel back layers of a mystery to get to answers you never dreamed of. Denying the evidence will get you precisely nowhere.
     
     Any existentialist argument ends up at some point in a shrug, so I wonder if you apply this same standard to the Materialists.
     
     Ditches: "While the odds against the evolution of life on Earth through unguided means to its current state might be very large, they are still finite, which makes them infinitely more likely than the existence of an indefinite chain of unfathomably intelligent beings." ("indefinite chain", "unfathomably" and "beings" are all your words, not mine.)
     
     So, in your mind, the odds against there being an intelligence is "infinite"? There are essentially two schools of thought, neither one of which should be the default truth.
     
     It isn't just "very large" odds against you. Unguided evolution is a series of steps that range from virtually impossible to statistically impossible and back, again and again, millions of times.
     
     Statistically impossible is anything beyond 1 out of 10 to the 50th power. Virtually impossible means that we see no conceivable way that it could happen, which is not necessarily "finite" odds. Saying we don't know the answers "yet" doesn't mean you ever will and it doesn't make your assertions "infinitely more likely" than anything. It means that you are at a dead end of impossibility and in no position to claim superiority over anyone else's theory.
     
     Ready to follow the evidence yet, or are you still using the "cop-out" cop-out?

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275. 275. Pigeon 02:04 AM 5/12/08

     Sologos:
     
     I concede, you are right that it is possible to invalidate Darwinian mechanisms mathematically, provided all of the inputs and processes by which they occur are understood well enough. Your examples are interesting, and I am not familiar enough with the research done in the field to know whether these issues have been addressed (or if the science is at a point where they can be realistically addressed yet). Likewise I am sure that there are many ways to disprove the theory of evolution; if it couldn't be disproved then it would not be a scientific theory.
     
     "Replacing a Designer by some other intelligence, simply pushes the question of the original source of the intelligence back further, rather that eliminate it."
     
     That was my point. It is the same argument used against the "the universe must have been caused to exist by some pre-existing being [God]" argument. But that leads to the logical conclusion that "God must have been caused to exist by some pre-existing being," and so on. There is no logical escape from this: either something can exist without having been caused by something else (in which case there is no need to posit the existence of a creator of this world), or there must be an infinite number of creators, with no original.
     
     "Darwinism will ultimately fail, not by religious opposition, but by sound scientific process, but it is certainly interesting that the opposition has been spurred by religious considerations, while an entire scientific community tows the party line of evolution."
     
     This is why you are not a scientist (or at least not a very good one). No self-respecting scientist would ever claim that a theory [i]will[/i] fail (or succeed) without the necessary evidence already in front of him or her (and the skills and tools necessary to analyze it).
     
     It is interesting, though, that the opposition to the Darwinian theory of evolution is spurred religious considerations, although this is not a new phenomenon. There are generally two sources of opposition to scientific theories: religion and science. Historically, religion does so because accepting certain theories would require a major reworking of prevailing religious thought (the Earth is the center of the universe, celestial bodies are perfectly spherical, and so on).
     
     Scientific opposition tends to peter out as a theory amasses enormous amounts of supporting evidence. Einstein's theories of relativity and general relativity were highly controversial and divided the physics community, until they were used to explain behavior of cosmic rays, lensing due to the sun and the precession of Mercury's orbit, to name a few, with incredible accuracy.
     
     It is not that the entire scientific community tows the party line of evolution; but rather it is that the entire scientific community has been convinced by the evidence that it is at the very least on the right track. If it were so easy to disprove evolution with the knowledge we have now, trust me it would have been done. There is no faster way to become a famous, eminent scientist than to prove a major accepted theory or notion wrong (in physics, some examples are Faraday, Planck, Rutherford, Einstein).
     
     While many people have much invested in the theory of evolution, and scientists are as human as everybody else and thus subject to the same flaws, there are enough scientists who would set their egos and preconceptions aside if they encountered truly significant counter-evidence. Additionally, while a century or two ago it was easy to silence dissenting voices in any arena, with the advent of modern communication networks, doing so is now effectively impossible.
     
     I will agree that dissenting in the scientific community can be dangerous. If a scientist tries to push dissenting theories that are pseudo-science at best and baseless at worst, then of course they will be ostracized by the community. From my understanding (based on my own limited research and discussions with friends and faculty in biological sciences), most dissenters from the theory of evolution are sensational - they make sweeping arguments based on little data and/or flawed analysis. This works to an extent, because it is extremely easy to convince people without the knowhow to determine the validity of something by citing lots of data and analysis, even if it is wrong.
     
     "We live in a physical world, that God, in His infinite nature allows us to explore by natural methods whether we credit Him with it's existence or not. Never, will this naturalistic explanation, however, eliminate the Source, because methodological naturalism cannot cross from the finite natural world to the infinite supernatural Source that gives it existence."
     
     You are right. If God, or an infinite supernatural Source truly exists, and is outside the scope of the natural universe, then our science will never account for it. This means that the existence of said being must be taken entirely on faith, unless it decided to make itself known to us in a manner that cannot possibly be accounted for by any other means. This has not happened or arguments over God's existence wouldn't occur. You (Sologos) and many others have concluded that God does exist, based on your personal experiences and reasons; many others have concluded that God does not exist, based on their person experiences and reasons. Yet others have concluded that God may or may not exist.
     
     The point is, you cannot take God's existence for granted in science. If it cannot be disproved, and God's existence cannot be, then it cannot be a part of science. Any theory involving God is philosophy, not science, and while philosophy is a fascinating and diverse field of thought that has harbored some of the greatest minds of humanity, philosophical arguments have no place inside the laboratory. Even if Darwinian Evolution were disproved tomorrow, Intelligent Design would still have no place in the scientific arena. Science concerns itself with how things occur, not what supernatural force guides them, which is by definition outside the scope of the NATURAL sciences.
     
     I want to stress that I am not saying that Intelligent Design is false. All I am saying is that it has no place in science because it is not a scientific theory. And while I believe the eminent scientists in the field that the theory of evolution has indeed survived the test of time and evidence, if they ever decide otherwise, then so will I. They are much more knowledgeable about the field than I and much more qualified to make conclusions based off of the data and are extremely intelligent individuals, so I don't believe they are just misguided. And I don't believe in conspiracy theories, so I don't accept that they are all dirty liars shoving a theory they know is wrong down our throats just to spite the religious.

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276. 276. Pigeon 02:05 AM 5/12/08

     Frank M:
     
     "We follow the evidence more stringently than any Darwinist or Creationist ever did ..."
     
     Forgive me if I don't take your word for it.
     
     "We came from apes, but is it mathematically possible to pick up a new genome with a coherent set of over 100,000 base pairs of genetic information, a 21st amino acid chain and entirely new genes by random chance mutation?
     
     In a word, no."
     
     Again, forgive me if I don't take your word for it...
     
     "Mathematically, it couldn't have happened gradually or suddenly. BTW, Gradual step-by-step is an even bigger loser than sudden leaps, but Darwin didn't realize that. Gradualism limits the births and requires an astronomically impossible but curiously similar repeating of "copy errors" that keep progressing in the same direction."
     
     Again, forgive me if I don't take your word for it... I am in the field of physics, and based on that alone I now know that you are either parroting something you've been fed or making up your arguments as you go. I have had long and in-depth discussions with plenty of biophysicists to know that our knowledge of many microscopic biological processes is extremely lacking - to the point where no one in the field would ever say that a process as convoluted as evolution (gradual or not) is mathematically impossible. Using phrases like "loser" and "astronomically impossible" simply makes me even more wary. Excessive use of hyperbole tends to evoke doubt, not agreement.
     
     I get the feeling that you know as little about biology as I and most other people in this board. Therefore, without any peer-reviewed sources to back up your claims I'm afraid your arguments mean little to nothing. I say peer reviewed because I do not have the ability to determine the veracity of an article on this topic myself, so it must be done for me by those who can.
     
     "Look guys, evolution is an ongoing thing. It is profoundly simple to examine any evidence of evolution and see if there are quadrillions of messy, asymmettical, pointless, incongrous blobs for every one amazing functional lucky break. (as Darwin predicted) The evidence shows more the opposite. Accident versus Intelligence is very testable and very easy to discern who was right"
     
     Biological evolution is significantly more than "is it a blob, or an new, functional limb?" On the timescales we can observe, most changes are things like slightly different protein structures, not something that really stands out at first glance. The only really effective way to observe evolution in realtime is by observing bacteria, with their short lifetimes. Again, I am no expert but my GUESS as to why we don't observe tons of disadvantageous or pointless mutations is because either they die with the bacterium (if it's disadvantageous enough it probably won't survive to reproduce), or if it's a harmless mutation it would probably just get washed out after generations. But a bacterium with a truly helpful mutation would reproduce more successfully, as would its offspring, and the mutation would spread fairly effectively. The experimenters don't look at the individual bacteria one at a time, that would be impossible. Instead they measure certain chemical, physical and behavioral properties of the sample as a whole and apply statistical analysis to reach their conclusions. Keep in mind this was just conjecture, but biological systems are the single most complex systems that humans have ever tried to study. Your oversimplifications would be out of place in most scientific problems, painfully so in this one.
     
     "You just have to be open-minded enough to accept what the evidence is telling you."
     
     I suggest you keep that in mind next time you read a journal article by an eminent scientist in the field.

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277. 277. Pigeon 02:06 AM 5/12/08

     nlaney:
     
     "With two threads dealing with religion and science, I'm curious if sciam has ever published any articles outing Carl Sagan's atheism, the lies of any Michael Moore's or Al Gore's films, or are these enlightened ones sciam heroes? Unfortunately, I suspect the latter."
     
     Why would Scientific American ever publish an article "outing" Carl Sagan's atheism? SciAm is not an inquisitorial tribunal, and being atheistic is not a crime nor a misconstruction of science. Additionally, while Carl Sagan is an atheist, he is not an atheist the way most people understand it. To quote him:
     
     "The idea that God is an oversized white male with a flowing beard, who sits in the sky and tallies the fall of every sparrow is ludicrous. But if by 'God,' one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying... it does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity."
     
     In other words, Carl Sagan believes in Spinoza's God, Einstein's God, and the God of Stephen Hawking. Their God is the embodiment of the laws of the universe, the manifestation of the forces by which subatomic particles and galactic clusters interact. This is the set of beliefs that my own personal experiences and education have led me to.
     
     Strictly speaking, and atheist is one who is not a theist, and a theist is someone who believes in the existence of one or more god that is the creator of the universe and intervenes in it and maintains personal relations with his creations.
     
     I agree with you that there are enormous fallacies in Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, and I don't know whether or not SciAm has published anything criticizing the film. If it hasn't, they should. However, none of Michael Moore's films really have anything to do with the subject matter at SciAm, as his films are social commentaries, not scientific ones.
     
     "But to get to the point, science cannot disprove God, but God sure can explain science. When science becomes a religion, is when cracks start appearing in scientific validity, because after all, there is only one true God, the God and father of the Lord, Jesus Christ, Amen."
     
     You are entirely right about everything, except possibly your final statement. Science cannot disprove God which is why no theory involving God can be construed as a scientific principle. God can explain science for those who believe in him because he is all-powerful and all-knowing. God explains nothing to those who don't believe in God. It frustrates me when religious people state that God is the answer, and that is the end. It is even worse when they they then encourage open-mindedness, because it's clear that they only want people to be open to their own opinions, and are not likely to reciprocate said openness.

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278. 278. Pigeon 02:06 AM 5/12/08

     EastwoodDC:
     
     "Science cannot prove the validity of faith, but neither can it disprove it. Faith therefore must stand on its own merits, and from my perspective faith is doing just fine without efforts to repose it as science. That, however, that is another discussion."
     
     Couldn't have said it any better.
     
     Frank M:
     
     "Natedog: "If a scientist could either proof the theory of intelligent design or at least disprove the theory of evolution they would be famous."
     
     As far as I'm concerned both of these challenges have been met and conclusively so."
     
     Unfortunately, Frank M, you being convinced is not conclusive evidence that you are right.
     
     "You have a lot of faith in the ability for scientists challenging existing paradigms to be readily accepted. A little history lesson would correct you. Or try reading Thomas Kuhn, a critic of how the empowered who review papers for journals will reject anything that opposes the theories they have spent their lives advancing. It isn't just the church, but the majority of the scientific community who reject new and revolutionary theories."
     
     I have read and dissected Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions in a course on the history of science, physics in particular, and your argument is invalid. The biggest reason is that his book was written 46 years ago. You have no idea how different science journals are now than they were then. First, there was a small group of editors who would decide what got published and what didn't, and a paper that was not published was rarely ever seen by anyone again. Secondly, there was no internet, and collaboration and communication between scientists who were not geographically close was difficult (telephones are not adequate methods of communication for complex research topics).
     
     Nowadays, the people who review submitted articles to journals is constantly in flux and there is an enormous number of them, not to mention that almost every journal in the world is now accessible to everyone (to read or submit to) via the internet. The chances that someone can find nowhere to publish their work are remote unless it is scientifically flawed. Additionally, there are plenty of resources to submit preprints online to be available to everyone (check ArXiv.org, for example) - these do not go through peer review at all and are still used fairly often. As I said in my previous post, with modern communication networks it is effectively impossible to silence anyone - they just won't get their sensationalism published in Nature.
     
     Kuhn spoke not on the prejudices of scientists about a specific theory, but on how a phenomenon or entire field was thought about as a community. Additionally, you seem to be claiming that evolution is fraught with errors and is (or even has been) proven wrong without much effort at all. The reasons for opposition to paradigm-shifts are because they require a completely new method of thinking about a problem. For example, the paradigm shift brought about by Einstein, Lorentz and Poincaré in their formulations of relativity required the abolition of an absolute frame of reference and introduced the concept of mixing space and time. I am sorry, but going from evolution to Intelligent Design is not quite a paradigm shift.
     
     "Natedog: "Why is none of this happening? Because there is no evidence to support such a claim, absolutely NONE!"
     
     Are you not paying attention or is this "selective" attention?
     
     The evidence for Intelligent Design is pouring in from many directions and it is overwhelming, undeniable and conclusive."
     
     Apparently you haven't been paying attention, either. Just as much evidence has been coming in from both sides. The thing is, almost no one, including you, Frank M, has cited their sources or given much of any reason to believe the evidence being presented as fact.
     
     You believe that some form of invisible intelligence is responsible for the evolution and diversification of life so strongly as to say that the evidence is "overwhelming, undeniable and conclusive." And yet the only evidence you've given us are a few rants about protein swapping and copy errors without a single citation. I think you're the one being unreasonable in expecting us to agree with you.
     
     This is the difference between you and me: you believe that there is an invisible intelligence responsible for guiding the evolution and diversification of life. I believe that the forces of nature, in this case the electromagnetic force exclusively (because of the scale of biological systems), are responsible for it. My version is consistent with everything we know about chemistry, physics and the rest of the observable world. Your belief is consistent with faith in God as an intervening force in the world.
     
     You (or somebody else, forgive me if I attribute this to you incorrectly) argued that ID does not require that God is the Designer. I disagree, at least based on your formulation of it. If the Designer were a part of our natural world (aliens, hyper-intelligent mice - extra points if you get the reference - you name it), then we would be able to find direct evidence of its tampering - i.e, we would be able to determine what exactly it did in order affect life. Instead ID proponents claim that the changes are simply too complex to have occurred without intelligent guidance, and if we can't actually determine what was done then the guidance must have come from outside our natural world, and thus must be some sort of supernatural being.

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279. 279. sologos 04:05 AM 5/12/08

     Pigeon states:
     But that leads to the logical conclusion that "God must have been caused to exist by some pre-existing being," and so on. There is no logical escape from this: either something can exist without having been caused by something else (in which case there is no need to posit the existence of a creator of this world), or there must be an infinite number of creators, with no original.
     
     
     Please tell me why the following considerations should not be the endeavor of true science, except, of course by the limitation of it's current methodology.
     The issue if causality is foundational to science. If we didn't believe that every effect must have a cause, the experimental method would be a futile endeavor. To say that the universe is infinite, then, would be tantamount to admitting the failure of the cause and effect paradigm upon which all scientific investigation rests. Out of nothing, nothing comes. Or as some have put it, why do we have something rather than nothing? Consider nothingness. No mass, no energy, no space, and no physical laws. Nothingness is physically "no thing".Hence the logical hypothesis(Science must always hypothesize, no?) of a Force that can create de novo. ie. out of nothing. (Are you beginnning to feel we have crossed out of science into something else? Then you may not be the true scientist!) What kind of Force must that be. First, of course, must be able to exist outside of the natural dimension, since we are beginning with "no thing" physical. (Now are we out of the field of science? If so, only because you have accepted that science is synonymous with naturalism, a definition it has fallen to only gradually in the last 400 years. It was not so, for example, for Copernicus, who never would have begun, if he was not convinced of an intelligent order to begin with) Secondly, It must be atemporal, outside of time, which of course must be the state of things in physical nothingness. Time has no existence, Albert showed us, outside of space. This state of atemporality, of course, eliminates His own causality, as causlity requires time. A causes B. B normally occurs after A(notwithstanding the artificial reversal of the arrow of time in certain quantum situations). Finally such a Being (can we agree to give Him a capital letter at this point yet?) , must have infinite knowledge and power, for if either was limited, how could He act out of atemporailty(eternity cannot be finite) and create de novo(nothingness is infinitely impossible to change iinto something). Any limit to His power and knowledge would eliminate His ability to effectuate time and something from(out of) His perspective of atemporality and nothingeness. He must, then, Himself be infinite.I call this Being God. Call it what you will, but acknowledge(from a logical perspective-science must proceed with logic) that He must have the above attributes.
     Now comes the ultimate question science must grapple with, if it is ever to get past mere rules of thumb(which is all we got so far) and to what is really out there. If we really must acknowledge that we would have nothingness without such a One, but we cannot cross the great divide backwards to such a One, why are we so enthralled with our methodology as if it really does get us something more than a primitive amount of predictability? And why are we so arrogant (not you, Pigeon, all of us) as to think that naturalism can know it all.

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280. 280. Pigeon 04:21 AM 5/12/08

     Frank M:
     
     "I don't think ID is settled on an "outside being" or even a "being" at all. It may be the primary consideration, but you used the word "only", so I would have to say that there are many IDists who see the intelligence as innate or instinctive or nothing more than intelligence itself. You will notice that I use the word "design" but not "designer". It may seem like a trivial distinction or no distinction because any verb needs a subject, but this may be an exception. I am open-minded on the nature of the causal force of intelligent design. In fact, I would sooner use the word "force" than "designer"."
     
     I had not gotten this impression from your previous posts, and I think I mischaracterized your opinion in previous posts. I apologize for that, and indeed my impression of your opinion from the above quote is that it may even be in line with my own thoughts on the matter in many ways. Who woulda' thunk :-p
     
     "Even if what you say were true, and I highly disagree, isn't the more important consideration using the evidence to discern the truth? If the evidence shows ID (and it does) you won't get anywhere with a falsehood as a premise."
     
     You really need to stop this, though. The more you claim that evolution has been conclusively disproved and ID has pretty much been proven, the less likely anyone is to take you seriously - at least not until you provide adequate evidence for those statements. No offense but I'm going to take the words of hundreds or thousands of biologists who have spent their lives researching the subject and who actually have a sophisticated understanding of the science above yours. Yes, they might have something invested in it, but at the same time I have interacted closely with many scientists in many fields and, based on my impressions, most would accept the demise of evolution if they were presented convincing evidence.
     
     "Ditches: "You could simply say that our knowledge of evolution is incomplete and that you believe evidence points to some unknown contributing factor(s) which help(s) to more efficiently guide evolution down advantageous paths."
     
     I do say exactly that and I wish that was what we teach in school, because it is true."
     
     I agree 100% there. Primary education is far too unequivocal in the majority of things it teaches. Few things are absolute and they should not be construed as such.
     
     "Ditches: "Claiming that you KNOW this influence to be an intelligent designer, however, borders on lunacy."
     
     Any attempt at explanation of our existence will at least border on lunacy because it defies explanation at this point. In scientific terms, nothing is "known" (proven), but yes, I do personally feel that some sort of intelligent involvement is beyond question at this point."
     
     Here I agree with Ditches. You tell everyone else to keep an open mind, but you're the one throwing around all the absolutes. You 'know' evolution is wrong, you 'know' Intelligent Design is right. You'd find yourself in many fewer arguments if you accepted that you might be wrong, and that your words are just your fallible impression of the situation. Like I said before, it doesn't appear that any of us are experts in the field, so our impressions of evidence are probably not complete and might be downright wrong in some cases.
     
     "Ditches: "Why must intelligence be involved here? Water flowing down a hill will follow the path of least resistance, as will the flow of electric charge."
     
     Because in life water is flowing uphill. Matter animation in living things goes against the grain of any known motive force."
     
     You're oversimplifying things again. Water flows downhill because it is energetically favorable to be closer to a gravitational source. Protons repel protons because protons create electromagnetic potential "hills", and the protons essentially roll down the hill (this is just a graphical way of explaining the electromagnetic interaction). Because electrons have negative charge, the hill created by a proton is inverted and becomes a hole, and the electron rolls towards the proton. Based on this principle, the only reason you don't fall through the ground is because something like a billion billion electrons on the surface of your foot are repelling with the electrons in the ground via the electromagnetic force. This is the same reason you can't walk through walls, and we feel the wind because of electromagnetic repulsion between the atomic electrons in the air and the skin on our face. Hemoglobin picks up oxygen from the lungs because Hemoglobin has an electromagnetic potential that is very attractive to oxygen but not much else (carbon monoxide is one of the few exceptions - hence why it suffocates people). Electric pulses in neurons are controlled by the concentrations of sodium and potassium ions inside and outside the atoms, which are regulated by extremely complicated transport proteins in the cell walls that have electromagnetic potentials that allow or prohibit the movement of the ions based on the concentrations inside and outside.
     
     This is all fairly well understood, and is only a miniscule number of examples of complicated processes that we know to be controlled by electromagnetic interactions. On the surface it seems like the cells are behaving intelligently, like they are deciding when to do what - just like someone from a couple centuries ago would mistake modern computers for genuine intelligence. We all know that computers aren't really intelligent, they are just programmed to carry out certain functions under certain conditions, just like components of cells. We know an enormous number of cell functions to be controlled by electromagnetic potentials, which are not random but direct results of the structure of the molecules. Now, you might be right. Maybe there are some processes (there are still many we don't understand) that are guided by an actual intelligence, but so far we have no experimental or observational reason to come to that conclusion.
     
     "Could there be some other unintelligent force that we know nothing about? Perhaps, but we aren't going to find it by listening to Materialists pretending that matter isn't animating in living things in ways that are unlike non-living.
     
     You alluded to electromagnetic force and gravity, but life's ability to animate MUST be studied as a fifth (or more) force(s) of nature. By Newtonian Laws, if something moves, there must be a REASON for the movement, a causal force."
     
     Now you're getting into tricky ground. This is a good example, we have been speaking about a topic that we really don't understand particularly well, and we have probably been making many gross simplifications. I'm sure the vast majority of people would take no issue with your statement here, but technically it's wrong. See? Things are usually more complicated than you might think.
     
     First, if you enter the quantum mechanical realm then causality is not so set in stone, hence Einstein's famous dissenting quote that God doesn't play dice. At that level events are probabilistic, not completely causal. It is possible we're wrong and there is a fundamental theory below quantum mechanics that would expose this idea as wrong, but so far we have not found any evidence of it. Many bizarre things occur at such tiny scales - conservation of energy can even be violated for short (very very short) periods of time!
     
     But, suggesting that intelligence itself is a force is a notion I've heard before but personally find unlikely. The interaction between particles due to the four forces of nature (electromagnetic, gravitational, nuclear weak and nuclear strong forces) are determined by the intrinsic properties of the particles as much as by the nature of the forces themselves. The forces are even transmitted by 'carrier' particles (the electromagnetic force is carried by photons, the weak force is carried by W and Z bosons, for example). For an 'intelligence force' to act intelligently, it would have to have some sort of consciousness to decide what to do with what particles in what situations. It would have to be infinitely dynamic and it would be essentially impossible to formulate any physical theory about it, from what I can see. If it were to coincide with how we think forces of nature wok, then the intelligence force would be moderated by some sort of intelligence particle. Even worse, why would this intelligence force act on life and not, say, a rock?
     
     I think that, ultimately, an "intelligence force" would reduce to the direct intervention in the natural world of some supernatural consciousness, and would thus not be describable by science. I could be wrong - I would be fascinated and awed by such a force if it were discovered, and I would probably become a much more spiritual person than I am. If this were true, it would indeed be quite the paradigm shift!
     
     "Science ignores this basic fact at its own peril. Then the Materialists wonder why they keep banging into impossibilities."
     
     Science ignores many things, because at the moment it is not capable of dealing with them. No one has thought of a way to include intelligence or consciousness into our formulation of physics. If someone were to successfully achieve this it would be the ultimate paradigm shift. So far we have not proved ingenious enough. The sad fact is, we cannot account for things that we have almost no understanding of, and therefore we cannot begin to account for intelligence.
     
     "This leads me to another reason why I attribute evolution to intellgience and that is mathematics. Too much of the matter animation that keeps us alive does just the right thing at just the right time. I am too mathematically inclined to buy into the accident claim. The odds against life existing by luck is way beyond the realm of statistically impossible, even if we didn't already know that we have an intelligent consciousness."
     
     That's a flawed argument. We live in one universe (potentially of finitely or infinitely many!) of hundreds of billions of galaxies with trillions of stars each! Assume one planet per star and we get more than a trillion billion planets in this universe. That is an incomprehensibly large number, really. Can you say for sure that the conditions for life to arise by chance are much smaller than that? This is the anthropic principle: that we live in this universe because it supports life, on this planet because this is where (or among the places where) life arose. We aren't living on Mars because life didn't arise there. If the probability for something to occur is absolutely tiny, it can still be likely to occur eventually if given enough opportunities. This is philosophy again (and is also regarding abiogenesis, not evolution), but the point is that just because the chances for life to arise are small (we don't know exactly how small and in what conditions), it does not mean that, in aggregate, it isn't likely to occur. Someone gave the following example earlier: it is highly unlikely for any individual to win the lottery, but it is highly likely for [i]someone[/i] to win it (usually more than one person wins).
     
     "I segue to the next reason I see this as an intelligent causation: We HAVE intelligence. We already know that intelligent thought leads to movement and formation of matter - in nerve formation, voluntary muscle flexing and chemical reactions to feelings show that our conscious and/or subconscious intelligence controls matter, not the other way around."
     
     Many people believe that our intelligence and consciousness might just be comparable to a significantly more advanced version of the machine intelligence displayed by computers. We have shown, by the creation of computers, that inanimate matter is capable of responding in a pseudo-intelligent manner to inputs and environment. Human bodies are orders of magnitude more complicated than any computer we've designed, so who's to say our perceived intelligence is not merely a function of our design? I'm personally undecided on this matter, but for now I think this question must remain in the domain of philosophy. We need MUCH more advanced technology and a MUCH better understanding of biological systems before such a claim could realistically be investigated.
     
     If that point of view turns out to be correct, though, then it might be that the chemical concentrations in and structure of our bodies (specifically in this case our nervous system), are precursors to thought. Ultimately, debates about the origins of intelligence is not a scientific one, at least at this time. It cannot be proven or disproved, and until the time when it can be it must be relegated to the domain of philosophy.
     
     "I may be two steps ahead of those who still claim that life is an ongoing series of indescribably incredible accidents, but if you are ready to discuss a life force, you are way ahead of the Materialists."
     
     I, and many others I would guess, are willing to discuss a life force, but not in the context of science. Again, in 200 years maybe, but for now it is beyond the scope of what our science can begin to explain and beyond the reach of our technology. We keep getting back to this point: what is and what isn't science. You have many fascinating ideas, but few of them belong in the scientific arena until we have the first clue how to deal with them. If you can come up with a framework to treat intelligence and a life force in a scientific context, you will probably become one of the most famous people in the world.
     
     "Again, the goal is to find the truth. If we find out that an intelligence IS at work in life formation and function, at least we have gotten that far. That it may bring up further questions does not refute the progress made by following the evidence. Some times you have to peel back layers of a mystery to get to answers you never dreamed of. Denying the evidence will get you precisely nowhere."
     
     Couldn't have said it any better, really.
     
     "It isn't just "very large" odds against you. Unguided evolution is a series of steps that range from virtually impossible to statistically impossible and back, again and again, millions of times.
     
     Statistically impossible is anything beyond 1 out of 10 to the 50th power. Virtually impossible means that we see no conceivable way that it could happen, which is not necessarily "finite" odds."
     
     I have never seen these numbers before, and to be quite honest the entire process is not understood well enough and too complex for anyone to come up with meaningful odds. Unless you can point me to an extremely reputable source with those numbers I will, reasonably I think, write them off as sensationalism. I will agree that it is 'unlikely' step after step, but another thing you have to remember is that while the likelihood that life got to where it has now is extremely remote, I'm sure, there are countless (probably effectively infinite) ways how it could have turned out, each probably with an equally small probability of occurring. Thus, like in the anthropic principle, the reason why life is how it is out now is because this is where chance brought it.
     
     If we could seed life in a laboratory, or on another planet with the same conditions as Earth, the chances that exactly the same life forms as have developed on Earth would develop there are probably nigh on 0. But the chance that some form of life, even intelligent life, developing might not be so small. The point is, we don't know. Proponents of evolution don't know, nor do its detractors; anyone in the field who says otherwise is either delusional or knows that the their arguments are vacuous.

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281. 281. sologos 04:29 AM 5/12/08

     Pigeon states:
     
     It is not that the entire scientific community tows the party line of evolution; but rather it is that the entire scientific community has been convinced by the evidence that it is at the very least on the right track.
     
     Experimental design is only the first part of disproving the theory. Funds are needed. How likely is one to get a research grant and a couple of grad students to assist or perform this experiment if one opposes evolution. I think that that might be the corollary of Expelled.

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282. 282. sologos 04:45 AM 5/12/08

     From my understanding (based on my own limited research and discussions with friends and faculty in biological sciences), most dissenters from the theory of evolution are sensational - they make sweeping arguments based on little data and/or flawed analysis. This works to an extent, because it is extremely easy to convince people without the knowhow to determine the validity of something by citing lots of data and analysis, even if it is wrong.
     
     
     Actually, you can check it out for ourself. Experiments are being done every day. One can look at the data and determine whether the data bestfit evolution or creationism, regadless of the conclusions of the investigator. There is a website calle creation-evolution headlines that does just that sort of thing, reinterpret experimental data.from peer reviewed articles and scientific journals. Judge for yourself if all creationists are sensationa.

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283. 283. Pigeon 05:32 AM 5/12/08

     Sologos:
     
     First, may I ask that you use shorter paragraphs and an extra line between them? I'm really enjoying this discussion, but it is hard to read giant "walls of text" it's often called :)
     
     Now to get to the discussion:
     
     "The issue if causality is foundational to science. If we didn't believe that every effect must have a cause, the experimental method would be a futile endeavor."
     
     I will agree that, for the most part, causality is foundational to science. There are, however, some quantum mechanical phenomena that exist apart from it. For example, electron-positron pairs can spontaneously appear out of the vacuum by borrowing energy from the vacuum. They quickly annihilate and return the energy to the vacuum, unless something extreme happens like one gets sucked into a black hole and the other escapes. There is no causality here, merely probability.
     
     "To say that the universe is infinite, then, would be tantamount to admitting the failure of the cause and effect paradigm upon which all scientific investigation rests."
     
     That isn't necessarily true. If the Universe dates back to infinity in some form or another, one cannot necessarily say that causality is violated. Take any cycle; for example take a computer screen that turns from red to green and back again over and over. This could have theoretically been going on forever. Asking whether it started out being green or red simply becomes a meaningless question. In fact, almost all physical theories are time reversal invariant, and those that aren't are still semi-invariant (i won't expound on this because it would require pages of explanation). Thus, if the universe can exist for an eternity from a beginning, why can't it have existed for an eternity until now? One thing I've learned during my study of physics and mathematics is that common sense does not apply to infinity, and I am being wholeheartedly serious.
     
     "Out of nothing, nothing comes. Or as some have put it, why do we have something rather than nothing? Consider nothingness. No mass, no energy, no space, and no physical laws. Nothingness is physically "no thing".Hence the logical hypothesis(Science must always hypothesize, no?) of a Force that can create de novo. ie. out of nothing."
     
     Based on the assumption that there was quite literally 'nothing' (whatever that means - for example vacuum still has energy, is that nothing, or is vacuum something? :-p) then I agree - there would have to be some sort of prime mover. Although, if time itself hadn't yet begun, then time and everything else in the universe could have 'popped' into existence without even violating a single law of physics, not even energy conservation. Conservation of energy only has meaning when juxtaposed with time.
     
     We are speculating here about that which we can by our fundamental nature have no experience with whatsoever, nor can we have make physical observations of it. Who is to say that other laws didn't exist to govern this "World of nothing"? What makes 'nothing' any less governable than 'something' if one can come from the other?
     
     As you can see, when speculating about this we can come up with almost any bizarre situation that meets only a few constraints and no one will ever, at least in the foreseeable future, be able to prove us wrong, or even really say that one idea is better than another.
     
     "(Are you beginnning to feel we have crossed out of science into something else? Then you may not be the true scientist!) ... (Now are we out of the field of science? If so, only because you have accepted that science is synonymous with naturalism, a definition it has fallen to only gradually in the last 400 years. It was not so, for example, for Copernicus, who never would have begun, if he was not convinced of an intelligent order to begin with) "
     
     Well that's just a definition of science. The modern definition of science is the Natural Sciences. The reason the term has evolved was to differentiate the investigations of what can be verified via observation and experiment from those that are, essentially, purely intellectual exercises. Philosophy and the natural sciences have evolved immensely in the past 400 years, to the point where there was a natural distinction between the two. They attempt to solve different classes of problems. Even if Copernicus wouldn't have gotten started if science didn't mean what it did, that does not mean we should revert to its old meaning. Who knows, maybe an Isaac Newton would have come along a hundred years earlier instead? Such hypotheticals are not worth the time.
     
     "What kind of Force must that be. First, of course, must be able to exist outside of the natural dimension, since we are beginning with "no thing" physical.... Secondly, It must be atemporal, outside of time, which of course must be the state of things in physical nothingness. Time has no existence, Albert showed us, outside of space."
     
     I will give you this, although again this is pure speculation about a 'world' in which it isn't necessary for anything we believe we know to apply.
     
     "This state of atemporality, of course, eliminates His own causality, as causlity requires time. A causes B. B normally occurs after A(notwithstanding the artificial reversal of the arrow of time in certain quantum situations). Finally such a Being (can we agree to give Him a capital letter at this point yet?) , must have infinite knowledge and power, for if either was limited, how could He act out of atemporailty(eternity cannot be finite) and create de novo(nothingness is infinitely impossible to change iinto something)."
     
     I don't like this. First of all, if there is an infinite Being in a world of nothing then it would cease to be a world of nothing, unless this Being were also nothing. What does knowledge mean in a world of 'nothing?' If there is nothing to know then nothing can be known... Can concepts exist in a world that doesn't consist of anything, not even a vacuum, and thus no energy? Can a concept exist outside of a universe such as our own? And maybe nothingness isn't infinitely impossible to change into something. Your definition of nothingness is not anything we have any experience with. Maybe it has properties that allow it to become something. If we are going to suppose that there is an infinite Being that can cause nothing to be something, then we could just as easily suppose that the ability for nothing to become something is intrinsic to the nothing itself, and bypass the need for the Being.
     
     "Call it what you will, but acknowledge(from a logical perspective-science must proceed with logic) that He must have the above attributes."
     
     I can't do that with certainty. If we take all your assumptions about the properties of nothingness for granted and make a few leaps of faith then sure. But I, or you, or anybody, could create a different scenario following equally sound logic and arrive at different conclusions simply by making different assumptions. This is why it is philosophy and not natural sciences. We can argue until the end of the world, but we will never progress (if we assume our logic is perfect to begin with). Our different versions will be equally valid because they can never be verified nor disproved, no matter how fantastic.
     
     "Now comes the ultimate question science must grapple with, if it is ever to get past mere rules of thumb(which is all we got so far) and to what is really out there. If we really must acknowledge that we would have nothingness without such a One, but we cannot cross the great divide backwards to such a One, why are we so enthralled with our methodology as if it really does get us something more than a primitive amount of predictability?"
     
     Again the above is only really valid if you take certain assumptions for granted. Your description of a world of nothingness, for example. I am still caught up on the existence of a world of nothingness consisting of something infinite, and a Being with infinite knowledge in a world with nothing to know.
     
     We are enthralled with our methodology because it is the best we have. Your argument is kind of like saying "Why were cavemen enthralled by fire if it didn't allow them to cook food evenly?" They hadn't invented the convection oven yet, fire was the best they had and they used it for what it was worth. Maybe our current methodology is the best we'll ever have, or maybe someone will come up with an ingenious way to improve it in the future. People will always focus on what we know now, because it is impossible to know what we will know tomorrow. It takes a very special person to get passed this and to concentrate on coming up with a brand new concept, one that is not merely expanding on something old.
     
     "And why are we so arrogant (not you, Pigeon, all of us) as to think that naturalism can know it all."
     
     I don't think many scientists believe that naturalism can know it all. I don't. As far as I know none of my professors or peers do, and most of the preeminent scientists of the past century certainly haven't. I wrote a fairly long post a couple pages back about it, actually.The point of the natural sciences is to model the world to whatever accuracy we want or need. Newton's laws are merely approximations at the scales relevant to everyday life. Relativity models the forces at large scales and high velocities, and quantum mechanics deals with the tiny. As far as we know none of these are perfect, but they are capable of predicting results to extremely good accuracy.
     
     The only subfield in physics that I think anyone would dare to call exact is Quantum Electrodynamics, but I think most would balk at even that, even though every prediction of QED provides exact agreement (i.e, within experimental uncertainties) with corresponding observations and has predicted a vast number of bizarre phenomena that were then observed. Maybe it even is a perfect theory, but the fact is we will never know because we will never be able to measure to infinite precision or accuracy.

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284. 284. Pigeon 06:25 AM 5/12/08

     Sologos:
     
     "Experimental design is only the first part of disproving the theory. Funds are needed. How likely is one to get a research grant and a couple of grad students to assist or perform this experiment if one opposes evolution. I think that that might be the corollary of Expelled."
     
     There is a fundamental flaw in this statement. Experiments involving evolution are carried out every day it seems. They do not need to be carried out by detractors of a theory to prove that the theory is wrong. Take the Michelson-Morley experiment as an example - it is often dubbed the most famous failed experiment of all time. It was designed to measure properties of the luminiferous aether, and instead provided powerful evidence that the aether in fact does not exist. Most theories are disproved not by experimenters trying to disprove it; they are disproved because experimenters design an experiment to observe a prediction of the theory and fail to see it (or see something else entirely).
     
     That is one of the graces of science: intent does not affect the outcome of an experiment unless the experimenter intentionally changes the data or performs faulty data analysis to arrive at the desired conclusion. Very few scientists would dare do this, however, because their career would end if caught.
     
     If the majority of the experiments designed to observe predictions of the theory of evolution are successful, it does not mean that people aren't trying hard enough to prove it wrong. It means that it is standing up to rigorous testing fairly well.
     
     "Actually, you can check it out for ourself. Experiments are being done every day. One can look at the data and determine whether the data bestfit evolution or creationism, regadless of the conclusions of the investigator. There is a website calle creation-evolution headlines that does just that sort of thing, reinterpret experimental data.from peer reviewed articles and scientific journals. Judge for yourself if all creationists are sensationa."
     
     I looked at that website but I didn't find any peer reviewed journal articles among its contents. I found plenty of media about research and some excerpts of what appeared to be actual scientific papers, though. Even if it did, however, it would not solve the problem I pointed out.
     
     I mentioned that it is easy to convince people who are not familiar with data analysis, statistics and the scientific method that an erroneous conclusion is actually true by throwing data and poor analysis at them. Even if you give them the data and the methods used to analyze it, often other scientists from other fields, even, will not be able to or will have a very difficult time of catching those errors. We need people, other than the authors, who really know how to look at the data and draw meaningful conclusions to decide whether the analysis is valid and the conclusions logical. Some people will choose to believe that the peer reviewers will automatically reject the paper based on its conclusions rather than its analysis, but I don't believe in conspiracy theories and humbly disagree.
     
     Nonetheless, by perusing the headlines about Intelligent Design on Creation-Evolution Headlines, I more or less confirmed my suspicions. The majority of the write-ups were full of logical fallacies and tongue-in-cheek insults. The most convincing argument against evolution that I found in the 15 minutes I spent looking was of the form, "This protein is really complex and they didn't say how it might have evolved!" Needless to say that isn't going to convince me of anything.
     
     I am sure many proponents of Intelligent Design are reasonable people, but it appears to me that most represented by that website are not, and most of the evidence they expect to be taken seriously is just speculation.

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285. 285. EastwoodDC 04:42 PM 5/12/08

     I don't mean to pick on Sologos or anyone else, because I see a strong effort towards insightful discussion from all the recent participants (thank you!). However, to discuss the evidence for ID is simply to miss the point.
     
     Sologos wrote> "The evidence for Intelligent Design is pouring in from many directions and it is overwhelming, undeniable and conclusive."
     
     No. There is [u]no evidence[/u] for intelligent design.
     
     What we have is [u]data[/u]. An enormous amount of data. Wonderful data that appears to be incredibly unlikely. Some of it we understand, some of it we don't. Much if it describes a really amazing universe that we live in - a place so wonderful that it's simply intuitive that it was made to be this way.
     
     [u]Data is not evidence[/u]. Evidence requires a framework for evaluation; a hypothesis - a statement which can be supported (or not) by data, and THEN the data becomes evidence for (or against) a theory.
     
     Science is not capable of defining God (or any sort of supernatural designer). There is no evidence for ID because there is no hypothesis. While the supposed evidence for ID has great intuitive appeal and seems to confirm our faith, it is based on flawed reasoning.
     Don't get me wrong - I am not saying that anyone's faith is flawed or that it is wrong to have beliefs - just that any attempt to validate faith through science is at best bad science, and at worst misguided faith.
     I offer the following statement as both logically and intuitively correct: [i]We cannot show the existence of God (more generally the validity of the supernatural) through logic and reason.[/i]
     
     We can argue the theory of evolution all day long (or longer) because there are hypotheses to consider and evidence to evaluate. We cannot have the same sort of discussion about ID because it has no basis in science. Many people on both sides of the issue fail to recognize this, and the result is the appearance of controversy where there is none. (This is perhaps a indication of the need for better science education, but that is also another discussion.)
     
     There is a deeper controversy, that between faith and reason, and it has been going on a long time. In fact it has been going on far longer than the ID/evolution argument, which is just its latest appearance (remember Galileo).

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286. 286. Frank M 06:10 PM 5/12/08

     True to the tone of Sciam's opening blog, it is extremely difficult to get most of these armchair "scientists" who believe in accidental formation of life to engage in discussion pertaining to evidence. Darwinists have been reduced to petty blustering and no substance whatsoever.
     
     Pigeon: "a hypothesis must be falsifiable to be the basis of a scientific theory.
     
     Actually, no it doesn't, but it certainly is easy to test both guided and unguided evolution, so what is your excuse not to discuss the evidence again?
     
     Pigeon: "A theory can never be proven, only validated beyond various degrees of doubt. They can, however, be disproved."
     
     Darwinism has been soundly disproved. Can we move on now, or must we still keep teaching students that Darwinist evolution is supported by evidence as undisputed fact?
     
     Pigeon: "The prediction of other effects is actually a cornerstone of a good scientific theory."
     
     Cornerstone? Some scientific theories do not lend themselves to prediction and they are nonetheless a theory. Such is not the case at all, of course, with guided versus unguided evolution. Ready to drop the excuses and discuss the evidence yet?
     
     Pigeon: "The theory of evolution is based on several complicated hypotheses and I don’t claim to be expert in the field."
     
     Oh yeah, real complicated. Luck creates increased complexity. We are selected because we didn't die, therefore selection is the cause of life. Ignore all evidence.
     
     That is the current Darwinian theory of evolution. Evolution by intelligent design actually FOLLOWS the evidence and makes sense.
     
     Pigeon: "My understanding, however, is that these hypothesis can be used to predict certain things, some of which have been experimentally or observationally validated."
     
     You couldn't be more wrong. Contemporary observations and experiments have left Darwin in the dustbin. Amazingly it seems as if nothing he predicted has happened. Bacterial evidence is anti-Darwin as is the fossil evidence, but cases of microevolution, such as with the Galapagos finches absolutely crush Darwinian theory.
     
     Pigeon: "Similarly, there are many things that, if discovered, could disprove the theory of evolution, such as the sudden appearance of new species that did not ‘evolve’ from any other life-form."
     
     Yes, but that would disprove common descent, which pre-dates Darwinism, and it would cause quite a re-shuffling of intelligent design theory, which includes common descent.
     
     Pigeon, you have to understand the opposing theories before determining how to address them. Intelligent Design advocates common descent with intelligent modification.
     
     The best way to prove whether evolution is guided or unguided is to examine modern day evidence to see if there are trillions of completely useless poorly formed physiological formations for any one just-right functional one. If it is the other way around, something is guiding evolution intelligently.
     
     Pigeon: "Intelligent Design’s hypothesis states that because life is too complex to have evolved by random or semi-random chance, then an Intelligent Designer must be responsible for it.
     
     (By "semi-random" are you using the "selection" card, or something else?)
     
     Your definition is close, but a little off. First, it is incomplete because there are quite a few different ways to prove intelligent design, and they have all been effective. Second, we are proving design, not sure about "designer".
     
     Thirdly, I would like to address the "too complex" point, because I keep hearing it here. Technically, you are correct, but you really don't need the modifier "too". Anything that could be considered both functional and complex indicates intelligence unless some unintelligent cause can be found. For example, despite all the molten metals heating and cooling under the earth's crust on a constant basis for billions of years, mathematically it could never have produced something as functional and "complex" as a hand-crank canopener in a few billion years. We do point out the most complex things to make a point, but even something as simple as your pinkie finger is irreducibly complex.
     
     Pigeon: "Therefore, the evidence that must be provided is merely that life is too complex to have evolved by random or semi-random chance. I hope it is clear why this hypothesis does not fall under the same category as that of evolution."
     
     It isn't clear at all. ID IS evolution, and either way it can be investigated and tested for validity or falsification.
     
     Pigeon: "You are right that these processes are being controlled in some form, but your immediate jump to a Designer is vacuous."
     
     Over three decades studying the life sciences is assumed as an "immediate" jump and "vacuous"? I can't help it if some of you are a step or three behind, still listening to the Darwinists. What is "vacuous" is to just make a claim with no attempt to support it with evidence.
     
     Pigeon: "Instead it is a form of machine intelligence, specified by the cell’s and body’s DNA, RNA, and the chemical structure of their (and every other molecule’s) components."
     
     DNA is indeed an intelligent agent of creation, but that hardly discounts intelligent design. Structures of molecules are also quite the amazing agent of life's functions, but in neither case have you reconciled the animation of RNA or other molecules and you have not really explained how these molecules happen to always be where needed when needed. "Powerful" may not be the best adjective. How about "well-engineered"?
     
     Note: I did not say anything about "supernatural". I said "intelligence".
     
     Pigeon: "We could get into an argument about how these complicated molecules arose in the first place, but that is a discussion of abiogenesis and is largely irrelevant to validity of the theory of evolution and ID."
     
     Irrelevent? Just because you try to dodge the question? could not be more intrinsically connected as a central issue. For one thing, whatever the answer, it was going on when the first living thing came to life and it is going on now.
     
     You couldn't argue it because you don't understand it. "Irrelevent" is just another excuse for you not providing factual evidence to back up your fairy tales.

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287. 287. sologos 09:55 PM 5/12/08

     Thank you for your advice. I will try to make my bites more readable.
     
     
     
     I will agree that, for the most part, causality is foundational to science. There are, however, some quantum mechanical phenomena that exist apart from it. For example, electron-positron pairs can spontaneously appear out of the vacuum by borrowing energy from the vacuum. They quickly annihilate and return the energy to the vacuum, unless something extreme happens like one gets sucked into a black hole and the other escapes. There is no causality here, merely probability.
     
     
     Science too often holds to a science of the gaps, but in this case there is no reason to speculate that the mysteries of the quantum world will ultimately yield to investigation, wierd as they may seem to our present world view. Quantum vacuums may not have mass but they do have space, energy and physical laws. Those are things that exist in the natural realm so apearances of mass temporary as they may be are not de novo creation.
     
     
     Nothingness is the only likely state of nature, because it does not require a cause. In other words no state of nature is possible and nature is void of existence unless it is introduced. Cycles of contraction and expansion, quantum vacuums or changing states all are effects. Denying the need for cause has a chilling effect on all investigation.

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288. 288. Natedog 09:56 PM 5/12/08

     >I would have to say that there are many IDists who see the intelligence as innate or instinctive or nothing more than intelligence itself. You will notice that I use the word "design" but not "designer". It may seem like a trivial distinction or no distinction because any verb needs a subject, but this may be an exception. I am open-minded on the nature of the causal force of intelligent design. In fact, I would sooner use the word "force" than "designer"."
     
     So do you believe that intelligence exists as a byproduct of life or as a catalyst required to create life in the first place?Or do you consider life and intelligence to be one and the same?
     
     >In fact, I would sooner use the word "force" than "designer"."
     
     Wouldn't a force suggest non-intelligent phenomena? I think the universe came into being (different discussion) before life occurred so certainly forces (energy) existed and could have acted as a catalyst for life.
     
     --
     Edited by Natedog at 05/12/2008 3:27 PM

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289. 289. Pigeon 11:33 PM 5/12/08

     Frank M:
     
     "True to the tone of Sciam's opening blog, it is extremely difficult to get most of these armchair "scientists" who believe in accidental formation of life to engage in discussion pertaining to evidence. Darwinists have been reduced to petty blustering and no substance whatsoever."
     
     Ok, so now you're calling renowned scientists around the globe, of all (including no) religions, who have dedicated their entire lives to the study of natural phenomena armchair scientists? That is quite the claim! None of my discussions with actual biologists have reduced to petty blustering and no substance whatsoever. However, [i]your[/i] arguments have! You have made claim after claim and you have not backed a single one up! Not a one! To convince other people that you are right, you are going to have to do more than fling around hyperbole after hyperbole and repeat the same, vague criticisms about protein swapping and copy errors.
     
     "Pigeon: "a hypothesis must be falsifiable to be the basis of a scientific theory.
     
     Actually, no it doesn't, but it certainly is easy to test both guided and unguided evolution, so what is your excuse not to discuss the evidence again?"
     
     Actually, yes it does. God is not a part of science because God is inherently outside of the scope of science. No scientific theory can ever require the existence of God (I am not talking about ID here, just in general). This is also why the Anthropic principle I mentioned above is considered philosophy and not science - it cannot be falsified. It is also why Superstring Theory is considered pseudo-science at best by a huge portion of the physics community - until our technology advances significantly, it is impossible to verify any aspect of string theory. We can conjecture all we want but if we can't prove it wrong by any possible means at this time, then it has no place in the scientific community unless it is abundantly clear that it is only meant as speculation for possible future topics of inquiry. (String theory actually does have some practical uses, though. For example it can provide a mathematical framework that makes solving real problems easier without affecting the results.)
     
     It is easy to test guided and unguided theories of evolution? Fine - tell me how. Tell me a framework to test both of those theories, including the design of the experiment, how observations and measurements will be carried out, and what analysis you intend to perform. Also predict what different results that might be drawn from the analysis would conclude. I.E. what results would you need to find to conclude that unguided evolution is indeed wrong, and what results would conclude that guided evolution is wrong, and what results would be inconclusive. This is the bare minimum of what you would have to describe when applying for a research grant, so I don't think it's unreasonable.
     
     If, as you say, this has already been done, then point me to it. Give me the names of the researchers, tell me where I can find all of this information as well as the actual results and analysis of their experiments. Also, if you're feeling ambitious, point me to the criticisms of their research (there is always criticism of research, even if it turns out to be correct). If you (or any research you point me to) can convince me that the analysis and conclusions of said research is valid and that the criticism of it is flawed, then I will be glad to change my mind.
     
     I have not been discussing the evidence for a number of reasons. The first is that [i]neither[/i] of us has sufficient background in the matter to truly understand the nuances of the data nor the analysis used by either side of the isle. We can parrot what both sides say but we cannot individually vouch for the validity of our statements, other than by saying "this is what he said." My opinions are what they are because people I know and respect that do have the requisite knowledge and experience to verify the validity of other people's research have told me that based on all the evidence that they and their peers have seen, they think that the theory of evolution has merit. Not all opinions are equal. The thoughts of an evolutionary biologist on evolution are worth more than my own; just as my own thoughts on the theory of quantum mechanics are worth more than notions of a biologist.
     
     If you wish to discuss the evidence, then I would demand that you provide the sources of your claims. If you do, I will do my best, given time constraints, to respond in kind. Anything short of that is just a waste of both our time.
     
     "Pigeon: "The prediction of other effects is actually a cornerstone of a good scientific theory."
     
     Cornerstone? Some scientific theories do not lend themselves to prediction and they are nonetheless a theory. Such is not the case at all, of course, with guided versus unguided evolution. Ready to drop the excuses and discuss the evidence yet?"
     
     You are right, I didn't mean to be so unequivocal with that statement, but it is nevertheless usually true. In physics, if a theory cannot be used to predict other effects besides the ones it was originally meant to describe, then it is ultimately a failure. I would argue that this is true with most biological theories, as well. For example, if a theory is proposed to explain how the liver breaks down alcohol, it should also be able to predict a method to interrupt that process, maybe even speed it up.
     
     I will point you specifically to this webpage: [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_as_theory_and_fact[/url]. It is wikipedia, though so take it with a grain of salt. The description of a scientific theory vs. fact is spot on, though, as is its discussion of the predictive power of a scientific theory.
     
     "Pigeon: "The theory of evolution is based on several complicated hypotheses and I don’t claim to be expert in the field."
     
     Oh yeah, real complicated. Luck creates increased complexity. We are selected because we didn't die, therefore selection is the cause of life. Ignore all evidence."
     
     Sigh. Yes, mutation is a chance-driven phenomenon, but the theory of evolution does not just say "Hey look, all these completely random and unconnected events added up together to get us where we are!" Any single mutation is probabilistic, yes. However, according to, for example, source 24 in the wikipedia article I linked above (an article from a scientific journal) it is not merely a sequence of purely random events. Biologists predicted that the rate of accumulating changes in DNA sequences would be lower in critical sequences (their subsequently observed example being sequences that code for rRNA) than in less important sequences (example being sequences that code for fibrinopeptides).
     
     As you can see, the formulation of evolution as a combination of Darwinian natural selection and Mendelian inheritance has made predictions of phenomena that should occur that were subsequently observed. I am sure I could find many more examples for you given time. Evolution is not some whackjob 'extremist' idea being propped up on fake arguments. It could still be wrong, but your characterization of it displays a lack of awareness or understanding of the nuances of the theory and its evidence.
     
     Based on your explanation of evidence against Darwinian evolution/for Intelligent Design (you seem to equate the two even though one being wrong does not validate the other), it seems to me like your evidence is actually a [i]lack[/i] of evidence. A lack of evidence can indeed be devastating to a theory, but it must first be ascertained that the seeming lack of evidence is not due to some systematic neglect of observations and experimentation or other intervening factors. There could be reasons why some evidence that we predict should exist isn't being found. If there is indeed a dearth of evidence for key predictions of evolution, then it appears that the eminent scientists in the field have reason to believe that there is a possible reason for it other than the theory of evolution being outright wrong.
     
     "That is the current Darwinian theory of evolution. Evolution by intelligent design actually FOLLOWS the evidence and makes sense."
     
     A lack of evidence will only ever be evidence [i]against[/i] a theory, never [i]for[/i] it. If there is indeed a crucial lack of evidence for the theory of evolution and it is disproved, that lack of evidence cannot be used to validate Intelligent Design; it merely won't conflict with it. It would tell us that there is some force at work in biological systems that we apparently do not understand - maybe it's a fifth force of nature, maybe it's another aspect to a force we thought we understood but don't. To show that it is probably some form of intelligence, scientists would have to predict phenomena that should occur if the force is intelligence that should not occur for any other possible candidates. If those phenomena are then observed, then there will be strong evidence for Intelligent Design. Again, if this has been done then point me to the original research.
     
     "Pigeon: "My understanding, however, is that these hypothesis can be used to predict certain things, some of which have been experimentally or observationally validated."
     
     You couldn't be more wrong. Contemporary observations and experiments have left Darwin in the dustbin. Amazingly it seems as if nothing he predicted has happened. Bacterial evidence is anti-Darwin as is the fossil evidence, but cases of microevolution, such as with the Galapagos finches absolutely crush Darwinian theory."
     
     I don't care where evidence leaves Darwin. Darwin formed his hypothesis 150 years ago, and the modern theory of evolution only includes certain elements of Darwin's original framework. Many of Darwin's ideas have indeed been proven wrong, but I really must emphasize that Darwin and the modern theory of evolution are not at all the same thing.
     
     I have never seen bacterial evidence portrayed as "anti-Darwin" before - everything I have ever read or heard on the matter has lead me to conclude the opposite... I do not know much about fossils nor have I read much about it, though it appears to be the strongest case against evolution. However, your claim that microevolution crushes the theory of evolution is entirely flawed. Microevolution is considered to be the exact same process as macroevolution, just on smaller timescales. Again, if you can provide me with actual research on these matters I would be extremely interested in seeing it.
     
     "The best way to prove whether evolution is guided or unguided is to examine modern day evidence to see if there are trillions of completely useless poorly formed physiological formations for any one just-right functional one."
     
     No... The theory of evolution claims that such poorly formed physiological formations are not likely occur because they would either pose a disadvantage to the specimen or at best would have no effect. I went over this previously. Evolution argues that advantageous mutations are propagating throughout a species because the specimens that have it are more likely to be reproductively successful than others. If a mutation brings no advantage or a disadvantage, then the specimens with it would not reproduce any more successfully than the rest, and the mutation would be washed out. Additionally, a change in a species need not have been the only advantageous route that could have occurred; perhaps there were thousands of mutations that would have been just as or more advantageous, but they just didn't occur (this is a game of chance, after all).
     
     However, depending on what you mean by physiological formations, we do see that. As cited above, species-wide changes in critical DNA sequences such as coding for rRNA are rare, but changes in relatively minor parts of DNA are extremely frequent. This is because if a critical sequence is altered, the critical process it is responsible for will likely fail and the specimen will probably not be successful and the mutation will not be passed on. But if a minor sequence is altered, the specimen can, in all likelihood, go on with its life with little to no affect and pass on its harmless, but not advantageous mutation.
     
     'If it is the other way around, something is guiding evolution intelligently."
     
     Unfortunately for your argument, the theory of evolution does not predict the trillions of malformed creatures. We do predict and observe trillions of minor mutations that do not greatly affect a specimen or species as a whole, but they tend not to manifest themselves as major physiological features (which would by their nature provide either an advantage or disadvantage). Therefore, by your logic, Darwinian evolution is correct.
     
     Additionally, even if it were the other way around (and it is if you only consider macroscopic changes), that does not mean there is necessarily something guiding evolution intelligently. It would mean that our understanding of how evolution occurs if flawed, and it would provide some insight into how we might revise the theory.
     
     That would be like saying there is a theory of gravity and a theory of 'new gravity'. Let's say that the theory of gravity argues that masses attract each other by bending spacetime such that the path that minimizes action (path of least resistance in layman's terms) is one in which the masses move towards each other (this is basic General Relativity). Now let's say that the theory of new gravity says that masses attract each other by interchanging particles called gravitons (this is, for example, how the electromagnetic interactions occur). If an experiment is conducted and concludes that masses do not bend spacetime, that does not mean that the gravitational attraction is due to interchanging gravitons. All that can be concluded is that masses do not attract each other by bending spacetime.
     
     "First, it is incomplete because there are quite a few different ways to prove intelligent design, and they have all been effective."
     
     Name the methods (you mentioned one of them above) and point me to the research that displays beyond a reasonable doubt their success.
     
     "Second, we are proving design, not sure about "designer"."
     
     If a thing is designed, then something designed it. That something is then the designer. Failure to admit that is a logical fallacy. The designer doesn't need to be God, but it sure has to be something.
     
     "Anything that could be considered both functional and complex indicates intelligence unless some unintelligent cause can be found. For example, despite all the molten metals heating and cooling under the earth's crust on a constant basis for billions of years, mathematically it could never have produced something as functional and "complex" as a hand-crank canopener in a few billion years. We do point out the most complex things to make a point, but even something as simple as your pinkie finger is irreducibly complex."
     
     What is your definition of complex? What is your definition of functional? A hand-crank can-opener can be used to open cans, or can be used to club people over the head. They were designed specifically to open cans, though. So your definition of functional appears to be something that was [u]intended[/u] for a specific purpose. However, I would argue that diamonds are complex. They not only require extreme conditions to form, but they have an amazing crystalline structure that we, as intelligent beings, have difficulty mimicking. Likewise, a diamond could be used to open a can. Diamonds are used as cutting tools by jewelers and manufacturers, but they were not designed.
     
     The sun is incredibly complex. The nuclear processes that occur in the core are complex, the mechanisms by which the produced energy is transported to the surface of the sun are phenomenally complex. And we could argue that the sun has a function - it provides energy to the Earth's environment and sustains life.
     
     The behavior of the oceans are immensely complex. If all the physicists in the world collaborated to solve the wave equation using the boundary conditions relevant to the ocean, we would probably get absolutely nowhere even using numerical approaches. But, somehow, the laws of nature don't run into that problem. The ocean goes on doing what it does in accordance with the laws of nature even if we don't have the ability to determine exactly what that behavior should be. And one could argue that the ocean's function is to support aquatic life, or to perpetuate the climate cycles.
     
     The point is, we are surrounded by complexity and function, and life is the rule, not the exception. I will admit that this forum is the first time I've seen the term 'irreducibly complex' and the idea might have some merit. But I am loathe to accept that, even though the laws of nature manage to run the entire universe, from subatomic systems to oceans to galaxies and black holes, it cannot also account for a measly pinky finger. Again, I have not seen the evidence for this, but if you can provide it to me (in the manner I outlined earlier), I would grudgingly accept your position as the better one if it is actually convincing.
     
     "Over three decades studying the life sciences is assumed as an "immediate" jump and "vacuous"? I can't help it if some of you are a step or three behind, still listening to the Darwinists. What is "vacuous" is to just make a claim with no attempt to support it with evidence."
     
     You have not presented your argument as being based on 3 decades of evidence. You have presented your arguments as being true essentially be default and have failed to produce the slightest hint of verifiable evidence to back it up.
     
     "DNA is indeed an intelligent agent of creation, but that hardly discounts intelligent design. Structures of molecules are also quite the amazing agent of life's functions, but in neither case have you reconciled the animation of RNA or other molecules and you have not really explained how these molecules happen to always be where needed when needed. "Powerful" may not be the best adjective. How about "well-engineered"?"
     
     Molecules such as RNA do not just appear where they are needed. There are critical concentrations of molecules in each cell, and they carry out their functions statistically. For the sake of simplicity (and because I don't know actual numbers) I am going to make up a situation to express this:
     
     Imagine four molecules, A, B, C and D. Let's say that if A and B molecules get within x distance of each other they will interact to form C (i.e, A + B -> C). Let's pretend that B is a harmful molecule, and that when A and B interact they form the harmless waste product C. Let's also say that normally A is only present in low concentrations, so that even if a lot of B molecules suddenly enter the cell, the A molecules can't destroy them efficiently. But, through another process analogous to this one, maybe the B molecules interact with a 4th molecule via B + D -> B + A. Now, it could be that D normally carries out some mundane task in the cell and is thus around in high quantities, but when it encounters a B molecule it becomes an A molecule. Therefore, if a cell becomes flooded with B molecules, reactions between D and B would lead to the construction of enough A molecules so that A and B interact frequently because of their high concentrations and thus high probability of encountering each other.
     
     This is a made up example but is illustrative of what actually occurs within cells. Molecules such as RNA, proteins, enzymes, etc. get where they are "needed" by statistics. If the concentrations of two interacting molecules are low, the rate of interaction will be low. If their concentrations are high, then their rate of interaction will be high. The concentrations of most molecules in a cell are governed by complicated feedback loops. The interaction between the molecules are electromagnetic, and are fully understandable as such.
     
     You are right that it is mind-boggling to think how such molecules and systems may have arisen, but it is also mind-boggling to think that both of us are bending the spacetime around us ever so slightly, that our bodies are being held together in the shapes we are via the electromagnetic force, and that all the particles in the ocean are acting together to form immensely complicated wave behavior, currents and tides as per electromagnetism and gravity. It used to be that all of those phenomena were though to be complex enough that the only explanation behind them must be some sort of intelligence. The forces of nature are capable of acting together and individually to form amazing, complicated and even bizarre phenomena.
     
     When you see complexity and function, you see intelligence. When I see complexity and function, I see nature.
     
     
     "Pigeon: "We could get into an argument about how these complicated molecules arose in the first place, but that is a discussion of abiogenesis and is largely irrelevant to validity of the theory of evolution and ID."
     
     Irrelevent? Just because you try to dodge the question? could not be more intrinsically connected as a central issue. For one thing, whatever the answer, it was going on when the first living thing came to life and it is going on now."
     
     You are right, it is not at all irrelevant to the discussion as those molecules were not always there and developed with life. Don't really know what I was thinking when I wrote that. :-p I don't know how they arose, nor does anybody, I think. But Einstein didn't know how space and time are related until he derived the relation. Our lack of knowledge is not grounds for the proof or disproval of a scientific theory. It is merely an incentive to continue looking into the phenomena of the world in which we live so that we might eventually figure them out.
     
     "You couldn't argue it because you don't understand it. "Irrelevent" is just another excuse for you not providing factual evidence to back up your fairy tales."
     
     You're right, I am not an expert in biology nor in biological evolution. I sincerely doubt you are, either. I'd like to comment that "my fairy tales" are actually the ideas formulated by thousands of brilliant individuals who have spent their lives studying the topic and defended by the evidence they have amassed that validate it. Scientists have little incentive to prop up a theory they know to be wrong. Historically, the funding for scientific endeavors dries up if little or no progress is made, and if an entire scientific community is going to knowingly promulgate a blatantly incorrect theory, progress is going to come to a halt and those same scientists are going to be out of a job.
     
     --
     Edited by Pigeon at 05/12/2008 4:36 PM

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290. 290. Pigeon 12:05 AM 5/13/08

     Sologos:
     
     "Science too often holds to a science of the gaps, but in this case there is no reason to speculate that the mysteries of the quantum world will ultimately yield to investigation, wierd as they may seem to our present world view. Quantum vacuums may not have mass but they do have space, energy and physical laws. Those are things that exist in the natural realm so apearances of mass temporary as they may be are not de novo creation."
     
     I agree that it's possible, maybe even likely, that ultimately quantum mechanics will yield to a more fundamental theory, just like any other physical theory. Even if we never discover it, quantum mechanics is merely a model of the world, an approximation that is more than sufficient for most practical applications. However, it is still possible that quantum mechanics has got it right that the world is probabilistic. It is also important to note that causality still has a place in a probabilistic world; causality would determine the probabilities of the possible consequences of something that did happen.
     
     Also, vacuums have mass if they have energy, there is no difference between the two (it may not appear that way from our points of view, but it is so at least at the quantum mechanical realm). Also, a clarification: vacuums occupy space, they do not have it. Space is not a property of matter or energy.
     
     "Nothingness is the only likely state of nature, because it does not require a cause. In other words no state of nature is possible and nature is void of existence unless it is introduced. Cycles of contraction and expansion, quantum vacuums or changing states all are effects. Denying the need for cause has a chilling effect on all investigation."
     
     In the absence of time, cause has no meaning. Therefore, using your definition of nothing one cannot say that nothingness requires no cause, because applying the notion of cause requires the existence of time. Cause and nothingness are intrinsically incompatible concepts. If the universe we know, including space and time and everything in it appeared within the nothingness, then how could the nothingness have 'existed'? It could not exist "before" the creation of the universe or "somewhere else", because the notions of "before" and "somewhere" cannot exist without space and time. Thus, if the world exists it would occupy the totality of the nothingness, in which case the nothingness would have to be equivalent to the universe.
     
     Again, this is why it is philosophy and not science. We can make logical deductions about possible scenarios, but that is the end of the line.

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291. 291. Frank M 12:25 AM 5/13/08

     Eastwood, you attributed the following quote to "sologos", but I was the one who wrote this: "The evidence for Intelligent Design is pouring in from many directions and it is overwhelming, undeniable and conclusive."
     
     Oddly, you took the exact opposite stance: "No. There is no evidence for intelligent design."
     
     You do go on to explain that what we have is data, some of which may be hard to explain or understand. You say this is not evidence for ID. Let me ask a general question of you, Natedog and Pigeon, and anyone else who opposes ID:
     
     In your opinion is there anything at all that could constitute evidence of intelligent design? For example, if we found a spacecraft on a distant planet, complete with fuel processing, aerodynamic design and climate control systems, would you find that evidence of intelligence or would you claim that it is a "cop-out" to explain it as such?
     
     Eastwood: "Science is not capable of defining God (or any sort of supernatural designer)."
     
     I can't speak for sologos if you were trying to respond to him, but I certainly never referenced God in the discussion. Whatever force is animating life in an intelligent manner is not supernatural. It is quite natural, and the effects of it are very much observable, testable and quantifiable. We may never put a "whodunnit" on the intelligent design, but we do know that it is intelligent.
     
     Eastwood: "There is no evidence for ID because there is no hypothesis."
     
     OK, you keep saying this. Haven't a couple of us addressed this rather completely after you said this last time? Did you just not like the answers? Please respond.
     
     Eastwood: "Don't get me wrong - I am not saying that anyone's faith is flawed or that it is wrong to have beliefs - just that any attempt to validate faith through science is at best bad science, and at worst misguided faith."
     
     Faith and science are polar opposites, but if the scientific realm confirms some of the beliefs of the faithful, so be it.
     
     Let's say someone has a deeply held belief that there is no God of any kind, and they attempt to prove this through science. Is this "bad science" or "misguided faith"? Or, for that matter, let's say on some level they believe in God, but they feel that they MUST find an answer that only includes forces of nature that we already know about. Can you see how these biased pre-determinations also become flawed as bad science?
     
     Or is it only those belief systems that are different than yours that you oppose regardless of evidence?
     
     The Creationists start with the assumption that God did it all, and would not change their minds no matter what the evidence. Likewise, the Materialists will accept any "explanation", no matter how ridiculous, to "prove" that God DIDN'T have a hand in it.
     
     Both approaches are biased and bound to failure. The only acceptable approach for science is to follow where the evidence is leading them, regardless if it fits their comfort zone. The only way to say there is "no evidence" of ID is if you refuse to accept any evidence that goes against accidentalism.
     
     So I ask again: Is it possible for any evidence to lead to an acceptance of the theory of evolution by intelligent design?

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292. 292. Frank M 12:38 AM 5/13/08

     I am just going to say two things in this post, because I keep getting two things thrown in my face that I never said:
     
     I am NOT against evolution, as in common descent. I am opposed to Darwin's explanation of it and the entire concept that life is an extremely unlikely series of accidents.
     
     I have not attributed life to God. I am neither for, nor against, the religious concepts of life's creation. I do not even use the word "designer" freely. Just because I say it couldn't have happened by accident doesn't automatically mean I am throwing God in the mix, or even any personified designer.
     
     I hope that these two things are clear. I am an IDist, not a Creationist, and the two theories are completely different, regardless of how many Creationists call themselves IDists.

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293. 293. Frank M 01:57 AM 5/13/08

     Pigeon, science has been struggling under the pre-supposition that we must explain life as an accidental mixing of random materials that just happen to animate, reproduce and think. Not all scientists buy into the Materialist bias, however, but those who do deserve ridicule because pre-determinations that ignore evidence are not scientific.
     
     Intelligent Design is far more evidence based, but we will be fighting an uphill battle, at least for a while. As far as peer-reviewed journals, I will concede that ID will have fewer papers for citation, but that is true for any new viewpoint.
     
     Pigeon: "Ok, so now you're calling renowned scientists around the globe, of all (including no) religions, who have dedicated their entire lives to the study of natural phenomena armchair scientists?"
     
     I hardly went that far, but I will apologize for my tone in my response to you. The prevailing theories are horribly flawed, and some of the Darwinist thinking is so sophomoric that it is amazing that these people were able to get a college degree. I am not slamming Darwin, because there is a lot he could never have known, but modern day Darwinists ought to be ashamed.
     
     Pigeon: "It is easy to test guided and unguided theories of evolution? Fine - tell me how."
     
     As I have been saying, all we need do is look at ANY evidence of evolution, fossil or contemporary, and evaluate it to see if it fits mathematical probabilities for "random chance" or if it fits "guided" or "intelligent" genetic editing.
     
     Mathematically, the two concepts are magnitudes of order apart from one another, and so should be profoundly simple to differentiate. Granted the mathematicians take center stage, moreso than the scientists, but so be it.
     
     If random chance is in charge of the creating, then there should be quintillions upon quintillions of messy, asymmettrical, pointless, mixed, incontinuous and incoherent blobs for any one incredibly lucky functional formation that just happens to attach to just the right bone, chamber or tube.
     
     If functional changes outnumber non-functional, it is time to accept that something other than random chance is our base point.
     
     Yeah, I know the bogus excuse for never seeing these wierd mutations in fossil evidence is because of "selection", as if that really was adequate as an explanation. You still have to account for modern day evidence of evolution where "selection" can be monitored for effectiveness or even eliminated as a possibility.
     
     We can also look at parental lineage better than we have, to look for evidence of parallel evolution. Any parallel evolution at all puts Darwinism strongly into question, but when we can witness it first hand under observation in the field, we really need to drop Darwinism like a bad date.
     
     These tests have been going on regularly. That's not the problem. The trouble is that much of the public is as confused on the issues as you are. You seem to understand that I propose guided evolution, but then you quote scientists who speak on behalf of evolution, as if they are refuting me. You still think of me as religious. You just don't get it the question, let alone the answer.
     
     Pigeon: "If, as you say, this has already been done, then point me to it."
     
     I'm sure you are aware of much of it already. Virtually all evidence of evolution has shown intelligent guidance. The Galapagos finches are a classic case. The odds of them getting the correct size beak by random chance mutation would have to be a number written in a scientific notation that would fill this blog by itself. Yet they predictably get the genetic upgrades they need within ONE generation, as the need arises. The number of these modified beaks exceeds the possible hatches, so this genetic re-engineering has to have been parallel, not limited to parental lineage.
     
     I won't even get into the predictability of intelligent genetic upgrades in bacterial experiments. Bacteria stay in stasis for millions of years, yet they get the genetic upgrades they need EXACTLY when they need it, under DIRECT observation in a petri dish, when anti-biotics are applied.
     
     Pigeon: "I have not been discussing the evidence for a number of reasons. The first is that neither of us has sufficient background in the matter to truly understand the nuances of the data nor the analysis used by either side of the isle."
     
     Speak for youself. My educational background is in Biology and I have been studying this subject since then for thirty years. I also have a background and education in Math, and the major flaws of Darwinism are mathematical. You need to talk to some mathematicians, Pigeon.
     
     Pigeon: "The thoughts of an evolutionary biologist on evolution are worth more than my own"
     
     Perhaps, but honestly, the education was flawed, because what they were taught is not correct. I can also tell you that the better Bio students became doctors and the rest teach Biology. Talk to a few medical doctors and try to get them to agree that life is "accidental". Still, you would gain more by talking to mathematicians, because that is where Darwin's worst flaws were.
     
     Also, need I add that you keep referencing these experts views on "evolution", which I fuly support as well.
     
     Pigeon: "Sigh. Yes, mutation is a chance-driven phenomenon"
     
     No, that's just it. Evidence shows that genetic variations are NOT random chance.
     
     Pigeon: "it seems to me like your evidence is actually a lack of evidence."
     
     Much of ID theory is as an alternative to the failed Darwinian model, but evidence for ID is not exclusively negative, as I noted a few pages back.
     
     Absence of evidence may not be evidence of absence, but it sure goes a long way toward disproving your theory and supporting mine.

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294. 294. Frank M 04:03 AM 5/13/08

     Pigeon, there are very few scientists who would attribute the cooperation of molecules in living things as exclusively electromagnetism, or even any electromagnetism at all. It would be more true to say that the life force is stronger than electromagnetism, because it defies it.
     
     When you think thoughts, you create a chemoelectric data transmission. This electrical activity is held in check in electrolytic "capacitance" until the exact moment when you need it for thinking that thought (or moving a muscle, etc.). This can in no way be attributed to standard 2-dimensional electromagnetism pulling positive and negative poles together and repelling same poles.
     
     You say: "Electric pulses in neurons are controlled by the concentrations of sodium and potassium ions inside and outside the atoms, which are regulated by extremely complicated transport proteins in the cell walls that have electromagnetic potentials that allow or prohibit the movement of the ions based on the concentrations inside and outside."
     
     You are getting yourself confused here, although much of what you are saying here is true. The electric pulses are not "controlled" by the ions. The ions provide electrons, but potassium has no intelligence and can not discern when to release electrons and when to retain them. Nor can sodium be so finely tuned to the precise thoughts of an individual at any given time.
     
     Reading your explanation, I had to wonder at what point the THOUGHT comes in. I recommend reading up on recent neuroscience findings that confirm that thoughts form neuron shape and chemical and electrical impulses. See work by Abel and Kandel or Squire, some of the best neuroscientists on the planet.
     
     If thoughts formed by way of sodium presence alone, we would be raving madmen unable to form any coherent thoughts. Moreover, experiments on paramecium have shown that single celled creatures can learn and think, despite the absence of brains, neurons or any discernable electron flow. In addition, experiments with animal domestication by Discovery Channel has shown that learned thoughts can become non-genetic inherited behaviors. Intelligence precedes, and is independent of (but aided by), neural formation.
     
     Your assertion that electromagnetism has anything to do with our inability to walk through walls is entirely false. I have only heard that theory presented once or twice, by some very poor reasoning. Living things are held together by collagens and fibrils and other connective tissues. This is well understood, although not well explained from a genetic information standpoint.
     
     Pigeon: "On the surface it seems like the cells are behaving intelligently, like they are deciding when to do what"
     
     Yes, it does, doesn't it? Very much so, in fact.
     
     However when you go below the surface, it becomes even more convincing that thoughts are not just an extremely lucky assemblage of chemicals, electricity and curiously re-forming cell walls.
     
     Yeesh.
     
     Frank: "life's ability to animate MUST be studied as a fifth (or more) force(s) of nature. By Newtonian Laws, if something moves, there must be a REASON for the movement, a causal force."
     
     Pigeon: "Now you're getting into tricky ground."
     
     It is only "tricky" because of the ignorance and intransigence of Materialists, who are loathe to even admit that matter moves in living things according to free will. I think, then my arm moves. I say my thoughts led to the movement. A Materialist says it is because of chemical reactions in my arm muscle, claiming the thoughts had nothing to do with it. Or even that I had no free will choice to make the thoughts.
     
     Pigeon: "First, if you enter the quantum mechanical realm then causality is not so set in stone, hence Einstein's famous dissenting quote that God doesn't play dice. At that level events are probabilistic, not completely causal."
     
     Anything that moves must have a CAUSE for the movement, no matter how you try to talk your way around addressing the issue. Einstein believed that there had to have been an intelligent designer. This was a scientific revelation, not a religious one.
     
     Pigeon: "For an 'intelligence force' to act intelligently, it would have to have some sort of consciousness to decide what to do with what particles in what situations."
     
     OK, that may be so. It certainly seems as if our own intelligence and consciousness are either intertwined or one and the same. If you are trying to claim that intelligence and/or consciousness don't exist, I will have to hold you to task for that. If we can not rely on our own self-observation to conclude the existence of consciousness or intelligence then we can not rely on any observation at all.
     
     Virtually nothing is more self-evident. It is nearly as self-evident that our intelligence can animate our muscles.
     
     Pigeon: "It would have to be infinitely dynamic"
     
     Not so much. It would have to be 4 dimensionally dynamic, but it does appear limited (or self-limiting).
     
     Pigeon: "and it would be essentially impossible to formulate any physical theory about it, from what I can see."
     
     What?? So your assertion is that we shouldn't attempt to theorize or study life's animation ability because, from what YOU can see, we can't. Did I get that excuse right?
     
     The excuses never end...
     
     Pigeon: "If it were to coincide with how we think forces of nature wok, then the intelligence force would be moderated by some sort of intelligence particle."
     
     Why on earth would there need to be a particle? Are you being serious or just trying to throw the kitchen sink at any attempt to study matter animation in life or life's formation?
     
     Pigeon: "Even worse, why would this intelligence force act on life and not, say, a rock?"
     
     Good question. Why doesn't your sodium make rocks think? There is plenty of sodium among rocks of the earth. Why doesn't your potassium ever move a rock? Not even once?
     
     For that matter why don't dead things continue to have electrical activity in the brain? Why can't we mix this stuff in the lab and find the kind of selective electrical activity that you say happens accidentally when we think?
     
     Why the life force works only in ways that perpetuate life and ignores anything that doesn't help life continue can only be explained by understanding that the life force is intelligent or is connected in some way to an intelligence.
     
     But why do you use the term "even worse"? Was that "rock" question supposed to refute an intelligent life force? If anything, it further supports intelligent agency.
     
     Pigeon: "an 'intelligence force' would reduce to the direct intervention in the natural world of some supernatural consciousness, and would thus not be describable by science."
     
     When you run out of excuses to ignore scientific evidence, the usual fall-back is to label this matter movement "supernatural" and then say we "can't" study it.
     
     Pigeon: "Science ignores many things, because at the moment it is not capable of dealing with them."
     
     Great, Pigeon. I hadn't heard that excuse to ignore the scientific evidence yet.
     
     Pigeon: "We live in one universe (potentially of finitely or infinitely many!) of hundreds of billions of galaxies with trillions of stars each! Assume one planet per star and we get more than a trillion billion planets in this universe."
     
     Setting aside the "infinite universes" desperation ploy as the most ridiculous excuse to ignore the scientific evidence, let me assure you that a trillion billion is negligible in terms of the odds against accidental life formation. Moreover, those planets mean nothing once you start talking about evolution of life beyond the first common anscestor. Most mathematicians who have refuted abiogenesis have included all planets in the cosmos from all years since the Big Bang, as if they all could have supported life.
     
     Pigeon: "Someone gave the following example earlier: it is highly unlikely for any individual to win the lottery, but it is highly likely for someone to win it"
     
     This isn't the lottery. The lottery has an extremely high probability that someone will win. Accidental life formation falls well into statistically impossible at not just the beginning, but millions more times after that.
     
     Pigeon: "We have shown, by the creation of computers, that inanimate matter is capable of responding in a pseudo-intelligent manner to inputs and environment."
     
     Except that our own intelligence isn't "pseudo-intelligence" and the computer is programmed by an intelligent designer.
     
     Pigeon: "Human bodies are orders of magnitude more complicated than any computer we've designed, so who's to say our perceived intelligence is not merely a function of our design?"
     
     Our what? Did you say "design"?

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295. 295. Pigeon 04:21 AM 5/13/08

     "Let me ask a general question of you, Natedog and Pigeon, and anyone else who opposes ID:
     
     In your opinion is there anything at all that could constitute evidence of intelligent design? For example, if we found a spacecraft on a distant planet, complete with fuel processing, aerodynamic design and climate control systems, would you find that evidence of intelligence or would you claim that it is a "cop-out" to explain it as such?"
     
     First, let me preface my answer by saying that I do not, strictly speaking, oppose Intelligent Design. I simply have not been convinced of its merits either as a scientific hypothesis or a valid theory. Look to the end of this post for my answer to whether or not anything can constitute evidence of intelligent design.
     
     If we found a spacecraft on a distance planet (or anywhere, really) with all the attributes you mention, I would be confident in saying that it is extremely strong evidence for the existence of intelligence.
     
     There are major differences between life and the spaceship, though. The first is that a spaceship is very clearly intended for a certain purpose. To me, this obvious intent is greater evidence of intelligence than just its existence itself. It is difficult for me to see any intention behind the existence of life (that does not mean it's not there, but so far humanity has not been able to come to an agreement on what it might be, if it exists at all).
     
     The second is that for a spaceship to have formed unguided by intelligence, a single object, for lack of a better word, would have to be continuously molded and changed over time. There would be no environmental stimuli that would specifically lead to the creation of a spaceship, nothing to encourage certain developments over others. The proposed method for the diversification and 'complexification' of life is significantly more elegant: evolution, the combination of Darwinian natural selection and Mendelian inheritance. Random changes occur and are passed on from generation to generation unless they pose some sort of disadvantage, and become widespread only (usually) if they pose an advantage. In this way certain developments are discarded and other developments are encouraged by environmental stimuli.
     
     In the spaceship case, if a change occurs that is a step away from the final product, the change must be unmade to finally reach its 'destination.' In life, the statistical majority of changes that catch on are selected in large part by the environment. Disadvantageous changes die with the specimen or handful of specimen that carry it.
     
     "Whatever force is animating life in an intelligent manner is not supernatural. It is quite natural, and the effects of it are very much observable, testable and quantifiable. We may never put a "whodunnit" on the intelligent design, but we do know that it is intelligent."
     
     Stop saying that. You say "we" like the whole world agrees with you. I, for one, don't know if there is an intelligence behind the evolution of life. Thousands of researchers with an actual background in science who have dedicated their lives to this specific problem are similarly unconvinced of your claims. For you to write off [i]completely[/i] the opinions of so many qualified individuals of all backgrounds strikes me as incredibly arrogant. Why, exactly, is your opinion more valid than theirs? They have looked at the same evidence as you have, with much more knowledge and experience, and have come to a different conclusion. Why is your conclusion any more valid than theirs?
     
     At least they (most, anyway) have the sense to not say unequivocally that Intelligent Design is wrong. Instead they say that they believe that evolution is a sufficient explanation, and that it is likely that the gaps in their understanding of evolution can be understood in terms of natural processes with further research. You, with far less qualification, say "They're wrong. I'm right. End of story." The more unequivocal a person is in proposing a theory, the less inclined I am to believe them.
     
     You need to open your mind in this discussion as much as anybody else (note that I am not saying that you are wrong). Too often does the voice of dissent believe that it alone is entitled to intolerance, while everyone else needs to be flexible in their beliefs.
     
     You are the one who came into this debate with your mind already made up; your statements are hyperbole as often as not, and your acceptance of Intelligent Design and denunciation of Darwinian evolution have been consistently unequivocal. Admit that you might be wrong and people will be more likely to consider your arguments based on their merits, rather than marginalize them because it appears like they are coming from someone [i]devout[/i] in his belief.
     
     "Both approaches are biased and bound to failure. The only acceptable approach for science is to follow where the evidence is leading them, regardless if it fits their comfort zone. "
     
     A scientist who believes that what he is searching to prove is true can still be a scientist. Einstein believed that quantum mechanics was inherently flawed because of its probabilistic nature and proceeded to spend the second half of his life trying to disprove it. He failed, but his methods were purely scientific, and his challenges to the theory forced quantum mechanics to be constantly refined and improved. So long as the process is scientific, the beliefs of the scientist are irrelevant. Unfortunately, not all scientists are capable of separating the two.
     
     "The only way to say there is "no evidence" of ID is if you refuse to accept any evidence that goes against accidentalism."
     
     It depends what you mean by 'accidentalism'. If you mean any theory of evolution that is explained without introducing some form of intelligence, then yes, that is true. If there is evidence against all possible theories of evolution sans intelligence, then obviously that is evidence for intelligent evolution (as it is the only option remaining). However, if by 'accidentalism' you mean Darwinian evolution, then your statement is wrong. Intelligent Design would not be the only nor necessary alternative if Darwinian evolution were proved wrong, and so evidence against Darwinian evolution is not evidence for Intelligent Design.
     
     "So I ask again: Is it possible for any evidence to lead to an acceptance of the theory of evolution by intelligent design?"
     
     Yes and no. It is well known that the majority of proponents of Intelligent Design believe that the designer is supernatural, and in most cases God. No evidence will ever lead to an acceptance of that version of intelligent design because it is intrinsically unreachable by science.
     
     Your version of intelligent design is different. You believe that there is a [i]natural[/i] source of intelligence responsible for guiding evolution. It is possible for evidence to lead to this theory of intelligent design. However, the evidence would have to be more than our continued inability to figure out how various mechanisms of evolution could occur unguided.
     
     First, a potential source of this natural intelligence would have to be hypothesized, and separate evidence for its existence would have to be found. Next, Intelligent Design would then have to predict how this intelligence guides evolution, what properties it has, what rules it obeys and how it interacts with the other forces. And finally, these predictions would have to be experimentally verified. At this point it would become [i]the[/i] accepted theory of evolution.
     
     As you can see, this is a tall order. This is why I have been saying that even your version of Intelligent Design does not belong in the realm of science, at least at this time. A scientific formulation of your version of Intelligent design cannot occur until someone comes up with a workable hypothesis of the actual source of intelligence and gathers valid evidence supporting it. If/once the latter occurs, then a theory of natural intelligent design will suddenly fall within the realm of science.

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296. 296. sologos 05:38 AM 5/13/08

     It is also important to note that causality still has a place in a probabilistic world; causality would determine the probabilities of the possible consequences of something that did happen.
     
     
     
     I agree. that causality and probability are not mutually exclusive in the sense that you describe.. It may even be possible that there is a degree of randomness consistent with determinism. We cannot nor should we abandon logic either science or faith (yes theologians seek logically to understand the nature of faith by careful and logical analysis of what we believe to be the revelation of God).
     Sometimes as in an experiment, one must simply acknowledge what is seen regardless of whether one understands it, hoping some later investigator might bring light. One is, of course, free to speculate, for what it's worth. It appears that both are present. My speculation, for what it's worth, is that it is like a sphere of randomness within a sphere or order, a bit like the way order in fluid dynamics can countenance the chaos of turbulence.On the other hand trying to understand the infiinite mind of God, he source of order (and deteminism in my understanding) with our rather priimitive
     organs is always fraught with self centered. What appears to be opposites may simply need a more comprehensive synthesis.
     
     
     
     
     
     Also, vacuums have mass if they have energy, there is no difference between the two (it may not appear that way from our points of view, but it is so at least at the quantum mechanical realm).
     
     
     Thank you for that clarification. I knew that the two are potentially inter convertible, and I knew that all mass is energy, but is that the same as saying that energy is mass? Does the arrow in fat go both ways? Does that come about by wave/ particle duality? Fascinating stuff that quantum !
     
     Also, a clarification: vacuums occupy space, they do not have it.
     What is the relevance of this distinction?
     
     Space is not a property of matter or energy.
     
     
     I believe what I mean by space is 3 dimensional volume, which mass does possess, no?
     
     "Nothingness is the only likely state of nature, because it does not require a cause. In other words no state of nature is possible and nature is void of existence unless it is introduced. Cycles of contraction and expansion, quantum vacuums or changing states all are effects. Denying the need for cause has a chilling effect on all investigation."
     
     In the absence of time, cause has no meaning.
     
     Perhaps a alternative way of expressing this is that in the absence of time, there can be no cause and effect.
     
     Therefore, using your definition of nothing one cannot say that nothingness requires no cause, because applying the notion of cause requires the existence of time.
     
     
     I mean to say that nothingness need not be brought into existence.
     
     
     
     Cause and nothingness are intrinsically incompatible concepts. If the universe we know, including space and time and everything in it appeared within
     
     not "within", that would be impossible.
     
     
     the nothingness, then how could the nothingness have 'existed'?
     
     To say nothingness existed is to assign it substance. Nothingness refers only to physical dimension not state. Spirit is different ontologically. One must speculate it's existence from a scientific perspective. Faith, however assures us in an entirely different, yet no less valid, way. Some call faith a faculty.
     
     
     It could not exist "before" the creation of the universe or "somewhere else", because the notions of "before" and "somewhere" cannot exist without space and time.
     
     It doesn't exist, except conceptually as a contrast to being. This is what makes a Creator necessary. Is this physics or metaphysics? I think both are part of reality, and this what science purports to show us. Some scientists are positivists.I believe Hawking calls himself one. If I understand his position correctly, he has more or less given up on ever discovering reality. Just describing some approximate laws are sufficient. It is no wonder naturalism holds such an attraction, one doesn't have to deal with God. Given our nature,that is convenient, wouldn't you say?
     
     
     Thus, if the world exists it would occupy the totality of the nothingness,
     
     
     
     You lost me. Maybe I'm fragmenting you a bit too much. In what sense does the world(?universe) occupy nothingness? Do you mean swallow up nothingness? If so, I think the waqy I wouldout it is thait replaces notingness.
     
     
     in which case the nothingness would have to be equivalent to the universe.
     
     
     
     Now you really lost me.
     
     
     
     
     Again, this is why it is philosophy and not science. We can make logical deductions about possible scenarios, but that is the end of the line.
     
     
     I think that science and philosophy must inform each other. 2 books God has given us to read. Both, as I see it speak of His mind. One is creation, the other is revelation. Both reflect who He is with different emphases requiring different faculties and different methodologies. Both are given by way of revelation of Himself. Nothing we find in one could possibly contradict the other because they arise from the same Mind. (If w see contradiction, we need to look a little more carefully.) They are meant to be read together. Faith confirms what the experimental method infers. Scientific discovery, what revelation indicates. Have you ever considered the unlikely existence of the state of Israel. Who would have ever thunk that oil would be discovered in the area 2500 years ago when Isaiah told us that it would be at the center of the world? How could he have known?

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297. 297. Pigeon 05:45 AM 5/13/08

     "I hardly went that far, but I will apologize for my tone in my response to you. The prevailing theories are horribly flawed, and some of the Darwinist thinking is so sophomoric that it is amazing that these people were able to get a college degree. I am not slamming Darwin, because there is a lot he could never have known, but modern day Darwinists ought to be ashamed."
     
     I am almost personally offended by that, and not at all because of your tone in response to me - I consider myself hard to offend. However, I know many people in biology who I know to be intelligent, objective, and capable of thinking for themselves and questioning what they are taught. Several of them began as or still are physicists first, who then went into biology. Maybe the prevailing theories are horribly flawed, but I sincerely doubt the flaws are as straightforward as you make them out to be. It appears we will just have to agree to disagree about the magnitude of the flaws of Darwinian evolution.
     
     "Pigeon: "It is easy to test guided and unguided theories of evolution? Fine - tell me how."
     
     As I have been saying, all we need do is look at ANY evidence of evolution, fossil or contemporary, and evaluate it to see if it fits mathematical probabilities for "random chance" or if it fits "guided" or "intelligent" genetic editing.
     
     Mathematically, the two concepts are magnitudes of order apart from one another, and so should be profoundly simple to differentiate. Granted the mathematicians take center stage, moreso than the scientists, but so be it."
     
     I'm sorry, but no. I know for a fact that our understanding of biological systems is not remotely sufficient to predict the relevant probabilities in this problem. First, the framework that Darwinian evolution proposes for how individual mutations occur is still incomplete, there's the first stumbling block [read: brick wall]. Second, if any mathematician in the world could figure out how to turn environmental stimulus into a probability for selection, I would personally nominate him for the position of God. Estimating these probabilities may be an interesting exercise, but until we actually understand the processes in question they are just that: exercise.
     
     "If random chance is in charge of the creating, then there should be quintillions upon quintillions of messy, asymmettrical, pointless, mixed, incontinuous and incoherent blobs for any one incredibly lucky functional formation that just happens to attach to just the right bone, chamber or tube."
     
     You fail to understand that Darwinian evolution posits that no mutation or change would ever reach such a macroscopic, large-scale pointless/disadvantageous formation. We do observe countless pointless mutations, it's just that they never develop into a major physiological feature. I have explained this twice now, so I won't go into it again, but I urge you to look back and reread what I already wrote on the matter.
     
     "Yeah, I know the bogus excuse for never seeing these wierd mutations in fossil evidence is because of "selection", as if that really was adequate as an explanation. You still have to account for modern day evidence of evolution where "selection" can be monitored for effectiveness or even eliminated as a possibility."
     
     How is it a bogus excuse? Why is that an inadequate explanation? Please explain. It is a reasonable prediction based on the tenets of Darwinian evolution that happens to be observed in nature. I have never seen modern day evidence of evolution where selection has been eliminated as a possibility, could you point any out to me? I am honestly intensely curious and would like to be as informed as possible on this issue.
     
     "We can also look at parental lineage better than we have, to look for evidence of parallel evolution. Any parallel evolution at all puts Darwinism strongly into question, but when we can witness it first hand under observation in the field, we really need to drop Darwinism like a bad date."
     
     Parallel evolution would indeed pose a problem unless a separate, workable hypothesis could be formulated to account for it. For example, maybe there exist some species that are capable of detecting a handful environmental stimuli and developing differently depending on different chemical concentrations, etc. In other words, maybe some organisms or capable of developmental responses to environmental stimuli. This is wild speculation, obviously, but I would really like you to understand that proving an aspect of a theory wrong does not mean the entire theory is incorrect; sometimes it just means a revision or addendum is in order.
     
     "You seem to understand that I propose guided evolution, but then you quote scientists who speak on behalf of evolution, as if they are refuting me. You still think of me as religious. You just don't get it the question, let alone the answer."
     
     I quoted people who speak on behalf of unguided evolution, not evolution as a whole (I think, I've written so much lately it's hard to remember). There is quite a distinction. I do understand that you are not arguing for anything supernatural, and I believe I have been fairly consistent and keeping my arguments relevant to that (at least when responding to you).
     
     "Virtually all evidence of evolution has shown intelligent guidance. The Galapagos finches are a classic case. The odds of them getting the correct size beak by random chance mutation would have to be a number written in a scientific notation that would fill this blog by itself. Yet they predictably get the genetic upgrades they need within ONE generation, as the need arises. The number of these modified beaks exceeds the possible hatches, so this genetic re-engineering has to have been parallel, not limited to parental lineage."
     
     I was not aware that we have observed the Galapagos finches evolving different beak sizes in one generation. That does appear to be pretty strong evolution against Darwinian evolution, unless an explanation like the example I gave above might apply. It seems to me that evolutionary biologists should focus on this example and try to determine if there is any way that this development could occur within an unguided framework. Do you know if any research beyond mere observation of this has been done?
     
     "Bacteria stay in stasis for millions of years, yet they get the genetic upgrades they need EXACTLY when they need it, under DIRECT observation in a petri dish, when anti-biotics are applied."
     
     I have also never heard of bacteria evolving to become resistant to drugs immediately. Although, my understanding of bacteria is that they are fundamentally different in many ways than, for example, humans. For one, they are much more efficient at sharing genetic material because they can do so without having to reproduce. Also, I have read that bacteria can detect different food sources and swap out pieces of genetic information to be able to digest the different foods; I was under the impression that this process was understood, but I could be wrong and have no sources.
     
     "Speak for youself. My educational background is in Biology and I have been studying this subject since then for thirty years."
     
     My apologies, I just assumed you would have made your background in biology clear from the outset (maybe you did and I missed it). Nonetheless, [i]I[/i] do not have a background in the field, hence my reluctance to get nitty and gritty with the evidence.
     
     "I also have a background and education in Math, and the major flaws of Darwinism are mathematical. You need to talk to some mathematicians, Pigeon."
     
     I am in the field of theoretical high energy physics - advanced mathematics is part and parcel of my daily life. I also collaborate with 'pure' mathematicians on a daily basis. Even more, I have had long and comprehensive discussions with biophysicists, who are probably the most qualified people to analyze the mathematics of evolution, and not one has ever expressed concern about the mathematics behind evolution. In fact, most of them would probably laugh at anybody who tries to quantify the probabilities of guided vs. unguided evolution.
     
     Research and analysis of cellular processes have been very qualitative. Biophysics is one of if not the newest emerging field in the sciences, and it is really the first major attempt to understand these systems at a quantitative, fundamental level (Personally I think that the amalgamation of the two disciplines is going to lead to great things). However, I think any biophysicist would tell you that quantifying the probabilities associated with such a huge theory like evolution, which involves countless mechanisms as well as unquantifiable effects of environmental stimuli, is an exercise in futility.
     
     "Perhaps, but honestly, the education was flawed, because what they were taught is not correct. I can also tell you that the better Bio students became doctors and the rest teach Biology."
     
     The biologists and biophysicists I know who are of a mind to accept evolution don't do so just because it's what they've been taught, but because they have seen the evidence for themselves, and are fully capable of drawing their own conclusions from it. Just like I don't believe Maxwell's Equations of electromagnetism just because someone wrote them down on a chalkboard, but because I have personally derived them from first principles and have seen experimental evidence validating them.
     
     "Talk to a few medical doctors and try to get them to agree that life is "accidental". Still, you would gain more by talking to mathematicians, because that is where Darwin's worst flaws were."
     
     There are 4 medical doctors in my family (close family, I see them several times a year at least), and all of them are inclined to accept Darwinian evolution. Two of them are even devoutly religious.
     
     "No, that's just it. Evidence shows that genetic variations are NOT random chance."
     
     So then what about the massive number of pointless changes in unimportant DNA sequences, which either control minor processes are don't appear to control anything at all ("junk DNA")? If these are not random mutations, then there must be some reason behind them, no? If there is an intelligence behind evolution, then what is the point of making pointless changes?
     
     All other physical interactions act to minimize energy or maximize the entropy or what have you (in physics we use the phrase "minimize the action" to encompass all of the above, and "action" is precisely defined). It would appear that if this intelligence guiding evolution makes all sorts of pointless, unnecessary changes, that it does not abide by this same principle. Most physicists would be skeptical of any proposed force that does not abide by this, as the principle of minimization of action is one of the most successful there has ever been. So you see, even if Darwinian evolution were discarded, there are plenty of questions that need answering before guided evolution will be considered a reasonable alternative.
     
     "Absence of evidence may not be evidence of absence, but it sure goes a long way toward disproving your theory and supporting mine."
     
     If there is no explanation for the absence of evidence other than the failure of Darwinian evolution, then yes it goes a long way to disproving it. However, in a court of law it would be considered circumstantial evidence for guided evolution, and in science it wouldn't be taken for actual evidence at all, only as a reason to explore the theory more fully.

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298. 298. Natedog 02:37 PM 5/13/08

     If you guys are going to quote each other can you please put a ">" at the beginning of the quoted paragraph? It makes the posts, especially the long ones at lot easier to follow.
     
     >"Let me ask a general question of you, Natedog and Pigeon, and anyone else who opposes ID:
     
     >In your opinion is there anything at all that could constitute evidence of intelligent design? For example, if we found a spacecraft on a distant planet, complete with fuel processing, aerodynamic design and climate control systems, would you find that evidence of intelligence or would you claim that it is a "cop-out" to explain it as such?"
     
     As I stated in an earlier post, as far as I am concerned intelligent aliens planting designer life forms on earth is the only scenario that I can think of that could scientifically support a theory of intelligent design (on this planet specifically).
     
     However, that does not answer the question of how those aliens themselves came into being and does nothing to bolster religious claims.
     
     >Experimental design is only the first part of disproving the theory. Funds are needed. How likely is one to get a research grant and a couple of grad students to assist or perform this experiment if one opposes evolution. I think that that might be the corollary of Expelled.
     
     And how difficult do you think it is to do legitimate research into climate change in a country where the federal government makes a point of censoring results? Or performing important stem cell research when it is basically outlawed for purely religious reasons?
     
     If you are looking for sympathy you will receive none from me. If you want to raise money to put towards the study of intelligent design be my guest. Sadly, you would probably receive far less opposition than infinitely more worthy causes.
     
     Maybe you should look into what the producers of Expelled are doing with their profits. Certainly they of all people would be willing to fund ID research.
     
     --
     Edited by Natedog at 05/13/2008 11:32 AM

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299. 299. EastwoodDC 07:53 PM 5/13/08

     To Frank M:
     
     Frank M> Eastwood, you attributed the following quote to "sologos", but I was the one who wrote this: "The evidence for Intelligent Design is pouring in from many directions and it is overwhelming, undeniable and conclusive."
     
     Apologies if I misattributed the quote. I quoted from a post by Sologos and assumed it was his (hers?). Natedog has already pointed out that careless quoting makes posts difficult to follow.
     
     Frank M>Let me ask a general question of you, Natedog and Pigeon, and anyone else who opposes ID:
     Frank M> In your opinion is there anything at all that could constitute evidence of intelligent design? For example, if we found a spacecraft on a distant planet, complete with fuel processing, aerodynamic design and climate control systems, would you find that evidence of intelligence or would you claim that it is a "cop-out" to explain it as such?
     
     Is there anything that would constitute evidence for ID? Anything and everything (literally) could be evidence IF there were a valid hypothesis. No hypothesis – no evidence. State a hypothesis that does not reference the undefined or indefinable, and then data could then be evaluated as evidence, for or against.
     
     (***Did I misunderstand your question? Finding a spaceship, or Jar Jar Binks, would be clear evidence in support of the hypothesis that "Aliens Exist". This would be a prerequisite for a hypothesis of "Alien Design", but not evidence that Jar Jar is our Creator. See the difference? I'll come back to this point tomorrow, time permitting.***)
     
     Further, I say that Natedog and Pigeon are barking up the wrong tree too (sorry guys), because by arguing the details of the science they have presumed that claims of ID have a scientific basis, and they do not. This discussion isn’t about science – it about faith* and reason – which is why there is no agreement.
     
     * Faith, alien designers, FSM, or whatever. Insert the generic undefined actor of your choice.
     
     I would reverse the question and ask if (in your opinion) there is anything that could constitute evidence in favor of evolution? (Any aspect of it you like, I’m not picky).
     
     >Eastwood: "Science is not capable of defining God (or any sort of supernatural designer)."
     Frank M> I can't speak for sologos if you were trying to respond to him, but I certainly never referenced God in the discussion. Whatever force is animating life in an intelligent manner is not supernatural. It is quite natural, and the effects of it are very much observable, testable and quantifiable. We may never put a "whodunnit" on the intelligent design, but we do know that it is intelligent.
     
     It was not my intent to pin any particular beliefs on you, but my point stands. An undefined “intelligence” is also not in the realm of science.
     
     Frank M >Faith and science are polar opposites, but if the scientific realm confirms some of the beliefs of the faithful, so be it.
     
     We are actually pretty close to agreement here (sort of). If science corresponds to your beliefs (or vice-versa) and gives you comfort, then more power to you. I feel rather that way myself. However, science cannot prove my beliefs, nor do I require bad science to justify my faith.
     Faith and reason are not really opposites, at least not in the sense that one denies the other, or that the two must conflict. I think it might be better to say that each stands alone.
     
     That’s all the time I have for today, and this seems a good place to stop. You wrote a lot more (some of it quite interesting), but I’ll have to defer that to another time.

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300. 300. Natedog 09:06 PM 5/13/08

     > Frank M: Let's say someone has a deeply held belief that there is no God of any kind, and they attempt to prove this through science. Is this "bad science" or "misguided faith"?
     
     It is most certainly bad science. It is also misguided faith in that they have faith that a tool (science) can answer a question when it has no means to do so.
     
     >Or, for that matter, let's say on some level they believe in God, but they feel that they MUST find an answer that only includes forces of nature that we already know about.
     
     If by the above statement you mean that they are attempting to find proof of god's existence using forces of nature than I would have to say that they are doomed to fail as god has no basis in nature.
     
     >Can you see how these biased pre-determinations also become flawed as bad science?
     
     I can see how trying to use science to answer non-scientific questions simply does not work and serves no useful purpose.
     
     >Or is it only those belief systems that are different than yours that you oppose regardless of evidence?
     
     I think that belief is only a beginning and evidence may change or at the very least cast doubt on that belief. As Pigeon has pointed out "intent does not affect the outcome of an experiment unless the experimenter intentionally changes the data or performs faulty data analysis to arrive at the desired conclusion."
     
     Along that line of reasoning one would expect a scientific study to provide evidence which supports the nature of the object being studied. Whether we manage to interpret that data properly is another story.
     
     --
     Edited by Natedog at 05/13/2008 3:28 PM

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301. 301. SCIENCE SAVES EARTH 11:06 PM 5/13/08

     I reported this blog as ABUSE. This is not a theological and philosophical site.
     
     This is a semi-science or common person science site injected into a higher mind science space, wherein some experts take the time to get down to our level.
     
     The ranting to raise Gods or lower Gods is ABUSE.
     
     From the numbers the discussion is quite popular. So is domestic violence. So is junk television. The lowest common denominator.
     
     Your ideas have zero to do with science and you are intentionally trying to cause trouble, not raise knowledge.
     
     At this point in the list of your citations or replies and counter replies you are redundant.
     
     The whole issue has been discussed to wipping a horse to death.
     
     Renduncy ad nogsium is a hallmak of theological degenerates.
     
     I made the point though ABUSE REPORT to pull the plug on your rantings.
     
     Someone needs to keep science magazines and blog sites free from the worst of the stuff which is no more than BLOG SPAM.
     
     If GOD exists -- maybe you should find a new site on internet to discusses it.
     
     You are BLOG SPAN. The moderators should in my opinion, pull your plug now.
     
     This is probably a liberal and conservative issue on part of scientists as differenced from a liberal and conservative issue on part of theologians.
     
     God or Gods bless you.
     
     Now let us use the site for semi-science and science and even science fiction and no more degenerate theology.
     
     Peace.
     Peace.
     
     There are great intellects in theology. Let them start a new blog.
     
     Peace.

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302. 302. Pigeon 06:26 AM 5/14/08

     I just wanted to post that I have not forgotten nor run away from this discussion, I have just had a ton of work to do in the past couple days. Unless SAVE THE SCIENCE gets his/her way and this forum is locked or deleted, I will do my best to reply to some of the new posts tomorrow.

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303. 303. Frank M 07:39 AM 5/14/08

     Eastwood, that you refuse to accept the existence of any sort of "intelligence" under any circumstance, I can not very well carry on any discussion of value with you. I will only add that any such pre-drawn conclusion reduces the credibility of your overall opinion on the matter.
     
     Creationists will only accept a Biblical God as Creator and, not surprisingly, that is precisely what they see in the evidence. Materialists, and specifically any die-hard atheists, will refuse to accept any evidence showing their bias to be unfounded, and suprise! Their conclusion is that there is no intelligence!
     
     Pigeon, you seem much more open-minded, although I do believe you exaggerate the unanimity of belief in unguided evolution among scientists and especially among mathematicians.
     
     Pigeon> "First, let me preface my answer by saying that I do not, strictly speaking, oppose Intelligent Design. I simply have not been convinced of its merits either as a scientific hypothesis or a valid theory."
     
     Fair enough. I do believe that anyone who has both an open mind and access to the evidence will embrace intelligent design eventually.
     
     Pigeon> "It is difficult for me to see any intention behind the existence of life"
     
     I think you mean life in general as opposed to any particular physiological form, so I would moderately agree, although I would respond that we do have a will to live. Why we have it is a valid question, but there is no doubt that we have a desire to be alive. Whether this means anything to counter your point I don't know.
     
     Certainly specific microbiological functions and physical formations do show clear intention. More importantly, all unconscious matter movement in living things leads toward the clear intention of keeping living things alive.
     
     Pigeon> "There would be no environmental stimuli that would specifically lead to the creation of a spaceship"
     
     If by "environmental stimuli", you mean Darwin's "natural selection", there is nothing there to create anything. What "environmental stimuli" create life? I see no "creation" force at all. Natural selection is a subtractive filter only. It creates nothing, nor does it "encourage" anything from non-existence into existence. It can do nothing until after existence occurs, so it is not creative.
     
     Pigeon> "Random changes occur and are passed on from generation to generation unless they pose some sort of disadvantage, and become widespread only (usually) if they pose an advantage."
     
     Please provide evidence of "random" changes. Nearly all evidence shows changes that maintain form and function and, when needed, beneficial changes.
     
     What are the odds of a change that proposes an advantage? What kind of advantaged change would you give as an example and how many bits of information would have to be in the correct configuration to place matter in a specific 3-dimensional space?
     
     Pigeon> "Thousands" of researchers have "looked at the same evidence as you have, with much more knowledge and experience, and have come to a different conclusion."
     
     Not so much. Although accidental evolution has an entrenched hold on academia, I do not agree that this is such a unanimous conclusion. There are certainly PhD's on both sides. Most only discuss evolution itself and don't even discuss guided versus unguided. Despite the fact that we teach accident theory as undisputed fact and despite the intransigence against ID, the concept of guided evolution still maintains widespread support, albeit a minority opinion.
     
     I have to disagree with your assessment about mathematicians and their conclusions on the odds against accidental evolution. I have read dozens of mathematicians who have studied this issue at length, including Von Neuman, Peter Woit and Fred Hoyle and they agree with Einstein's assessment of intelligent design. An entire conference of mathematicians at the Wistar Academy of Biology and Physiology, met with a team of Darwinists eager to prove their theory. The result was a sound and universal rejection of the math of Darwinism by the mathematicians, although the Darwinists remained unmoved.
     
     I also have some family and friends in medical and math fields. I would have to say their feelings counter your experiences.
     
     Pigeon> "The more unequivocal a person is in proposing a theory, the less inclined I am to believe them."
     
     I am unequivocal on the presence of intelligence in evolution and life's functions. This is not a close call and I have been studying it for far too long. I am not going to say I am not sure about it for anyone else's likelihood of belief. There are a lot of the details that are unclear or even wide open in my opinion, but there is not any possibility that life formed by luck. I should also contest your assertion that those who believe in Darwinism are more open-minded. That statement gave me a sad laugh to myself. I know far too well how ID is received in scientific circles. The hard part is just getting someone to listen at all.
     
     But you are listening so I am happy to get more into the substance of the issue. I'll remain certain, but try not to mention it so much, if that helps. I will admit that I used to be quite the Darwinist, but the evidence was just too powerful for me to continue down that road any longer.
     
     Pigeon> "A scientist who believes that what he is searching to prove is true can still be a scientist."
     
     I agree, as long as they are willing to admit to weaknesses as well as strengths in their beliefs. It seems that you are an example of the right approach, and I am glad to hear that you do consider the study of ID to be a scientific persuit.
     
     Pigeon> "However, if by 'accidentalism' you mean Darwinian evolution, then your statement is wrong."
     
     Disagree. The "creative" force of Darwinism is accident. Whether the created being lives or dies is irrelevent to how it was created in the first place.
     
     Pigeon> "Intelligent Design would not be the only nor necessary alternative if Darwinian evolution were proved wrong, and so evidence against Darwinian evolution is not evidence for Intelligent Design."
     
     It isn't proof, but it DOES support ID. Could there be other non-Darwinistic, but also non-intelligent means of life being created? I won't rule that out, but we certainly have no other hypothesis out there. Saying "non-intelligent" would exclude any form of Creationism as well as ID. I will say that if we are looking at the two options: intentional formation versus accidental, there is no third option as the the combination of these two options is all-inclusive.
     
     Pigeon> "It is well known that the majority of proponents of Intelligent Design believe that the designer is supernatural, and in most cases God."
     
     Well, the vast majority of people on the planet believe in some type of God, and once you conclude that the evidence shows that something designed and created us, it is not unusual to go there.
     
     Still, they are not a true IDist if they inject God into their scientific arguments or conclusions. ID as a science does not include God, and there are certainly some IDists who believe in non-God explanations.
     
     I think the term "supernatural" is most often used by ID's opponents, not us. We see design as a scientific persuit that has detectable physical effects that can be studied. If God did, in fact, create life, then God is natural, or at least His effects are.
     
     Pigeon> "No evidence will ever lead to an acceptance of that version of intelligent design because it is intrinsically unreachable by science."
     
     That version is Creationism, not ID. Creationists will label themselves as IDists and argue our points, but they are not IDists by definition.
     
     Pigeon> "It is possible for evidence to lead to this theory of intelligent design."
     
     I agree and it appears to be doing just that. (Was that better than saying "crushing Darwinism"?)
     
     Pigeon> "However, the evidence would have to be more than our continued inability to figure out how various mechanisms of evolution could occur unguided."
     
     Agree to an extent, but there is a point where intelligently guided evolution becomes the likelier answer. Bear in mind that no theory will be considered "proven", but if a theory could not be unguided, then it is guided. However, you used the term "unable to figure out", which connotes uncertainty. I would say that there is a difference between just not knowing and determining statistical impossibility. The answers will come in as a sliding scale, not a finish line.
     
     Pigeon> "First, a potential source of this natural intelligence would have to be hypothesized"
     
     I disagree here if I understand you correctly. I have no problem with hypothesis, but in this particular field of inquiry, the "source" could be a sensitive and unprovable subject. I might not disagree if you hadn't used the innocent sounding word "first". Step one is to gather and present evidence for the intelligence, which can happen whether or not we ever figure out a source. Finding a source is an important question, but I wouldn't want it to be a distraction or a pre-requisite for further inquiry.
     
     Please explain what you mean by "source". Is this a red herring?
     
     Pigeon> "and separate evidence for its existence would have to be found."
     
     No doubt here. This is not the part I am worried about.
     
     Pigeon> "Next, Intelligent Design would then have to predict how this intelligence guides evolution"
     
     How? Well, we know it animates matter, as no reproduction can take place without matter animation. And obviously it uses encoded information. Now, as to how it animates matter, that could be a tough nut to crack, but we do know that SOMETHING animates matter intelligently in living things.
     
     ID can make predictions on further guided evolution. We predict physical changes that are functional, symettrical and in cohesive units. We can predict that while these changes happen, there will be no non-functional physical changes or very few.
     
     Pigeon> "...what properties it has, what rules it obeys and how it interacts with the other forces."
     
     Now you are getting into some exciting stuff. This is exactly what scientists need to be studying openly and freely.
     
     Pigeon> "And finally, these predictions would have to be experimentally verified. At this point it would become the accepted theory of evolution."
     
     Ah, my dream....
     
     Pigeon> "This is why I have been saying that even your version of Intelligent Design does not belong in the realm of science, at least at this time."
     
     I disagree. It is still a scientific persuit throughout all phases of the scientific method. We don't have to wait until it becomes so accepted that all other theories are discarded before ID is "in the realm of science". I agree that the theory of evolution by intelligent design is in its infancy, but it is indeed a scientific persuit.
     
     Now if you mean that it is in the realm of what we teach in a science class, I wouldn't go that far either, but I do believe we need to show evidence against Darwinism, admit what we don't know and present evidence, whether it supports ID or not, without mentioning ID itself yet.
     
     Pigeon, I will have to wait to respond to your other message. It is after 3 AM here. Good points.

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304. 304. Natedog 02:32 PM 5/14/08

     >I reported this blog as ABUSE. This is not a theological and philosophical site.
     
     We are discussing intelligent design and whether ot not it can be examined scientifically. If you do not like the subject matter than by all means do not read it but we both know admin isn't going to lock this thread.
     
     >Pigeon "Intelligent Design would not be the only nor necessary alternative if Darwinian evolution were proved wrong, and so evidence against Darwinian evolution is not evidence for Intelligent Design."
     
     >Frank M "It isn't proof, but it DOES support ID. Could there be other non-Darwinistic, but also non-intelligent means of life being created? I won't rule that out, but we certainly have no other hypothesis out there. Saying "non-intelligent" would exclude any form of Creationism as well as ID. I will say that if we are looking at the two options: intentional formation versus accidental, there is no third option as the the combination of these two options is all-inclusive."
     
     It appears that you are both looking at the same evidence but arriving at different conclusions. If I could be so bold: Pigeon appears to concede that intelligent design could be at work but that the evidence does not currently and likely (read: almost certainly) will never be able to support such a claim.
     
     Frank M on the other hand appears to insist that the evidence not only supports intelligent design but in doing so disproves or at least casts doubt on chance or "accidental" evolution.
     
     From my point of view Frank M is claiming to at least partially understand that which cannot possibly be understood given the information available to us while Pigeon maintains a healthy respect for the limits of science and its inability to conclusively answer such a question. In other words Frank M is making a leap of faith while Pigeon is not.
     
     >we do have a will to live. Why we have it is a valid question, but there is no doubt that we have a desire to be alive
     
     >Certainly specific microbiological functions and physical formations do show clear intention. More importantly, all unconscious matter movement in living things leads toward the clear intention of keeping living things alive.
     
     Yes, but the desire to live only acts to maintain life, not create it in the first place. I think it is quite plausable that some of the first life forms may have lacked any form of survival instinct or unconscious intent and subsequently died off.
     
     >If by "environmental stimuli", you mean Darwin's "natural selection", there is nothing there to create anything. What "environmental stimuli" create life? I see no "creation" force at all.
     
     Doesn't that statement support the idea of chance? Only the supporters of ID are insisting on a willful creation force. Certainly forces (energies) exist in the universe and as long as the possibility existed those forces could have caused life to occur without the need for either intent or purpose.
     
     I do not think the forces in the universe intented to make stars, planets, galaxies, etc but it happened. Certainly you can accept that orderly systems can arise from chaos.
     
     --
     Edited by Natedog at 05/14/2008 10:20 AM

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305. 305. EastwoodDC 06:33 PM 5/14/08

     Natedog> I reported this blog as ABUSE. This is not a theological and philosophical site.
     
     Natedog may have a point, but at least the discussion is polite.
     
     
     Frank M> Eastwood, that you refuse to accept the existence of any sort of "intelligence" under any circumstance, I can not very well carry on any discussion of value with you. I will only add that any such pre-drawn conclusion reduces the credibility of your overall opinion on the matter.
     
     You misunderstand, or maybe didn’t read very carefully. Science cannot prove the existence of a supernatural force, much less that that force is intelligent. That doesn’t mean I don’t believe in it (I do), merely that I recognize it is a matter of faith. We agree that faith and reason are fundamentally different, is it any surprise that we reach different conclusions?
     Still disagree? Then define the intelligence in rigorous terms, define the mechanism for it’s function, form a hypothesis that does not reference the undefined (because science doesn’t deal with that), show that ID hypotheses fit the data better than those of evolution. Hint: Science does this in many small steps – ID want to do it all in one whack.
     
     As for my credibility, I almost surely test more hypotheses than you do. Should we question yours?
     
     Now that you have had three people address you question (at great length), how about playing fair and answering the other side of the same question:
     
     Repeating: [i]I would reverse the question and ask you, and anyone else who shares your opinion, if there is anything that could constitute evidence in favor of evolution? [/i](Any aspect of it you like, I’m not picky.) Please respond.
     
     
     
     Frank M> Creationists will only accept a Biblical God as Creator and, not surprisingly, that is precisely what they see in the evidence. Materialists, and specifically any die-hard atheists, will refuse to accept any evidence showing their bias to be unfounded, and suprise! Their conclusion is that there is no intelligence!
     
     So which one are you? (I’m somewhere in the middle.)
     
     
     Natedog> From my point of view Frank M is claiming to at least partially understand that which cannot possibly be understood given the information available to us while Pigeon maintains a healthy respect for the limits of science and its inability to conclusively answer such a question. In other words Frank M is making a leap of faith while Pigeon is not.
     
     Bingo! :-)

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306. 306. Natedog 07:05 PM 5/14/08

     Actually I was quoting and replying to SCIENCE SAVES EARTH. I certainly do not have any issue with this topic. If Scientific American does not want us to discuss such topics they should not bring them up in the first place.
     
     Any paragraph starting with ">" and as a result written in purple (at least on my browser) is a quote.
     
     --
     Edited by Natedog at 05/14/2008 12:56 PM

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307. 307. Pigeon 11:00 PM 5/14/08

     Question for Natedog: Thank you for the tip, I will put >'s in front of all quoted paragraphs from now on.
     
     Frank M:
     
     >"Pigeon, there are very few scientists who would attribute the cooperation of molecules in living things as exclusively electromagnetism, or even any electromagnetism at all. It would be more true to say that the life force is stronger than electromagnetism, because it defies it."
     
     Maybe, maybe not. I am confident in saying, though, that very very many scientists, and even more physicists, believe that it is at the very least possible that electromagnetism exclusively is responsible for the interactions between molecules in living beings. Based on our current understanding and experience, there is no reason to believe that this is not the case other than because it is mind-boggling to think that something as 'simple' as electromagnetism can be responsible for such a complex system.
     
     True, we haven't looked into every single molecule in every possible situation (impossible) and so we cannot say that we know how every molecule interacts with every other. However, we have successfully modeled the actions of countless proteins, enzymes, even DNA based purely on electromagnetic interactions. This is done by compiling the structure of the molecules in an interaction, inputting relevant parameters for the electromagnetic potentials, then simulating how the molecules would interact. This has been an amazingly successful field and, as far as I am aware, has never indicated that something other than electromagnetism must be at work. There have been cases in which simplifications to the model or other errors have caused problems, but nothing more.
     
     This isn't to say that there isn't something else at work. However, we have never observed evidence on this molecular scale to indicate that there is.
     
     >"When you think thoughts, you create a chemoelectric data transmission. This electrical activity is held in check in electrolytic "capacitance" until the exact moment when you need it for thinking that thought (or moving a muscle, etc.). This can in no way be attributed to standard 2-dimensional electromagnetism pulling positive and negative poles together and repelling same poles."
     
     You grossly underestimate the potential complexity of electromagnetic systems. We can do the same thing with computers - capacitors are easy. The one gap in this is that we don't understand our own intelligence. If intelligence is indeed some new force of nature, then there must be some sort of interaction between intelligence and electromagnetism and this problem would be solved. Likewise, if our own intelligence is merely a more complicated form of that exhibited by computers, then what we perceive as intelligence is really based on chemical [electromagnetic] impulses. The fact is, we don't know this, either way, and until we have a framework to investigate this, it is mere speculation. All we know at this time is that we have never analyzed a biological system on the molecular scale and determined that electromagnetism is insufficient to explain the observed events.
     
     >"You are getting yourself confused here, although much of what you are saying here is true. The electric pulses are not "controlled" by the ions. The ions provide electrons, but potassium has no intelligence and can not discern when to release electrons and when to retain them. Nor can sodium be so finely tuned to the precise thoughts of an individual at any given time."
     
     No, you are actually confused about my meaning, or about the underlying physics of the situation. The concentrations of the ions do indeed control the electric pulses. A pulse is either sent or not based on the relative concentrations of sodium and potassium ions on each side of the cell wall. This does not require intelligence on the part of any aspect of the system. However, the concentrations of the ions are controlled automatically by transport protein structures that either allow or forbid movement of the ions through the cell wall based on their concentrations. The functional forms of the proteins change based on the relative concentrations of the ions (sodium/potassium ions bind to the protein, causing its 'shape' to change and perform a different function). This isn't intelligence, either - it's a feedback loop (based on electromagnetic interactions) that is so characteristic of most biological processes. Feedback loops are why studying biological systems are so difficult, because many feedback loops intersect and affect each other, creating an unimaginably convoluted system.
     
     The interaction between these chemical processes, which as far as we can tell are well within our investigative ability to understand via physics/chemistry, and thought is another matter. It is a matter which cannot be resolved until we have some sort of understanding of what, exactly, thought and intelligence are. Neuroscience is a large field trying to do just that. Unfortunately, not even the best neuroscientists are at the point where they can say they know what intelligence is or where it comes from. Among my greatest dreams is for that to change sometime in my lifetime.
     
     >"If thoughts formed by way of sodium presence alone, we would be raving madmen unable to form any coherent thoughts."
     
     Ah but here you have a problem. You are assuming a hypothesis to be false in order to prove it false. If thought is a consequence of chemical processes, then your statement is nonsensical. The fact is we don't know what the source of our thoughts are, nor do we know enough to rule out some sort of chemical origin.
     
     >"Moreover, experiments on paramecium have shown that single celled creatures can learn and think, despite the absence of brains, neurons or any discernable electron flow."
     
     I leave those fascinating conundrums for people in the appropriate field to figure out. On the paramecium I have no ideas. I'd be interested to hear if there are any proposed theories of how this can occur. The lack of neural systems is not enough to convince me absolutely that a specimen would be incapable of learning; just because we think we (or some of us, anyway) are capable of learning because of our neural networks does not mean it is the only way for it to be possible.
     
     >"In addition, experiments with animal domestication by Discovery Channel has shown that learned thoughts can become non-genetic inherited behaviors. Intelligence precedes, and is independent of (but aided by), neural formation."
     
     Are there any other cases of observed non-genetic inheritable attributes? For some reason I was under the impression that there are non-genetic characteristics in humans that can be passed on as well, but I can't think of any and maybe it's just poor memory.
     
     >"Your assertion that electromagnetism has anything to do with our inability to walk through walls is entirely false. I have only heard that theory presented once or twice, by some very poor reasoning. Living things are held together by collagens and fibrils and other connective tissues. This is well understood, although not well explained from a genetic information standpoint."
     
     100% wrong. Electromagnetism has every reason to do with our inability to walk through walls. If you have only heard poor reasoning for it then no one has explained it well or you just did not understand the principles. Your "collagens and fibrils and other connective tissues" are made out of molecules which are made out of atoms. Atoms consist of a nucleus surrounded by electrons. Atoms consist of more than 99.999999% empty space. I refer you to this website http://www.phrenopolis.com/perspective/atom/ to get an idea of the scale of an atom. And I refer you to this website http://education.jlab.org/qa/atomicstructure_10.html for an explanation of how electromagnetism prevents us from passing through other matter. Let me know if you want to me to go into further detail and I would be glad to.
     
     >"However when you go below the surface, it becomes even more convincing that thoughts are not just an extremely lucky assemblage of chemicals, electricity and curiously re-forming cell walls."
     
     FYI, it is pretty well understood how cell walls reform. They are made out of phospholipid bilayers composed out of molecules that are electrostatically attracted to water on one end and repelled from it on the other. They form a spheroidal shell (the cell wall) because that is the lowest energy state - all the ends that are attracted to water face out of the cell towards the water, and the ends that are repelled by water face inwards, away from the water. I have a professor whose research is in this very topic.
     
     Arguing that evolution is guided by some form of intelligence is one matter. Arguing that the chemical processes in biological systems are often guided by some force other than the electromagnetic is completely unsupported by direct evidence; so far it is entirely contradicted as we have never observed this.
     
     >"It is only "tricky" because of the ignorance and intransigence of Materialists, who are loathe to even admit that matter moves in living things according to free will. I think, then my arm moves. I say my thoughts led to the movement. A Materialist says it is because of chemical reactions in my arm muscle, claiming the thoughts had nothing to do with it. Or even that I had no free will choice to make the thoughts."
     
     You have a knack for gross oversimplification. Free will is not a scientific concept or principle. There is no framework with which to include free will in scientific investigations. It isn't that scientists (who you broadly label materialists) are loathe to admit that matter moves according to free will - but rather that we have no way in which to predict or consider how matter could move according to it, because we have no idea what it is! Let's take two examples:
     
     First, let's assume free will is a concept above the natural laws of this universe (I know you are not assuming this). If that is the case, then it is inherently not a part of science, cannot be described by science, and so science cannot under any circumstances conclude whether it is or isn't true, or predict what it might imply.
     
     Second, if we consider free will to be as much a part of the natural world as my desk, then before we can take it into scientific consideration we require a scientific framework with which to treat it. It isn't that no one has ever thought about this or no one ever tried to do it - the problem is that no one has the first clue how to go about doing it! Until and unless there is a major breakthrough, then, then free will cannot be a part of science.
     
     You might see this as a major flaw, but I see it as a necessary annoyance. 100 years ago it would have been worthless and completely unscientific to consider what atomic nuclei are made of. Their theory concerning atoms, let alone nuclei, was extremely incomplete (almost nonexistent) - and it turned it to be downright wrong. Additionally, they would lack the technology to experimentally or observationally verify any of their claims for the next 60 years or so (not for lack of trying). Thus, not only would their theories likely be based off of an incorrect theory, but would be unverifiable for another lifetime. There is nothing wrong with thinking about it, and proposing it as a topic for future research, but any 'theories' at the time were speculation, not science.
     
     >"Anything that moves must have a CAUSE for the movement, no matter how you try to talk your way around addressing the issue. Einstein believed that there had to have been an intelligent designer. This was a scientific revelation, not a religious one."
     
     I point you to the decay of unstable (radioactive) nuclei, for Uranium-238. It has a half-life of 4.4 billion years. This means that every individual Uranium-238 nucleus has a 50% chance of decaying in any period of 4.4 billion years. If you look at one U-238 atom in isolation, with nothing else around it, it might decay in two seconds, or you might have to stick around for 50 billion years to watch it decay. It is a completely statistical process - it's called a half-life because if you start out with millions and millions of unstable nuclei, after every half-life you will have only half the number of unstable nuclei as you did before. However, once you reach a small number of nuclei (say 100, but probably even 1000 would be few enough) then this fails - that means that this is indeed a probabilistic event. This is because statistical processes have very clear trends if you can observe enough of the events; but if you can only look at a few events then the probabilistic nature shows through.
     
     A clarification of Einstein's beliefs (for anyone not familiar): Einstein believed in a pantheistic 'God,' that he said can only be conceived through the "rationality or intelligibility of the world which lies behind all scientific work of a higher order." Essentially, "Einstein's God" is the embodiment of the natural laws of the universe, and this is the "intelligence" in Einstein's "Intelligent Design" (I put it in quotes because Einstein never called it that). Based on this my understanding is that Einstein believed that life, and everything else, is guided by the natural laws (not our theories of them, but the actual forces themselves). This appears to me to be subtly different than the version of Intelligent Design that you are proposing - your version is inherently incompatible with Darwinian evolution, but Einstein's appears to be completely compatible; it is merely a question of what the natural laws are.
     
     >"If you are trying to claim that intelligence and/or consciousness don't exist, I will have to hold you to task for that."
     
     No. I am claiming that intelligence need not be a new, mysterious force of nature. It could just as easily be a consequence of order created by the natural laws that we already know.
     
     >"Pigeon: "It would have to be infinitely dynamic"
     
     >Not so much. It would have to be 4 dimensionally dynamic, but it does appear limited (or self-limiting)."
     
     That is not at all what I meant, but I don't think I can explain it without giving way too much background, so forget this point. I will, however, say this. It is currently thought that all four forces unite, or become a single force at high enough temperatures (really, really high temperatures, like 10^16 Kelvin). It has been experimentally observed that the electromagnetic and weak forces unite to form what is called the electroweak force. If that works for all the other forces, then would intelligence become indistinguishable from any of the other forces at high enough temperatures? (Obviously I don't expect an answer, but it's bizarre to think about...)
     
     >"What?? So your assertion is that we shouldn't attempt to theorize or study life's animation ability because, from what YOU can see, we can't. Did I get that excuse right?"
     
     Yeah, point taken. I guess I got carried away. I guess I should put it this way: I can wrap my head around electromagnetism, gravity and the strong and weak forces. They are based on very straightforward and simple principles. I can also wrap my head around these forces acting together or individually in order to create unimaginably complicated systems, even possibly what we call intelligence. However, I can't really wrap my head around the concept of intelligence as something fundamental. Therefore, I would not theorize about it, but I would encourage anyone else who has less trouble with the concept and an idea of how to proceed to go for it.
     
     >"Why on earth would there need to be a particle? Are you being serious or just trying to throw the kitchen sink at any attempt to study matter animation in life or life's formation?"
     
     Because that is how we believe the world works. Forces are moderated by carrier particles. Electromagnetism is moderated by photons, gravity is theorized to be moderated by gravitons (we are only just now getting to the point where we can try to observe them, see the LIGO experiment), the weak force is moderated by the W and Z bosons, and the strong force is moderated by gluons. The way we understand it, particles don't magically know where each other are and interact with each other; each particle creates a 'potential' field, or a field of these carrier particles. It is difficult to explain without trying to explain all of quantum field theory, but so far this principle has been validated in every relevant experiment.
     
     So if you want to put intelligence on the same level as the other forces, then either we are completely wrong (possible), or there is a particle carrier of intelligence (possible, but apparently we agree that this seems silly).
     
     >"Pigeon: "Even worse, why would this intelligence force act on life and not, say, a rock?"
     
     >Good question. Why doesn't your sodium make rocks think? There is plenty of sodium among rocks of the earth. Why doesn't your potassium ever move a rock? Not even once?"
     
     That is a completely flawed analogy. Potassium is not a force. A more apt question would be "Why doesn't electromagnetism act on neutrinos?" The answer is because neutrinos have no charge. There are clear rules as to what and how all the other forces act on all other matter. If intelligence is a force, then it should have analogous rules and constraints - but what makes any aspect of my body on a molecular or atomic level than a rock? Or the ocean? Or tree sap? Or the hydrogen gas between stars?
     
     >"For that matter why don't dead things continue to have electrical activity in the brain? Why can't we mix this stuff in the lab and find the kind of selective electrical activity that you say happens accidentally when we think?"
     
     Good question. The answer is that we don't know - again, there is a lot we don't know about biological systems. They are extremely complicated systems and it takes time to unravel them. Maybe the reason why dead things don't continue to have electrical activity is due to some chemical process that occurs during/afterwards, or maybe it's because intelligence leaves the tissue. So many of your questions that you have posed can't be answered by modern science because the phenomenon has not been studied sufficiently. Quantum mechanics is still an ongoing topic of research even though it has been around for a century in some form or another, and quantum mechanical systems pale in complexity in comparison to biological system.
     
     No answer to a question that has not been sufficiently studied, or because of a lack of tools, is not at all the same as no question despite comprehensive study. This kills some of your arguments and strengthens others; before posing questions, think about which case it falls into, and if it falls into the former, think of something else.
     
     >"Why the life force works only in ways that perpetuate life and ignores anything that doesn't help life continue can only be explained by understanding that the life force is intelligent or is connected in some way to an intelligence."
     
     No... Darwinian evolution provides a perfectly acceptable alternative for this. Development of life ignores anything that doesn't perpetuate it because only those that do perpetuate it perpetuate it. It's a pretty straightforward logical statement. Now, we can argue about the evidence, but your theory is not the only possible explanation based on pure logic.
     
     >"Pigeon: "Science ignores many things, because at the moment it is not capable of dealing with them."
     
     >Great, Pigeon. I hadn't heard that excuse to ignore the scientific evidence yet."
     
     The example I gave above about theories of the composition of atomic nuclei is what I meant by that. If there is no framework and no technology with which to consider a problem, then it cannot be dealt with by science until both of those obstacles are removed. Also, there is no such thing as scientific evidence for an unscientific idea. We see evidence for the existence of free will, but it isn't scientific because we have neither a scientific framework with which to study it, nor technology with which to experiment. If there is evidence that our current framework is insufficient to explain something, then it is incentive to revise the framework so it can. However, that evidence has to provide some ideas on how to go about revising the framework, otherwise all it does is tell us we're wrong and nothing else.
     
     >"Setting aside the "infinite universes" desperation ploy as the most ridiculous excuse to ignore the scientific evidence, let me assure you that a trillion billion is negligible in terms of the odds against accidental life formation. Moreover, those planets mean nothing once you start talking about evolution of life beyond the first common anscestor. Most mathematicians who have refuted abiogenesis have included all planets in the cosmos from all years since the Big Bang, as if they all could have supported life."
     
     To be honest, I don't see why the concept of infinite universes besides our own is any more bizarre than an embodiment of intelligence in the form of a force of nature. Anyways, I have never seen these numbers and I am still waiting for you to show me how they are derived. The Drake Equation is supposed to tell us the probability of extraterrestrial life, but some of the input parameters are completely arbitrary. The same could be true of these calculations. I'll withhold my judgement on this until you can find me an actual derivation of these numbers.
     
     >"Pigeon: "We have shown, by the creation of computers, that inanimate matter is capable of responding in a pseudo-intelligent manner to inputs and environment."
     
     >Except that our own intelligence isn't "pseudo-intelligence" and the computer is programmed by an intelligent designer."
     
     The pseudo-intelligence displayed by computers might just be due to their relative simplicity. If, in 100 years we design a computer capable of similar intelligence as our own, will you still hold that a distinct, fundamental force of intelligence is required for intelligence to exist? It seems to me that if we can eventually create a computer capable of a similar intelligence as our own (it doesn't have to be a philosopher, if it can display the intelligence of a 3-year old that would be enough), then we will have proved that intelligence can be 'constructed' via artificial means using electromagnetic impulses - no intelligence force. Yes, intelligence may have designed it, but wouldn't perpetuate it, which seems to be half of your argument.
     
     >"Pigeon: "Human bodies are orders of magnitude more complicated than any computer we've designed, so who's to say our perceived intelligence is not merely a function of our design?"
     
     >Our what? Did you say "design"?"
     
     Replace the word 'design' with the word 'structure' and then answer my question :-p
     
     --
     Edited by Pigeon at 05/14/2008 4:01 PM

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308. 308. Pigeon 11:34 PM 5/14/08

     Sologos:
     
     >"Sometimes as in an experiment, one must simply acknowledge what is seen regardless of whether one understands it, hoping some later investigator might bring light. One is, of course, free to speculate, for what it's worth."
     
     This is precisely the point I'm trying to get across the Frank M. I couldn't have said it any better.
     
     >"Thank you for that clarification. I knew that the two are potentially inter convertible, and I knew that all mass is energy, but is that the same as saying that energy is mass? Does the arrow in fat go both ways? Does that come about by wave/ particle duality? Fascinating stuff that quantum !"
     
     The arrow does in fact go both ways. For example, high energy theorists essentially do away with the notion of mass completely, and call it all energy.
     
     >"Also, a clarification: vacuums occupy space, they do not have it.
     What is the relevance of this distinction?"
     
     It's not exactly relevant to this conversation, other than that there is a difference. Not worth getting into, though.
     
     >"I believe what I mean by space is 3 dimensional volume, which mass does possess, no?"
     
     Actually, no. What we generally call the size of of a quantum mechanical particle is a combination of two things:
     
     1) a region in space in which the particle is most likely to be found (particles are not in one defined location, but have a probability of being in a whole region) and
     2) Size is relative. All it has to do with is how close individual particles have to be to each other to interact meaningfully; this depends on the particles and on what forces they experience, so different particles 'see' other particles as being different 'sizes.' This is called a "cross section."
     
     The conventional definition of size only applies at macroscopic scales when quantum effects become negligible!
     
     >"I mean to say that nothingness need not be brought into existence."
     
     I would argue that neither does "something" need to be brought into existence - if it has always existed. Having an infinite past does not invalidate principles of causality. To invalidate causality there would be to be an event with no cause. In a causal universe with an infinite past, every event has a cause. The only difference is that there is no beginning. There is no first. You can trace back forever and ever but you will never find a violation of causality because you can always just go one step further. It's tough to think about, and it's why I said that common sense does not apply to infinity.
     
     >"To say nothingness existed is to assign it substance. Nothingness refers only to physical dimension not state. Spirit is different ontologically. One must speculate it's existence from a scientific perspective. Faith, however assures us in an entirely different, yet no less valid, way. Some call faith a faculty. "
     
     I don't accept that which requires a direct leap of faith; I accept only that it might be.
     
     >"Some scientists are positivists.I believe Hawking calls himself one. If I understand his position correctly, he has more or less given up on ever discovering reality. Just describing some approximate laws are sufficient."
     
     I guess I'm a positivist, then, too. That pretty much sums up stance as a scientist and individual.
     
     >"In what sense does the world(?universe) occupy nothingness? Do you mean swallow up nothingness? If so, I think the waqy I wouldout it is thait replaces notingness."
     
     I find the notion of a state defined by the lack of existence to be nonsensical. What is it a state of? For example, is nothingness a state of the universe, or of something else? And again, I hold that the if universe, including time and space were to 'appear' out of a state of nothingness, then causality would not be violated. Causality is only something we need to worry about during the existence of time. Causality would not be violated at t=0 because there is no time before it to worry about!
     
     This conversation is difficult to have via keyboard...
     
     >"Have you ever considered the unlikely existence of the state of Israel. Who would have ever thunk that oil would be discovered in the area 2500 years ago when Isaiah told us that it would be at the center of the world? How could he have known?"
     
     Israel is not the center of the world. It is pretty much the one sliver of land in the entire region that is not swimming in oil... It's kind of ironic, really. Also, people tend to think highly of themselves. It doesn't seem out of place to me for a leader to claim that their culture/nation/what-have-you will be the center of the world for years to come. Nowadays most people would laugh if someone were to say that, but that's because the world has become much smaller, our record of history is much better, and the general population is much more aware of it.

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309. 309. Pigeon 11:40 PM 5/14/08

     Natedog and EastwoodDC:
     
     Frank M does not believe in a supernatural creator or designer. He believes that there is a force of nature that can be understood by science much like electromagnetism and gravity. For lack of a better term I've been calling it the "intelligence force."
     
     This is crucial, because both of you keep answering his questions as if he were arguing that God were reaching down from the heavens and telling all the molecules in our bodies what to do. He isn't. He is just saying that, just like we didn't know the nuclear strong force exists until some decades ago, we are still missing another fundamental force of nature.
     
     Therefore, any argument you make in response to him regarding the supernatural is irrelevant, and it will only serve to convince him that you are opposing him out of dogmatic belief in evolution or against ID, instead of scientific reasoning.

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310. 310. Natedog 01:21 AM 5/15/08

     >Frank M does not believe in a supernatural creator or designer.
     
     Yeah, I realize that but his arguments are still quite different that those I've come across regarding the gravitron or the god particle.
     
     My objection to Frank M’s arguments is based on a lack of evidence and in my opinion a lack of necessity. The source and nature of his “intelligent force” isn’t really important.
     
     --
     Edited by Natedog at 05/14/2008 6:32 PM

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311. 311. Pigeon 02:18 AM 5/15/08

     Frank M:
     
     >"Certainly specific microbiological functions and physical formations do show clear intention. More importantly, all unconscious matter movement in living things leads toward the clear intention of keeping living things alive."
     
     Valid point, I will concede that there does appear to be intent in the microbiological realm. However, to say that the intent of life is to stay alive is like saying that the intent of a rock is to stay a rock. It is a flawed analogy, because to stay alive requires constant activity and all, while remaining a rock only requires perpetuation of the status quo; nonetheless the intent of life as a whole is much less clear, if it is there at all.
     
     >"If by "environmental stimuli", you mean Darwin's "natural selection", there is nothing there to create anything. What "environmental stimuli" create life? I see no "creation" force at all. Natural selection is a subtractive filter only. It creates nothing, nor does it "encourage" anything from non-existence into existence. It can do nothing until after existence occurs, so it is not creative."
     
     We are not talking about the creation of life, but the diversification of life. Your spaceship analogy is only valid (and it is flawed even then, as I pointed out) in comparison to [i]changes[/i] in life, not the creation of life itself.
     
     >"Please provide evidence of "random" changes."
     
     I already did. Several posts back I mentioned how there appear to have been an enormous number of random, essentially meaningless changes in the DNA sequence responsible for coding fibrinopeptides (and I even cited the source). This is only a single example of which there are many. Not only is this evidence of random changes, but it is also evidence against Intelligent Design: why would the intelligence behind diversification of life waste its time making all these meaningless changes? Seems like a waste of energy to me.
     
     >"Nearly all evidence shows changes that maintain form and function and, when needed, beneficial changes."
     
     Darwinian evolution predicts the same thing. Disadvantageous never occur throughout a species for obvious reasons - the specimens with this mutation would die. A harmless, but functionless third limb would never propagate throughout a species because it would provide no advantage and thus the specimens with this mutation would have a difficult time spreading it throughout the entire gene pool (more importantly, it would probably not have gotten to the point of a full limb). I've gone over this many times.
     
     Also, how do you account for birth deformities, then? Why would an intelligent guide cause some children to be born with cleft lips or other congenital diseases? Why so many blood types? If this intelligence is capable of giving a whole species eyes, limbs and organs just because they would be advantageous, then why doesn't it evolve the human race to be immune to the measles, mumps, HIV and malaria? We know that there are individuals that immune or highly resistant to all of these, why not everyone? You seem to be arguing that massive physiological changes can occur throughout a species in a handful of generations, and most of the above mentioned diseases and viruses have been around for at least a few human generations - yet we seem to be no more resistant now than we were a 30, 50, 100 or 500 years ago. The same principle applies to animals.
     
     Personally I think this is just as strong evidence against Intelligent Design as you believe the statistical calculations you mention are against unguided evolution.
     
     >"What are the odds of a change that proposes an advantage? What kind of advantaged change would you give as an example and how many bits of information would have to be in the correct configuration to place matter in a specific 3-dimensional space?"
     
     I don't know enough about biology or chemistry to answer this question.
     
     >"Pigeon> "Thousands" of researchers have "looked at the same evidence as you have, with much more knowledge and experience, and have come to a different conclusion."
     
     >Not so much."
     
     Now you're being hypocritical. First you were arguing that people who disapprove of Darwinian evolution of are ostracized and ignored, and now you're claiming that it's really not that unevenly split. The [i]fact[/i] is that the majority of biologists are inclined to go with unguided over guided evolution, even if they don't think it's a flawless theory. If the large majority of biologists believed otherwise then it would not be as universally (for lack of a better word) accepted within the scientific community as it is. I am sure there is a large, if relatively small, number of equally qualified individuals who think that unguided evolution is fundamentally flawed and that guided evolution is the way to go, but that is not my point. Nor am I trying to say that the majority need be right. I am only saying that by calling thousands of individuals who are probably more qualified than you are and with more experience silly and blind you lose a lot of credibility. It is difficult to hoodwink the scientific community into believing that a blatantly false theory is true. I'll give you an example:
     
     People used to believe that the Earth was the center of the Universe. People like Copernicus and Galileo were largely written off as crazy. But as telescopes became more available and more people looked into it, and when Isaac Newton proposed equations of motion that perfectly accounted for the motion of celestial bodies in the solar system, even the religious opposition conceded, and revised its notions of celestial bodies and motion. And quite frankly, the modern scientific community is [i]much[/i] more open to change than the 17th century Catholic Church was. If you believe otherwise, then you are essentially saying you have no faith in science, in which case this discussion is over...
     
     >"I have to disagree with your assessment about mathematicians and their conclusions on the odds against accidental evolution. I have read dozens of mathematicians who have studied this issue at length, including Von Neuman, Peter Woit and Fred Hoyle and they agree with Einstein's assessment of intelligent design. An entire conference of mathematicians at the Wistar Academy of Biology and Physiology, met with a team of Darwinists eager to prove their theory. The result was a sound and universal rejection of the math of Darwinism by the mathematicians, although the Darwinists remained unmoved."
     
     First, Einstein never assessed Intelligent Design - the idea of what is today called Intelligent Design is no more than a decade or two old. I addressed Einstein's beliefs in my previous post - I might be wrong about them, though, as I have never met the guy... I am somewhat familiar with Von Neumann's work on the subject, although I am not aware of what first principles he worked from. I know a little more about Fred Hoyle's work, though, and he even has something called [url http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoyle%27s_Fallacy]Hoyle's Fallacy[/url] named after him.
     
     Again, the only way you will convince me of the astronomical odds against unguided evolution is if you can provide me with the assumptions made, the actual calculations, the results, and preferably any criticism that has been made of it. When it comes to most evidence for or against evolution I will defer to biologists; but I am perfectly capable of deciding for myself whether a probability calculation is reasonable or not if I am provided with evidence for and against the assumptions. Even the most intelligent people can be wrong. If we all believed Einstein over all his detractors, then we wouldn't have quantum mechanics and might not even have the computers we're using to have this debate.
     
     >"I am unequivocal on the presence of intelligence in evolution and life's functions. This is not a close call and I have been studying it for far too long."
     
     Ok then, we should just end this discussion, then... You know something is wrong when you are "unequivocal" about the validity of a science.
     
     >"I should also contest your assertion that those who believe in Darwinism are more open-minded."
     
     The other people involved in this debate have consistently misunderstood your position, I think, and take you to be a more traditional proponent of Intelligent Design. Whether most proponents of ID say it or not, they intend that the Designer is in fact God. Certainly not all, and clearly not you, but this is certainly the case for most of its vocal supporters, at least from my experience. I attribute their unyielding positions to their mischaracterization of your own.
     
     >"It seems that you are an example of the right approach, and I am glad to hear that you do consider the study of ID to be a scientific persuit."
     
     Thank you for the compliment - I really do try to remain as open-minded as I can. I really enjoy intelligent debate, but it isn't so fun going into it having decided ahead of time not to allow my position to change during or after its course. I'd also like to clarify my position on ID as a scientific pursuit. I think [i]your[/i] version could have a place in science, but I think more work needs to be done to clarify it's position and create a real workable hypothesis. It needs to be less vague, propose actual mechanisms through which it occurs, etc. It appears that some of this has already been done, but as I said I think it needs more.
     
     >""Intelligent Design would not be the only nor necessary alternative if Darwinian evolution were proved wrong, and so evidence against Darwinian evolution is not evidence for Intelligent Design."
     
     >It isn't proof, but it DOES support ID. Could there be other non-Darwinistic, but also non-intelligent means of life being created? I won't rule that out, but we certainly have no other hypothesis out there."
     
     No, it doesn't support it. It merely doesn't contradict it. The only way in which it would support it is if Intelligent Design were the only possible alternative to Darwinian evolution. I am not aware of any other unguided hypotheses, but then there hasn't been much incentive to come up with one, either. If, however, there is evidence against any possible form of unguided evolution that would indeed be evidence of guided evolution.
     
     >"I will say that if we are looking at the two options: intentional formation versus accidental, there is no third option as the the combination of these two options is all-inclusive"
     
     Agreed.
     
     >"Well, the vast majority of people on the planet believe in some type of God, and once you conclude that the evidence shows that something designed and created us, it is not unusual to go there."
     
     Right, but unfortunately their beliefs tend to insert themselves into their arguments, which automatically invalidates it from a scientific perspective.
     
     >"That version is Creationism, not ID. Creationists will label themselves as IDists and argue our points, but they are not IDists by definition."
     
     Unfortunately the two terms have become muddled. Strictly, yes, people who believe evolution is merely a mechanism used by God to create life are technically theistic creationists, but they are usually called proponents of Intelligent Design. I don't think it's a deliberate attempt to discredit proponents of real Intelligent Design, but really due to confusion caused by many vocal people who claim to be proponents of Intelligent Design but are really theist creationists.
     
     >"Pigeon> "However, the evidence would have to be more than our continued inability to figure out how various mechanisms of evolution could occur unguided."
     
     >Agree to an extent, but there is a point where intelligently guided evolution becomes the likelier answer. "
     
     I can't disagree with that. However, even if it turns out that we cannot understand evolution in the Darwinian framework, Intelligent Design will not be considered a scientific theory, let alone accepted as the most likely theory, until a working hypothesis that provides non-trivial predictions about what we should observe, and what mechanisms are responsible for evolution.
     
     >"However, you used the term "unable to figure out", which connotes uncertainty. I would say that there is a difference between just not knowing and determining statistical impossibility. The answers will come in as a sliding scale, not a finish line."
     
     Again neither I, nor apparently has the majority, been convinced of the statistical calculations you continue to mention. I still hold that it is unlikely they hold very much merit. After all, how can a calculation take into account biological processes that we don't fully understand? I said this before and I'll say it again: it sounds to me like an exercise in futility.
     
     >"Pigeon> "First, a potential source of this natural intelligence would have to be hypothesized"
     
     >I disagree here if I understand you correctly. I have no problem with hypothesis, but in this particular field of inquiry, the "source" could be a sensitive and unprovable subject. I might not disagree if you hadn't used the innocent sounding word "first". Step one is to gather and present evidence for the intelligence, which can happen whether or not we ever figure out a source. Finding a source is an important question, but I wouldn't want it to be a distraction or a pre-requisite for further inquiry."
     
     I disagree. How can the mechanisms responsible for guided evolution be hypothesized if the nature of the intelligence is completely unknown? They can be guessed, but that isn't going to make for a very convincing theory. Evidence from biological systems, and possible other evidence, can be used to hypothesize the existence and nature of the intelligence, and the predictions that come from that hypothesis can then be tested. Obviously the predictions tested would have to be different than the evidence used to hypothesize the existence in the first place.
     
     More importantly, if the "source" is a "sensitive and unprovable subject" then Intelligent Design cannot be a scientific theory. If we cannot understand the intelligence itself, then we cannot use Intelligent Design to further our understanding of the natural world, and thus it is not a valid scientific hypothesis. This has happened historically; theories have been developed that adequately explain the phenomenon they were meant to, but failed predict anything else or even made false predictions. They were therefore invalid. If a disprovable hypothesis about the nature of the intelligence and the mechanisms it uses cannot be made then it is not science.
     
     >"Please explain what you mean by "source". Is this a red herring?"
     
     Red herring? If the intelligence described by ID is a new force of nature, then that is what I mean by source. If it is a race of tiny microbial workers that designs life, then I mean that...
     
     >"ID can make predictions on further guided evolution. We predict physical changes that are functional, symettrical and in cohesive units. We can predict that while these changes happen, there will be no non-functional physical changes or very few."
     
     Keep in mind that you also have to make predictions to account for all seemingly contradictory evidence, such as the defects and truly random mutations that we do observe.
     
     >"Pigeon> "...what properties it has, what rules it obeys and how it interacts with the other forces."
     
     >Now you are getting into some exciting stuff. This is exactly what scientists need to be studying openly and freely.
     
     I think there are a number of reasons why it isn't happening. The first is that it is extremely different from anything else science has tackled. The second is that understanding of intelligence as a whole continues to elude us. I think that putting Intelligent Design into a scientific framework will be realistic for the first time when/if we can come to some sort of understanding, however crude, of how our own intelligence arises. A third reason is that it would require very close collaboration between biologists, chemists, physicists and neuroscientists. It isn't easy to put together such diverse team and be cohesive, although it is getting easier and easier.
     
     >"Pigeon> "This is why I have been saying that even your version of Intelligent Design does not belong in the realm of science, at least at this time."
     
     >I disagree. It is still a scientific persuit throughout all phases of the scientific method. We don't have to wait until it becomes so accepted that all other theories are discarded before ID is "in the realm of science"."
     
     I respectfully disagree. We do not yet have a deep enough understanding of various prerequisites to forming a complete hypothesis of Intelligent Design. Pieces of it, sure, but an incomplete hypothesis is unhelpful at best and dangerous at worst (can create lots of misconceptions).
     
     I wouldn't go campaigning against funding for people who come up with interesting research proposals that could move the idea forward, but I think that, in general (for scientific and practical reasons), a much more appropriate research topic to fund is the study of human or animal intelligence on a microscopic scale. The reason I say this is that we have the tools with which to do this, and they are constantly improving, and that this form of intelligence is something we are familiar and comfortable with. It is always easier to begin with the familiar and work towards the abstract than the other way around.
     
     Once enough progress is made there that some predictions can be made of the nature of the intelligence that might be behind evolution, then I think Intelligent Design will have a place in the sciences beyond that of speculation.
     
     >"Now if you mean that it is in the realm of what we teach in a science class, I wouldn't go that far either, but I do believe we need to show evidence against Darwinism, admit what we don't know and present evidence, whether it supports ID or not, without mentioning ID itself yet."
     
     I agree 100% with this statement. And not just about evolution. I think our education system would be vastly improved by applying this principle to everything that is taught in schools, from history to physics. It is a pet peeve of mine that so many people come out of high school physics classes believing that they are now an authority on the subject, and then proceed to make blatantly false claim after blatantly false claim. Our nation, and I think to a lesser extent foreign nations, is losing its ability to think critically because up until and sometimes through college education they are presented with simplified and unequivocal facts. If they aren't going to be given the opportunity to determine the validity of a claim for themselves, they need to at least be made aware that what they are being taught is what it is: simplifications and half-truths.
     
     --
     Edited by Pigeon at 05/14/2008 7:25 PM

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312. 312. sologos 02:22 AM 5/15/08

     > Six Things in Expelled that Ben Stein Doesn't
     > Want You to Know...
     
     "intent does not affect the outcome of an experiment unless the experimenter intentionally changes the data or performs faulty data analysis to arrive at the desired conclusion."
     
     
     Even the data we collect is biased . One does not go about willy-nllly collecting data. It is a selective process, and selection occurs in the context of a world view.
     Science is mostly occupied in doing a mop up job. Every now and then a genuine paradigm shift does occur. Then we spend the next few decade(centuries?) trying to perfect it. Essentially that means we are preaching to the choir.. The design of the experiment , the technology we use, even the "data" is skewed. Then of course come the conclusion or interpretation, which again demonstrates the world view in which the scientist writes.
     You must forgive me. I do not mean to be badmouthing science. I am really geateful for the discoveries that God has allowed to better our condition. It's just that we need to transcend the belief that science has some lock on reality, while faith has none. Both need each other, not simply to see reality for what it is, but to avoid the danger that either can pose when unbalanced. Science, a danger? Can we destroy ourselves with the technology in any of the basic sciences?
     
     
     Frank m concludes: Whatever force is animating life in an intelligent manner is not supernatural. It is quite natural, and the effects of it are very much observable, testable and quantifiable. We may never put a "whodunnit" on the intelligent design, but we do know that it is intelligent.
     
     
     
     Though we find intelligence sand order in the natural world, do you believe that intelligence is self-existent without a source? I think I grasp the strategy that underlies ID. To find a level of legitimacy in the scientific community, one must work within the naturalistic realm. It does, however, backfire. Intelligence thus elucidated can always be called a misnomer. It might be viewed as anthropomorphising. Order and intelligence thus could be deemed instead to be mere consistency with physical laws. I mean why call this intelligence in the normal sense that we use it. But if, on the other hand we link it to a purposeful action, then it's agent must be entertained. T
     
     Frank M considers,
     I disagree here if I understand you correctly. I have no problem with hypothesis, but in this particular field of inquiry, the "source" could be a sensitive and unprovable subject. I might not disagree if you hadn't used the innocent sounding word "first". Step one is to gather and present evidence for the intelligence, which can happen whether or not we ever figure out a source. Finding a source is an important question, but I wouldn't want it to be a distraction or a pre-requisite for further inquiry.
     
     
     
     
     The real problem with issues of origins in unbridled naturalism is the denial of a source rather then the denial of order. Order is simply a natural order. The anthropic principle merely a tautology. No love in it. Evolution, shopping off the shelf. Start all over and maybe we get some other forms and functionalities. Any resemblance to design is just that. To define intelligence in the ordinary sense of the term, then requires a source of that intelligence. Anything less than that could easily be reduced to a mere consistency with the natural order.
     On the other hand, I don't see the problem with demonstrating the inference in nature to a loving and omnipotent Creator. Predictability and falsification are part of experimental investigation, but science is bigger than it's methodology. When we try to reduce it to that, it will inevitably function as a religion, taking on it's own moral dictates and purposes. Even it's own deities, essentially those omnipotent co-deities of "chance" and "necessity".
     Another approach to introducing the possibility of Agency into the scientific community is to see love in the benignity of our existence. As I see it, one of the important prerequisites to defining this particular Agency is love. If intelligence were inextricably linked to love, Agency would be less deniable. Demonstrate that morality is embedded in creation, and you have a threefold cord that cannot easily be broken. We ought to be able to detect every attribute of the Creator through science. Creation does, after all reflect it's agent. How to do all this is another matter(understatement, eh?). Intelligence is intrinsic in creation, it is true, but without the source, it is too easily misnamed. God wrote 2 books.
     
     Natedog considers.
     I do not think the forces in the universe intented to make stars, planets, galaxies, etc but it happened. Certainly you can accept that orderly systems can arise from chaos.
     
     
     Chaos has not power in and of itself. If order can be detected, it is due to some attractor, or physical force. The beauty of nonlinear equations, (which are found in all sorts of natural situations) as seen in fractal art, demonstrates, moreover, that beauty is also to be found in our universe. Why should that be? Order and beauty intrinsically together, fancy that. I reckon these dumb laws aren't so dumb.
     
     
     
     Eastwood DC believes,
     
     
     Science cannot prove the existence of a supernatural force, much less that that force is intelligent. That doesn’t mean I don’t believe in it (I do), merely that I recognize it is a matter of faith. We agree that faith and reason are fundamentally different, is it any surprise that we reach different conclusions?
     
     I'm not sure that it is that cut and dry. I agree that faith and reason are different, though both interdigitate. I don't however understand your posture that that they must intrinsically give different conclusions. Both skeptics and believers use rational processes. Certainly a strong inference of a "non-natural" realm can be made from legitimate data. Certainly a case can be made that such data best fits a non-natural source for the natural realm. Not just intelligence but intelligibility is part of the natural order. These alone ought to be "proof" enough to at least consider the existence of a supernatural force, One who thus reveals Himself through nature. Perhaps it is not so much that people cannot accept this, as that they may have a vested interest in rejecting it. So far, no faith need be invoked, just reason. Favorability or disinclination may be all that we are talking about yet, and these may have extraneous reasons.
     Faith is more like finding these things to be excellent, so excellent as to give the Creator His due. It's those "eurekas!" that fascinate us so as we discover the hidden mysteries that underlie this natural order. To me, a "eureka" is a praise, but to who or what is it directed. .

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313. 313. Pigeon 03:24 AM 5/15/08

     Sologos:
     
     >"Even the data we collect is biased . One does not go about willy-nllly collecting data. ... The design of the experiment , the technology we use, even the "data" is skewed. Then of course come the conclusion or interpretation, which again demonstrates the world view in which the scientist writes."
     
     I'm not sure what you mean by the data we collect is biased. If you mean that experiments searching for the existence of the Higgs Boson will only record data in the ~120 GeV range and not in the 10 GeV range sure, but so what? As you said we don't go around willy-nilly collecting data because we can take data much faster than we can analyze it, so what is the point of overwhelming ourselves with data that we don't have the first reason to believe will show anything interesting? Yes, it means that we might miss things, but that is why science is an iterative process. We build on what we know generation after generation, and the reasonable hope is that it will become more and more comprehensive with time.
     
     The dangerous part is not the experiment design, recorded data or technology used, but the interpretation. Interpretation can definitely be subjective, and can definitely be affected by the investigator's preconceptions. This is somewhat mitigated by the fact that 1) an entire community attempts to interpret the same data in different ways, and 2) that we require hypotheses to predict other phenomena. If we believe we observe one thing predicted by a hypothesis but nothing else, the first thing that will be done is to redo the one successful experiment and analyze it much more carefully. Nonetheless, scientists are people, people are flawed, and thus science, especially new science, needs to be looked at with caution.
     
     >" It's just that we need to transcend the belief that science has some lock on reality, while faith has none. Both need each other, not simply to see reality for what it is, but to avoid the danger that either can pose when unbalanced."
     
     Personally I think faith has no lock on reality. Faith is a series of inherently indisputable inferences made by an individual based on life experiences and observations. The best reason I can give for why it has no lock on reality is the following: there are more than 6 billion people on this planet, and many of them have faith in different things. There are three major monotheistic religions in the world - Christianity, Judaism and Islam - with numerous denominations of each, not to mention other faiths such as Hinduism and Buddhism. Then there are deists, and pantheists and atheists. The members of each of those faiths believes just as strongly in their own as the others do in theirs, and few if any of them are actually compatible with one another. Jews believe the Torah was written by God, Christians believe the Old and New Testaments were, Muslims believe only the Qur'an was; as far as I know Hindus and Buddhists don't believe any texts were written by their gods, though I could be wrong. A theist believes in only their own god, and none of the others; and atheist adds that theist's god to that list - not a very big difference, is it? With so many conflicting faiths, it cannot logically have a lock on reality.
     
     Science, however, is based on (relatively) objective observations of the natural world, deals only with that which can be repudiated, and functions based on a common framework among all scientists; it has no place for personal feelings, intuitions or experiences. Also, I don't see how faith mitigates dangers presented by science. To be honest I think it exacerbates them! The vast majority of conflict in the world occurs when conflicting faiths collide, and those are the greatest opportunities for the ugly aspect of science to come forward.
     
     >"I think I grasp the strategy that underlies ID. To find a level of legitimacy in the scientific community, one must work within the naturalistic realm. It does, however, backfire. Intelligence thus elucidated can always be called a misnomer. It might be viewed as anthropomorphising. Order and intelligence thus could be deemed instead to be mere consistency with physical laws."
     
     This is an amazing and subtle insight! Even if the rest of this entire discussion weren't interesting (but it is), this insight alone would have made it worth my time anyway. Thank you for that! :-)
     
     >"Predictability and falsification are part of experimental investigation, but science is bigger than it's methodology. When we try to reduce it to that, it will inevitably function as a religion, taking on it's own moral dictates and purposes. Even it's own deities, essentially those omnipotent co-deities of "chance" and "necessity"."
     
     Could you expand on that? I'm not really sure what you mean by that but it sounds interesting :-p.
     
     >"Another approach to introducing the possibility of Agency into the scientific community is to see love in the benignity of our existence. As I see it, one of the important prerequisites to defining this particular Agency is love. If intelligence were inextricably linked to love, Agency would be less deniable. Demonstrate that morality is embedded in creation, and you have a threefold cord that cannot easily be broken."
     
     I don't see what love has to do with anything. Why elevate love above any other emotion or abstract concept? I also don't see why love is a prerequisite to defining Agency, nor do I see how love being linked to intelligence would make it more or less deniable. It also appears to me like you are equating love and morality, but the two are not the same. Likewise, I don't see how this has anything to do with science - science cannot tell us anything about love or morality, it provides no framework with which to study them at all. I don't follow your argument.
     
     >"God wrote 2 books."
     
     So say you... As I mentioned above, even if billions of people are all unwaveringly confident in their own faiths, they cannot all be correct as few of them are compatible. Considering that faith is inherently irrefutable, we can never discover who is right and who is wrong. Therefore, unless I am specifically comparing different faiths then I make a point not to accept any argument that is based off of any faith.
     
     >"Order and beauty intrinsically together, fancy that. I reckon these dumb laws aren't so dumb."
     
     Order and beauty need not be products of intelligence. Personally I don't associate crystal structure with intelligence, and that is both ordered and beautiful. Likewise I consider sunsets, the ocean, fjords, the Grand Canyon and even other people to be beautiful, and yet I don't think some sort of intelligence conspired to make sunsets beautiful. Rather I would argue that where there are laws, there can be order, and that beauty can be a product of both order and chaos.
     
     >"I agree that faith and reason are different, though both interdigitate. I don't however understand your posture that that they must intrinsically give different conclusions."
     
     They need not inherently do so, but they often do.
     
     >"Both skeptics and believers use rational processes. Certainly a strong inference of a "non-natural" realm can be made from legitimate data."
     
     The flaw with this is that an infinite number of inferences can be made of a "non-natural" realm based on legitimate observations. The only thing that science gives us about the non-natural is a set of constraints. However, there is an infinite set of inferences than can be made of the non-natural world based on any set of constraints.
     
     >"These alone ought to be "proof" enough to at least consider the existence of a supernatural force, One who thus reveals Himself through nature."
     
     Yes, science provides an incentive to philosophize about the world, and what lies beyond it. But it never proves reason to consider [i]scientifically[/i] the existence of the supernatural, it would be like trying to pictorially describe a house without the means to create an image.

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314. 314. sologos 04:56 AM 5/15/08

     In Pigeon's entry we find,
     
     
     >"I mean to say that nothingness need not be brought into existence."
     To which pigeon argues,
     
     
     "I would argue that neither does "something" need to be brought into existence - if it has always existed. Having an infinite past does not invalidate principles of causality. To invalidate causality there would be to be an event with no cause. In a causal universe with an infinite past, every event has a cause. The only difference is that there is no beginning. There is no first. You can trace back forever and ever but you will never find a violation of causality because you can always just go one step further. It's tough to think about, and it's why I said that common sense does not apply to infinity."
     
     
     Having an infinite past violates causality precisely because you are denying a beginning. The most significant cause is being denied. Where, even in the quantum world, do you witness the power of self-existence.You may postulate self-existence, but you have no scientific warrant to do so. Nothingness, on the other hand requires no cause. No warrant is required for it's existence, because it doesn't have an existence.
     
     
     
     
     >"To say nothingness existed is to assign it substance.
     Nothingness refers only to physical dimension not state. Spirit is different ontologically. One must speculate it's existence from a scientific perspective. Faith, however assures us in an entirely different, yet no less valid, way. Some call faith a faculty. "
     
     To this Pigeon responded,
     
     I don't accept that which requires a direct leap of faith; I accept only that it might be.
     
     Speculation is not a leap of faith. Once one accepts the impossibility of an eternally past physical state of existence, one must speculate that a non-physical cause is required. Most cosmogonists today, including Hawking accept that there was a beginning of time, so it is not without scientific citation. The specific nature of this deity can also be at least hinted at by nature. All this as you say is a "might be"
     If you would grant me leave(I hope "science saves earth" is not watching this entry), faith is a bit different than this. That it does not follow the so called "verifiability" of our present scientific methods does not lessen it's assurance. When one considers all the problematic issues of verifiability that accompany our scientific investigations, one might well wonder if there not be a another faculty we humans might possess for verifying reality. Faith is described by some more as a "gift" than a leap, and that is my experience. If there is a God and if if He has seen to it that this part of the universe is so fruitful and benign, one might also reason that He would not withhold this gift from one who asks.
     
     
     I wrote
     
     >"Some scientists are positivists.I believe Hawking calls himself one. If I understand his position correctly, he has more or less given up on ever discovering reality. Just describing some approximate laws are sufficient."
     
     Then Pigeon wrote,
     
     I guess I'm a positivist, then, too. That pretty much sums up stance as a scientist and individual.
     
     OK. You decide.
     
     
     
     Furthemore on the subject of nothingness I wrote
     
     
     >"In what sense does the world(?universe) occupy nothingness? Do you mean swallow up nothingness? If so, I think the way I would put it is that it replaces notingness."
     
     
     To which Pigeon remarked,
     
     "I find the notion of a state defined by the lack of existence to be nonsensical. What is it a state of? For example, is nothingness a state of the universe, or of something else?"
     
     Nothingness is a state that refers to the nonexistence of a universe. I do not find it nonsensical, though I've never experienced nothingness. You believe in something physical, because you have seen it and now can entertain the concept with your eyes closed. Why can't you conceive of nothing physical. I haven't experienced it, but niether did any body ever experience or even consider voices transmitted over wires untill Bell conceived and developed it. In fact, like nothingness, these things didn't exist before him. Maybe people thought he was a bit too metaphysical.
     
     Pigeon continues,
     
     And again, I hold that the if universe, including time and space were to 'appear' out of a state of nothingness, then causality would not be violated. Causality is only something we need to worry about during the existence of time. Causality would not be violated at t=0 because there is no time before it to worry about!
     
     Causality would be violated if there were no inciting cause for the universe to appear out of nothingness. Time would also simultaneously begin, but not without an inciting cause. I don't know whether we can even speak of a T=0 in this atemporal state before time, but I know there must be some ability to cause in this atemporal state of nothingness, and it can't be a natural process, because there is nothing natural. It is all foreign to us because we have no precedence, but if the discipline of cosmogony won't regard it as a valid question, then we need to find what discipline does. To me, it is a valid scientific question because it is inquiring into beginnings.
     
     Then Pigeon exclaimed,
     
     This conversation is difficult to have via keyboard...
     
     T'is
     
     
     To this entry,
     
     >"Have you ever considered the unlikely existence of the state of Israel. Who would have ever thunk that oil would be discovered in the area 2500 years ago when Isaiah told us that it would be at the center of the world? How could he have known?"
     
     Pigeon replied,
     
     Israel is not the center of the world. It is pretty much the one sliver of land in the entire region that is not swimming in oil... It's kind of ironic, really. Also, people tend to think highly of themselves. It doesn't seem out of place to me for a leader to claim that their culture/nation/what-have-you will be the center of the world for years to come. Nowadays most people would laugh if someone were to say that, but that's because the world has become much smaller, our record of history is much better, and the general population is much more aware of it.
     
     
     
     Isaiah and other prophets stated that they would once again occupy the homeland after a long abeyance When I say that it is the center of the world, I mean to say that all eyes are on the middle East, and Israel stands out as the common enemy. This too was prophesied. The reason I bring this all out is not to make a political statement, but to point out that this is an example of how revelation also seems to speak with authority. Is this yet another consideration that is out of the purview of science, or are we content to leave it unsolved.

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315. 315. Pigeon 07:10 PM 5/15/08

     >"Having an infinite past violates causality precisely because you are denying a beginning. The most significant cause is being denied."
     
     You still miss the point. Having no beginning does not violate causality unless the processes within the universe themselves do. Remember, in the absence of time, there is no such thing as cause and effect. It doesn't make any sense to say that "Time was caused to exist," because until the existence of Time, there was no such thing as causation. Therefore, time can exist without a beginning. Applying the notion of causality to time itself is nonsensical because [i]there is no such thing as causation, let alone causality, outside the existence of time[/i]. If nothing can be caused outside of time, then time itself cannot be caused.
     
     >"Where, even in the quantum world, do you witness the power of self-existence."
     
     >"Nothingness refers only to physical dimension not state. Spirit is different ontologically."
     
     I don't know what this means. Nothingness is a physical dimension, just like the four (+?) dimensions of the natural world? You are arguing for the state of non-existence being 'replaced' (to quote you) by a state of existence, namely our universe. You still haven't explained what non-existence and existence are states [i]of[/i]. By this I mean, a particle can be in a state of motion or rest, a hydrogen ion can be in a free state or it can be in a bound state with another ion, etc. This means that the state of existence and the state of non-existence need be properties of.... something (for lack of a better word). Motion and rest are properties of matter, so what are existence and non-existence properties of?
     
     Going back to non-existence being replaced by existence; I would argue that outside of time there can be no evolution of a state. Therefore, if time exists, then non-existence could never have been, because for non-existence to be replaced by an existence with time would have required the previous existence of time.
     
     >"Speculation is not a leap of faith. Once one accepts the impossibility of an eternally past physical state of existence, one must speculate that a non-physical cause is required."
     
     I am not convinced of the impossibility of an eternally past physical state of existence, so I feel no dire need to speculate that a non-physical cause is required for anything. Maybe there was a non-physical cause of the universe, and maybe there wasn't. The fact is we will never and can never know. Therefore it is philosophy, and while it is fascinating, I will never have faith in existence of the non-physical, only in the possibility that it might exist.
     
     >"That it [faith] does not follow the so called "verifiability" of our present scientific methods does not lessen it's assurance. When one considers all the problematic issues of verifiability that accompany our scientific investigations, one might well wonder if there not be a another faculty we humans might possess for verifying reality. Faith is described by some more as a "gift" than a leap, and that is my experience. If there is a God and if if He has seen to it that this part of the universe is so fruitful and benign, one might also reason that He would not withhold this gift from one who asks."
     
     But that is circular logic. "God gave us faith so that we can verify the veracity of that in which we have faith." It is tautological. I would argue that faith provides no assurance except for the individual. Again, there are 6 billion people on this planet, many of whose faiths are inherently conflictive. Faith cannot provide the ability to verify that which we cannot observe with science because billions of people's faiths are conflictive. It would be analogous to an experiment performed by scientists whose outcome is a function of the person running the experiment; if the results of one cannot be repeated and validated by the rest, then it tells us nothing.
     
     >"Nothingness is a state that refers to the nonexistence of a universe. I do not find it nonsensical, though I've never experienced nothingness. You believe in something physical, because you have seen it and now can entertain the concept with your eyes closed."
     
     Ah, I can imagine a state of nothingness (sort of, though I would guess that no human can know what nothingness would [i]really[/i] (not?) be), but it brings new questions; it makes me ask, of what is nothingness (and something-ness) a property? Likewise, based on my reasons above I cannot imagine how non-existence can be replaced by time in a manner that requires the formulation of non-existence to begin with.
     
     >"Causality would be violated if there were no inciting cause for the universe to appear out of nothingness. Time would also simultaneously begin, but not without an inciting cause."
     
     No! Cause without time is nonsensical. Causation requires the existence of time, so applying notions of causality is an exercise in futility - it is bound to fail because you are applying a principle to a situation in which it does not apply. It would be like an english-speaker reading a book in spanish and concluding "well that made no sense! The words were spelled funny and the grammar was wrong!" That conclusion would only be reached, however, because the reader applied the wrong set of rules and definitions to what she was reading. Therefore, as long as the energy and spatial dimensions of the universe were brought into existence at T=0, then we need not worry about causality.
     
     >"I don't know whether we can even speak of a T=0 in this atemporal state before time"
     
     T=0 is not applied to the atemporal state 'before' time (and note that there can be no such thing as 'before time'). T=0 means the very first instant of time; you cannot go back further than T=0, because then you would be outside of time.
     
     >"It is all foreign to us because we have no precedence, but if the discipline of cosmogony won't regard it as a valid question, then we need to find what discipline does."
     
     The discipline has been found (quite a while ago). Theology and philosophy.
     
     >"To me, it is a valid scientific question because it is inquiring into beginnings."
     
     But it is not a valid scientific question. Nothing we are speaking of here can be disproved. This question is essentially an exercise in logic, in which we are applying our presuppositions about reality and what [i]might[/i] exist, or not exist, outside of what we are familiar with. Science requires that a question must come with physical methods of validating it and methods of disproving it. Look at string theory: right now, it is essentially an exercise in math and logic. They are starting from their knowledge of the physical world, making a couple assumptions and following the logic from there. Nonetheless, string theory is barely considered actual science by many - and string theory is in principle verifiable and disprovable with better technology in the future.

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316. 316. Frank M 02:46 AM 5/16/08

     sologos, intelligent design by its very definition is an observation of scientific evidence to deterimine if evolution (and on a wider scale other aspects of life and the physical laws and universe) are best described as accident or by intelligent agency.
     
     We would call ourselves "accidental design" if that is where the evidence went, but like it or hate it, it didn't.
     
     So I do agree with you if you are saying that the evidence shows that something designed and created us.
     
     But I do not believe the scientific evidence proves that whatever entity(ies) or force(s) did this designing was omnipotent or loving, as you said.
     
     I will admit that it seems to have very high intelligence and I will admit that it has the ability to animate matter, which is odd, but undeniable. Extra-organismal evidence of intelligence even leads to a "big-picture" view that goes against my earlier beliefs that the life force is internal only.
     
     All of this would lead one to be in awe of that which seems so much more powerful than we are, but it is quite the leap from there to "omnipotent". How could we scientifically prove "omnipotence"? Can you see where science leaves off and your faith is taking over?
     
     In fact, the evidence shows a limited and at times fallable intelligence. Granted, we don't know enough to prove this either, but living things do die and hurt each other and sometimes they are born with horrible defects. I have had people argue with me that it could be that the intelligence is self-limiting for one reason or another. I will remain open to that possibility, although it seems counter-intuitive.
     
     Likewise, how do we know scientifically that we are loved? I will admit that virtually all unexplained matter animation and most, if not all, intelligent genetics lead to sustenence of life and even comfort. So again, I will concede some evidence of this very un-scientific emotion that you feel should be included by ID.
     
     On the contrary, though, this great circle of life does require all of us animals to destroy other life in order to live. Even herbivores kill living plants and the rest of us dog-eat-dog just to survive another day. If we were designed, and I do believe we were, this is a part of the design, no?
     
     So I will stick to the following modifiers of the intelligence: It has the ability to animate matter. No question. It has an intelligence far greater than our own, at least in regards to biological functions. And thirdly, it has the clear intention of the sustenence of life.
     
     Sologos: "The real problem with issues of origins in unbridled naturalism is the denial of a source rather then the denial of order."
     
     The truly "unbridled" ones, and they are in charge, even deny the order. Intelligent Design is more of a middle ground between Creationism and Materialism. For what it's worth, I do believe you are far closer to the truth, if not all the way there, than the Materialists who seem to deny all evidence.
     
     Still, we should only hypothesize the "source" if we have evidence for it or a way to test for it. Is God the source? I don't know. I feel as if I am taking the right approach by neither assuming God exists or assuming He doesn't.
     
     Believe in your gut that God is our designer? More power to you, but it is not a scientific observation. Is it?
     
     Sologos: "No love in it."
     
     The truth may not have much love in it, so I prefer not to be deterred by following what gives me the warm fuzzies.
     
     Now if you are noting that there is the existence of love and altruism, which could not happen by accidental particle collisions, I will agree that you make a better point than those on the accident side. A very strong point, in fact, if that was what you were alluding to.
     
     Sologos: "To define intelligence in the ordinary sense of the term, then requires a source of that intelligence."
     
     There may be source or there may not be. If you can say God always existed, maybe intelligence always existed or energy always existed. Who knows, maybe they are all the same thing. Maybe intelligence is just a potential kinetic energy with a penchant for self-preservation. Or maybe there are the tiny beings that Pigeon reflected upon. Or maybe there is a loving God.
     
     Sologos: "If intelligence were inextricably linked to love, Agency would be less deniable."
     
     I'll admit there is a link, if not "inextricable". Love keeps us alive as a species. Without parental care, or at least the care of some grown animal or human, every cub, calf and baby would die. In fact, not to be offensive, but without any love, parents would eat their children. Even bacteria come to each other's rescue.
     
     Your opinion interests me, though I fear that you are slipping away from a scientific persuit. Do you have factual arguments here, or just feel-good presumptions? Please elaborate.
     
     I do like your response to Natedog:
     
     Natedog> "Certainly you can accept that orderly systems can arise from chaos."
     
     Sologos> "Chaos has not power in and of itself. If order can be detected, it is due to some attractor, or physical force."
     
     Agree. Randomness makes a complete mess of things, even if it starts with an orderly arrangement. Is it possible that there is some reversal of mathematical dynamics that could make chaos create order and function? Only on a "anything's possible" level, not on any realistic theory.
     
     Darwinism is not a realistic theory. Materialism seems to be a desperate attempt to stifle the study of the properties of life and the "physical force" that you mentioned. It is the furthest thing from what science was ever meant to be.

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317. 317. Frank M 05:48 AM 5/16/08

     Pigeon, I'm not picking on you - far from it - I just enjoy talking to someone who is both interested and open-minded about the subject matter.
     
     Pigeon> "It appears we will just have to agree to disagree about the magnitude of the flaws of Darwinian evolution."
     
     I hope it doesn't stop there. There is much much more than we have touched on so far.
     
     Frank> "all we need do is look at ANY evidence of evolution, fossil or contemporary, and evaluate it to see if it fits mathematical probabilities for 'random chance' or if it fits 'guided' or 'intelligent' genetic editing."
     
     Pigeon> "I'm sorry, but no. I know for a fact that our understanding of biological systems is not remotely sufficient to predict the relevant probabilities in this problem."
     
     I suppose the best way to keep claiming the guided versus unguided evolution "isn't testable" is to refuse to look at evidence by saying your own theory is so "incomplete" that it can't be tested. But what you say you know for a "fact" is quite unconvincing. I see your complaint here as nothing more than a sad attempt to avoid any recognition of evidence that refutes your favored theory. The only "brick wall" here is intellectual dishonesty.
     
     Pigeon: "if any mathematician in the world could figure out how to turn environmental stimulus into a probability for selection, I would personally nominate him for the position of God."
     
     No, you have to throw out all references to "selection" which has nothing to do with probabilities of the existence of anything. Calculations are to determine the chance of a new physiological formation, microbiological system, species or even the first life coming into existence. Whether it survives or is the fittest or (if you must use this misleading term) is "selected", has no bearing.
     
     They can also calculate the odds against stasis and the continuance of existing functional systems. At the current rate of variation, truly random chance mutations would cause all living things to meet a hasty demise.
     
     The factors that are as yet unknown all make Darwinist evolution even less viable. All reproduction requires unexplained matter movement and we have no idea how matter can obey a DNA code, especially in terms of 3 dimensional spacial navigation.
     
     I'll get into why the probabilities against beneficial traits and formations are so prohibitive in another message, but I will say that your excuse that it "can't" be mathematically evaluated for sufficiency is a cheap attempt to dodge facts.
     
     Pigeon> "It is a reasonable prediction based on the tenets of Darwinian evolution that happens to be observed in nature.
     
     Darwinian evolution has never been observed in nature. Tests have shown artificial selection (not natural), but that is hardly earth-shattering. If you gather all the white dogs you can find and all the brown ones you can find and then kill all the brown ones, it is no surprise that only white ones are left. This is not particularly interesting.
     
     Darwinian evolution holds that a species of creature has an individual hatch (birth, ect.) that has a genetic mutation that gives it an advantage over its parents and all others in its species. The advantaged creature populates, while the not-so-lucky ones become extinct because they didn't get the mutation. This has never been seen to happen in nature.
     
     Any disadvantageous mutation could lead to immediate death (extinction of a one-creature "species"?) but failure to mutate right has never been seen to cause extinction to a species that was just fine before their offspring gained this unlikely advantage. Extinctions are usually caused by climate change, famine, disease or other catastrophes. They kill all levels of the food chain from fittest to least fit. Then the climate changes again and where does that leave our supposed progressive evolution of luck and foul weather turning dirt into peacocks?
     
     Moreover, "natural selection" has nothing to do with the creation of a creature or physiology in the first place. Attempts to keep tossing survival into the equation are a distraction from whatever the true creative force is. "Selection" is a subtractive filter. If you pan for gold in a river and find some, the filter did not create gold. It was there already or you wouldn't have "selected" it.
     
     Pigeon: "I have never seen modern day evidence of evolution where selection has been eliminated as a possibility, could you point any out to me?"
     
     First, remember that "selection" isn't a positive force "encouraging" upgrades, as you say. It merely means that something lived long enough to reproduce. It is a circular tautology to say that "selection" means that you lived, therefore the reson we live is "selection".
     
     What IS "selection" then? It is the comeback of all Darwinists when they are told of the odds against their theory. I mentioned the quintillions upon quintillions of messy, incongruous blobs and you, true to form, used "selection" as an offset. In contemporary evolution, however, we can see for ourselves if the messy blobs are really happening by the quintillions or rarely happening at all.
     
     It doesn't happen. Again, modern day evidence can see first hand whether the disadvantageous traits are really only so rarely seen because they died out, or because they never existed in the first place.
     
     Researchers need to do a MUCH better job of tracking the fates of those who did not get the genetic upgrades and what percentage of total births are getting so lucky. Tests need to be done that clearly eliminate selection so we can see what the genetics are really doing, without the "selection": complication. This is one reason why I feel we need ID scientists doing the research. Darwinists are bent on proving their own theory, and don't even seem to understand the arguments against them. We can do MUCH better in eliminating selection from the equation.
     
     Human evolution eliminates selection, although Darwin predicted it wouldn't. As Richard Dawkins laments, humans protect the lives of the weak and disadvantaged. Yet we gain about an inch a century in height during the past half millenium. Toes have been getting far more genetically shriveled since the invention of covered tip shoes. Wisdom teeth came into existence and are now becoming considerably less common. None of this has anything to do with survival.
     
     Also, if you are one of those who believes, like the Materialists, that instincts and inherited behaviors are random chance genetic errors, you will find multiple test studies on domesticated animals and other learned behavior that is handed down in two generations or so. See the Discovery Channel's work with wolves.
     
     Pigeon> "Parallel evolution would indeed pose a problem unless a separate, workable hypothesis could be formulated to account for it."
     
     Deal with it, because parallel evolution is not a rare exception. It is the norm and it is rampant. The Cambrian Explosion has aptly been described as an "arms race", where completely different species developed new but remarkably similar physiologies at essentially the same time. For example, the vertebrates all got eye sockets -two of them in practically the exact same location on the head - all at once. Carnivorous plants developed simultaneously as four separate species (more like 600 now), despite the need for thousands of bits of information to align just right - at astronomically impossible odds for each line.
     
     The story of evolution in the evidence is entirely non-Darwinian. More like a repetitive designer.
     
     Pigeon> "I was not aware that we have observed the Galapagos finches evolving different beak sizes in one generation."
     
     Worse yet, it goes back and forth, as the climate changes. And we are talking about a very specific seed-shaped beak size that requires a huge amount of detailed genetic information bits. And again, it is parallel. Genetic protein movement is as intelligent as all other functional proteins.
     
     Pigeon> "Do you know if any research beyond mere observation of this has been done?"
     
     The Darwinists aren't looking for failure. They are looking for success and funding. They crow about the "mountains of evidence" for evolution, which few seriously contest since the days of the Scopes trial. But the real debate raging is about intelligent genetics - not the modifications themselves, but why they keep being so disproportionally beneficial and even predictable.
     
     Pigeon> Bacteria "are much more efficient at sharing genetic material because they can do so without having to reproduce."
     
     Quite correct. Very good, Pigeon. Notice I always refer to bacterial genetics as "genetic upgrades" but never "mutations" because most of their genetic changes are by such things as conjugation and transduction. The claim is that SOME of the genetic upgrades are mutations, though. Still, this does confuse the issue.
     
     Bear in mind that my main point on evolution is that it is done by intelligent genetics and mostly I get ridiculed because such a thing as intelligent genetics is seen as impossible. Yet here we see it happening in a unicellular being. If this isn't intelligent genetics I don't know what is. Now you may say that this is different in its mechanism and you would be correct again, but the concept of intelligently editing genes is not something that should be dismissed out of hand.
     
     Bacteria do send out a distress signal, sensing that they need an upgrade, and a buddy who somehow seems to know they have the needed DNA comes to the rescue. This still leaves one wondering how this chemical is supposedly accidentally happening and how the life-saving cell detects it, understands it, senses where it is coming from, knows it can help, comes to the rescue and transfers DNA in the right direction. It is very interesting, if nothing else, but it hardly refutes intelligent genetics as a theory. It establishes that it is possible in concept, because it already happens.
     
     Pigeon> "So then what about the massive number of pointless changes in unimportant DNA sequences, which either control minor processes are don't appear to control anything at all ('junk DNA')?"
     
     Some "junk" DNA has later been found to have a purpose, but there are some theories on this. One, of course, is that it is truly wasted material, but I'll respond to that in a moment.
     
     DNA has some functions that are timed for various times of life, such as embryonic development and it has some functions that pertain only to a specific cell type, a specific location in the being or even a specific contingency, such as the genetic ability to restrict blood flow in extreme cold. To assume that we can see and detect all functions is more than a little optimistic.
     
     Others feel that "junk" DNA is kind of a "Not Applicable" selection in a form that requires all fields to be answered. They say that it is needed to complete the full form of the double helix CAGT protein layout. Others say it is vestigial remainders of a past use or a precursor to a future use.
     
     Even if they are junk, then it is odd that this particular encoded information is ignored, yet all non-junk DNA is obeyed at all costs. So proteins know which ones to ignore?
     
     When it comes down to it, the most important thing, and the one thing that has clear answers, is not the code, but the result of the code. So the true defining attribute of a new trait is the physical change to the being, not the blueprints that we really can only read by observation of the result. I usually use terms like "new physiological formation" instead of "mutation" for this reason. Even if there is "waste" of microscopically tiny pieces of protein in a nucleic acid, we still must explain the absence of non-purposeful tissues in any living thing. If the vast majority has no waste at all, it isn't much of a case to point at such a tiny amount of "waste" that is probably not waste anyway.
     
     If that is the best they can do to promote the "waste" or "bad design" argument, that is truly remarkable.

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318. 318. Ditches 06:25 PM 5/16/08

     Frank M.,
     
     (I apologize for any spelling/grammar errors below, or if my thoughts seem fragmented, I am in a rush)
     
     The more I read your responses, the better I understand your position, and the more I find that it, at least partially, lines up with my own opinion. However, I really wish that you'd stop using terms like intelligent and/or design (I will elaborate, so don't respond to this chunk of text independent of what is written below. I notice you frequently do this to help yourself gain the apparent "advantage" in these little back-and-forths).
     
     When you suggest that there are some unknown evolutionary factors/forces that appear to react to changes in the environment (independent of selection), I tend to agree with you. My opinion is that these, as yet, unspecified "additive" (or at least apparently so) factors/forces work in conjunction with the "subtractive" notion of natural selection to (more) efficiently guide evolution down advantageous paths.
     
     The schism between our opinions is centered around your insistence that these factors/forces must be intelligent and operate independently of the other forces which are already known. When you use the term "intelligence," I assume your meaning to be this (as taken from Dictionary.com): "capacity for learning, reasoning, understanding, and similar forms of mental activity; aptitude in grasping truths, relationships, facts, meanings, etc." Use of the term in this way implies sentience. Adding "design" to your theory's label only serves to reinforce that implication. If that is not your intended meaning, then please elaborate.
     
     As was pointed out by Pigeon, for all we know the four forces of which we are currently aware could be responsible for this at a fundamental level. If that's true, then I don't see how there is room for "intelligence" unless you ascribe that characteristic to the four fundamental forces themselves (a scientifically worthless claim as there is no way to disprove it). It appears that you are claiming this unknown factor/force to be independent of these. If that is the case, then in order to legitimately propose a new force (in the scientific realm anyway), you would have to prove that those which are currently understood to exist (those which account for the formation of complex objects like planets and stars) can not possibly be responsible. As far as I'm aware, no such proof currently exists.
     
     Another option is that the "intelligent" factor/force is operating within the confines of what we currently understand. This brings me to an ultimatum that you had presented earlier: if evolution is not accidental, then it must be intentional and therefore intelligently designed (or something to that effect; I can't remember exactly what is was). I find your use of the word accidental to be very misleading. Would you call it an accident that when I drop something, it is predictably pulled toward the Earth until it strikes the ground? Certainly scientists don't attribute gravity to some form of intelligence, so by your reasoning, it would fall under the category of "accident." Do you understand how ridiculous that sounds? I would not describe something obeying the laws of nature as accidental. I understand that this is merely semantics, but your word choice was obviously designed to load the question and might be indicative of why you think that intelligence must be involved (perhaps the belief that anything which isn't willfully guided by some intelligence is based on random chance).
     
     I wish I had more time to continue this post, but I must wrap it up. I agree with you that evidence seems to point to some unknown guiding "factors" with respect to evolution. However, making the leap that such factors must be directly connected to some form of intelligence is something that I regard as both logically unnecessary and scientifically irresponsible.
     
     --
     Edited by Ditches at 05/16/2008 11:44 AM

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319. 319. Frank M 03:50 AM 5/17/08

     Ditches, it does sound as if you and I are not far off in our opinions. You see some factors have to be guiding evolution, but you don't see it as intelligent.
     
     Also, you agree that there must be some sort of force animating matter in living things, but you think it might be one of the four known forces.
     
     First let me say that it absolutely boggles my mind that the Materialists DON'T think there is a force animating matter in living things. Kinda makes you wonder of they had noticed that some of us MOVE once in a while.
     
     Do you have any evidence or reasoning behind your belief that an already known force animates matter? I am open to the possibility to an extent, but I think intelligence is unavoidable on both evolution and animation. Many scientists, including Einstein, believed that the laws of nature are too fine tuned to have been in existence by luck, and therefore they had to have been intelligently designed. Others point to the constant speed of light as evidence of intelligence at work.
     
     I will point out why I feel life's animation, including reproduction and the actions of nucleic acids, are a separate force altogether, which is clearly intelligent. The other forces of nature are 2-dimensional with an attraction pulling two things together in a very uniform way, whether it is functional or not (and it often is).
     
     Life's force(s) is 4-dimensional and multi-faceted. It is able to regulate and pace itself, and it is able to deal with many different situations differently, according to the needs of the organism or of the species.
     
     Moreover, it virtually opposes such forces as gravity and electromagnetism, so if it is these forces at work, they are intelligently altered.
     
     So we will disagree on intelligence versus non-intelligence (you like that better than "accident"?), but I think you are being overly dramatic to call the design inference and the presence of intelligence "logically unnecessary and scientifically irresponsible". If the likeliest scenario, based on the evidence, is that there is intelligence involved in life and life's formation, then it is scientifically irresponsible to state otherwise.
     
     Saying that there may be some other as yet unthought of force at work is a true, but very weak, statement. You could argue against virtually any theory by saying "Yes, but there may be some other wierd factor that nobody has ever thought of, so I will presume your theory is wrong."
     
     I contend that if evidence supports intelligence and your only comeback is that you "might" find some conceivable other explanation some day, you ought to at least admit that, based on what we know now, intelligence is the likeliest scenario we know of. No theory is ever supposed to be written in stone, even one as thouroughly supported in evidence as intelligent design.
     
     Also, even if you DO find a force at work that is non-intelligent, it is still luck that is your creative force. Yes, if gravity causes something to drop from one place to another, it is an accident. If stones randomly falling down a cliff by gravity fall into a pile, it is an accident. If the rocks somehow form a life sized statue of the Fantastic Four's Thing, we may infer design, although you may contend that it is luck. If electromagnetics are unintelligently lining things up just right in our bodies, as another blogger suggested, then it is luck that formed us. It is still an amazingly lucky confluence of just the right forces at work at just the right times. It is still a non-intelligent accident.
     
     I will agree with you on this much. It is one step to recognize that there is a force at work when living things animate. It is yet a step further to identify that force. It is yet another step further to call that force intelligent. Some of you, yourself included apparently, think I am jumping steps, but I assure you I took them painstakingly one step at a time.

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320. 320. Pigeon 05:56 AM 5/17/08

     Great post, Ditches. You managed to sum up pretty much my entire point of view (which apparently coincides with yours) on the matter in one concise post. I'm looking forward to Frank's response to it.
     
     Frank M:
     
     >"Pigeon> "It appears we will just have to agree to disagree about the magnitude of the flaws of Darwinian evolution."
     
     >I hope it doesn't stop there. There is much much more than we have touched on so far."
     
     Unfortunately it is going to have to stop there... You keep pointing out flaws in Darwinian evolution, and you give examples, and yet you never provide a source. You keep arguing that I'm ignoring evidence, but I'm not; I'm maintaining a healthy sense of skepticism about evidence that I have never seen for myself and for which I have no reputable source (no offense). I can accept that you have seen evidence that has you convinced, but if you expect me to reach the same conclusions you have, then show me the evidence. Don't summarize it for me. Tell me where I can look at it for myself. I want to see the actual analysis. This is not an unreasonable demand; I understand that it may not be worth it to you to take the time to find all these sources for me, but if that is the case then please don't expect me to reach your conclusions based on word of mouth.
     
     >"No, you have to throw out all references to "selection" which has nothing to do with probabilities of the existence of anything. Calculations are to determine the chance of a new physiological formation, microbiological system, species or even the first life coming into existence"
     
     No, that's silly. Selection has everything to do with it because it [i]increases[/i] the likelihood of a functional, advantageous physiological change to occur. You are correct in that selection is not a 'creative' force. It adds nothing. But by removing the disadvantageous and by encouraging the advantageous, it allows the advantages to build upon one another with few setbacks. Here is an example:
     
     Consider a race of living marbles, living inside a giant centrifuge. At the bottom of the centrifuge is a compactor that destroys any marbles that reach the bottom. Assume their food source falls in at a constant rate from the top of the centrifuge. Now let's say that the original population is just heavy enough that the marbles are kept at a constant height in the centrifuge. Then mutations start to occur; variations in density and size arise. The new marbles that have become bigger and heavier are slowly pushed downwards, while the smaller and lighter ones are pushed upwards. The result is that the smaller and lighter marbles get first dibs on the food - they are always fed. By the time the food gets to the heavier ones, there is less of it of poorer quality, so already the heavier ones are at a disadvantage. As time goes on, extremes in the properties of marbles are present; the extremely heavy and large ones are pushed down so quickly that they are destroyed at the bottom, while the lighter ones are pushed well above their original height, approaching the top of the centrifuge. The result is that the 'heavy' mutation doesn't catch on - the marbles that are heavy don't survive long enough to reproduce significantly for lack of food and for their limited life time due to their quick rate of descent toward the compactor. On the other hand, the light marbles are all the way at the top of the centrifuge and have become so numerous that no food reaches even the normal marbles!
     
     The result is that from the start the disadvantaged (heavy marbles) are unlikely to survive long or reproduce. By the end of this scenario, even the marbles that had no disadvantage (the normal marbles) died off, because the advantaged (lighter) marbles consumed all the food. Selection makes a huge difference in the probability of advantageous physiological changes. The only mathematical studies on the matter with which I'm familiar with suffer from what has become known as [url http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoyle%27s_fallacy]Hoyle's Fallacy[/url]: the major problem is that they look at the probability of a modern specimen, protein, or other biological structure forming as the product of purely random chance. That is not at all accurate, as I hope my example above displays. Click the link for details.
     
     Think of the development of a limb, for example. Even a stub could be advantageous; it could be used as a weapon or crude tool. Two stubs could be used as a rudimentary grasping tool. As the stubs become more dextrous, their ability to hold objects, move or climb become increased. As the population of a species with this advantageous formation grows, they compete with the rest of their species for food, shelter and mates - and they will likely get the most food, best shelter and reproduce more. The result is that these preliminary formations spread, and as they change slightly and over time develop into something more complex.
     
     And the probability of the first life coming into existence is entirely irrelevant, as it is not within the scope of the theory of Darwinian evolution.
     
     >"The factors that are as yet unknown all make Darwinist evolution even less viable. All reproduction requires unexplained matter movement and we have no idea how matter can obey a DNA code, especially in terms of 3 dimensional spacial navigation."
     
     I don't even know what these is supposed to mean. "Unexplained matter movement?" "3 dimensional spacial navigation?" What?! We have never, [i]ever[/i] seen physical evidence of matter that does not follow the path of minimal action (for an explanation of what I mean be action, go [url http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_%28physics%29]here[/url]. Biological systems are extremely complicated, so verifying that biological systems likewise obey this principle would be an extraordinarily daunting task; but that is no evidence that they in fact disobey this principle.
     
     Every time you mention anything about unexplained matter animation, you lose my attention. We have never observed dynamics that could not be accounted for by the four natural forces. The nature of thought remains a mystery, and maybe it is true that our thought and intelligence constitute a fifth force - but this has never been observed; even positing the existence of such a force is poor science at this point. Unless it is conclusively determined that the other four forces can in no way be responsible for observations, and that there is no revision that can be made to our current formulation of them to account for these observations, it will continue to be a vapid claim. If we tried to explain away every complicated phenomenon we have ever observed, or every phenomenon that appeared to contradict the current paradigm, by adding a new fundamental force, the field if physics would be worthlessly convoluted. The only time such an action is valid is if all other options have been exhausted. The application of physics to biological systems is such a new field that I can assure you that little if anything has been exhausted.
     
     >"I'll get into why the probabilities against beneficial traits and formations are so prohibitive in another message, but I will say that your excuse that it "can't" be mathematically evaluated for sufficiency is a cheap attempt to dodge facts."
     
     And your sourceless claims positing "impossible odds" are merely cheap attempts at avoiding discussion. If you cannot backup your claims, then I am going to ignore them.
     
     >"Pigeon> "It is a reasonable prediction based on the tenets of Darwinian evolution that happens to be observed in nature.
     
     >Darwinian evolution has never been observed in nature. Tests have shown artificial selection (not natural), but that is hardly earth-shattering."
     
     This is just disingenuous. If you require, I am sure that I can produce innumerable research papers claiming otherwise. I hope by "artificial selection" you do not mean environmental stimuli introduced by experimenters, because there is really no meaningful difference between a stimulus introduced by nature vs. a stimulus introduced by man.
     
     >"The advantaged creature populates, while the not-so-lucky ones become extinct because they didn't get the mutation. This has never been seen to happen in nature."
     
     It happens in humanity all the time. People with weak hearts, sickle cell anemia or epilepsy? Black people and caucasians? Only recently with the advent of modern medicine have people with the three previous deficiencies reproduced often (with sickle cell anemia sometimes being an exception, as it provides some defense against malaria). Why do you think natives of Africa and other equatorial regions dark-skinned while natives of northern regions are lighter skinned? Because dark skin provides protection against extreme sun exposure, while lighter skin allows the body to function healthily in darker regions. According to your argument the offspring of caucasians in equatorial regions should be darker skinned than their parents, and the offspring of darker-skinned parents in darker areas should become lighter-skinned over time. African Americans have existed in the United States for over 500 years, and yet the only reason any of their descendants have lighter skin is due to genetic mixing with caucasians (there are obviously exceptions, which is to be expected in any statistical scenario).
     
     >"Extinctions are usually caused by climate change, famine, disease or other catastrophes. They kill all levels of the food chain from fittest to least fit. Then the climate changes again and where does that leave our supposed progressive evolution of luck and foul weather turning dirt into peacocks?"
     
     I'm having difficulty following this train of thought. Care to expound?
     
     >"Moreover, "natural selection" has nothing to do with the creation of a creature or physiology in the first place. Attempts to keep tossing survival into the equation are a distraction from whatever the true creative force is."
     
     Correct, and I agree that our understanding of the fundamental creative drive behind evolutionary development might be incomplete, and possibly even downright wrong. However, I have never seen evidence that has made me rule out every possible explanation for this that is expressible through the current forces we know. Therefore, I see no reason to posit the existence of an intelligence force.
     
     >"First, remember that "selection" isn't a positive force "encouraging" upgrades, as you say. It merely means that something lived long enough to reproduce. It is a circular tautology to say that "selection" means that you lived, therefore the reson we live is "selection"."
     
     Now you are the one displaying ignorance of the opposition's stance. You are the only one saying that. The rest of us are saying that environmental stimuli acts as a filter for which changes pass on through the generations and which don't. The final outcome is irrelevant.
     
     >"I mentioned the quintillions upon quintillions of messy, incongruous blobs and you, true to form, used "selection" as an offset. In contemporary evolution, however, we can see for ourselves if the messy blobs are really happening by the quintillions or rarely happening at all."
     
     How many children are born with immunodeficiencies vs. unusually strong immune systems? How many children are born with dysfunctional vestigial limbs vs. the number of children born with a second set of fully functional arms that comes with no adverse side effects? I think we see far more disadvantageous or unhelpful physiological changes in newborn children than children with inexplicable immunities to diseases and viruses, unusually high muscle density, or what have you. My impression is that there [i]are[/i] far more messy mutations than advantageous ones.
     
     >"Researchers need to do a MUCH better job of tracking the fates of those who did not get the genetic upgrades and what percentage of total births are getting so lucky. Tests need to be done that clearly eliminate selection so we can see what the genetics are really doing, without the "selection": complication."
     
     I wouldn't argue against this, but I'd also like to point out that any meaningful study on evolution requires a statistically significant population, which is usually an enormous number. Therefore, keeping track of this information is a logistical nightmare, if even possible.
     
     >"Human evolution eliminates selection, although Darwin predicted it wouldn't. As Richard Dawkins laments, humans protect the lives of the weak and disadvantaged. Yet we gain about an inch a century in height during the past half millenium. "
     
     Just because we protect the weak and disadvantaged (to some extent) does not mean they are as likely to reproduce. Maybe one or both of the sexes are, in general, more attracted to taller people, and thus the tall gene is passed on more frequently than the short gene. Likewise, it is well known that human development is [i]hugely[/i] affected by environmental considerations, such as diet. It is completely conceivable to me that more people are receiving enough of the requisite nutrients and vitamins for development every century. Food has, after all, become much more widely available throughout most of the world with the passage of time.
     
     >"Toes have been getting far more genetically shriveled since the invention of covered tip shoes."
     
     Is this genetic or developmental? If no study on the actual genetics behind it has been carried out, then no conclusion can be made from this. Animal development (including humans) is not exclusively determined by genes.
     
     >"Also, if you are one of those who believes, like the Materialists, that instincts and inherited behaviors are random chance genetic errors, you will find multiple test studies on domesticated animals and other learned behavior that is handed down in two generations or so. See the Discovery Channel's work with wolves."
     
     I am aware of such studies, though not of the details. I don't know exactly how instinct and behavior are handed down through the generations. In the specific study you mention involving wolves, is the behavior taught to the young generation, or do they genuinely inherit it? If the young wolves were separated from the older generations at birth, would they still exhibit this behavior? Even if the answer is yes, I think there is a lot we don't understand about animal and human intelligence and behavior, including instinct. It wouldn't surprise me if some behaviors can be passed genetically, others developmentally, and others taught.
     
     >"For example, the vertebrates all got eye sockets -two of them in practically the exact same location on the head - all at once. Carnivorous plants developed simultaneously as four separate species (more like 600 now), despite the need for thousands of bits of information to align just right - at astronomically impossible odds for each line."
     
     First, how do you define simultaneously? The Cambrian explosion was a period of tens of millions of years, and our ability to place rocks and fossils and all other evidence is not very precise going back that far. Four separate carnivorous plant species developing in 10 or 20 million years (or more) doesn't sound so far fetched, especially if they developed from a common ancestor, or each other. Your argument that thousands of bits of information needed to have aligned just right, therefore it didn't happen by chance, is fallacious. Their genes could have arranged in innumerable possible ways, yes - but they couldn't have occurred in every possible way; it is entirely possible that life [i]could[/i] have been extraordinarily different than it was/is. But there can only be one state of life on this planet at any given time - therefore one state will exist, and all the other possibilities will not. It is only chance that humans, and dogs and mice and elephants and pigeons and iguanas, exist today.
     
     I am aware that the pace of diversification during the Cambrian explosion dwarfs that of any other period on Earth, but after doing a little research on the matter I've come across sine explanations that are believed to offer significant insight. It appears to be widely accepted that ecological reasons are capable of generating significant diversity in short periods of time, especially during the early stages of diversification of life. If this is true, then the remaining problem is to determine why the Cambrian explosion occurred when it did. Now, I can't judge the validity of these claims for myself, so I don't ask you to take my word for it, but I will point you [url http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.earth.33.031504.103001?journalCode=earth]here[/url] and [url http://www.jstor.org/pss/3515182]here[/url]. I know you are going to spout your statistics again, but unless and until you provide a reputable source, that means nothing to me.
     
     >"Worse yet, it goes back and forth, as the climate changes. And we are talking about a very specific seed-shaped beak size that requires a huge amount of detailed genetic information bits."
     
     Really? This runs contrary to my experience. I was at the Galapagos Islands some 10 years ago, and everything I was told was that the finch species remained separated on the different islands, and essentially unchanged from their discovery during the Voyage of the Beagle. I was told this by our guide, who was a renowned local ecologist. Additionally, the climate is not particularly different on the separate islands... They are not very far from each other, only far enough so that the small birds cannot move from one to the other.
     
     >"Pigeon> "Do you know if any research beyond mere observation of this has been done?"
     
     >The Darwinists aren't looking for failure. They are looking for success and funding. They crow about the "mountains of evidence" for evolution, which few seriously contest since the days of the Scopes trial."
     
     Seems to me like the Scopes trial is a straw man. The law that was challenged forbade the teaching of "any theory that denies the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals." Intelligent Design proposes the latter, just like Darwinian evolution.
     
     And anyways, your response makes no sense. By observing parallel and almost immediate evolution in animals, it would appear that they have found evidence contradicting Darwinian evolution - therefore it would be an obvious watershed breakthrough in favor of Darwinian evolution if they could discover the mechanism behind it, consistent with accepted theory. Additionally, scientists need not look for failure to find it. If a scientist who looks for confirmation only ever finds confirmation, then chances are it's because the theory is damn good - otherwise it would probably not have predicted so many things so accurately.
     
     >"Bear in mind that my main point on evolution is that it is done by intelligent genetics and mostly I get ridiculed because such a thing as intelligent genetics is seen as impossible. Yet here we see it happening in a unicellular being."
     
     The above was regarding genetic sharing between bacteria besides reproduction. My understanding was that bacteria don't get together and decide which pieces of each other's DNA would be most advantageous for the other - if that were true then bacteria would rule the planet. What I learned was that bacteria have the ability to inject random (although for all I know there might be some restrictions) sequences of their own DNA into another nearby bacterium. No intelligence involved.
     
     >"Bacteria do send out a distress signal, sensing that they need an upgrade, and a buddy who somehow seems to know they have the needed DNA comes to the rescue."
     
     I have never heard this claim before, and I even just asked my biologist housemate and she said that such a phenomenon is news to her. Can you provide a source confirming that this does indeed occur?
     
     >"To assume that we can see and detect all functions is more than a little optimistic."
     
     That is essentially the point I've been trying to make to you. Simply because we have not yet been able to determine all of the rules that might apply to unguided evolution, or all the mechanisms through which it occurs, does not require the necessity of some form of intelligent guide. You use [i]every single fault[/i] associated with Darwinian evolution as incontrovertible, decisive evidence against it; when it could just as easily be that we do not yet know enough about the system or it's rules.
     
     >"Even if they are junk, then it is odd that this particular encoded information is ignored, yet all non-junk DNA is obeyed at all costs. So proteins know which ones to ignore?"
     
     Protein doesn't know anything, if you ask me. From what I remember of biology, the only association I recall DNA and proteins having, besides protein that actively affects DNA such as for replication purposes, is that DNA provides the template for the structure of proteins, and the proteins are synthesized via rRNA. Protein performs the function that is completely determined by its structure, which is defined in the DNA.
     
     >"If the vast majority has no waste at all, it isn't much of a case to point at such a tiny amount of "waste" that is probably not waste anyway."
     
     What evidence do you have that some of what we call junk DNA probably isn't waste, other than that we have discovered functions behind some DNA previously considered junk? The assumption that if some junk DNA isn't really junk, then no junk DNA is really junk, is as flawed a logical statement you could make. And yes, even a tiny amount of waste is still a fairly large case. Why would an intelligence so capable that it can guide single-celled organism to form large, complicated organisms such as humans which display intelligence of their own, make needless changes to purposeless DNA? Why would it even need DNA in the first place? Why can't it just push all the necessary atoms together to form the necessary molecules, and then push the molecules around to do whatever is needed? If no hypothesis can be made that predicts verifiable mechanisms through which evolution is guided, then it really isn't much of a hypothesis - just an insightful, yet unhelpful, guess.
     
     --
     Edited by Pigeon at 05/16/2008 11:09 PM
     
     --
     Edited by Pigeon at 05/16/2008 11:22 PM

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321. 321. Pigeon 07:36 AM 5/17/08

     Frank M:
     
     >"First let me say that it absolutely boggles my mind that the Materialists DON'T think there is a force animating matter in living things. Kinda makes you wonder of they had noticed that some of us MOVE once in a while."
     
     This statement kinda makes me wonder if you have ever noticed that rocks MOVE once in a while. The only difference is that we possess self-awareness and, as far as we can tell, the rock doesn't. Nonetheless, the forces responsible for the motion of rocks is electromagnetism. My opinion is that the most likely force responsible for our own motions are, likewise, the four natural forces - in this case almost exclusive the electromagnetic (strong force only holds together atomic nuclei, the weak force likewise is likewise almost exclusively relevant to the nuclei, the strength of gravitational forces is negligible compared to electromagnetic). Again I concede that we don't understand our own intelligence - maybe it is a manifestation of a yet undiscovered fifth force of nature. However, I think it is just as likely, if not more so, that it is a result of the rules of electromagnetism on an extremely complicated physical system (the body).
     
     Basically, motion does not require intelligence. The fact that we can move does not imply the presence of intelligence. Yes, it appears that we cause ourselves to move, but in order to move ATP must be burned, and energy expended, in order for our bodies to seemingly move unprompted. I think it would be the ultimate expression of beauty if the rules of the four natural forces are capable of conspiring to create intelligence. Conversely, I think it would be extremely ungainly for the intelligence to simply be the result of intelligence.
     
     >"Do you have any evidence or reasoning behind your belief that an already known force animates matter?"
     
     Personally I think the best evidence is that we have not ever conclusively observed any matter doing anything except as the result of the application of one of the four forces to it. We also know that our bodies utilize electric fields to a huge extent. We understand the interactions of chemicals and molecules within the framework of electrostatic interactions. The atoms in our bodies are held together by electrostatic bonds, and likewise the cells in our bodies. Intelligence isn't holding our atoms together, it isn't holding our cells together, it isn't whispering into the ears of proteins telling them what to do or where to go. I see no reason to assume that it is responsible for the large-scale dynamics of our bodies if it has never been observed in the small-scale dynamics which cooperate to result in the large-scale motions we observe.
     
     >"Many scientists, including Einstein, believed that the laws of nature are too fine tuned to have been in existence by luck, and therefore they had to have been intelligently designed."
     
     First, the fine-tuning problems in physics are some of the most active research topics at the moment, and are usually cited by physicists as evidence that our formulation is incomplete. NOTE: This does not mean they believe we are missing a force, but rather something more like the theory of relativity, which merely modified the forces already known (although a missing force is always possible). Secondly, Einstein did not believe that the laws of nature had to have been intelligently designed in the [i]least[/i]. He believed that the laws of nature are, for lack of a better word, God. He believed that the universe is merely the expression of the incredibly beautiful natural forces (natural force == natural law), not that these forces must have been designed by anything.
     
     >"Others point to the constant speed of light as evidence of intelligence at work."
     
     The constant speed of light is merely a consequence of the laws of electromagnetism. Maxwell's Equations (the mathematical formulation of the laws of electromagnetism) directly predict the speed at which electromagnetic waves (light) would travel. It is worth noting that Maxwell's Laws do not obey Newtonian relativity, but they do obey Special Relativity - and they predict the same velocity in all reference frames. Using this as evidence of intelligence would be equivalent to using the fact that the speed of sound depends on the density of the medium, or essentially any other physical phenomenon, as evidence for it.
     
     >"The other forces of nature are 2-dimensional with an attraction pulling two things together in a very uniform way, whether it is functional or not (and it often is)."
     
     That is actually blatantly false. The electromagnetic force is not merely attractive or repulsive. The magnetic force actually acts perpendicularly to the vector between any two moving charges and can result in extremely complicated 3 dimensional motion even just between two particles. For example, a moving charged particle entering a constant magnetic field at the right orientation will result in helical motion. Nonetheless, you are correct in saying that the four known forces act in a predictable way defined by a set of rules...
     
     >"Life's force(s) is 4-dimensional and multi-faceted."
     
     What does that mean? Life can cause things to move forwards and backwards in time? Right...
     
     >" It is able to regulate and pace itself, and it is able to deal with many different situations differently, according to the needs of the organism or of the species."
     
     First, all physical forces 'deal with' different situations differently. A charged particle in motion in a magnetic field will be forced into moving in circular patterns, while an electric charge at rest in a magnetic field will remain at rest. The forces merely deal with each situation based on rules governing them; the same would have to be true for any "life force," so I don't see your point.
     
     Even apart from that, this statement is fraught with so many problems from a physics perspective. I don't know if I can adequately explain them because it requires a working knowledge of fairly advanced physics, including rudimentary field theory, but I'll try... The natural forces that we are aware of are the results of the interactions of fields (electromagnetic fields, gravitational fields, etc) with matter and even each other. Now, if a charged particle enters an electromagnetic field and accelerates, then it gains energy and momentum. This energy and momentum must come from somewhere (as both are conserved quantities). It turns out that the fields themselves possess these qualities; electromagnetic fields posses energy, momentum and angular momentum, and every time they act on a charged particle, they impart some of their energy and other properties to said particle.
     
     Now, if this "life force" is capable of regulating itself, then it must be able to act on itself. But this would require a change in these properties, but if it is acting on itself then there is no source for it to come from or go to in order to conserve them. A self-regulating force would necessarily violate at least one conservation law.
     
     And what defines the needs of the organism or species? If a physical force is going to act differently based on the [i]needs[/i] of something, then there must be a physical embodiment of these needs for the force to act on; a force cannot act on or based on an abstract concept.
     
     >"Moreover, it virtually opposes such forces as gravity and electromagnetism, so if it is these forces at work, they are intelligently altered."
     
     I will say it again. [i]There has never been a single observation in any system, including the biological, in which the four known forces of nature have not been adequate to explain the dynamics of a scenario[/i]. There have been observations that have led to revisions of these forces, but no evidence in physics that the natural forces themselves, regardless of our formulations of the, are inadequate.
     
     Your statement is also nonsensical. First, you qualify "opposes" with the word "virtually," which means that it might appear to oppose them but doesn't really. Secondly, if the forces are intelligently altered, then they must have been altered by some form of intelligence that is independent of those forces, and thus some sort of physical or supernatural intelligence must have done the altering and you are back to where you started, which is based on false assumptions and ignorance of physics combined with a healthy sense of wonder, philosophizing and critical thinking.
     
     >"but I think you are being overly dramatic to call the design inference and the presence of intelligence "logically unnecessary and scientifically irresponsible"."
     
     It really isn't being dramatic, it is being scientific. The only time a paradigm shift has ever occurred, or should ever occur, is when there is no way to account for a phenomenon within the current scientific framework. This does [i]not[/i] mean that if at any given point we don't understand a phenomenon, or an aspect of it, we should just turn around and rework all of physics. Essentially all possibilities must be exhausted within the current framework before it should be abandoned for something else - and there must be enough evidence for whatever new framework is imposed that it can actually be expanded upon into something useful. So far, there is no reason within the context of physics to abandon all hope that the four known forces are sufficient to account for biological systems. Likewise, whatever evidence there may be for some sort of intelligent force is so vague, so poorly defined, that it provides absolutely no hints or ideas of where to start, or how to begin formulating a theory about it. That is why it would be both unnecessary and scientifically irresponsible - it would result in the needless convolution of our formulation of the natural laws.
     
     >"If the likeliest scenario, based on the evidence, is that there is intelligence involved in life and life's formation, then it is scientifically irresponsible to state otherwise."
     
     A physicist can believe that there is intelligence involved in life and its formation, but if he/she has no idea or where or how to begin to put it into a physical framework then he has absolutely no place trying to call it physics. Even if there exists biological evidence that such a life force exists, evidence for it in the context of physics must be found before it can be treated as physics (and I hope you will agree that the natural forces falls under the domain of physics, and not the other scientific fields).
     
     >"You could argue against virtually any theory by saying "Yes, but there may be some other wierd factor that nobody has ever thought of, so I will presume your theory is wrong.""
     
     Oh the irony. You do realize that this is exactly what you are doing with the notion of a separate life force, right? You are saying, "Oh, maybe these complex dynamics that we don't completely understand are due to this weird life force, even though it has never been shown that the other forces are inadequate."
     
     >"I contend that if evidence supports intelligence and your only comeback is that you "might" find some conceivable other explanation some day, you ought to at least admit that, based on what we know now, intelligence is the likeliest scenario we know of."
     
     I would agree if I agreed with your presuppositions. However I contend that the intelligence perceived to be responsible for guiding and and animating life is merely the result of the laws of the four natural forces conspiring together in a staggeringly complex system to form such complex and ordered dynamics that we have a hard time believing that there isn't something deeper behind it. Therefore, I don't admit that intelligence is the likeliest scenario.
     
     >"If electromagnetics are unintelligently lining things up just right in our bodies, as another blogger suggested, then it is luck that formed us."
     
     Well yes, ultimately everything is due to some degree of luck. There is no rule book that comes with the universe that states "Humans must exist!" We do exist though, and thus we are "lucky" to exist - there is no reason why humans or life at all to exist, just as there is no reason for stars or planets or black holes or hydrogen to exist, other than the rules of the universe resulted in their existence. It is [i]rules[/i] that formed us. The insertion of rules into chaos will inevitably result in order (as I think Sologos pointed out).
     
     >"It is one step to recognize that there is a force at work when living things animate. It is yet a step further to identify that force. It is yet another step further to call that force intelligent. Some of you, yourself included apparently, think I am jumping steps, but I assure you I took them painstakingly one step at a time."
     
     I have no doubt that you took the steps slowly and with great consideration. However, based on this discussion I also have no doubt that some of your steps were taken despite a lack of understanding of the scientific method and some of the relevant science (namely physics).

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322. 322. kakskee 11:33 AM 5/17/08

     I think creationists fear evolution because that might invalidate belief in God the Creator. Evolution should not illustrate that there is no God, but perhaps, only a different more realistic concept. Natural law does not provide for unnatural stories, as in Genesis,to begin with.
     
     Interestingly also there is a story in Exodus that illustrates how blood spattered goats evolved into the symbol of evil- Satan the devil et al- another false concept that the fundamentalists hold dearly to.

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323. 323. Frank M 04:23 PM 5/17/08

     Natedog, please don't assume that I have been making leaps away from the evidence. I would have to say that my intent from the start has been to look ONLY at evidence and also not to exclude any evidence. To me, Creationists start with "God did it.", Materialists start with "Luck did it." and IDists throw out all pre-conceptions. At least I can say that is my approach.
     
     Natedog> "It appears that you are both looking at the same evidence but arriving at different conclusions."
     
     Yes, that also would be a fair assessment of the entire conflict between ID and Accident. We don't have two separate sets of data. We have two widely different inferences drawn from the observations.
     
     Natedog> "Pigeon appears to concede that intelligent design could be at work but that the evidence does not currently and likely (read: almost certainly) will never be able to support such a claim."
     
     When you say "almost certainly...will never" you are almost as unequivocal as I am. (That was a slam on myself moreso than you, but making a point that there are some overly firm stances on both sides.)
     
     Natedog> "Frank M is claiming to at least partially understand that which cannot possibly be understood given the information available to us while Pigeon maintains a healthy respect for the limits of science and its inability to conclusively answer such a question."
     
     I hear the word "can't" a lot from both you and Pigeon. Yet the history of science is highlighted with hundreds of "can'ts" turned to "cans". Even if it turns out that we truly can't accomplish something, that is no reason to abandon the attempt before trying. Some of your "can'ts" seem very much possible to me.
     
     I think you are the ones trying to leap ahead with your "can'ts". Maybe we can't ever discover the source of life's animating force, it's ability to reproduce, it's ability to think or it's ability to intelligently edit a code. In each of these cases, however, we CAN study the EFFECTS of these forces and learn much more about these forces at work.
     
     Face it, we don't know the cause of nuclear forces, but we didn't let that stop us from acknowledging them and studying them. Why are you so against science that you would discourage inquiry on some very observable movement of matter? Why discourage learning about the effects and apparent properties of animation in life?
     
     Frank> "all unconscious matter movement in living things leads toward the clear intention of keeping living things alive."
     
     Natedog> "Yes, but the desire to live only acts to maintain life, not create it in the first place."
     
     Who says? We don't know that at all. Matter animation is abundant in reproduction and either it always has been, or you have even more missing explanations. How could the first common ancestor have reproduced without animating matter?? Why do you think abiogenesis experiments have failed to create life from non-life? Matter animation ability MUST exist before any reproduction can take place.
     
     (Can I also interject here that it appears that with the word "yes" here, that you agree that an immaterial intelligent force is animating matter in living things keeping us alive? If so, you and I are VERY much in agreement.)
     
     Natedog> "I think it is quite plausable that some of the first life forms may have lacked any form of survival instinct or unconscious intent and subsequently died off."
     
     I see this as highly unlikely and full of holes, but not excluded as a possibility. Mathematically the best odds I have seen of forming even one "replicator" by accident is 1 out 10 to the 650th power, which is statistically impossible. This is for a very simple "replicator" that has been shown in the lab not to replicate at all. This also assumes all planets in the cosmos had the ability to create life in all years since the Big Bang. Now you are suggesting that more than one of them self-created by sheer luck. Do you know how difficult it is to create a polymerase without it dissolving in water? How many of these functional, but lifeless things do you foresee occuring by luck?
     
     The idea that a different mechanism created the first life as compared to what reproduces it now is not fully checked off my list, but you would have to explain this mechanism and then propose a hand-off of mechanisms. What combination of matter supposedly causes consciousness? If intelligence itself is not a sign of intelligence, what is? What caused one of these life forms to go from not caring if it lived or died, to having a survival instinct? What is intinct? Even unicells have it. How can materials create immaterial?
     
     The materials-first approach just leaves too many questions for me, but I will concede you might be right, as there may be a method of reproduction completely different from that which we observe today. You already agreed that immaterial forces animate matter, though, so I have to say that, based on the evidence, immaterial probably came first.
     
     (Switching from Natedog to Eastwood)
     
     Frank> "I see no 'creation' force at all."
     
     Eastwood> "Doesn't that statement support the idea of chance?"
     
     Sorry, the sentence lost its context. I would add ..."in natural selection." to that sentence. I do see a creative force at work, but natural selection can't create anything. Even the famous Darwinist evolutionary scholar William Provine of Cornell admitted before his death that selection is "empty rhetoric" that has no effect whatsoever on evolution. He said it does not modify, adjust or cause anything, and he is absolutely right. It causes death, not life.
     
     Eastwood> "Certainly you can accept that orderly systems can arise from chaos."
     
     Not really. Even what we may think are examples of orderly systems arising from chaos (orbiting planets, orbiting electrons, the water cycle, etc.) are seen by many scientists and mathematicians as requiring fine-tuning that is too mathematically impossible to have occured by luck. I have read some of Einstein's theories on this concept, but I limit my ID opinions to my area of education.
     
     Darwinism goes much further toward assuming that we got lucky breaks that turned randomness into complex and functional information. In Darwinist evolution, the "luck" just keeps on happening, millions upon millions of times. So even if you are right that we could get one lucky shot out of infinity, I reject the notion that we can continue to defy statistical impossibility on an ongoing predictable basis.
     
     Chaos leads to chaos.
     
     Eastwood> "Science cannot prove the existence of a supernatural force, much less that that force is intelligent."
     
     Science and math CAN prove intelligence to the point of statistical impossibility. They can not prove "supernatural" and I do not recognize "supernatural" agency.
     
     Eastwood> "if there is anything that could constitute evidence in favor of evolution?"
     
     Yes, I think fossil evidence - and more conclusively - DNA evidence has proven evolution beyind any reasonable argument. Moreover, we can observe what is called "microevolution" in progress everywhere and there have even been a few polyploidal examples of speciation.
     
     Eastwood (regarding Creationsim and Materialism)> "So which one are you? (I’m somewhere in the middle.)"
     
     I started as a Darwinist, but found that my theory was lacking in explanatory power and opened my mind. For a long while I was in the middle, as you are. I couldn't put the pieces together until about 15 years after college, when I read Fred Hoyle and his 474 analogy. Shortly after that I heard about ID and everything I had been dead-ending on fit perfectly. I am no longer in the middle.

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324. 324. EastwoodDC 01:55 AM 5/18/08

     In Response to Frank M:
     
     Since our last exchange I found one of your posts dated May 10, 1:32 AM (time zone uncertain) that ended up in my blog rather than in this discussion. Although I had not seen all of your arguments at the time of my subsequent post, it would not have changed my responses. I don’t feel that addressing that post now would be helpful. Repost it if you disagree.
     
     In an earlier post Pigeon commented that your use of the word “intelligence” is confusing, and I agree. I have yet to see any distinction between what you propose (intelligence or natural force?) and mainstream ID.
     I may also owe you an apology for attributing the flaws of ID directly to you, which isn’t fair. I do have considerable disdain for ID because it is a deliberately misleading campaign, but it would be wrong to transfer that to you by association. I will try harder to use “you” only when I mean you specifically, not when I am referring to ID in general.
     
     Your most recent post confuses some of Pigeon's comments (or maybe Sologos?) for mine. I should not answer for him, but I would add this:
     
     Pigeon wrote> "Certainly you can accept that orderly systems can arise from chaos."
     
     Frank M replied> Not really.[snip]
     
     Sure it can! There are plenty of examples Even Strange attractors in chaos theory exhibit a type of order (but non-repeating). There are [url=http://www.amazon.com/Sync-Order-Emerges-Universe-Nature/dp/0786887214]books[/url] that describe it.
     Here is a [url=http://douweosinga.com/projects/archean?signature=3%28gzjk%23Ph%24uZs*JeQEnNiK5GLK%5EN99%26Ze%40wer]web site[/url] with a nice Java tool that demonstrates a simple type of self-organization. Watch the pretty non-random pictures develop from chaos and a few simple rules (some require a few minutes to develop).
     
     Order arises from chaos! (Don't quote thermodynamics 2 at me. Systems can expend energy to gain order.)
     
     
     The remainder of my response is going to be somewhat long, so I will post it separately later.

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325. 325. sologos 02:06 AM 5/18/08

     On the topic of science as a tool for discovering reality, I had intimated that the conclusions of any particular scientific investigation are skewed by the world view that the scientist believes in as the investigation is conducted. It is not simply theconclusions that are skewed. The data itself is skewed by the worldview.
     
     Pigeon took exception tothis and responded,
     
     
     >"Even the data we collect is biased . One does not go about willy-nllly collecting data. ... The design of the experiment , the technology we use, even the "data" is skewed. Then of course come the conclusion or interpretation, which again demonstrates the world view in which the scientist writes."
     
     'I'm not sure what you mean by the data we collect is biased. If you mean that experiments searching for the existence of the Higgs Boson will only record data in the ~120 GeV range and not in the 10 GeV range sure, but so what? As you said we don't go around willy-nilly collecting data because we can take data much faster than we can analyze it, so what is the point of overwhelming ourselves with data that we don't have the first reason to believe will show anything interesting?
     
     
     I should preface my answer by saying I am not trying to demonstrate some of the many hidden limitations of science becaue I am aniti-science. I have a point. and I am hopefully going to work to a point that is germaine to the movie and the article in SCIAM. that has spawned this whole discussion that is going on here. I will really only touch on the limitations of science, but hopefully give enough to make the point.
     I am not speaking of the limitations set by the tools in our possession, though for sure these tools will limit the outcome. What I am saying is that we look for what we hypothesize to be the case, and we hypothesize according to what our worldview is. This, of course, is done to determine whether the hypothesis is true or false. But there are larger underlying assumptions that we make, that makeup our world view. We expect for example, that the law of cause and effect will be in operation. It is also a basic assumption of the method that only the variables which one is trying to investigate will be varied, and the effects or data we collect will reflect that etc etc.
     
     Now,it is apparent, given the ever changing face of scientific explanation, that our experimental design must be flawed not simply in that we are making asumptions that are either incomplete or entirely incorrect. That's OK, because, as you say, the process is iterative. This does not make the process useless, only temporary.
     
     The point, however, is that we never really get closer to REALITY, just because we achieve a degree of predictabiltiy within our assumed world view. It is for some genius who will "see" it entirely differently, and usher us into to a new way of seeing. Now the mop up process begins again, and we use this new world view to design an experiment whose data will , in turn, be limited by our view. I am only stating what we all know, that the world view that one will see from our shoulders tomorrow will be different, and our discoveries will take their place with the rest of the history of science, (with, incidenta)lly, a shelf time whose half life seems to be becoming smaller with every turn of the wheel.
     
     
     Great!, you say. We are getting to know the universe better. Well that is not really true. All we get are approximations that comport to the way we are looking. I'm not suggesting we do away with the process because of all this. It has served us well. Just understand it's limits. Unfortunately, as a society, we are not. Let me explain.
     
     OK, so we may not be getting this illusive reality. What's the big deal. Mankind is benefiting, what need have we for truth? We may not have a lock on reality, but we certainly coming up with technologies that seem to prove to the lay man that science must really know what they are talking about. So, we should believe them when they define the realm of science. Furthermore,all sorts of institutions of society look to science, for guidance as to what is "TRUE". Science is assuming a role among the other institutions that guess who assumed in the middle ages.
     
     We have been talking about assumptions, right or wrong, complete or incomplete, that paint our world view, which in turn formulates our scientific inquiry. But the most fundamental assumption in our methodology is that there is no non-natural or supernatural component operative. Is it any wonder, that the data is not found that might suggest supernatural influence, If there be any possibility that a supernatural activity may be suggested or indicated by the experiment, the rules of our methodology compel us to dismiss this as impossible. The constraint of the investigatory proceedure is that one must always look for a naturalistic explanation. and as often a not, one finds one! And so we say "There, you see, there is no need for God in science, and if He is somehow in here, it is not for us to inquire." There are many scientists, I reckon in the atheist camp, for this very reason. It is sort of an occupational hazard.
     
     The Dover decision that was basically settled not so much on its scientific information, as Nova would have us believe by a clever dramatization of the court case, but by the issue of separation of church and and state. But the final(I promise) kicker is that this was not separation of church and state. This was separation of God and state using science as the final court of appeal
     
     I fragmented Pigeon's answer. He went on,
     Yes, it means that we might miss things, but that is why science is an iterative process. We build on what we know generation after generation, and the reasonable hope is that it will become more and more comprehensive with time.
     
     This is my point, "comprehensive" is only an illusion.Every answer we come up with only opens ten more questions.
     Pigeon goes on to defend the process on aq global level quite reasonably,
     
     The dangerous part is not the experiment design, recorded data or technology used, but the interpretation. Interpretation can definitely be subjective, and can definitely be affected by the investigator's preconceptions. This is somewhat mitigated by the fact that 1) an entire community attempts to interpret the same data in different ways, and 2) that we require hypotheses to predict other phenomena. If we believe we observe one thing predicted by a hypothesis but nothing else, the first thing that will be done is to redo the one successful experiment and analyze it much more carefully. Nonetheless, scientists are people, people are flawed, and thus science, especially new science, needs to be looked at with caution.
     
     You have spoken well, but caution cannot solve human flaws, nad the science it taints, only, as you say, mitigate it. Why should something so flawed dictate our educative and research institutions? This argument strikes deeper, and the resistance more fundamental that the rejection of all the other paradigm shifts in the history of science..

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326. 326. sologos 02:43 AM 5/18/08

     As a continuation of the previous entry, Pigeon writes,
     
     
     Personally I think faith has no lock on reality. Faith is a series of inherently indisputable inferences made by an individual based on life experiences and observations. The best reason I can give for why it has no lock on reality is the following: there are more than 6 billion people on this planet, and many of them have faith in different things. There are three major monotheistic religions in the world - Christianity, Judaism and Islam - with numerous denominations of each, not to mention other faiths such as Hinduism and Buddhism. Then there are deists, and pantheists and atheists. The members of each of those faiths believes just as strongly in their own as the others do in theirs, and few if any of them are actually compatible with one another. Jews believe the Torah was written by God, Christians believe the Old and New Testaments were, Muslims believe only the Qur'an was; as far as I know Hindus and Buddhists don't believe any texts were written by their gods, though I could be wrong. A theist believes in only their own god, and none of the others; and atheist adds that theist's god to that list - not a very big difference, is it? With so many conflicting faiths, it cannot logically have a lock on reality.
     
     
     
     We are not talking about one particular faith or religion when we speak of a spiritual basis for the material world. The only faith (religion?) that does not believe this is atheistic reductionism.
     
     Pigeon moreover believes,
     
     Science, however, is based on (relatively) objective observations of the natural world, deals only with that which can be repudiated, and functions based on a common framework among all scientists
     
     Right, all following the same paradigm, all agreeing on the validity of the parqdigm while disagreeing on the details of its unction.
     
     
     
     ; it has no place for personal feelings, intuitions or experiences. Also, I don't see how faith mitigates dangers presented by science.
     
     Whence came the notion that we can depend on an intelligible order. Whence came the value of honesty and integrity in our investigative reporting?
     
     But the biggest problem of separating physics from metaphysics, is by what measure do we decide the direction technology will be allowed to go. Who will regulate science, the scientists? They are neutral about technology. Make the best bomb, clone humans, manipulate whatecver we can. Do it for science.
     
     Perhaps faith and science have a lot more in common than we might think. Thee is a mutual informing that can and should take place. Science informs faith when its interpretation of scripture doesn't allow for heliocentrism. Fauth informs science by reminding it that you can''t have something without it being created.(Yes, I know that I haven't persuaded you yet that something is infinitely less likely than nothing)
     
     
     To be honest I think it exacerbates them! The vast majority of conflict in the world occurs when conflicting faiths collide, and those are the greatest opportunities for the ugly aspect of science to come forward.
     
     It is not differences of faiths that causes the trouble. it is people. It happens with atheistic regimes, and with political social and economic partisanship.

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327. 327. EastwoodDC 03:58 AM 5/18/08

     In respose to Frank M, where the referenced quote was my own.
     
     Eastwood> "Science cannot prove the existence of a supernatural force, much less that that force is intelligent."
     
     FrankM> Science and math CAN prove intelligence to the point of statistical impossibility. They can not prove "supernatural" and I do not recognize "supernatural" agency.
     
     You lost me here, and I don't think you typed what you meant to type. Are you saying that an intelligence (designer) is a statistical impossibility? Your previous arguments mention that it must exist because the probability of natural selection occurring randomly seems small. Did you change your mind?
     
     I will continue on the point of “statistical impossibility”, because that point should be addressed.
     There is a misconception that a small probability disproves a hypothesis. Statistical likelihoods are ALWAYS very small. They represent the probability of a single outcome out of all possible outcomes allowed under the hypothesis. If your data is more extreme (less likely) than almost all other possible outcomes under the hypothesis being considered, then you have some evidence that the hypothesis is false. A small number by itself means nothing.
     
     Therefore whatever you meant to say about intelligence, design, and statistical probability, I strongly suspect it will not lead to a valid statistical inference. A common ID argument is to point out some vanishingly small number, claim it is proof of what cannot be, and proclaim ID as given truth. You appear to be making the same error (but perhaps to a lesser degree). Sorry, but that is not how it is done.
     
     I wrote considerably more about the correct methods, but perhaps it is not really necessary or relevant. Unless you insist, I will spare you the lecture in statistics (or maybe hold it back as a threat. ;-) ).
     
     One more:
     
     Eastwood wrote (regarding Creationsim and Materialism)> "So which one are you? (I’m somewhere in the middle.)"
     
     Frank M> I started as a Darwinist, … [snip] ... I am no longer in the middle.
     
     Which implies you are on the Creation side? I recognize that you believe ID is not Creation, but there is a recent court decision ([url=http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10545387/]Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District[/url]) that concluded otherwise.
     
     In any case, I wish you had said so a lot early. You could have said “God/Designer/Force did it”, I could have said “Fine, but I’ll keep looking anyway”, and we both could have saved a lot of time. I assume you are aware that many people believe Creation AND accept evolution?

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328. 328. Pigeon 04:10 AM 5/18/08

     Frank M:
     
     >"Face it, we don't know the cause of nuclear forces, but we didn't let that stop us from acknowledging them and studying them."
     
     We do know the cause of the nuclear forces (when I use 'know' in the context of science, it is not to be taken to be absolute). Once Rutherford showed beyond a reasonable doubt that atoms consist of an incredibly dense, positively charged nucleus, that indeed was powerful evidence for the existence of the nuclear strong force. True, we didn't know what caused it, but here are two differences between this scenario and your proposed intelligence. The first is that this indirect evidence still inferred quite a lot about the nature of the force - we knew it had to be much stronger than electromagnetism, that it had to be a purely attractive force, and yet have an incredibly short range of operation (or the universe would be one big black hole). The second is that it also immediately predicted that there are other properties of matter, other than the standard mass and charge, because if this new force were due to either of the above then we would observe its effects in many other scenarios - which wasn't the case.
     
     The evidence for the existence of some sort of intelligence force is that some aspects of matter appear to be guided by something that some people, for no robust reason (as far as physics is concerned), are convinced cannot be due to the other four forces. This vague, ill-defined notion provides nothing like the immediately necessary conclusions and predictions drawn from the nature of atomic structure. It gives us absolutely zero to work with - any attempt to formulate this force in the context of physics would be wild guesswork.
     
     >"Why are you so against science that you would discourage inquiry on some very observable movement of matter? Why discourage learning about the effects and apparent properties of animation in life?"
     
     I don't discourage any of that at all. I discourage jumping to conclusions, which you have done by unilaterally deciding, despite complete ignorance of physics beyond perhaps the high school level (this is not meant as an insult), that the four known forces are incapable of resulting in the either the macroscopic or microscopic behavior of matter in living systems. If you don't understand why this is jumping to conclusions, I suggest you reread the relevant sections of my last few posts. If you still don't understand and wish to understand, or wish to convince any physicist that you aren't jumping to conclusions, then I suggest you get a degree in the field.
     
     >"Mathematically the best odds I have seen of forming even one "replicator" by accident is 1 out 10 to the 650th power, which is statistically impossible. This is for a very simple "replicator" that has been shown in the lab not to replicate at all. This also assumes all planets in the cosmos had the ability to create life in all years since the Big Bang."
     
     Here you go with your silly numbers again. Seriously, how many times do I have to ask for citations before you will either give up posting worthless numbers or actually follow through? And I don't mean a book by some guy - I want to see an actual paper outlining the assumptions made and the calculations carried out. Anything else is sensationalism.
     
     >"Do you know how difficult it is to create a polymerase without it dissolving in water? How many of these functional, but lifeless things do you foresee occuring by luck?"
     
     This is called Hoyle's Fallacy. The probability of a modern polymerase forming from nothing in a petri dish all at once is not what is proposed by Darwinian evolution, which proposes that modern polymerases are the result of innumerable small changes made over millions of years.
     
     >"The idea that a different mechanism created the first life as compared to what reproduces it now is not fully checked off my list, but you would have to explain this mechanism and then propose a hand-off of mechanisms."
     
     The hand-off mechanisms are obvious. First there was no life for Darwinian evolution to apply, and then there was. Simple as that. We don't know the cause of life, and hopefully this will change. However, this being used as evidence against evolution would be like using the existence of gravity as evidence against the existence of electromagnetism.
     
     >"What combination of matter supposedly causes consciousness?"
     
     Good question, and plenty of people in the world are waiting on the answer. Just because we don't know something (in this case we don't know it because the relevant systems are extremely complicated - not because science or scientists are failing us), however, is not a reason to radically alter the fundamental formulation of physics.
     
     >"How can materials create immaterial?"
     
     I don't understand the relevance. It appears that you're assuming that this intelligence force is capable of creating the 'immaterial.' But if this intelligence is merely a fifth force of nature, why are you so opposed to the other forces being responsible for what we consider 'immaterial'?
     
     >"Even the famous Darwinist evolutionary scholar William Provine of Cornell admitted before his death that selection is "empty rhetoric" that has no effect whatsoever on evolution."
     
     I just spent 15 minutes searching for this online, but came up with nothing. From everything I found, William Provine seems to have been a staunch supporter of Darwinian evolution until the day he died. Could you provide a link?
     
     >"He said it does not modify, adjust or cause anything, and he is absolutely right. It causes death, not life."
     
     And you are consistently ignoring the importance of that function, despite it being explained to you god knows how many times. You accused me earlier of dodging your questions by refusing to discuss evidence. Now you are completely ignoring significant portions of posts so that you can continue to say the same thing over and over again and hope that it'll eventually sink into our minds after reading it enough.
     
     >"Not really. Even what we may think are examples of orderly systems arising from chaos (orbiting planets, orbiting electrons, the water cycle, etc.) are seen by many scientists and mathematicians as requiring fine-tuning that is too mathematically impossible to have occured by luck."
     
     Again, you are wading into deep waters without knowing how to swim. Orbiting electrons is not at all a fine-tuning problem, and neither are orbiting planets (I know nothing about the water cycle so I can't comment on that). Electron and planetary orbits (and stellar orbits, and galactic orbits, etc) are systems in relatively stable equilibrium. Your examples are not at all examples of fine-tuning problems. Real fine-tuning problems are, for example, the 'hierarchy problem' (why is gravity so much weaker than the other forces?), the strong CP problem, the cosmological constant, etc. Those have nothing to do with order arising from chaos, however.
     
     And besides, I don't think that anyone here is claiming that order is going to arise from pure chaos (although in a large enough chaotic system it can be highly likely for order to arise in isolated regions). I, and I think others, are arguing that if you apply rules to a chaotic system, order can and often will arise. This has been shown in computer simulations, and the fact that there exists order in our otherwise chaotic universe provides further evidence.
     
     >" In Darwinist evolution, the "luck" just keeps on happening, millions upon millions of times."
     
     But you are assuming that each "lucky" event in a whole chain of events was [i]necessary[/i], but that is not at all the case! Take the example of a a simple system with one gene, and every generation that one gene can undergo one of two possible variations. After ten generations, there are 2^10 = 1024 equally probable possible final products - [i]but only one of them will actually occur[/i]. The final result (call it 'result x'), while very improbable, nonetheless had just as high a probability as any other individual final result. You are saying that because 'result x' was so improbable, it must be evidence that something guided the one-gene organism to that final state. Do you see the flaw (do you see it in this example specifically? If you do, but don't think it could apply to evolution, then please tell me why)?
     
     >"...when I read Fred Hoyle and his 474 analogy."
     
     Let me point out [url http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoyle%27s_fallacy]Hoyle's Fallacy[/url] yet another time (I think this makes 3). His analogy is fundamentally flawed.

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329. 329. sologos 04:32 AM 5/18/08

     In an entry addressed to Frank.M. Eastwood DC references the following dialogue:
     
     
     Pigeon wrote> "Certainly you can accept that orderly systems can arise from chaos."
     
     Frank M replied> Not really.[snip]
     
     Sure it can! There are plenty of examples Even Strange attractors in chaos theory exhibit a type of order (but non-repeating). There are books that describe it.
     Here is a web site with a nice Java tool that demonstrates a simple type of self-organization. Watch the pretty non-random pictures develop from chaos and a few simple rules (some require a few minutes to develop).
     
     Order arises from chaos! (Don't quote thermodynamics 2 at me. Systems can expend energy to gain order.)
     
     
     
     
     I think many people would equate chaos with randomness, or luck. Chaos both arises from and returns to order, because orderly and well described laws are continuously at work right through the phases in and out of chaos. Some might think that randomness has, embedded within it, some ordering process, but order comes from an ordering potential that is embeded in the attractor. Here, then is a perfect example of how some people would ascribe all that occurs or has occurred or will occur in the universe and , in particular in the origin of the species as the interaction of chance and necessity. It is not randomness or luck. The order is built in to the force itself, and it is the intelligent source of information that runs that particular system. What is fascinating to me, is when we look at such an attractor, say gravity, we only describe it by its constraints. the size of the 2 masses and the distance between them which make it look like a simple dumb rule, but in effect it is an ongoing source of intelligent information. We don't say "Gravity pulls me down", we more correctly say, "Gravity is pulling me down". We use the proressive tense of the verb to indicate an ongoing action. Gravity, furthermore does not run down the way heat does(it is a force not an energy). My question is why not? What is continuosly replenishing this force(or, for that matter, any of the 4 forces) with a continuous supply of order producing (ie. intelligent) and beauty(pretty as you put it) producing ( ie.aesthetic) power. When I put beauty and intelligence together, I am usually referencing an individual rather than a force.

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330. 330. Pigeon 05:20 AM 5/18/08

     Sologos:
     
     >"On the topic of science as a tool for discovering reality, I had intimated that the conclusions of any particular scientific investigation are skewed by the world view that the scientist believes in as the investigation is conducted. It is not simply theconclusions that are skewed. The data itself is skewed by the worldview."
     
     I don't know what you mean by this. How can data be skewed? The most common form of data is numbers. The numerical results of an experiment (or at least most experiments) are not subject to the whims of the researcher. What data is [i]recorded[/i] is skewed, but that is an obvious and necessary fact. Experiments are designed to observe something specific - it would be worthless to build a machine that spits out meaningless numbers based on undefined parameters; it would tell us nothing about anything. If that is what you mean, then I agree. If it isn't what you mean, then please explain what you do mean.
     
     >"What I am saying is that we look for what we hypothesize to be the case, and we hypothesize according to what our worldview is. This, of course, is done to determine whether the hypothesis is true or false. But there are larger underlying assumptions that we make, that makeup our world view. We expect for example, that the law of cause and effect will be in operation. It is also a basic assumption of the method that only the variables which one is trying to investigate will be varied, and the effects or data we collect will reflect that etc etc."
     
     Yes, I agree with that for the most part. Your example of cause and effect isn't really apt. We can observe cause and effect. If I let go of a ball, it will fall. No matter how many times I let go of a ball, it will fall. If we perform the same experiment repeatedly and the result is always the same, then it is statistically sound that the result is caused by something (sometimes a stimulus provided in the experiment, sometimes something external). But yes, we do make some base assumptions, and our hypotheses are based on our world views. But our world views are based on observation. Of course it is possible that we are in the Matrix, and the ball dropping when I let go is just an illusion, but that isn't even relevant - because then the rules of nature that we would be trying to discover would be the rules of the Matrix, and the observation that the ball falls is still valid.
     
     >"The point, however, is that we never really get closer to REALITY, just because we achieve a degree of predictabiltiy within our assumed world view. It is for some genius who will "see" it entirely differently, and usher us into to a new way of seeing."
     
     That is partially true, yes. The paradigm shift brought about by Einstein's relativity is a good example. Special Relativity is essentially a correction to Newton's laws. It turned out that we made observations that did not sit well in the assumption that Newton's laws were infallible; then Einstein came up with Special Relativity, which was compatible with all those worrisome observations. However, Newton's laws are still an incredibly good approximation at the relevant scales. The new paradigm [i]reduces[/i] the old paradigm to a special case. Thus I would argue that our understanding of the universe does indeed increase: First we had a theory which accurately described a phenomenon in a special case, then a new theory is proposed which provides a more accurate description of a phenomenon in a more general case, and so on. As the paradigms shift, our ability to predict events in the world becomes more accurate and more general. I consider this to getting closer and closer to reality, although I believe that we can never do more than make an arbitrarily accurate, but inherently imperfect, formulation of reality.
     
     >"I am only stating what we all know, that the world view that one will see from our shoulders tomorrow will be different, and our discoveries will take their place with the rest of the history of science, (with, incidenta)lly, a shelf time whose half life seems to be becoming smaller with every turn of the wheel."
     
     That's somewhat misleading. Upon the advent of a new paradigm, the old isn't merely discarded - it just becomes a special case (and is much simpler to work with when the special case is the relevant case). General Relativity may provide a better explanation of the dynamics of the world than Newton's laws, but I am not going to go through relativistic calculations to determine how long it takes for an apple to fall from a tree - I'll use Newton's laws, the relevant approximation.
     
     >"Great!, you say. We are getting to know the universe better. Well that is not really true. All we get are approximations that comport to the way we are looking. I'm not suggesting we do away with the process because of all this. It has served us well. Just understand it's limits. Unfortunately, as a society, we are not. Let me explain."
     
     I don't know if I agree with this. If we come up with a theory that can predict the dynamics of a system to arbitrary accuracy, then the theory is 'true' (by which I mean true beyond a reasonable doubt, or to a certain degree of accuracy). If a mathematical model describes a system, then it does so regardless of our world view. I agree that all we are doing is approximating reality, but I disagree with you on the impact of our world view on the validity of a mathematical model.
     
     >"So, we should believe them when they define the realm of science."
     
     Yes, you should believe scientists when they define the realm of science. If scientists truthfully tell you that they do not have the knowledge nor the tools to investigate something, you can falsely accuse them of lying, but what purpose does that serve?
     
     >" Furthermore,all sorts of institutions of society look to science, for guidance as to what is "TRUE"."
     
     Well then those institutions are at fault for misunderstanding the nature of science. I think most institutions that rely on science look to it for guidance as to what is [i]likely[/i].
     
     >"Science is assuming a role among the other institutions that guess who assumed in the middle ages."
     
     No it is not. The Church in the middle ages claimed authority based on nothing but their own individual beliefs. Their evidence was words written in books and claims that some supernatural being speaks to them. It's evidence for it being right was that it said i was right. Science as an institution provides answers to questions via a methodical, analytic process. The reasoning behind any and all scientific conclusion is available for anyone to look at and consider for themselves. It is obvious that scientists do not consider their work to be absolute truths or they wouldn't spend their lives trying to expound on current theories. Science makes no claims to have moral high ground, it makes no demands that people accept their theories. To compare it to the Church in the middle ages is simply ignorant and dishonest.
     
     >"But the most fundamental assumption in our methodology is that there is no non-natural or supernatural component operative."
     
     That is a common misconception. Science does not assume that there is no non-natural or supernatural component operative. The only assumption is that science cannot determine the validity of such a claim. HUGE difference.
     
     >" Is it any wonder, that the data is not found that might suggest supernatural influence, If there be any possibility that a supernatural activity may be suggested or indicated by the experiment, the rules of our methodology compel us to dismiss this as impossible. The constraint of the investigatory proceedure is that one must always look for a naturalistic explanation. and as often a not, one finds one!"
     
     The reason why science does not consider the supernatural is that the supernatural can be invoked to answer anything and everything. There are no constraints on what the supernatural can or cannot do, so science would be reduced to nothing.
     
     >"And so we say "There, you see, there is no need for God in science, and if He is somehow in here, it is not for us to inquire.""
     
     If we are capable of explaining a phenomenon without invoking God or the supernatural, then correct - there is no [i]need[/i] for the supernatural to be responsible. It does not mean that it isn't responsible - it could just be acting in ways such that we cannot detect its interference. Many scientists are religious, and many are not. Also, many scientists are extremely skeptical of the notion of the common conception of God (a giant man with a large white beard, which cares about the actions of people, good or bad), but are nonetheless spiritual (take Einstein, Stephen Hawking, etc).
     
     >"This is my point, "comprehensive" is only an illusion.Every answer we come up with only opens ten more questions."
     
     Um, so? Every answer may open up ten more question, but that still means we have one more answer than we used to. The comprehensiveness of our understanding is not measured by how few questions we have, but by how many answers we have. Some might even say that the more questions we have the more comprehensive our understanding is. After all, it is true that an educated physicist will likely have more questions at the end of an advanced physics lecture than, say, a farmer or a politician. Similarly, an english major will likely have more questions at the end of a lecture on the symbolism in a book than, say, a physicist. The more you know about a topic, the easier it is to think of questions that need answering.
     
     >"You have spoken well, but caution cannot solve human flaws, nad the science it taints, only, as you say, mitigate it. Why should something so flawed dictate our educative and research institutions?"
     
     Because however we may have reached the scientific theories that accurately describe our world, the fact is that they accurately describe our world. Faith can serve to explain our world, but the problem is, what faith would you teach? Christianity? Judaism? Islam? Buddhism? Deism? Atheism? Pantheism? Norse or Greek/Roman mythology? These are all faiths, and none is better than the others. Different people have different faiths, and you can never prove a faith wrong. Science, on the other hand, can be proven wrong. The conclusions reached can be analyzed, and the validity can be determined by anyone with the requisite training. There is a major, fundamental difference between the two.
     
     Why should something 'so flawed' dictate our education and research institutions? Didn't we just establish that any endeavor undertaken by humanity will necessarily be flawed? Didn't we also just establish that the scientific method goes a long way in mitigating many of these flaws? By your argument, then, we shouldn't have education or research institutes. We shouldn't even think! We should kill ourselves, because only then will we be free of flaws. Personally, I'd prefer to deal with what we have.

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331. 331. Frank M 07:53 AM 5/18/08

     Eastwood, I think somehow I am still confusing you as far as my stance on ID goes. Sorry about attributing your quote to someone else.
     
     Eastwood> "Are you saying that an intelligence (designer) is a statistical impossibility?"
     
     No I am saying precisely the opposite. Life could not have been formed by chance. The ID argument IS largely a mathematical one. It is statistically impossible for life to have arisen by luck and it is statistically impossible for it to evolve by luck. Only intelligent agency of some sort explains the existence of life and evolution of life, because by accident it is statistically impossible.
     
     Eastwood> "Your previous arguments mention that it must exist because the probability of natural selection occurring randomly seems small."
     
     Natural selection is nothing more than noting that something lived long enough to reproduce, so by that definition the probability of natural selection is 100%, although it is hardly interesting. The term is extremely misleading, as its true value (however minimal that value is) lies in DE-selection as an explanation as to why some of the more disadvantaged traits do not exist.
     
     Do we ever see a populated species die off because it doesn't have a genetic upgrade that an offshoot species or a microevolved breed of the same species has? Rarely, if ever. I do believe the full storyline of natural selection has happened, even though it is not observed, but it doesn't account for much in the story of evolution.
     
     The statistical impossibility is on the random mutation side of the Darwinian model. There is nothing random about genetics, except when chemical intrusion or radiation affects it. If natural genetics were random, why would radiation victims or drug addicts have different results? Wouldn't it be random versus random? Is one scenario partially random and another a higher degree of randomness? Unless both scenarios (altered by radiation or not altered) are both completely random, then one must conclude that there is a non-random aspect of normal (non-altered) genetic modifications.
     
     Perhaps I can explain this concept with an analogy that can address some of Pigeon's questions as well, because we must understand the difference between "random" and "variations".
     
     Let's say you are driving through suburbia and note that many of the houses are quite similar with small differences, and that all of them have a few characteristics that are uniform, such as the presence of roofs and windows, etc.
     
     The differences between the homes are variations, none of which are random at all. Some may have porches or basketball hoops in the driveway, etc. but none have hoops where a window should be. A truly random home improvement project would leave planks, nails, wires and paint laying all over the premises, not assembled into anything functional or formed at all. Random means NO intelligence in the formation or placement of anything.
     
     Could one home develop a balcony or a porch that the other homes do not have, simply by throwing materials at the home with no design or intelligence? A trillion attempts would not so much as nail together two pieces of wood. Doors wouldn't hinge and bolt in a luckily-formed doorway even if you had decillions of random attempts.
     
     Carrying this analogy to living things gets even worse for Darwinist formation, because ingested materials break down to the molecular level for diffusion and transport through the vascular system. Your home's plumbing would be pieces of PVC or copper, not perfectly molded pipes that fit elbows and couplers as a starting point.
     
     Even though we are happy to accept ANY home improvement of any sort without hiring an architect, odds are that it will never happen, even with centillions of attempts and constant saturation with these molecule sized pieces of construction materials.
     
     Moreover, any addition, such as a back porch or second floor, would need to maintain functionality in the meantime. No closing down the home to occupancy and shutting off the water and electricity during work periods.
     
     Note that the odds of this accidental home improvement do not improve one iota by saying that you will only occupy a home if you "select" it.
     
     A new physiological formation is not mathematically possible, even with centillions of attempts. Yet we are usually working with no more than a few billion births to get the job done. 9 or 10 lousy zeros won't get it done.
     
     Eastwood> "There is a misconception that a small probability disproves a hypothesis."
     
     Small, no. Infinitessimal, yes.
     
     Eastwood> "Statistical likelihoods are ALWAYS very small."
     
     Not really. They can be 100%. Depends.
     
     Eastwood> "They represent the probability of a single outcome out of all possible outcomes allowed under the hypothesis."
     
     No, they represent the probability of a degree of complexity as an outcome, not a SPECIFIC outcome.
     
     To use another analogy, if you find the book War and Peace and want to know what the odds are that monkeys haphazardly typed it, you have to calculate the odds of accidental typing of a 600 page book of any language, code or consistent media, on any topic at all. It would be erroneous to calculate the odds of that specific book being typed, but it would also be erroneous to spell out the odds of typing a 6 word sentence and then merely multiply those odds times a thousand or so.
     
     Darwinian evolution is more a matter of taking that book, deleting about 6 words and adding 6 different words. Sounds simple, right?
     
     Wrong. It would have to maintain consistency, form and function. If you could type enough characters to form 6 words in 5 seconds, you would need more time than the Big Bang allows you to type a 6 word sentence - if the sentence is specific - and it would take trillions times trillions times trillions of attempts to get anything coherent at all, using the same code or language. And you have to do this millions upon millions of times, eventually re-writing the book almost completely, which is much harder than writing the final outcome completely in the first place. Gradualism doesn't help the odds at all, but makes them far worse.
     
     Again, though, the odds are far worse in living things, because it isn't 600 pages, but 6 billion base pairs encoding information enough to overflow an encyclopedia. Occupying the space of six cells that worked out just right in just the right place doesn't even get you a physiology that is visual without a microscope. And you have to "black box" the cells to even get that far.
     
     Eastwood> "A common ID argument is to point out some vanishingly small number, claim it is proof of what cannot be, and proclaim ID as given truth."
     
     Yes, and if you think you have refuted this, I don't see it. If what you are saying is that small numbers are not tantamount to impossibility, then I would point out that there really are numbers that are close enough to zero possibility that it is not valid to make a case for it.
     
     The "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" gives a nice parady of the Accidentalist. An invading spaceship spontaneously becomes a living whale while zooming through space. The whale soon dies of course, but they point out that this whale creation is not technically impossible. It is monumentally unlikely and has a huge probability number against it.
     
     There have been times I have wanted to end a discussion with an accidentalist by saying "Fine, we both agree there is a 1 out of 10 to the 650th power that you are correct. Enjoy the rest of your day."
     
     Given that the opposite of unintelligent is intelligent, then the two ARE mutually exclusive concepts. There is no error in pointing out the statistical impossibility of your theory as a refutation. I am open-minded on all of the possible non-accidental causes of life, so again, this is not any error. I know it bothers some of you that I am not specific enough as to the possible alternatives, but you have to start somewhere and that starting point should not be that which has been shown to be statistically impossible.
     
     My opinions ARE mainstream ID, Eastwood. Don't let the Creationists who borrow our arguments fool you.
     
     Eastwood> "Which implies you are on the Creation side?"
     
     No. I recognize that something immaterial and intelligent can and observably does move and form matter in functional ways. I have no idea what non-accidental cause is going on here, but the mainstream Darwinist explanation is wrong.
     
     Eastwood> "I recognize that you believe ID is not Creation, but there is a recent court decision (Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District) that concluded otherwise."
     
     I am well aware of Judge Jones flawed conclusion. A slick ACLU lawyer tripping up a couple of IDists is not scientific method nor does it change my scientific persuits into some sort of pseudo-religion.
     
     Eastwood> "You could have said 'God/Designer/Force did it', I could have said 'Fine, but I’ll keep looking anyway', and we both could have saved a lot of time."
     
     You say "anyway" as if anyone was suggesting that any research should stop. If you meant the word "elsewhere" all I can say is that if you are looking for an accidental formative cause of a whale in water you may as well be looking for a whale in space. More power to you on your way, but you ignore the odds against the direction of your search at your own loss.
     
     You see, a better way to state my position than "God/Designer/Force did it" is to state that life, reproduction and evolution have always happened the way they happen now. Whatever animates matter now; whatever causes reproduction now; whatever consitutes consciousness now, whatever gathers just the right amounts of just the right materials into just the right place at just the right time now - probably always did.
     
     What I am proposing is not guesswork as the Darwinists have done and you seem bent on. I propose better study of modern day reproduction, evolution and life's functions, which can only help us understand our history better.
     
     You have the right to keep looking for something completely different from what we see today, and although there is no evidence of it and the odds against you are astronomical, it still benefits science that people would be looking both toward and against ID.
     
     Enjoy the rest of your day.

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332. 332. Frank M 08:41 AM 5/18/08

     Pigeon, I spent hours yesterday responding to your recent messages, and the kids lost it before I posted. I hope some of what I discussed is covered in my response to Eastwood, but I can't even keep up with you on weekends.
     
     I will acknowledge that I erred, as you noted, when I described electromagnetism as 2 dimensional. It is both polar and perpendicular. However, life doesn't animate by sticking to polar and perpendicular movements.
     
     This brings me to one argument that I do want to address. You posit (sometimes even in italics) that all matter animation is explained by the four known forces of nature.
     
     This is entirely false. Two main points of refutation: One, there ARE some matter movements that have no discernable motive force. Two, even in the cases where there is a known force at work, you still have to account for the precise, functional nature of the amounts, timing and location of these forces.
     
     There are no theories as to the motive force behind many aspects of meiosis, including cell wall movement, sudden re-forming of duplicate organelles and movement of organelles as half of them go to one side of the cell and half to the other. This selective organelle movement is particularly perplexing, as it always pushes or pulls one organelle, but not the other, the right way.
     
     There are no theories on how RNA attaches itself to DNA so perfectly, how it imprints the code and then suddenly loses its attraction to DNA, going elsewhere to carry out a function. No motive force is found or guessed at.
     
     Most functional protein movement also needs a motive force, especially in determining locations to carry out their functions according to the code. As an embryo grows, a protein shouldn't know if it is in the leg or the chest, without navigational equipment, and it shouldn't be able to follow the timing that genes mandate without a clock device.
     
     Even you admit that neural pathway formation occurs according to thoughts. Thoughts control chemicals, electricity and cell walls in neurons and synapses. So we already know intelligence moves and forms matter in non-accidental ways. This neural formation always goes TO the correct location on the brain, so it is no accident and not genetic or based on "millions of years".
     
     Nor does accidental electromagnetics explain anything at all. Even in those things where we do see chemical or electric forces at work, such as voluntary muscle movement, we still need to acknowledge the root cause, which is free will.
     
     We also need to acknowledge the ridiculousness of the random luck explanation. If something is so consistently functional under varying circumstances, we need to smarten up and stop calling it random accident. Even if you disregard the obvious reality that we know we have a consciousness and that we know we control (some of) our own muscles, you would still have to account for the mathematical odds against accidentally doing just what it takes to survive with this supposedly accidental non-free-will movement.
     
     Intelligence has everything to do with muscle movement, even if it is an involuntary muscle, because you have to account for the consistently fortuitous muscle existence and activity just when and where needed.
     
     If a painter spills a pallet of paint off of a scaffold and it accidentally paints the Mona Lisa on the floor, you know that your force was gravity. This still leaves one to question if some intelligence interfered with the normal pull of gravitational force. So even when you can identify a force at work, you have to explain its apparently intelligent activity where it picks and chooses what to do based on life's needs and functions.
     
     The Materialists' fatal flaw in evolution, and indeed all of Biology, was to presume that all they need do is identify and name every material involved in life's functions and they have explained everything. They neglected to consider how just the right amounts of just the right things came to just the right place at just the right time to allow life to continue.
     
     You are making the same error with forces of nature.

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333. 333. sologos 10:40 PM 5/18/08

     ON THE PREMISE OF THE SCIAM ARTICLE:
     
     
     
     The error of materialistic reductionism is that it believes that explaining something on the physical level rules out the existence of a metaphysical level. It would be indeed an attractive philosophy if it could do that. It is this very misconception that prevents the investigator from appreciating the complexity of the problem. It can never ,with this simplistic approach, address the bigest day to day issues of the human condition. Naturalism, though piously claiming to not be able to address spiritual realities, actually behaves a if it does by assuming that it can ultimately explain all within the realm of human experience. Despite this disclaimer, it then goes about "reducing" human experience to particles and forces. It does, in fact, become itself an ideology not unlike the religions of the world. I find that a reductionist has a difficult time appreciating the subjectiveness and bias of his or her approach.
     Disclaimers notwithstanding, science has, by its methodology, unwittingly propagated this very error among the institutions it influences. This "new science" and its adherents in fact cab't see through its own misconceptions. It assumes objectivity where there are proceedural limitations. It assumes neutrality because it divorces itself from religion, but begins to appear itself to have adopted all the characteristics of a religion. I do not incriminate the experimental method, nor science itself as itself as the problem. I consider this to be a fine tool and gift from God that he bot only placed an order in things ohysical, but has also given man the ability to comprehend that very order and use it. It is only when those using the method make assumptions beyond the realm of its limited purview that the error occurs. It isno longer science, but something more of a ideology. Some name this ideology Scientism.
     When presented with the limitations of naturalism, reductionists cite the principles and refinements that have taken place in the methodology. Though they can recognise some of the limitations, they present the doctrine of "The Science of the Gaps", the very doctrine that they attack as the problem of "faith". To them, the gods of Chance and Necessity are omnipotent in forming eveything we see today. Some even wax so eloquent in their praise that it looks like worship. Free, they believe, of an absolute moral law with which they would be answerable to an absolute Deity, they come up with a new moral systems. These new system are relative in their scope, and though powerless to grant any enduring benefit, and based, as it were on strict allegiance to their gods, it decries any other religion, especially, it would appear monotheistic religions. It's becoming the ruin of many a good scientist who has succumbed to the lure of using the method where it doesn't apply. It is also cult-like in that it is seemingly quite easy to enter into the ideology, become brain washed by the mind set while actively denying it.
     In the defense of scientism, its believers usually praise the objectivity and neutrality they believe that they have achieved by using the methodology. So persuaded are they by these 2 traits, that they find it difficult to transcend the notion that they have been blind sighted by the ongoing and continuous inability of their craft to decide what is really out there. Progress, they say, gets us closer to this reality, but every new paradigm shift, shows the inadequacy of the prior one, not to predict within its limit It does that fine. This is agood gift), but to demonstrate the illusive comprehensibility they seek. That any particular question "x" a been answered is not progress, since x divided by infinity is zero. They have taken the God-given gift of this methodology, and done away with its creator. They abject ot a wider scope of understanding (which the very word science implies), because they have become enchanted by their own discoveries, as if they were somehow responsible for them.
     Science must become bigger than its methodology. It's OK to debate and refine the principles, but we must not allow it to becomes our god. This is not simply some societal error, but the ideology scientists have themselves adopted, pumped by their own heady successes. Their is room in science for both naturalistic verification, and revealed inspiration., as long as they each dialogue.
     
     .

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334. 334. Frank M 01:53 AM 5/19/08

     Pigeon, I suppose I should ask what you mean by the "source" of a force. We may infer the existence of nuclear forces by way of its effects, but we do not have any idea where this force came from, why it exists or who created it. Therefore, you have no more reason to throw out ID as a study, not knowing what or who causes it, than to disregard the nuclear forces or gravity.
     
     So what DO you mean by needing to identify a source, which you have claimed to be the first step?
     
     Pigeon> "The evidence for the existence of some sort of intelligence force is that some aspects of matter appear to be guided by something that some people, for no robust reason (as far as physics is concerned), are convinced cannot be due to the other four forces."
     
     OK, now YOU are getting unequivocal and full of yourself. Speaking on behalf of physics, you claim "no robust reason" and use words like "cannot". I do believe that life animates matter in ways that are not explained by the existing four forces. I should point out that, even if there ARE known forces at work, their consistently intelligent application is still very much on the table and not remotely explained. If this is only the four known forces at work, they are behaving in some VERY unique and intelligent ways. To say our reasoning isn't "robust" enough for you may require a bit more explanation as you discard it.
     
     Pigeon> "This vague, ill-defined notion provides nothing like the immediately necessary conclusions and predictions drawn from the nature of atomic structure."
     
     Actually I would contend that life's animation ability is abundantly more clear than nuclear forces. Humans saw signs of it from the very beginning of reasoning. The stumbling blocks working against intelligence are nothing more than petty irrelevencies such as obstinance, fear of religious implications and ignorance.
     
     Pigeon> "It gives us absolutely zero to work with - any attempt to formulate this force in the context of physics would be wild guesswork."
     
     This, even if true, is not a refutation of an intelligent force animating and forming matter in living things. But it is certainly not true. Lets say you identify the potential difference in electrical terms in a neuron. Then you identify the release of those electrons for no appreant reason, other than thought activity. It is quite possible to quantify the factor known as intelligence or the force that is intelligent.
     
     Pigeon> "I don't discourage any of that at all. I discourage jumping to conclusions, which you have done by unilaterally deciding, despite complete ignorance of physics beyond perhaps the high school level (this is not meant as an insult)"
     
     Actually I have taken college level physics, although my majors were Biology and Math. You may know physics, but sure as crap don't know Biology. (That is not intended as an insult, of course, just a desperate ploy for authority.)
     
     You seem to be taking a major leap of conclusional faith in stating so unequivocally that all animation in living things is explained by the four known forces, even going so far as to use italics and underlines for emphasis.
     
     Nevermind the fact that you are completely wrong.
     
     Now, can we be a little more civil? As a physicist, what would be the correct way to approach the appearance of intelligence in any particular action, whether we identify a known force or not?
     
     Lets say a force behaves differently in a particular situation? For example, lets say they find gravity behaving completely differently in a black hole as compared to normal? Would this be an indication of an opposing force or properties of gravity that we had never known, or could it be either one, needing more research?
     
     Pigeon> "This is called Hoyle's Fallacy. The probability of a modern polymerase forming from nothing in a petri dish all at once is not what is proposed by Darwinian evolution, which proposes that modern polymerases are the result of innumerable small changes made over millions of years."
     
     First off, I have read many refutations of Hoyle's analogy that are far better presented than Wikipedia's offering, made by someone with not nearly Hoyle's credentials. An analogy is not intended to be a carbon-copy duplication, and the analogy does what it is supposed to
     do: It makes a powerful point.
     
     Darwin knew little about cells, let alone any pre-cellular "replicator". Creation of some sort of amino acid chain is an acknowledged need in even the simplest of supposedly possible life forms, if that life is going to replicate. In fact, polymers have been created in the lab. They don't live. They don't reproduce or even wiggle.
     
     Hoyle's analogy works fairly well to expose the gradualism fallacy a bit. Pick one of two pathways to get a 747 (or any flying craft capable of transporting human passengers)"
     
     Option A: The 747 is built in one incredibly lucky shot.
     
     Option B: You can start with a simpler creation and build from there, however, there are some ground rules if you pick Option B.
     
     1. First the good news. You don't get more tries, but you do get to hold the previous functional unit as a base point (some limitations to this). Oh, did I mention you need to develop the ability to replicate first? Minor detail.
     
     2. You need to be able to maintain functionality throughout, or go back to the last functional unit. If you want to go from an electric toothbrush to a lawn mower, both the brush and the mower had better keep running constantly.
     
     3. Number 2 requires the ability to self-fuel, so this - oh, and the ability to animate to go get materials needed - will need to be acquired before you get your junkyard of materials.
     
     4. On Option B, the vast majority of the fully functioning units die anyway, and are no longer usable for you. (Isn't selection a great creative force?)
     
     5. At no point can you have any hole in a fuselage, short in wiring or leak in a fuel hose, or you go back to the last functional unit.
     
     Option B is mathematically far harder to create. You see, Hoyle's true Fallacy is that he gave the Darwinists far too much slack. In life, an intelligence puts fuel in the plane. And in the end, the plane does nothing if a human doesn't get into it, start it and control it intelligently.
     
     Some try to say that Hoyle was unfair to the Darwinists because he didn't add all the extra births (attempts) to create more and more complex units. (Not that fossil evidence shows gradualism) The simpler your starting point life form, the worse your mathematical odds are. You still have to get from nothing to everything. You just need to take a tougher pathway there and fewer attempts.
     
     Pigeon> "The hand-off mechanisms are obvious. First there was no life for Darwinian evolution to apply, and then there was. Simple as that."
     
     Magic!! Magic wands sure are simple, huh?
     
     Yeah, really simple when we disregard things that go against our favored theory.
     
     If production of the first reproducing thing is different than REproduction in the second, then an amazing change happened just in those moments. Bear in mind that all reproduction requires matter animation, whether you are aware of this or not. Perhaps this matter animation "developed" over time, but this leaves more questions than to say that it was there at the start.
     
     Pigeon> "We don't know the cause of life, and hopefully this will change."
     
     Not by ignoring evidence it won't. All Materialist attempts are doomed to failure, as has been their one consistency - failure. Life can not be created from non-life and to imagine that it could requires a profound lack of understanding about life, animation and reproduction.
     
     Darwinian theory needing this minor detail is enough to trash can it, even without everything else. Life has to start before it can continue.
     
     Frank> "What combination of matter supposedly causes consciousness?"
     
     Pigeon> "Good question, and plenty of people in the world are waiting on the answer."
     
     WAITING won't get it done, especially with a "naturalism" mandate that excludes the recognition of immaterial intelligence. Consciousness IS immaterial intelligence, so how can we study it with our heads in the sand? We must take consciousness into account as we study life. Consciousness is not a dirty word to be avoided by science. It is a fact. A reality.
     
     Pigeon> "Just because we don't know something..."
     
     PLEASE stop with the "there might be something we don't know that is not seen in the evidence, therefore we reject what IS seen in the evidence." anti-science excuse.
     
     Frank> "How can materials create immaterial?"
     
     Pigeon> "I don't understand the relevance."
     
     The claim from Eastwood was that consciousness may have "developed" from unthinking living things that had no self-awareness. Do you see the relevence now?
     
     Pigeon> "It appears that you're assuming that this intelligence force is capable of creating the 'immaterial.'"
     
     More likely that it is immaterial itself, but consciousness may be an offshoot of some other consciousness. I am pretty open-minded on this subject as long as any theory recognizes the consciousness in living things and either offers some explanation or recognizes its lack of explanatory power.
     
     Pigeon> "But if this intelligence is merely a fifth force of nature, why are you so opposed to the other forces being responsible for what we consider 'immaterial'?"
     
     ("merely"?) I'm not "SO" opposed. I just don't see evidence for it. I am open minded on your theory, but skeptical. Are the other forces intelligent? If not, they are not the final answer here, but at best a utility of an intelligence.
     
     Frank> "Not really. Even what we may think are examples of orderly systems arising from chaos (orbiting planets, orbiting electrons, the water cycle, etc.) are seen by many scientists and mathematicians as requiring fine-tuning that is too mathematically impossible to have occured by luck."
     
     Pigeon> "Again, you are wading into deep waters without knowing how to swim."
     
     Not even toeing those waters, as it is not my swimming pool, but I will note that there are bright minds on both sides of the issue.
     
     Pigeon> "This has been shown in computer simulations, and the fact that there exists order in our otherwise chaotic universe provides further evidence."
     
     The computer simulations are clearly intelligently designed and programmed for a particular result. As to the universe, the jury is still out.
     
     Frank> "you are assuming that each "lucky" event in a whole chain of events was necessary, but that is not at all the case!"
     
     Read my last response to Eastwood, regarding calculation of odds. It is based on complexity, order and functionality, not any specific outcome. You are the one with flawed logic and assumptions.
     
     Pigeon> "Take the example of a a simple system with one gene"
     
     One gene? How does it process energy or proteins? How does it reproduce? How does it get a second gene? We don't yet know how new genes could be created.
     
     Pigeon> "Do you see the flaw... but don't think it could apply to evolution, then please tell me why)?
     
     I have heard this "flaw" described more times than I care to talk about. A non-mathematician wannabe IDist once calculated the odds of a horse being created by luck. Besides bad math, his logic was flawed because he needed to calculate the odds of a creature with the complexity of a horse existing by luck. Not specifically a horse. Real mathematicians do not foolishly ignore such things. Teams of mathematicians are not overlooking such an obvious flaw in condemning Darwinism.

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335. 335. Frank M 03:29 AM 5/19/08

     Sologos, your criticisms of science are pretty much hitting the nail on the head, at least from my experience.
     
     "Methodological naturalism" uses no methodology. It starts with an assumption and tries to force it like a fat old man in a speedo. When it doesn't fit, we start hearing whining sounds like "we just haven't found the answer YET." or "we just have gaps" or "absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence."
     
     Fine, if they want to promote an evidence-free religion, they have the right, but it isn't science and they have no right to forcefully shut down more evidence-based persuits that don't fit their pre-conceived bias.
     
     The major flaw in science is bias. The scientific method starts with a hypothesis. Already at this point, many a scientist has their minds made up that they will prove their case regardless of the evidence, like a criminal lawyer. I'm not saying they routinely falsify evidence. More commonly they just ignore contradictory evidence and draw major assumptions and leaps of faith that they write off as fact.
     
     This is particularly a problem in Biology and Archeology. And never have I seen it so blatant than on the battle against the role of intelligence in living things. Materialists know the evidence is against them, so they don't want anyone to discuss evidence.
     
     One need only look at the name of this blog to see how much "objectivity" some pseudo-scientists have on the issue of ID. "Six Things Ben Stein Doesn't Want You To Know". How petty and childish. How UN American and UN scientific. None of the 6 things had anything to do with science. Science isn't really their strong point on this issue.
     
     Sologos, you suggest that not only is their science based on greater leaps of faith than any religion (I agree!) but that they are a creed of their own, hiding under a guise of objectivity that really isn't there. You make a GREAT point.
     
     As someone who loves science, I hate to hear this, though. I think this is more or less a recent problem, but I could be wrong. There have been (and still are) great scientists who do not deserve this kind of condemnation, but the irresponsible, single-mindedness of Sciam on this issue does nothing to reverse the recent slide in respect for science in general.
     
     Belief that molecules cooperate, animate, reproduce, heal, feel and think by accident is a complete crock and everybody who isn't brainwashed by the self-love of pre-determinist "science" knows it.

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336. 336. sologos 05:28 AM 5/19/08

     Pigeon writes
     
     
     I don't know what you mean by this. How can data be skewed? The most common form of data is numbers. The numerical results of an experiment (or at least most experiments) are not subject to the whims of the researcher. What data is recorded is skewed, but that is an obvious and necessary fact. Experiments are designed to observe something specific - it would be worthless to build a machine that spits out meaningless numbers based on undefined parameters; it would tell us nothing about anything. If that is what you mean, then I agree. If it isn't what you mean, then please explain what you do mean.
     
     
     
     Yes, collection of all sorts of data would tell us nothing. We must work within the framework of the experimental hypothesis. However, the same framework has the unintended effect of seeing only the data relevant to the hypothesis. Let me give a gross example. When Newton experimented with acceleration, he didn't consider that time was relative. Even if he had, he would not have the instruments (another problem that skews results) to make the observations. If he had he would have realized that though infinitesimally small, his theory would technically be erroneous. Thankfully for humanity and the technology that followed over the next 400 years, this factor was not detected. The example may be ridiculous, but the point s that for 400 years, we believed that what Newton had discovered was"reality". It was not. It was simply a section in the universe that would behave(and still does) itself enough that predictions could be made and a "law" could be relied on for engineering purposes. When instruments improved enough to make more accurate measurements, and mathematical sophistication had matured to the point that general and special relativity was spied, peole began to realize that no reality, not even an accurate description of behaviour of nature had been described by Newton. Now we ar looking fo a grand unified theory that would include Newtonian physics, relativity and quantum unpredictability. Does anyone seriously believe that the grand unifying theory will explain everything. There are dimensions of reality in 2008 that (like quantum mechanics in the 19th century) have not even been imagined, much less considered for this Grand theory. Naturalism works fine for technology, and I am glad for the refinements in its methodology, but does anyone seriously believe that we know enough to rule out this force, for example, that Frank M is postulating, or even to say, with any authority, that it is undetectable? We find only what our world view determines can be seen.
     
     
     
     Pigeon also believes,
     
     Yes, I agree with that for the most part. Your example of cause and effect isn't really apt. We can observe cause and effect. If I let go of a ball, it will fall. No matter how many times I let go of a ball, it will fall. If we perform the same experiment repeatedly and the result is always the same, then it is statistically sound that the result is caused by something (sometimes a stimulus provided in the experiment, sometimes something external)
     
     
     
     That seems to be he case, but there is always the problem with inductive reasoning. We can't really say that the ball will drop timorrow and not ascend. If you think this is rediculous, consider that this is exactly the problem that exposed the inadequacy of Newtonian physics.
     
     
     Pigeon then reasons that
     
     our world views are based on observation. Of course it is possible that we are in the Matrix, and the ball dropping when I let go is just an illusion, but that isn't even relevant - because then the rules of nature that we would be trying to discover would be the rules of the Matrix, and the observation that the ball falls is still valid.
     
     
     
     No, this is not a matrix scenario! But the observations are only as reliable as the world view that narrows our field of vision. Again, the enemy is not the mehodology. It is the people that use it, that feel they have keyed into the mechanism that actually demonstrates "truth". There are loads epistemic problems with reductionism.
     
     Pigeon correctly concludes,
     
     However, Newton's laws are still an incredibly good approximation at the relevant scales. The new paradigm reduces the old paradigm to a special case.
     
     
     ight. s how should we react o new scientific endeavors like ID?
     
     
     Pigeons agrees that,
     
     Thus I would argue that our understanding of the universe does indeed increase: First we had a theory which accurately described a phenomenon in a special case, then a new theory is proposed which provides a more accurate description of a phenomenon in a more general case, and so on. As the paradigms shift, our ability to predict events in the world becomes more accurate and more general. I consider this to getting closer and closer to reality, although I believe that we can never do more than make an arbitrarily accurate, but inherently imperfect, formulation of reality.
     
     
     Right so then why are we giving accolades to this methodology and telling the courts that ID doesn't qualify as science becauset doesn't fit the methodology as we now undersand it?Science is bigger than its methodology.
     
     Pigeon considers ,
     
     General Relativity may provide a better explanation of the dynamics of the world than Newton's laws, but I am not going to go through relativistic calculations to determine how long it takes for an apple to fall from a tree - I'll use Newton's laws, the relevant approximation.
     
     
     Me too. But I won't send ID packing. There is something essential that is being lost, unfortunately, with all our spectacular achievements. Humility. It could be fatal.
     
     Pigeon writes,
     
     (by which I mean true beyond a reasonable doubt, or to a certain degree of accuracy
     
     More from Pigeon as to reality
     
     
     If a mathematical model describes a system, then it does so regardless of our world view. I agree that all we are doing is approximating reality, but I disagree with you on the impact of our world view on the validity of a mathematical model.
     
     
     I am not arguing with the mathematics at this point. I am questioning whether it really is comprehensive enough.
     
     Pigeon further believes,
     
     Yes, you should believe scientists when they define the realm of science. If scientists truthfully tell you that they do not have the knowledge nor the tools to investigate something, you can falsely accuse them of lying, but what purpose does that serve?
     
     
     I am not accusing people of lying. That problem can generalyy be adequately pliced by the scientific community. Bit I can't let someone define the realm who doesn't have the "knowledge or tools". By what authority do they declare?
     
     Pigeon eanestly believes,
     
     
     Well then those institutions are at fault for misunderstanding the nature of science. I think most institutions that rely on science look to it for guidance as to what is likely.
     
     
     Unfortunately, that is not the way ot works. This is not so much a conscious conspiracy by the participants, as a natural outcome of deiningscience purely by its methodology. The problem with reductionism is that it leaves out 99? of reality.
     
     
     Pigeon emphatically asserts,
     
     No it is not. The Church in the middle ages claimed authority based on nothing but their own individual beliefs. Their evidence was words written in books and claims that some supernatural being speaks to them. It's evidence for it being right was that it said i was right.
     
     I'm sorry, I think that those very thoughts do apply to the role we have tacitly given to science.Except for the part of "some supernatural being speaks". What you must write in its place to describe the ideology that science has become is "no supernatural being speaks". It has not achieved either the neutrality or objectivity it has persuaded itself of. One of its spokesmen once lamented, "People are incurably religious". He as right! Nevertheless. to give him credit. I would not be reading at tis hour, were it not for him!
     
     
     So therefore Pigeon believes,
     
     Science makes no claims to have moral high ground, it makes no demands that people accept their theories.
     
     So why then does it say that creation should not be even mentioned in the classroom?
     
     Pigeon asserts,
     
     
     That is a common misconception. Science does not assume that there is no non-natural or supernatural component operative. The only assumption is that science cannot determine the validity of such a claim. HUGE difference.
     
     
     For all practical purposes, there is no diference. Same effect at the end of the day.
     
     Pigeon:
     
     
     The reason why science does not consider the supernatural is that the supernatural can be invoked to answer anything and everything. There are no constraints on what the supernatural can or cannot do, so science would be reduced to nothing.
     
     
     Not science, its methodology. Actually many of the tenets of revelation are falsifiable, but that is another matter.
     
     Pigeon:
     
     
     it could just be acting in ways such that we cannot detect its interference.
     
     There you go.It is so obvious to so many people that there is a Creator and sustainer. If the scietific experimnt cannot detect it, perhaps their is a flaw in the design.
     
     Pigeon:
     
     
     The comprehensiveness of our understanding is not measured by how few questions we have, but by how many answers we have.
     
     
     Unless he amount to know reflects the mind of its Creator, infinite in nature.
     
     Pigeon:
     
     Because however we may have reached the scientific theories that accurately describe our world, the fact is that they accurately describe our world. Faith can serve to explain our world, but the problem is, what faith would you teach? Christianity? Judaism? Islam? Buddhism? Deism? Atheism? Pantheism? Norse or Greek/Roman mythology? These are all faiths, and none is better than the others. Different people have different faiths, and you can never prove a faith wrong. Science, on the other hand, can be proven wrong. The conclusions reached can be analyzed, and the validity can be determined by anyone with the requisite training.
     
     
     No need for that. All these religons assert a spiritual basis for reality.
     
     
     Pigeon concludes with,
     
     By your argument, then, we shouldn't have education or research institutes.
     
     We should have education and research institutes. We should not let that be dictated by a ideology that outsteps its boundaries.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     \\
     I believe you are earnest in your disclaimer.

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337. 337. EastwoodDC 05:50 AM 5/19/08

     Frank M> The claim from Eastwood was that consciousness may have "developed" from unthinking living things that had no self-awareness.
     
     Wrong again Frank. That was not me.
     Thank you for clarifying you stance, BTW. No confusion remains.
     
     Now to the main point:
     
     [b]Eastwood> "Statistical likelihoods are ALWAYS very small."
     Frank M> Not really. They can be 100%. Depends[/b].
     
     There is [u]one and only one[/u] way for a likelihood of a given hypothesis to equal 1.0. You do this by presuming a hypothesis is correct and not allowing even the possibility of any alternative. Is this science? Is this any sort of rational argument?
     
     Statistical inference is my expertise, and (your) long rambling posts about the impossibility of evolution demonstrate a complete lack of understanding in this area. I do not blame you for not understanding - you are not alone – statistical theory requires some advanced mathematics, and many people find even basic statistics a difficult subject in the first place. Even some very smart people can have difficulty with the methods and application. I do blame those know better and abuse mathematics to spout nonsense anyway [url=http://science.blogdig.net/archives/articles/June2006/28/Dishonest_Dembski_the_Universal_Probability_Bound.html](***cough*dembski*cough***)[/url].
     
     Were you really a math major? ([i]I read that just prior to posting[/i]) Gee whiz … perhaps I should blame you after all.
     
     Because the mathematics of ID is utter [url=http://science.blogdig.net/archives/articles/June2006/28/Dishonest_Dembski_the_Universal_Probability_Bound.html]nonsense[/url]. Further, the same arguments can lead to any conclusion, even the non-existence of God, or the existence of a [url=http://www.venganza.org/about/open-letter/]Flying Spaghetti Monster[/url] that created all. There is a reason you don’t see this in the scientific literature though; the whole premise of demonstrating ID through the scientific method is nonsense in the first place.
     
     Don’t like my sources? Find some to refute me if you can. Good luck with the math.
     
     One last comment that doesn't go with the rest:
     
     Your quote from Hitchhikers Guide nearly had me rolling on the floor with laughter, because [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams#Atheism_and_view_on_religion]Douglas Adams[/url] most certainly did not believe in God, Creation, or ID. Don’t forget about this [url http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babel_fish]zinger[/url], or [url http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcncPpQ8loA]watch it here[/url]. I appreciate the chuckle though. :-p
     
     --
     Edited by EastwoodDC at 05/18/2008 10:53 PM

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338. 338. GHitch 05:09 PM 5/19/08

     Funny but the added 'context' of the Darwin 'Descent' quotes only make the case more compelling. Denial of the historical connections between Darwinism (not Darwin) and the 'scientifically supported' decisions of the Nazis only makes SA look stupid.
     Nothing is better established in WWII history than the connections of Darwinian evolution to the Nazi's supreme race, artificial selection 'solution'.
     Read R. Wiekarts book 'From Darwin to Hitler'.
     
     The point is not that Darwinism leads to genocide, but rather the implications of Darwinism, on both the value of human life ('we're mere animals sharing a common heritage with earth worms') and racial distinctions, if taken to their logical conclusions CAN lead to the ideas that brought about Nazism.
     
     Other SA points against Expelled faire no better.
     It's all the same - ANY explanation but one that has metaphysical implications.
     As 'patently absurd' as the explanations of Darwinian theory are, we're bullied into accepting them.

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339. 339. Natedog 07:06 PM 5/19/08

     >The point is not that Darwinism leads to genocide, but rather the implications of Darwinism, on both the value of human life ('we're mere animals sharing a common heritage with earth worms') and racial distinctions, if taken to their logical conclusions CAN lead to the ideas that brought about Nazism.
     
     I am not exactly sure what your point is. If Darwin had not published his theories someone would have. A few other scientists had already reached the same conclusions as Darwin before the Decent of Man was ever published. Are we to cover up the truth of your origins because some may use that information to justify committing atrocities against each other? I could fill volumes with the horrible deeds committed in the name of gods. At least now people cannot hide behind an excuse of righteousness.
     
     All in all I think the sooner we rid ourselves of religion and accept our humble yet no less magnificent place in the universe the better off we will be.
     
     As for the value of human life, the knowledge that this short time on earth is the only existence we will ever have should only serve to make us cherish our time here all the more.
     
     --
     Edited by Natedog at 05/19/2008 12:10 PM

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340. 340. EastwoodDC 01:49 AM 5/20/08

     > All in all I think the sooner we rid ourselves of
     > religion and accept our humble yet no less
     > magnificent place in the universe the better off we
     > will be.
     
     Sometimes I agree with you Natedog, especially when a commercial offering like Expelled is spouting hate and ignorance. Holocust deniers use the same methods to bend the facts into awful lies, and it makes me sick. I try to remember that faith can bring about good things too, particularly when it is tempered with reason keep it from going to horrible extremes.
     
     > As for the value of human life, the knowledge that
     > this short time on earth is the only existence we
     > will ever have should only serve to make us cherish
     > our time here all the more.
     
     That is still true even if you leave out "the only existence" part.
     
     --
     Edited by EastwoodDC at 05/19/2008 6:50 PM

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341. 341. sologos 05:05 AM 5/20/08

     Frank M
     
     The following variations of the same theme have been leveled against you.
     
     
     
     >Seriously, how many times do I have to ask for citations before you will either give up posting worthless numbers or actually follow through?
     
     
     >Could you provide sources
     
     
     
     >provide me with the assumptions made, the actual calculations, the results, and preferably any criticism that has been made of it.
     
     
     
     >and yet you never provide a source.
     
     .>Tell me where I can look at it for myself. I want to see the actual analysis. This is not an unreasonable demand; I understand that it may not be worth it to you to take the time to find all these sources for me, but if that is the case then please don't expect me to reach your conclusions based on word of mouth.
     
     >There is a reason you don’t see this in the scientific literature though; the whole premise of demonstrating ID through the scientific method is nonsense in the first place.
     
     
     >Don’t like my sources? Find some to refute me if you can
     
     
     There is quite a clamor here for sources. I know what your thinking Frank M. Correct me if I'm wrong. If I quote from some of the ID literature, it will be rejected as "not peer reviewed" or "not appearing in legitimate science journals". I think this would be a prety acurate guess s to their response. So why not be practical.
     
     I think you see intelligence within the physical univers. If you truly believe this, then you ought not be afraid of any legitimate data investigators find. Why don't you give them what they want on their grounds?There should be evidence for your claims. In fact, someone in a prior post said, that data is neutral. Except within the limitations of any particular experiment,this appears to be a reasonable statement. It would, then, follow that you have volumes of data. The only obstacle is that evolutionists use the data to argue for their position. But if its legitimate data, and if your hypothesis is true, you should be able to see intelligence or design in these same experiments. At the very least, you should be able to show that the data fits an ID interpretation more than a Darwinian schema.
     
     Take, for example, the experiments on so-called micro-evolution. Could an argument be made that he results indicate front loading more than randomness?
     
     One needs to be practical with these debates. If one were to study some of these experiment well, one might be able to argue cogently that the data actually fit ID.
     
     I recently read about some work being done from the research dept.at NYU that claimed "evolution is deterministic, not random" The findings were reported in the journal CURRENT BIOLOGY. The leading author was Karen Kiontke. That seems to speakf for ID more than Darwinian evolution.

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342. 342. Pigeon 12:27 AM 5/21/08

     First, forgive me if I've missed any posts or responses. I don't have as much time as before, so my responses might be less comprehensive, as well.
     
     Frank M:
     
     >"If natural genetics were random, why would radiation victims or drug addicts have different results?"
     
     This is a dishonest argument. For one, drugs are chemicals, which affect biological systems in predictable way (again, based on their molecular structure). They do not just go through willy nilly and make all sorts of changes. In fact, most drugs don't affect DNA, but interfere with biological feedback loops, affecting the concentrations of various chemicals. Radiation is also extremely different. It usually doesn't just cause DNA to mutate, it destroys it.
     
     >"A truly random home improvement project would leave planks, nails, wires and paint laying all over the premises, not assembled into anything functional or formed at all. Random means NO intelligence in the formation or placement of anything."
     
     Yes but again, Darwinian evolution does not posit evolution by purely random means. You continually disregard selection as a straw man, and yet you've never found a single criticism of any example or analogy I've provided to justify that. The fact is, comparing Darwinian evolution to the possibility of a house or airplane assembling from raw materials all at once is disingenuous and wrong.
     
     >"Note that the odds of this accidental home improvement do not improve one iota by saying that you will only occupy a home if you "select" it."
     
     That is even more disingenuous than the rest of your argument. I'm not going to bother to explain why because it really should be obvious.
     
     >"Eastwood> "There is a misconception that a small probability disproves a hypothesis."
     
     >Small, no. Infinitessimal, yes."
     
     Eastwood already covered this for the most part, but I'd just like to throw my support in with him. I suggest you follow the links he included in his post, one of them especially has a great example of how nonsensical your argument is. If there are 10^10^10^10^10 equally probable outcomes of a situation (each with 1 in 10^10^10^10^10 odds), you are going to end up with [i]one[/i] of them, even though which ever end result occurs had a vanishingly small probability.
     
     >"No, they represent the probability of a degree of complexity as an outcome, not a SPECIFIC outcome."
     
     Well, so far the only examples you've given have been of specific examples, and you haven't provided a source for any of those, anyway.
     
     >"To use another analogy, if you find the book War and Peace and want to know what the odds are that monkeys haphazardly typed it, you have to calculate the odds of accidental typing of a 600 page book of any language, code or consistent media, on any topic at all."
     
     Every example you've provided has been fundamentally flawed. There is no reproduction, no generations, and no consequences for any changes. The book is written linearly, from start to finish (although with the delete key, it can be somewhat anti-linear), all at once. If you can honestly say that you don't see a fundamental difference between your examples and Darwinian evolution, then the only conclusion left to draw is that you simply don't understand it.
     
     >"The "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" gives a nice parady of the Accidentalist. An invading spaceship spontaneously becomes a living whale while zooming through space. The whale soon dies of course, but they point out that this whale creation is not technically impossible. It is monumentally unlikely and has a huge probability number against it."
     
     Like Eastwood, I got a great laugh out of this. This is a classic example of finding meaning in literature where none was ever intended. Douglas Adams was not at all a supporter of ID or critic of Darwinian evolution.
     
     >"There have been times I have wanted to end a discussion with an accidentalist by saying "Fine, we both agree there is a 1 out of 10 to the 650th power that you are correct. Enjoy the rest of your day.""
     
     More with the made up numbers.
     
     >"I propose better study of modern day reproduction, evolution and life's functions, which can only help us understand our history better."
     
     These are all being done rather actively, so I don't really understand how your proposition is relevant.
     
     >"You have the right to keep looking for something completely different from what we see today, and although there is no evidence of it and the odds against you are astronomical, it still benefits science that people would be looking both toward and against ID."
     
     Well apparently most biologists seem to be of the opinion that there is plenty of evidence for it. I'm more inclined to believe them than you at this point. Your credibility with me has been going down steadily as your arguments point more and more to numbers you can't justify.

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343. 343. Tommo0809 01:21 AM 5/21/08

     http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2008/05/behe-vs-lamprey.html
     
     Another one of Behe's claims debunked. surprise surprise.

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344. 344. testing 02:41 AM 5/21/08

     Your point #6 is just plain retarded I'm sorry. There is just no possible way a person can be religions, that is, maintaining a personal relationship with God, and at the same time believe, teach, and live as though evolution could be true. That would be like smacking God right in the face. For goodness sake people, he fricken created you! And look what you're doing to Him! Whatever, you'll get yours. He's coming soon...

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345. 345. Pigeon 03:13 AM 5/21/08

     >"Pigeon, I spent hours yesterday responding to your recent messages, and the kids lost it before I posted. I hope some of what I discussed is covered in my response to Eastwood, but I can't even keep up with you on weekends."
     
     No worries. To be honest I didn't really have the time to keep up with myself, but I couldn't pull myself away :-p
     
     >"However, life doesn't animate by sticking to polar and perpendicular movements."
     
     What justification do you have for this statement? Have any researchers ever concluded that their observations of molecular activity has defied the four forces we know of? Don't bother saying yes unless you can point me to a source. And to really convince me you'd have to find a source from someone knowledgeable in both chemistry and physics. I would be surprised if you can find a researcher who concluded definitively that their observation defied the four forces (predominantly e&m;); I wouldn't be surprised if they concluded that they are unaware of the mechanism. There is a significant difference between those two conclusions.
     
     I want to make it very clear that I am not saying we have successfully explained every observed biological process in terms of electromagnetism; I am only saying that I have never heard a qualified researcher conclude that there is something at work other than electromagnetism (usually in the form of chemical reactions).
     
     >"There are no theories as to the motive force behind many aspects of meiosis, including cell wall movement, sudden re-forming of duplicate organelles and movement of organelles as half of them go to one side of the cell and half to the other. This selective organelle movement is particularly perplexing, as it always pushes or pulls one organelle, but not the other, the right way.
     
     >There are no theories on how RNA attaches itself to DNA so perfectly, how it imprints the code and then suddenly loses its attraction to DNA, going elsewhere to carry out a function. No motive force is found or guessed at."
     
     I think your use of the term "motive force" is misleading in this context, a more appropriate term would be "chemistry". I do remember learning in my college biology course that aspects of meiosis are poorly understood, as are many aspects of RNA. However, not understanding the chemical mechanism beyond certain complex processes could be just that: ignorance of the chemical mechanism. I will give you that every process that we don't understand leaves room for a very real possibility that there is indeed intelligence behind them - but it is not a necessary conclusion; and I suspect that most researchers would argue that further research is required before they can be conclusive.
     
     >"Most functional protein movement also needs a motive force, especially in determining locations to carry out their functions according to the code. As an embryo grows, a protein shouldn't know if it is in the leg or the chest, without navigational equipment, and it shouldn't be able to follow the timing that genes mandate without a clock device."
     
     The endocrine system is perhaps the single most complex biological human system. It is a huge system consisting of dozens or hundreds of proteins and hormones and almost as many different, interconnected feedback loops. We don't even know all the steps in the different loops, let alone all the mechanisms. However, much of the timing involved in biological systems are due to feedback loops, and in some cases external stimuli, such as sunlight.
     
     However, going to the position thing. In most cases (every case I've ever learned about - which obviously is not nearly exhaustive), it isn't that proteins and hormones go somewhere specific, but rather they spread out throughout the body. However, proteins and other chemicals have specific functions determined by their chemical structure, and in many cases their primary function is only applicable in certain types of cells, etc. I've actually done rather extensive research on various endocrine systems for what was an amazing (and depressing) course.
     
     >"Even you admit that neural pathway formation occurs according to thoughts. Thoughts control chemicals, electricity and cell walls in neurons and synapses. So we already know intelligence moves and forms matter in non-accidental ways."
     
     Yes but the difference between you and me is that you assume that our own intelligence is fundamental, or based off of a new intelligent force of nature, while I maintain the position that, while that may be true, it is not inconceivable that our intelligence can be the result of the forces we already know.
     
     >"Even in those things where we do see chemical or electric forces at work, such as voluntary muscle movement, we still need to acknowledge the root cause, which is free will."
     
     But is free will a perception rather than reality? I know people who think that it's most likely that our thoughts, intelligence and consciousness as a whole are results of what is essentially labyrinthine chemical computing. Personally, I am inclined to believe that that isn't true, partially because it seems to trivialize our choices and actions. Nonetheless I don't claim to [i]know[/i]. Neither case has been ruled out scientifically. The notion that we are labyrinthine chemical computers hasn't been ruled out because, well, we are labyrinthine and not well understood in general. Free will has not been ruled out because it has never been considered in the scientific arena - not because the idea is rejected (in fact I'll bet that most scientists believe that free will probably exists), but because no one has been able to come up with a method to analyze the problem scientifically.
     
     >"The Materialists' fatal flaw in evolution, and indeed all of Biology, was to presume that all they need do is identify and name every material involved in life's functions and they have explained everything. They neglected to consider how just the right amounts of just the right things came to just the right place at just the right time to allow life to continue.
     
     >You are making the same error with forces of nature."
     
     I don't think I am making that mistake. I am not arguing that the four forces of nature [i]are[/i] responsible for everything in this universe, but that it is [i]possible[/i]. Just like it is possible that there is another force of nature that is fundamentally intelligent. Personally, I am conflicted on the matter. On the one hand I am loathe to give up the notion of free will, but on the other hand I think that intelligence is excessively complex and ungainly to be a fundamental aspect of the universe. Obviously that doesn't mean it isn't possible or true, but it does defy the beauty inherent in the simplicity of the other forces.

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346. 346. sologos 04:12 AM 5/21/08

     > Another one of Behe's claims debunked. surprise surprise.
     
     
     
     Whereas it may be true that there are similarities and differences in the human and lamprey clotting system, there doesn't seem to be any clotting without complexity. In the yeas since I have been following the cascade factors in humans, several new factors have been identified. I do not know why there is a special need for factor 9 in humans, or whether there may not be some special as yet undiscovered factor peculiar to the lamprey cascade, but one thing for sure, it's only going to get more complex.
     
     But demonstrating the presence of a cascade in a more primitive species doesn't really constrain us to conclude that there was an evolutionary line.What I believe is more germaine to Behe's point is that even the most primitive hemolymph clotting systems are themselve irreducibly complex. Even at the invertebrate level where circulatory systems ae first appearing, there appears cascades. See for example the clotting system of lobsters or priimitive insects.
     
     http://www.springerlink.com/content/k56723220032jvp3/
     
     and http://www.jbc.org/cgi/content/abstract/279/50/52033

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347. 347. sologos 04:37 AM 5/21/08

     > Six Things in Expelled that Ben Stein Doesn't
     > Want You to Know...
     ...
     
     >I think that intelligence is excessively complex and ungainly to be a fundamental aspect of the universe. Obviously that doesn't mean it isn't possible or true, but it does defy the beauty inherent in the simplicity of the other forces.
     
     
     I have never quite found the notion of simplicity to be elegant. The simplest answer, yes, but simplistic explanations always seem to give way to underlying complexities. Complexity seems more to be the nature of nature. Simply drawing up equations, simple or complex, to describe behaviour doesn't really tell us what force or matter is.
     
     Intelligence is excessively complex, as you say. It seems to me that any Informational systems ( I see the intelligence found in nature to be more like an informational system than a force) that run a universe must be.

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348. 348. Pigeon 08:06 AM 5/21/08

     Sologos:
     
     >"The error of materialistic reductionism is that it believes that explaining something on the physical level rules out the existence of a metaphysical level."
     
     I am sure many people do believe that, but I think most scientists would answer that successfully explaining a phenomenon does not rule out the supernatural. Like I said before, the supernatural could just be acting in such a way that we cannot detect it, or following its own set of rules, resulting in what we call the laws of nature. No self-respecting scientist would ever argue that anything could disprove the supernatural.
     
     The one and only reason science does not concern itself with the supernatural is because it cannot be disproved, and it can be used to explain [i]everything[/i]. The major problem with that is that attributing anything to the supernatural eliminates the predictive power of science. The reason why science is progressive (it builds upon itself) is that each theory predicts new phenomenon and often even provides a solution to problems they weren't intended to solve. The moment the supernatural is invoked, this predictive power that is so essential to the progression of science is lost. It has nothing to do with whether the supernatural is real.
     
     >"Naturalism, though piously claiming to not be able to address spiritual realities, actually behaves a if it does by assuming that it can ultimately explain all within the realm of human experience. Despite this disclaimer, it then goes about "reducing" human experience to particles and forces."
     
     I don't see the problem with 'reducing human experience to particles and forces' as long as it works. To be honest I find it an astounding claim that even though our theories accurately predict so much, they are just illusions of reality. I am more inclined to believe that they do accurately reflect at least some aspect of reality and that their success is not merely coincidence. Likewise I'm sure that some of it is wrong, and probably all of it is incomplete. And none of it precludes the supernatural.
     
     >"It does, in fact, become itself an ideology not unlike the religions of the world."
     
     I really can't disagree more with this statement. Religions propose an absolute, unquestionable truth, a meaning to life, a set of morals, and they are inherently irrefutable. They propose the answer all at once, there is no searching, and you are required to believe it on 100% faith, although there is some consequential evidence. Science is fundamentally different. It is a continual quest for understanding based on reason and observations of the world around us. It provides no truth, but models of our world for both practical reasons and curiosity. All individuals can look at the same data, see each other's analysis, do their own, and draw their own conclusions. It provides no meaning, no morals, and it is inherently [i]refutable[/i]. A single observation can force the entire scientific community to rethink their ideas. Like in any other arena, major change of course takes time. It takes time to convince an entire community to accept a new idea, but if the evidence really is strong, and especially if previous ideas are failing, then it will change. Try changing the course of religion with an observation or two.
     
     >" I consider this to be a fine tool and gift from God that he bot only placed an order in things ohysical, but has also given man the ability to comprehend that very order and use it."
     
     See this is my problem with this discussion. You assume that God exists, you assume that he provided us with the ability to comprehend our world. I cannot have a meaningful discussion with somebody who inserts the irrefutable into his arguments.
     
     >"It is only when those using the method make assumptions beyond the realm of its limited purview that the error occurs."
     
     Couldn't agree more.
     
     >"Though they can recognise some of the limitations, they present the doctrine of "The Science of the Gaps", the very doctrine that they attack as the problem of "faith"."
     
     The term "science of the gaps" is overused and misused. It is invoked every time scientists argue against a fundamentally new idea because it is not (yet) necessary. But this is sort of like governmental checks and balances. There are often new theories that appear to solve a standing problem, but require a major fundamental addition or change. When the current paradigm is indeed insufficient, this can be much needed and result in a more concise, more general, and overall more complete understanding of the world. However, if the current paradigm is seen to be capable of explaining the troublesome problems in question with some more work, then working out the solution that way almost always results in a cleaner, more concise theory. If every time we encountered a new problem we invented a new force, or fundamentally altered our understanding of the world, then science would be worthlessly convoluted.
     
     Additionally, I for one will never accept our lack of understanding of an aspect of the physical world as "scientific" evidence of God's existence. In fact, I think science as a whole is irrelevant to the existence of God. Whatever science tells us, I will always hold that God may or may not exist, unless he decides to make himself known to us (which, if he exists, I'm sure he can do pretty convincingly).
     
     >"To them, the gods of Chance and Necessity are omnipotent in forming eveything we see today. Some even wax so eloquent in their praise that it looks like worship. Free, they believe, of an absolute moral law with which they would be answerable to an absolute Deity, they come up with a new moral systems. These new system are relative in their scope, and though powerless to grant any enduring benefit, and based, as it were on strict allegiance to their gods, it decries any other religion, especially, it would appear monotheistic religions"
     
     Well that isn't science anymore. Anyone is free to have such beliefs, but if they profess such belief to be supported by science then they are either lying, ignorant or misguided. And I believe that morals do exist with or without God. I think morals are largely societal; humanity thrives in societies, and for a society to function there must be rules. If people were to go around killing each other over every argument, stealing from each other, taking whatever the wanted whenever they wanted, society would fall apart and humanity would suffer for it.
     
     >"It's becoming the ruin of many a good scientist who has succumbed to the lure of using the method where it doesn't apply. It is also cult-like in that it is seemingly quite easy to enter into the ideology, become brain washed by the mind set while actively denying it."
     
     You are criticizing the institution of science for those who debase it rather than for what it is. It would be like me criticizing all of religion for those who kill in the name of God.
     
     >"That any particular question "x" a been answered is not progress, since x divided by infinity is zero."
     
     That is the single worst argument I have ever heard. Please don't tell me you don't see why that is, to use Frank M's words, a huge "cop out".
     
     >"They have taken the God-given gift of this methodology, and done away with its creator."
     
     Here you are assuming the existence of God again. I understand that you believe in God, but if you intend to convince me of anything you will have to do so without invoking him.

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349. 349. Tommo0809 12:54 PM 5/21/08

     No offense but that sounds like more goalpost moving. First it was the human clotting system- then dolphins-then bony fish- then jawless fish- and now insects?
     -you would have thought that years after making these claims Behe would have attempted to substantiate them. But he has done nothing of the sort, he said that the human clotting system was "irreduceably complex", and then had to move to a more primitive species and on down the line. His ID is nothing more than a "god of the gaps" theory, and the gaps keep getting smaller as real scientists do more work in related fields. I have to say it is more logical to think that the gaps will continue to become smaller as more is uncovered as opposed to "the designer" (read god) hiding in those ever shrinking areas.

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350. 350. Frank M 02:11 AM 5/22/08

     Pigeon, I've been meaning to respond to this comment of yours, because it shows your bias.
     
     Pigeon: "I think it would be the ultimate expression of beauty if the rules of the four natural forces are capable of conspiring to create intelligence."
     
     What you find beautiful is not scientific evidence. It is wishful thinking. In this case, it is rather bizarre, unsubstantiated wishfulness, since unintelligent forces do not "conspire" in an intelligent way. To be an objective scientist, one must accept evidence that is repugnant to their hopes and dreams just as tightly as any evidence that they feel supports them. I can see that you do not do this, although you give lip service to true objectivity.
     
     Pigeon: "Conversely, I think it would be extremely ungainly for the intelligence to simply be the result of intelligence.
     
     Ungainly? How does your perseption of beauty pertain in any way to the truth? Science is the search for the truth, not the search for Pigeon's aesthetics. This is where so-called scientists begin practicing religion, calling it science. When the ego wants the joy of proving something that nobody had ever imagined could be, and the truth is twisted to fit their belief system, which may very well be false.
     
     Only intelligence has ever been known to create anything that shows intelligence. Random forces at work are not intelligent in the slightest, yet you try to push against fact in favor of your fiction, for - what? - your fragile ego?
     
     Fine, just don't call it fact, don't teach it in school and don't think you hold the objective high ground nor that we all must follow you lest we be deemed "vapid".
     
     Pigeon: "Basically, motion does not require intelligence."
     
     Of course not. Motion DOES require a force. Now, motion that selectively aids life or follows our intelligent will DOES indicate intelligence.
     
     Pigeon: "The fact that we can move does not imply the presence of intelligence."
     
     Yes, it does, especially since we intelligently decide to do so. See, you are making statements that are so patently false they would lock you up if you said them in front of a judge. Now, if you are going to say that intelligently directed movement DOES imply intelligence, but you wish to seek other possibilities, then at least you would be truthful, if not particularly worthy of serious consideration.
     
     It is your desperate attempts not to concede even the most obvious strikes against you that cause me concern for the "scientific" nature of your "study".

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351. 351. Frank M 02:41 AM 5/22/08

     sologos, the case for intelligent design is not based on some new and undiscovered evidence. It is simply a matter of understanding what the evidence is telling us.
     
     I can see that I am the only one here with a Biology background, and I am getting a lot more questions as to the details than I usually get. Bacterial experiments are done in high schools for Pete's sake and if they haven't heard of the Galapogos finches, they need to do some homework.
     
     If Pigeon couldn't find William Provine's "empty rhetoric" interview in 15 minutes, then I would have wasted at least 20, and it really doesn't matter what that crackpot said.
     
     I'm not going to get into a citation battle, with the others ready to play Wack-a-Mole with the Wikipedia counterpoints as soon as I post them. The citations are circular and I know all the arguments back and forth.
     
     I haven't seen a whole lot of citations on the four forces creating intelligence concept of Pigeon either. I know that ID has had a tough time getting peer-reviewed acceptance. My aim is to get people to question the authorities who have misled them and to think for themselves.
     
     If there is a specific point of contention that really matters, I will take the time to search for it. In the meantime, there is plenty that is on the table now that we see from two completely different directions. If what is already accepted by the group is not even seen as any evidence at all, then we already have work to do.
     
     Somebody once told me - never let an opponent define your argument. I'll be fine.

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352. 352. Tommo0809 03:36 AM 5/22/08

     http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Judge_continues_injunction_against_'Expelled'_film
     
     ...

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353. 353. EastwoodDC 03:46 AM 5/22/08

     Broken link, probably because it contains single quotes.
     [url=http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Judge_continues_injunction_against_'Expelled'_film]This link works.[/url]
     
     I'd say that's great news, but the movie is pretty much dead anyway.
     
     --
     Edited by EastwoodDC at 05/21/2008 9:21 PM

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354. 354. sologos 04:10 AM 5/22/08

     Tommo0809,
     
     I think we are 2 different wavelengths(greater or lesser, just different). First I should confess that I have not read Behe's book though I believe I have a fair idea from the sections I have read and the commotion it has generated in the evolution community. I have no vested interest in defending the man but I do believe that the concept of irreducible complexity has some merit as a challenge to the evolution community
     
     
     
     Perhaps I can simply take some of your comments and respond to them.
     
     >No offense but that sounds like more goalpost moving. First it was the human clotting system- then dolphins-then bony fish- then jawless fish- and now insects?
     
     
     If I understand your concern, the notion that there are precedents in more prehominid forms to a workable cascade system of coagulation in the human, makes Behe's contention that all the factors in the human system(which I think we all agree are genetically determined) must be present and that all must have had to arise in one generation patently false.
     
     If this were Behe's contention than he must have been sorely ill-informed about coagulation systems in Zoology. I doubt that that was the case. The differences in the cascades of different species has more to do with each's peculiar needs in the biosphere. Darwinian forces would certainly be sufficient, in this case to explain gradual evolution of any(not just the coagulation system) and every systems that appears as we move up the evolutionary ladder.
     
     This, however, is not the issue with irreducible complexity as I understand it. More significantly, even in the most primitive forms (meaning the lowest on the lader, if you will) have cascades that are irreducibly complex.
     
     Whereas it is true that each might have had ancestors that only had fibrinogen (the final product required for clot (fibrin) formation., it seems reasonable that one should be able to find instances of simpler systems that required no cascades now, but none have been found. Even the system of the horseshoe crab (now there's a creqture that loks like someting we would find in Jurassic ark!)) reveals a complex coagulation system. It is the irreducible complexity at the most basic level of the coagulation system that gives the argument against evolution legs.
     
     The general trend in the last 50 years to the discovery of the almost unimaginable biological complexity has been accelerating. It is clear that we're only scratching the surface of coagulation complexity in organisms with circulations. Evolution as a potential explanation for this diversity and complexity requires time. Production of the enormous number of blood factors requires generations to reproduce with favorable mutations for each factor. Even if spare parts from unrelated systems were available for recruitment into coagulation system, there yet has to be some genetic regulation, ( yet another level of even higher complexity) to oversee this recruitment, and be sure there were an adequate supply of it for this additional function..
     
     Furthermore, each system requires system specific parts, which usually means another mutation occurring simultaneously. A protease that catalyze protein breakdown iof, say, liver enzymes won't necessarily work well with clotting factors that ned to be broken down, unless, say a hydroxy group is added to an already cumbersome molecule. Even in the last few years since the original refutation of Behe's work which depended on lobster's having only one precursor to fibrinogen, seveal new factors in the cascade have been discovered.
     
     If this retreat to earlier forms amounts to moving goal post back, then move we must.
     
     
     
     
     >>you would have thought that years after making these claims Behe would have attempted to substantiate them. But he has done nothing of the sort, he said that the human clotting system was "irreduceably complex", and then had to move to a more primitive species and on down the line.
     
     As I said before I am not here to defend the man as I have not widely read his stuff, bit if that is how he has defended his thesis, then I would have to agree with his defense.
     
     
     >>His ID is nothing more than a "god of the gaps" theory, and the gaps keep getting smaller as real scientists do more work in related fields.
     
     
     Actually the gaps keep getting bigger. If evolution appaars to be inadequate to the task, then we have no other science at the moment. Of course, we could always concoct the "science of the gaps". It won't be the first time.
     
     
     
     >>I have to say it is more logical to think that the gaps will continue to become smaller as more is uncovered as opposed to "the designer" (read god) hiding in those ever shrinking areas.
     
     I have to, of course, disagree with you since I believe in creation. The truth is that Gos (since you mention it) is in every gap, even the ones we already have elucidated. It is just a different dimension to the material one that we are so free to explore by naturalistic means. I suppose it could be said that if He is, then there appears to be some serious flaws in our experimental design.

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355. 355. EastwoodDC 04:16 AM 5/22/08

     And as long as I'm [i]fixing[/i] things ...
     
     Frank M wrote:
     
     > sologos, the case for intelligent design is based
     > on some new and undiscovered evidence. It is simply a
     > matter of misrepresenting what the evidence is telling
     > us.
     >
     > I can see that I am the only one here with a Biology
     > background, or at least no one else is claiming it so
     > I will continue shooting my mouth off. Bacterial are
     > evolving all the time for Pete's sake, just look at the
     > antibiotic superbugs that are becoming such a
     > problem in hospitals. I'm mention Galapogos finches,
     > because they are birds.
     >
     > If Pigeon couldn't find William Provine's [url=http://science.blogdig.net/archives/articles/June2006/28/Dishonest_Dembski_the_Universal_Probability_Bound.html]"Dishonest Dembski"[/url]
     > rhetoric" interview in 15 minutes, then I would have
     > wasted at least 2, and it really doesn't matter what
     > that crackpot said.
     >
     > I'm not going to get into a citation battle, I've been
     > getting along just fine by ignoring the fact so far.
     > Besides, I'm too lazy.
     >
     > I haven't looked for citations on the four forces creating
     > intelligence concept of Pigeon, and I ain't gonna. Besides,
     > everything I did find only proved myself wrong.
     > ID has had a tough time getting peer-reviewed acceptance
     > because it is crap. My aim is to get people to annoy
     > people because I have no life.
     >
     > If there is a specific point of contention that
     > really matters, I will pretend I didn't see it and because
     > I know I would lose that point.
     > In the meantime, I'm going to keep spinning out the
     > same drivel and call it evidence. After all, I don't have
     > any real work to do.
     
     This version is SO much better now.Yes it is childish to edit someone's post, but it was fun.
     
     Frank M [i]really did[/i] write:
     
     > Somebody once told me - never let an opponent define
     > your argument. I'll be fine.
     
     Don't worry Frank, you are not in any danger of defining even your own argument.
     
     --
     Edited by EastwoodDC at 05/21/2008 9:18 PM

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356. 356. Frank M 04:40 AM 5/22/08

     Pigeon, good to be back debating with you, although you aren't as smart as I thought you were.....
     
     Frank M>"If natural genetics were random, why would radiation victims or drug addicts have different results?"
     
     Pigeon> "This is a dishonest argument."
     
     Dishonest? I am pointing out the difference between mutations that DO appear to be random - such as those caused by radiation exposure - as compared to normal genetic variation generation to generation. This is an entirely valid discussion point. Not "dishonest" at all.
     
     Pigeon> " For one, drugs are chemicals"
     
     You don't say? That's why I mentioned them as an example of chemical intrusion as one possible cause of random mutation, Sherlock.
     
     Pigeon> "which affect biological systems in predictable way (again, based on their molecular structure)".
     
     Some chemicals interfere with the natural process and cause harmful genetic mutations. These mutations are predictable, yes - predictably random. By random here, I mean that the resultant modification does not follow form, function and symettry as normal genetic variation does.
     
     Are you trying to claim that radiation and chemicals are not a known cause of harmful mutations? Or are you just trying to stir up enough dust in the air to avoid answering my "dishonest" question?
     
     Pigeon> "In fact, most drugs don't affect DNA"
     
     And your point? I didn't say ALL drugs cause harmful mutations. I said that some do. Again, are you disagreeing or dodging?
     
     Pigeon> "Radiation is also extremely different. It usually doesn't just cause DNA to mutate, it destroys it."
     
     Radiation can fry your skin off in the right concentration, but this also is an attempt to avoid the question with smoke and mirrors.
     
     Fact: Radiation can cause harmful mutations. Do you contest this? If not, then I repeat my supposedly dishonest question to see if I can get an honest answer this time:
     
     What is the difference between the random mutations of radiation and chemical intrusion, as compared to standard healthy genetic variation during reproduction? Are they different levels of randomness, then? Or are you really trying to say that there is no genetic mutation from radiation or chemicals?
     
     An honest answer, please.
     
     Frank>"A truly random home improvement project would leave planks, nails, wires and paint laying all over the premises, not assembled into anything functional or formed at all. Random means NO intelligence in the formation or placement of anything."
     
     Pigeon> "Yes but again, Darwinian evolution does not posit evolution by purely random means."
     
     It posits modifications by random means, so these quadrillions of random pieces and parts, practically never lining up properly ARE part and parcel to Darwin's mess.
     
     Modern day observations show that the "selection" excuse is as phoney as a 3 dollar bill. The freak show Darwin predicted has always dominated modifications (but then unfailingly dies away efficiently enough that no fossils were ever found) is pure fiction.
     
     Pigeon> "The fact is, comparing Darwinian evolution to the possibility of a house or airplane assembling from raw materials all at once is disingenuous and wrong."
     
     Not when you are allowed trillions of tries at it, gradual or otherwise. A billion homes have been built in the past few centuries. Have any of them had a functional addition pop up accidentally as you say happened to such animals as a camel in just a few million births? The addition to the home should be MUCH easier, since the wiring need not reach every cell, and you get to start with full planks and nails, not molecule sized construction pieces. And you have FAR more tries at it than the pre-camel.
     
     So how many self-created balconies or screen doors have stumbled into existence by happenstance so far?
     
     Frank> "Note that the odds of this accidental home improvement do not improve one iota by saying that you will only occupy a home if you 'select' it."
     
     Pigeon> "That is even more disingenuous than the rest of your argument. I'm not going to bother to explain why because it really should be obvious."
     
     The only thing obvious is that you have no explanation to offer. But hey, I'll give you a big break and let you select them ALL. All billion of them! No de-selections to hurt your odds. Now surely you have at least one unintended furnace or garbage disposal. Our pre-camel got a bag on his back that just happens to have a connected tube going to just the right place... and it works! What "luck", eh? Hows that accidental solar heating system coming along?
     
     Uh... maybe a dead bolt? A no-frill curtain?
     
     Functional formations do NOT happen in just a few trillion attempts... EVER. Darwinism needs them to happen millions of times along each Early Cambrian vertabrate lineage.
     
     Eastwood> "There is a misconception that a small probability disproves a hypothesis."
     
     Frank> "Small, no. Infinitessimal, yes."
     
     Pigeon> "If there are 10^10^10^10^10 equally probable outcomes of a situation (each with 1 in 10^10^10^10^10 odds), you are going to end up with one of them, even though which ever end result occurs had a vanishingly small probability."
     
     This is a very elementary fallacy. He is essentially changing the question from "what are the odds against a complex functional creature arising by accident?" to "what are the odds of anything arising by accident?"
     
     He needn't have used large numbers. No matter what the number is (positive integers), if you choose one, you have one of them. However, to get one that is both functional and complex becomes a very tiny percentage indeed. If your illogic held true, we would never be able to calculate the odds against anything. But you are not correct and neither was Eastwood. We can calculate the odds, for example, of a tornado hitting a major city this year, without saying it is 100% because a tornado will hit SOMETHING. Eastwood is simply asking a useless question: What are the odds of anything at all arising by luck?
     
     Frank> "No, they represent the probability of a degree of complexity as an outcome, not a SPECIFIC outcome."
     
     Pigeon> "Well, so far the only examples you've given have been of specific examples, and you haven't provided a source for any of those, anyway."
     
     Not at all. I use terms like "beneficial trait", "genetic upgrade" or "functional physiological formations". I'm not new to this game. I may give a series of examples, but I continue to be very clear that any upgrade will do.
     
     There is a wide range of outcomes (infinity, in fact) between the sum of all possibilities and one specific outcome. Eastwood is trying to pin us into one or the other, but we waste no time looking at either. We are looking at a very small sliver of the total possibilities - that sliver being either anything functionally complex or anything that is a genetic upgrade. We can also look at varying levels of complexity. He's trying to pretend that math CAN'T be done to prove him wrong, but of course, it can. And it does.
     
     Now, I may use a specific example when discussing the odds of getting the encoded information. If it takes dozens, hundreds or thousands of bits of information for any specific modification, we calculate the odds of any assortment of that many bits that follows coherent form and function.
     
     Its hilarious when Darwinists, of all people, think they can outwit mathematicians at mathematics.
     
     Frank> "To use another analogy, if you find the book War and Peace and want to know what the odds are that monkeys haphazardly typed it, you have to calculate the odds of accidental typing of a 600 page book of any language, code or consistent media, on any topic at all."
     
     Pigeon> "There is no reproduction, no generations, and no consequences for any changes. The book is written linearly, from start to finish (although with the delete key, it can be somewhat anti-linear), all at once."
     
     Did you not read the very next sentences or did you dishonestly not include it?
     
     Although this analogy was for the purpose of showing how odds are calculated (not that it stopped you from re-stating Eastwood's fallacy), I discussed how genetic modifications could fit this analogy, including repeated attempts (generations/births) deleting some letters and adding others, until a coherent insertion was created.
     
     Consequences? Keep all the books if you like, good or bad, to increase your attempts. Or destroy any failed modification and drop back to the last coherent book, if you foolishly believe that helps your odds. Your choice.
     
     Pigeon> "This is a classic example of finding meaning in literature where none was ever intended."
     
     I'm not sure you have any idea what was intended, nor do I, so let's call it an "accidental" parody of accidentalists.
     
     Here's another one: The Darwinist amazement at "millions of years" as you uttered earlier reminds me of that bald guy on Austin Powers, sticking his pinkie in his mouth and marvelling at the number one million. Millions, billions, trillions, quadrillions... These numbers are meaningless nothings compared to the odds against accidental formation of a complex biological system.
     
     Pigeon> "Well apparently most biologists seem to be of the opinion that there is plenty of evidence for it."
     
     For what? Accidentalism? Hardly. There is not a drop of evidence for it and I don't think you'll find many biologists who would attempt to say there is. Junk DNA was the best example you could come up with for "waste" or "bad design"? Even if it is "junk" - and we have no idea if that is true - how much "waste" are we looking at here? In a giraffe that weighs a third of a ton, the combined "waste" that you are fretting over wouldn't measure a milligram.
     
     You wholly fail to grasp the rather common sense concept of design inference. Anything that has ever been designed has flaws, failure points and (usually) waste, but they aren't MOSTLY waste. It is not a matter of desperately looking for tiny amounts of so-called waste. It is a matter of percentages and probabilities. This is a mathematical argument. The Biology is not being argued, so the opinions of the Biologists, while not nearly as unanimous as you claim, are not as valuable as those of mathematicians.
     
     In any case, the unanimity among Biologists pertains to evolution itself, not whether or not it was accidental.

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357. 357. sologos 05:28 AM 5/22/08

     Pigeon writes:
     
     
     Sologos:
     
     >"The error of materialistic reductionism is that it believes that explaining something on the physical level rules out the existence of a metaphysical level."
     
     >>I am sure many people do believe that, but I think most scientists would answer that successfully explaining a phenomenon does not rule out the supernatural. Like I said before, the supernatural could just be acting in such a way that we cannot detect it, or following its own set of rules, resulting in what we call the laws of nature. No self-respecting scientist would ever argue that anything could disprove the supernatural.
     
     
     I wish that were the case: Richard Dawkins, Thomas Edison, Francis Crick.
     
     
     
     >>
     The one and only reason science does not concern itself with the supernatural is because it cannot be disproved, and it can be used to explain everything. The major problem with that is that attributing anything to the supernatural eliminates the predictive power of science. The reason why science is progressive (it builds upon itself) is that each theory predicts new phenomenon and often even provides a solution to problems they weren't intended to solve. The moment the supernatural is invoked, this predictive power that is so essential to the progression of science is lost. It has nothing to do with whether the supernatural is real.
     
     
     Though I have to agree that naturalism cannot entertain God as a factor. On the other hand, an argument could be made that any method that automatically must eliminate a deity may have a built in flaw.
     
     Having said that, though I would agreethat the supernatural may not lend itself to your criteria for "science". I would like to challenge the notion that revelation can not predict or be falsifiable. There are lot of tenets that revelation holds that can most certainly be, starting with the proposition of Creation. Creation predicts that nothing can exist de novo unless acted upon by an external non-natural force. Care to try to falsify that?
     
     
     >>I don't see the problem with 'reducing human experience to particles and forces' as long as it works.
     
     
     Oh, it works. Bur what do you think we've found by this process? Invariably we will have left out the lion's share, and i am not speaking of an exhaustive elucidation of the physical. That one is endless. How is this different from the non-self-respecting scientist that you were descrying at thestart of this post?
     
     >> To be honest I find it an astounding claim that even though our theories accurately predict so much, they are just illusions of reality. I am more inclined to believe that they do accurately reflect at least some aspect of reality and that their success is not merely coincidence. Likewise I'm sure that some of it is wrong, and probably all of it is incomplete.
     
     
     No, it is not coincidence, nor is it one of a Buddhistic illusion. . There is an order out there, and we have the organ that can perceive it. My comments about the infinitely small amount of surface that we have scratched was not meant to deny that. The aspect of reality that is reflected by our naturalistic investigations is, however, merely predictive, as you say. There is no sense of what it is by describing how it behaves. Light behaves like a particle and like a wave, reflects off some surfaces and is absorbed by other surfaces, but what is it?.
     
     
     >>I really can't disagree more with this statement. Religions propose an absolute, unquestionable truth, a meaning to life, a set of morals, and they are inherently irrefutable. They propose the answer all at once, there is no searching, and you are required to believe it on 100% faith, although there is some consequential evidence. Science is fundamentally different.
     
     I agree with none of this.
     
     
     >> It is a continual quest for understanding based on reason and observations of the world around us.
     
     
     " Understanding" is not the word I would choose,but I certainly agree with the description of the process. I have said befoe that the methodology is not. in itself a bad thing. Furthermore, it is all we have at the moment, and it has been fruitful.
     
     
     >>Try changing the course of religion with an observation or two.
     
     
     It actually happens all the time. The reformation was a case in point. Science and theology have more in common that you might think.
     
     
     >>See this is my problem with this discussion. You assume that God exists, you assume that he provided us with the ability to comprehend our world. I cannot have a meaningful discussion with somebody who inserts the irrefutable into his arguments.
     
     
     It is not purely an assumption. There is actually a rational process going on with all this. But it is true, it is difficult to have a rational discussion, if by rational you mean let's test this.
     
     
     >>The term "science of the gaps" is overused and misused. It is invoked every time scientists argue against a fundamentally new idea because it is not (yet) necessary.
     
     
     Ideas are just that in science until tested. By "science of the gaps", I mean proposing that there are naturalistic explanations every time there is a gap of knowledge. It is reasonable to assume that our knowledge base will continue to increase. But ir is gap thinking to believe that science can explain everything, That is a reductionist point of view.
     
     
     I appreciate having this discussion with you Pigeon. Your apologetic for science captures some key aspects of the methodology. I'll have to give all this some more thought, Thank you for the challenge.

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358. 358. Tommo0809 01:13 PM 5/22/08

     Eastwood: Thanks for fixing the link, and I agree about the movie pretty much being dead, however just the other day I was explaining the premise of the movie and some of the distorted realities that stein presents as truths to a buddy of mine whilst having a beer and the psycho sitting next to me informed me that if he heard another word come out of my mouth he would "vomit on my head".
     So I would have to say its a small comfort to know that not only was the movie poorly made and dishonest about its underlying topic, but now courts wont even let it into theaters, not because it proposes some dangerous idea but because they tried cut even more corners (and I'm not sure which reason for its being held out of theaters would be more ironic).

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359. 359. EastwoodDC 01:31 PM 5/22/08

     > There is a wide range of outcomes (infinity, in fact)
     > between the sum of all possibilities and one specific
     > outcome. Eastwood is trying to pin us into one or the
     > other, but we waste no time looking at either. We are
     > looking at a very small sliver of the total
     > possibilities - that sliver being either anything
     > functionally complex or anything that is a genetic
     > upgrade. We can also look at varying levels of
     > complexity. He's trying to pretend that math CAN'T be
     > done to prove him wrong, but of course, it can. And
     > it does.
     
     I am not pretending Frank, I demonstrated that the evidence you claim is not valid inference. By ID methods the numbers you suggest show the impossibility of unguided evolution are also point probabilities. Among other errors, this fails to consider any other point probability that leads to the same observed outcome. This disproves nothing because it is simply bad reasoning. To quote [url http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong]Pauli[/url], "It's not even wrong."

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360. 360. Tommo0809 02:16 PM 5/22/08

     >
     Sologos: I hear you on the wave length thing, and after reading a few of your posts I get the feeling that all we would do is keep going in circles. But at the very least I can take solace in the fact that you are not an ID hack that just spouts off what he reads at "answers in genesis" but someone who has taken the time to understand what the discussion is about. And now a few responses ( i left the quotes that you were responding to from my post in there for continuity's sake)
     
     > >No offense but that sounds like more goalpost
     > moving. First it was the human clotting system- then
     > dolphins-then bony fish- then jawless fish- and now
     > insects?;
     >
     > If I understand your concern, the notion
     > n, the notion that there are precedents in more
     > prehominid forms to a workable cascade system of
     > coagulation in the human, makes Behe's contention
     > that all the factors in the human system(which I
     > think we all agree are genetically determined) must
     > be present and that all must have had to arise in one
     > generation patently false.
     >
     
     >
     > This, however, is not the issue with
     > the issue with irreducible complexity as I understand
     > it. More significantly, even in the most primitive
     > forms (meaning the lowest on the lader, if you will)
     > have cascades that are irreducibly complex.
     
     -this is one of the problems that I have with Behe's argument is that when one example is refuted I would be under the impression that the others, which were based on the same logic, would at the very least become shakey contentions, if not complete throw-aways. But instead most proponents of ID choose to say something along the lines of well we weren't really talking about X we were talking about X1....Xn. As evidenced by your later comment "move the goal posts we must"
     Now I'm not saying disproving of one example means disproving of all, but to me it just seems like the same battle being fought on different ground with the same results. over and over and over.
     
     >
     > Whereas it is true that each might have
     > might have had ancestors that only had fibrinogen
     > (the final product required for clot (fibrin)
     > formation., it seems reasonable that one should be
     > able to find instances of simpler systems that
     > required no cascades now, but none have been found.
     > Even the system of the horseshoe crab (now there's a
     > creqture that loks like someting we would find in
     > Jurassic park!)) reveals a complex coagulation system.
     > It is the irreducible complexity at the most basic
     > level of the coagulation system that gives the
     > argument against evolution legs.
     
     -isn't the validity of this assumption based on the notion that scientists in the field will NEVER find a more primitive form of the clotting agent. That just seems like a fairly large, if not poorly made, assumption given the history of the discussion regarding this particular issue. Like I said before, first it was that humans had the irreducably complex clotting system, and then research showed it did not, then it was said that dolphins actually had the system, and then research showed they did not. So with your example about the horseshoe crab, it just seems premature to call it irraduceably complex when work in the field is pointed in the other direction.
     
     >
     > The general trend in the last 50 years to
     > 50 years to the discovery of the almost unimaginable
     > biological complexity has been accelerating. It is
     > clear that we're only scratching the surface of
     > coagulation complexity in organisms with
     > circulations. Evolution as a potential explanation
     > for this diversity and complexity requires time.
     > Production of the enormous number of blood factors
     > requires generations to reproduce with favorable
     > mutations for each factor. Even if spare parts
     > from unrelated systems were available for recruitment
     > into coagulation system, there yet has to be some
     > genetic regulation, ( yet another level of even
     > higher complexity) to oversee this recruitment, and
     > be sure there were an adequate supply of it for this
     > additional function..
     >
     > Furthermore, each system requires
     > system requires system specific parts, which usually
     > means another mutation occurring simultaneously. A
     > protease that catalyze protein breakdown iof, say,
     > liver enzymes won't necessarily work well with
     > clotting factors that ned to be broken down, unless,
     > say a hydroxy group is added to an already cumbersome
     > molecule. Even in the last few years since the
     > original refutation of Behe's work which depended on
     > lobster's having only one precursor to fibrinogen,
     > seveal new factors in the cascade have been
     > discovered.
     
     -this sounds like the "argument from ignorance" to me. And I'm sorry but I refuse to buy into the "its so complex it must have been designed" especially when it is applied to recently discovered elements of a system. Even more so the argument isn't forwarded for its explanatory power, or because of problems with the philosophical or logical underpinnings of the evolutionary argument, but forwarded in defense of a notion that is arrived at far prior to perusing the evidence. And that isn't remotely a sound methodology, or good science.
     
     ;
     > >>you would have thought that years after making
     > these claims Behe would have attempted to
     > substantiate them. But he has done nothing of the
     > sort, he said that the human clotting system was
     > "irreduceably complex", and then had to move to a
     > more primitive species and on down the line.
     >
     > As I said before I am not here to defend the
     > end the man as I have not widely read his stuff, bit
     > if that is how he has defended his thesis, then I
     > would have to agree with his defense.
     
     - This irreduceable complexity is offered as a method whereby intelligent design can be shown as necessary. Showing that simpler clotting systems exist doesn't necessarily imply an evolutionary chain running from the simpler to the more complex system, but what it does show is that "irreducible complexity" is not necessary, if not scientifically meaningless.
     
     >
     >
     > >>His ID is nothing more than a "god of the gaps"
     > " theory, and the gaps keep getting smaller as real
     > scientists do more work in related fields.
     >
     >
     > Actually the gaps keep getting bigger. If
     > er. If evolution appaars to be inadequate to the
     > task, then we have no other science at the moment. Of
     > course, we could always concoct the "science of the
     > gaps". It won't be the first time.
     >
     -I was speaking about god of the gaps as, and I'm stealing this from a documentary called flock of dodos (not sure of the author etc... off the top of my head), Behe taking a system and saying it is irreducibly complex, and then part of that system is found to not be so. So he claims the rest of that system is irreducibly complex...and that remaining area is the gap where he and his fellows at the discovery institute want to argue that god sits. The problem is that it assumes evolutionary science will never chip further away.
     
     >
     >
     > >>I have to say it is more logical to think that the
     > e gaps will continue to become smaller as more is
     > uncovered as opposed to "the designer" (read god)
     > hiding in those ever shrinking areas.
     >
     > I have to, of course, disagree with you since I
     > believe in creation. The truth is that Gos (since you
     > mention it) is in every gap, even the ones we already
     > have elucidated. It is just a different dimension to
     > the material one that we are so free to explore by
     > naturalistic means. I suppose it could be said that
     > if He is, then there appears to be some serious flaws
     > in our experimental design.
     
     -and this is exactly why we would keep going in circles. I'm not sure exactly what my beliefs are, as a non-practicing, recovering catholic I have never been averse to evolution as an explanation. But to be honest I have never given the creator idea too much credence as well. Now that is not to say that I'm right or that evolution is the one and only answer, I'm just operating based upon what I have interpreted as evidence pointing toward the viability of evolution and lacking influence from a creator (or even a negligibly active creator).
     I do have a huge problem with the means that certain people chose in promoting intelligent design. As for intelligent design itself, the major implication that I really disagree with is not so much that evolution might not be the answer, but that ID encourages a sort of intellectual laziness. It essentially shrugs its shoulders and says, well we don't have any answers for question X, so the only logical possibility is god...as opposed to further research/learning/real discovery (not discovery institute discovery.)
     
     
     
     -

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361. 361. Frank M 04:02 AM 5/23/08

     Pigeon, you seem to be backpeddling a bit, but that is probably a good thing.
     
     Pigeon> "I want to make it very clear that I am not saying we have successfully explained every observed biological process in terms of electromagnetism"
     
     What you made even more clear was that you ARE saying exactly that, so I guess you have "softened" your stance from pae 22:
     
     Pigeon> "I will say it again. (Begin italics) There has never been a single observation in any system, including the biological, in which the four known forces of nature have not been adequate to explain the dynamics of a scenario." (End italics)
     
     You stressed this so emphatically, yet now back off as I point out several examples of matter animation with no dsicernable motive force, now you want to make it "clear" that you are NOT saying the above.
     
     Pigeon> "I am not arguing that the four forces of nature are responsible for everything in this universe, but that it is possible."
     
     Well, ANYTHING'S possible, however unlikely your theory may be. Still this watered down re-assessment of your biology knowledge can't be argued.
     
     Frank> "There are no theories as to the motive force behind many aspects of meiosis, including cell wall movement, sudden re-forming of duplicate organelles and movement of organelles as half of them go to one side of the cell and half to the other. This selective organelle movement is particularly perplexing, as it always pushes or pulls one organelle, but not the other, the right way.
     
     Frank >"There are no theories on how RNA attaches itself to DNA so perfectly, how it imprints the code and then suddenly loses its attraction to DNA, going elsewhere to carry out a function. No motive force is found or guessed at."
     
     Pigeon> "I think your use of the term 'motive force' is misleading in this context, a more appropriate term would be 'chemistry'.
     
     Entirely the opposite. Matter animates in living things and it is time to admit it. You are trying to insert misleading terms to hide the reality of life's animation. The word "chemistry" involves many widespread uses, far beyond this context, and I have already shown you several examples of animated matter that have no identifiable chemical reaction as a motive force. By using the word "chemistry", you are pre-supposing an answer with no clue (by your own eventual admission) if it is the appropriate term.
     
     Call it what it is!! Matter animates in living things in very intelligent and life-sustaining ways, sometimes by our own control and sometimes beyond our control. Dies it somehow rock your world to admit the obvious? Is there some benefit in hiding behind misleading terms? If something moves, it requires a motive force of some kind, whether it is according to your theory or not.
     
     Pigeon> "not understanding the chemical mechanism beyond certain complex processes could be just that: ignorance of the chemical mechanism."
     
     OR, it COULD mean that there is no chemical reaction pushing these organelles around at all.
     
     "The word 'understanding' is misleading, because it pre-supposes chemical reactions as a causal force. You could have used the word understanding if you had said "animation" instead of the presumptive "chemical mechanism".
     
     Moreover, what kind of "chemical" can pick one of each pair of organelles to send to the other side of the cell? How does it know where the cell wall is going to drop? How does it unintelligently place itself in just the right place on alternating organelles in just the right concentrations (so as not to damage the membranes that are at their thinnest point in their life cycle)? Why does it not push too soon or too long? Does it push by a deflagrating rate of reaction, pushing the organelles or does it have a constant oxidation type of controlled push? How does it steer? Pushing oval things through mush tends to spin them, not linearly push them. Does it get in front of the organelles and PULL?
     
     Hmmm. How about that cell wall? Is there a chemical reaction OUTSIDE the cell, pushing IN?
     
     Even if you found chemicals (or more likely, you DON'T, but refuse to admit that your options are "exhausted") you still have to explain why they are just the right amounts of just the right stuff in just the right place in just the right time. Remember, you are trying to say that it all happens by accident. Lastly, you must explain why no such chemicals are seen. Are they invisible?
     
     Pigeon> "I will give you that every process that we don't understand leaves room for a very real possibility that there is indeed intelligence behind them - but it is not a necessary conclusion; and I suspect that most researchers would argue that further research is required before they can be conclusive."
     
     Just don't stop the ID research in the meantime either, as this is not a matter of Pigeon deeming electromagnetism "exhausted" before we can progress down other avenues.
     
     But I would agree here. I would say that the lack of a discernable motive force does strengthen ID, but it isn't necessary for ID. It also lays a very cruel hand to abiogenesis, because the ID theory is that an immaterial intelligence animated matter in the formation of the first living thing, just as it appears to do today.
     
     Frank> "Most functional protein movement also needs a motive force, especially in determining locations to carry out their functions according to the code. As an embryo grows, a protein shouldn't know if it is in the leg or the chest, without navigational equipment, and it shouldn't be able to follow the timing that genes mandate without a clock device."
     
     Pigeon> "The endocrine system is perhaps the single most complex biological human system."
     
     Yes, and it also infers intelligence, because the efficiency of the system is NOT happenstance. Even in those cases where there is a feedback loop identified, that just opens up even more perplexing questions. One needs to explain the presence of the hormone or signalling chemical in just the right amount, place and time, and its timely reaction. Then one must explain the mechanisms for finding and complying with this signal or other feedback. The questions don't end there.
     
     And it isn't always the body-wide spread that you mentioned. Sprain your ankle and many chemicals come running. Antibodies do not float all over and happen by. They go there and stay and fight. Then the healing process is even more baffling. Chunks of calcium and phosphates will find their way through the bloodstream along with these amazing timely functional proteins. They are not deposited just anywhere, but in just the exact right place, just as needed.
     
     Further, during growth (a particularly perplexing matter animation phenomenon) histones and other materials follow the dictates of the DNA, not just in cell type and tissue type, but also in precise location and timing. It does this unfailingly every time without navigations abilities to tell it where it is and without clocks to follow genetic timing.
     
     It is mind-boggling enough that we have a mathematically impossible code in us, but the fact that the code is obeyed unfailingly in a series of DNA - RNA - protein interactions that defy not just motive force, but tissue type, timing and exact placement in the body shows both intelligent design AND creation.
     
     Pigeon> "the difference between you and me is that you assume that our own intelligence is fundamental, or based off of a new intelligent force of nature, while I maintain the position that, while that may be true, it is not inconceivable that our intelligence can be the result of the forces we already know."
     
     Hopefully we are both open-minded as to the other's theories and the word "assume" does not apply. I do prefer your term "not inconceivable" rather than the italicized blanket assertions you made earlier.
     
     Pigeon> "But is free will a perception rather than reality?"
     
     I am aware of this argument, and see that there are major neuroscientists on both sides of it. Either way connotes intelligence at work, whether it is determinist or free. Unicellular beings think and learn, without brains or neurons. Inherited learned behavior does not appear to be genetic or certainly not random genetic. Moreover, I go back to the first living thing, which needed intelligence and animation to reproduce. If all of that fails, I will personally fall back on my own perception that I am acting out of my own free will, which I can discern from involuntary movement.
     
     I will say that if we do not have a free will, intelligence is still present, as neural formation still shapes dendrites just right for the thought process.
     
     Pigeon> "On the one hand I am loathe to give up the notion of free will, but on the other hand I think that intelligence is excessively complex and ungainly to be a fundamental aspect of the universe. Obviously that doesn't mean it isn't possible or true, but it does defy the beauty inherent in the simplicity of the other forces."
     
     As you seem to recognize yourself, none of this has any bearing scientifically.

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362. 362. EastwoodDC 03:22 PM 5/23/08

     [b]Tommo:[/b] Well spoken comments all around. It’s high time for “irreducible complexity” for be recognized as an oxymoron. I have more thoughts on this, but I think I’ll be selfish and save them for a blog entry.
     
     I will check out [i]Flock of Dodos[/i] too - Thanks for the recommendation.
     Here are some links to/about it for those who may be (dis)interested. ;-)
     http://www.flockofdodos.com/
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flock_of_Dodos
     
     
     Comments to[b] Sologos[/b]:
     One reason I have hesitated to criticize your arguments because you seem to be arguing from some sort of metaphysical basis. I am not much on metaphysics, so I am not sure how best to evaluate what you say. On the basis of hard reasoning I disagree with you, but you seem to be saying there is more that should be considered. Perhaps, but you seem to be both denying reductionism on one hand and using it to support your conclusions on the other. *** Before you go to great lengths to tell me how wrong I am, know that is just my understanding of your position after a mostly cursory reading of your posts. *** What I am trying to say is (IMO): you may have a spark of truth, but appear to be using the wrong methods to reach for it.
     The other reason I haven’t responded (much) is that your posts have been long and detailed (mostly long) and it is not apparent what you really mean anymore. Perhaps this is just the nature of metaphysical arguments? If you would accept a constructive criticism, I believe you could make a better case for your side if you were to state your position more concisely.
     
     I do have a question for you:
     
     Sologos wrote>"The error of materialistic reductionism is that it believes that explaining something on the physical level rules out the existence of a metaphysical level."
     
     What about a naturalistic* argument that explains [i]something[/i] on the physical level, but [i]does not require or rule out[/i] the existence of a metaphysical level - Would that still be an error?
     
     * Again, I'm out of my area, so my choice of terms may be incorrect. Hopefully my intent is clear?
     
     If you covered this is in one of your previous posts, perhaps you could direct me to it (you and Pigeon have covered a lot of ground). That would be a more than adequate answer.

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363. 363. sologos 10:54 PM 5/23/08

     Eastwood writes in response to the quotes below:
     
     
     
     >>Sologos wrote>"The error of materialistic reductionism is that it believes that explaining something on the physical level rules out the existence of a metaphysical level."
     
     >>What about a naturalistic* argument that explains something on the physical level, but does not require or rule out the existence of a metaphysical level - Would that still be an error?
     
     >>* Again, I'm out of my area, so my choice of terms may be incorrect. Hopefully my intent is clear?
     
     
     Crystal clear. I am in agreement. Naturalistic explanations can be and ought to be sought. It offers a type of verifiability that revelation cannot.
     By the same token when they contradict or ignore metaphysical realities or explanations, then there is either a communication mishap between the 2 or one is wrong. Both do wll to keep the dialogue going.
     There is a provewrb that states: "With wisdom, the worlds were created" Wouldnt you agree that the information systems
     that "run" tis universe are clever. Perhaps, on the othe hand, there is no such thing as "intelligence", which would be the logical outcome of a purely naturalistic explanation>

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364. 364. Frank M 01:20 AM 5/24/08

     sologos, I loved your refutation of the "chaos leads to order" fallacy of the Darwinists.
     
     Chaos leads to chaos. Order leads to order. A mix of the two could lead predominantly to one direction or the other, depending. Unless the order attractor is very powerful and consistently applied, chaos is the natural outcome of the mix of chaos and order. It could also be a chronological thing, such as whether your dispenser of an oil and vinegar mix has recently been shaken up or if it has been sitting.
     
     Sologos> "The order is built in to the force itself, and it is the intelligent source of information that runs that particular system."
     
     Agreed. Consistently applied order requires intelligence.
     
     Sologos> "Gravity, furthermore does not run down the way heat does(it is a force not an energy). My question is why not? What is continuosly replenishing this force(or, for that matter, any of the 4 forces) with a continuous supply of order producing (ie. intelligent) and beauty(pretty as you put it) producing ( ie.aesthetic) power."
     
     Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but the rest of your comments are spot on.
     
     To get back to the topic of a life force, causing such things as intelligent genetics, reproduction and functional proteins, it is essentially the same thing. It is a force constantly applying order. Pigeon calls this hypothesized force an "intelligence force", but I find the term "life force" to be more apt, since all forces of nature show intelligence in their fine-tuned harmonious nature. (to borrow Einstein's term for describing his reason for belief in a higher power).
     
     I do believe that intelligence is more undeniably obvious in living things, but I agree with Einstein that all the forces of nature show tremendous, constant, unexplainable pressure toward order in ways that can only be explained by intelligence.
     
     Darwinists believe, foolishly, that so-called "natural selection" is the order that tidies up all the supposed chaos in genetic information. But the myriad and unpredictable causes of death are actually the only random accident element of evolution.
     
     Selection is a subtractive filter, not an attractor. It does not force order or even actively encourage order. It merely eliminates disorder. With nothing to create order, Darwinist accident dies an early death. Darwinism is chaos (random mutations) run through a filter that eliminates chaos.

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365. 365. Frank M 03:08 AM 5/24/08

     Eastwood, I have to ask: When you say that "statistical inference" is your "expertise", are you saying that you have read up on some websites pertaining to it or that somebody actually PAYS you to tell them that no mathematical calculations are possible?
     
     Eastwood> "Statistical likelihoods are ALWAYS very small."
     Frank M> Not really. They can be 100%. Depends.
     
     Eastwood> "There is one and only one way for a likelihood of a given hypothesis to equal 1.0. You do this by presuming a hypothesis is correct and not allowing even the possibility of any alternative. Is this science?"
     
     No, it's math. If you have a penny, what are the odds that you have a penny? 100%.
     
     Now, to apply it from math to science, one must be open-minded enough to leave the door open to future discoveries, but if all you have as an argument is the "anything's possible - some day they might think of something" uselessness, then don't expect anyone to be impressed with your "science".
     
     Your assertion that statistical likelihoods are "ALWAYS very small" (caps yours) is false. Even if you want to hold me to something just less than 100%, it still is not "small".
     
     Eastwood> "Were you really a math major?"
     
     Yes, what was your math education?
     
     As to Dembski, I don't read much of his stuff, but I suppose I could as easily link iscid and let everyone read his full context statements, but I'm not sure what your point was with this link. The subject matter was statistical impossibility, of which I use Borel's standard of 1 out of 10 to the 50th as a threshhold beyond which we should all agree to look elsewhere. I use it because I see most mathematicians using it.
     
     Dembski's calculations seemed to omit the vast amount of space that COULD contain a particle as well as the rubics cube of possible combinations. Even if he had calculated correctly, he still wouldn't have proven true impossibility, so it would still be an arbitrary number.
     
     Still the numbers do help put into perspective the finite nature of the universe and the enormity of these scientific notation numbers. To me, statistical impossibility simply says that if the odds against you being correct are 1 in 100 quindecillion - get out of my face.
     
     Sorry to put it in such non-mathematical terms, but I do believe that we need some sanity to this whole "anything's possible" argument of the Darwinists.
     
     Eastwood> "Because the mathematics of ID is utter nonsense."
     
     This link had virtually nothing to do with the mathematics of ID. I would have thought it was a mistake, but you linked it twice. Whatever...
     
     Eastwood> "Further, the same arguments can lead to any conclusion, even the non-existence of God, or the existence of a Flying Spaghetti Monster that created all."
     
     No, evidence would need to be presented that shows a FSM or the non-existence of God. I have seen neither. Until someone observes noodly appendages falling from the sky every time a cell divides or egg hatches, then we need not fear the FSM being included in classroom material. We also should not include Darwin's random chance mutation fiction or his selection fallacy, as there is no evidence of either.
     
     Eastwood> "Douglas Adams most certainly did not believe in God, Creation, or ID."
     
     The Wizard of Oz said "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!" This is an appropriate quote for an analogy to Academia's approach to protecting Darwinism from dissent. This holds true whether the author of Oz believed in ID or not. The author's beliefs were not my point, of course.
     
     Your link on a subsequent post provided even less substance. All it did was provide the origin of the expression "It's not even wrong." It had nothing to do with ID or our discussion.
     
     Are you capable of thinking and presenting an argument all by yourself? Your links are not fact based, nor do they constitute a coherent argument. Simply state your opinion and we can discuss it. If we get to a point where we disagree on any pertinent FACTS, we can link away. Until then, I think you are just trying to impress yourself.
     
     Do you have a point to make (other than just "ID is crap" with nothing to back it up)?

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366. 366. Frank M 03:29 AM 5/24/08

     Tommo, I have been reading your messages regarding irreducible complexity and Behe's theories regarding it.
     
     Unlike the others, I have read "Darwin's Black Box" and I am very impressed with Behe's skills in microbiology.
     
     Not so impressed with his presentation skills, however. He overshot his definition of irreducible complexity to the point where virtually anything refutes him. He claimed that a system was IC if the removal of any part would cause the system to not function. This meant that all his detractors had to do was find one part of each of his examples that could conceivably be used for something (anything, anywhere in the body, with or without evidence) and IC was "refuted".
     
     A better definition would be that an IC system is any system that could not have had a Darwinian origin. This, however, means that all systems are IC, which is in fact the case.
     
     I also believe that the concept of IC gives too much credence to selection stupidity. There is no reason why we could not have had a series of modifications that led to a final product, nor is there any reason why we couldn't have gotten them all at once. Selection is nothing. It is all about the genetics.
     
     Attempts to refute IC are an exercise in lunacy. They either start with the IC stuff already in place and then add window dressing, or they take one thing, then stretch it, chop it, change its tissues, move it, then plug it in somewhere else seamlessly. It would have been far easier to start from scratch.
     
     Every part of every living thing is irreducibly complex. Life formation by accident is not even remotely possible.

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367. 367. sologos 06:17 AM 5/24/08

     Frank M says,
     
     
     
     >>>>Selection is a subtractive filter, not an attractor. It does not force order or even actively encourage order. It merely eliminates disorder. With nothing to create order, Darwinist accident dies an early death.
     
     
     Well said, Frank M. The thought that dumb laws could create consciousness appears counterintuitive because it is. Well designed experiments will, I am persuaded, ultimately demonstrate that this wildly imaginative notion is just that. The selective processes, we would all agree, cannot draw the fittest, teleologically. Amazingly appropriate as it may be to suit the job of allowing only a felicitous reality, it is only itself reflective of the information placed into it.
     
     In the meanwhile beyond the survival of the fittest, one must scrutinize the Darwinian supply of the fittest. There will be survival of only the fittest, it is true, but the big mystery is not the survival, but the supply of the fittest. However work the creative force, its product, ie the supply, must comport with the selective process, or be eliminated. So which might be this marvelous mechanism?
     
     
     Darwin postulates the source of this supply to be random mutations. Does randomness really exist in nature or is it just a metaphysical notion? What infallible statistical test does one apply? Are beneficial mutations front-loaded? These are all questions that one could discriminatingly ask of a lot of the data that has been used to designate chance as the supply of the fittest. Gallapagos finches, with their abilit to morph both frontwards and backwards would be an excellent place to begin.
     
     Let us remember that there are not an infinite variety of mutations, only certain types. Nor are there an infinite number of base pairs to play with. Perhaps this would be a question for Eastwood. Would there not have to be an enormously large number of mutations(more than mere chance would allow) to call it truly random, and yet be fruitful and consistent with a selective process that results in such things as consciousness. Please tell me why shouldn't this stop with just a very uninteresting primordial soup?
     
     There is certainly no limit to imagination in the theories that we are capable of concocting from a universe devoid of order to multiple universes. One has to wonder at the driving force to eliminate the obvious explanation of design.

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368. 368. sologos 07:29 AM 5/24/08

     Tommo, Thank you for your remarks, I'll have to give them some more thought. I will respond to one, not to refue but by way explaining my meaning.
     
     
     I>>> was speaking about god of the gaps as, and I'm stealing this from a documentary called flock of dodos (not sure of the author etc... off the top of my head), Behe taking a system and saying it is irreducibly complex, and then part of that system is found to not be so. So he claims the rest of that system is irreducibly complex...and that remaining area is the gap where he and his fellows at the discovery institute want to argue that god sits. The problem is that it assumes evolutionary science will never chip further away.
     
     
     As I said before, God is in evey gap, bt I mean soething quit diferntly than the way G-o-t-g is generally issued as a critique of laziness of thought and dead end thinking. The G-o-t-gs criticism that you speak of is something I wholeheartedly condemn myself but bear with the following caveat. There are indeed bad gaps and good gaps. When someone is chilling further discussion by giving the God explanation for gaps in his naturalistic understanding, this is a bad gap. But there are areas that are outside he purview of naturalistic thinking yet relate to the physical dimension. Why there is something rather than nothing is one such gap that science, not only has no explanation for it at the present time, but can never even address it from a purely naturalistic perspective.
     Another gap that can never be addressed by science, (at least not with any naturalistic methodology it uses) which is the only methodology that is now used), is the metaphysical realm of reality. An idea, for example can be conceived in someone's mind, and there is most certainly, a chemical reaction going on in some part of the brain that co-relates to the formation of the idea. But the idea is not the sodium and potassium exchange across the membrane of the nerve as it fires and connects 2 parts of the brain. Furthermore, the idea, once expressed, can be received by another person, and this even with similar neural. pathways ticking off. It has an existence outside of the 1st person who conceived of it. The idea is not something physical. It is meta_(or beyond) physical. But can we, in any meaningful way, say that that idea does not exist? It is simply outside of the purview of our naturalistic endeavors to isolate it, test it, predict with it or falsify its existence.

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369. 369. EastwoodDC 04:16 PM 5/24/08

     > Crystal clear. I am in agreement.
     > agreement. Naturalistic explanations can be and ought
     > to be sought. It offers a type of verifiability that
     > revelation cannot.
     
     Thank you, that was the sort of answer I was looking for, and I think this is a key point. Where you say that reductionism is in error, I would say it is doing exactly what it is intended to do.
     
     > By the same token when they
     > e token when they contradict or ignore metaphysical
     > realities or explanations, then there is either a
     > communication mishap between the 2 or one is wrong.
     
     I am not sure what you mean by metaphysical realities, but perhaps that is beside the point? Given different methods of reasoning, it is no surprise that different conclusions are reached. This does not imply (again IMO) that one must be wrong, it just illustrate the difference in methods.
     
     This is one strength I see in your arguments; you admit to more that reductionist reasoning, where others claim their methods are reductionist (scientific) to prove that which reductionism cannot. (Again, I am uncertain of the correct terminology and hope that my intent is clear.)
     
     > Both do wll to keep the dialogue going.
     > There is a provewrb that states: "With wisdom,
     > isdom, the worlds were created" Wouldnt you agree
     > that the information systems
     > that "run" tis universe are clever. Perhaps, on the
     > othe hand, there is no such thing as "intelligence",
     > which would be the logical outcome of a purely
     > naturalistic explanation>
     
     I'm going to have to look up "naturalistic" again, because you seem to be saying something I did not expect. Still, I think I take your point. There is more I would say, but time forbids. I'll close with this bit of wisdom:
     
     "I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine. Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose." (JBS Haldane)

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370. 370. Fallen Away UU 04:41 PM 5/24/08

     I used to be an Darwinian evolutionist. I still believe in micro-evolution (i.e.. all the varieties of species), but not cross-species evolution (i.e.. fish-to-ape-to-man.) One can be proven, the other, not. Absolutely not. Micro evolution can be observed. Macro evolution theory has never been proven, which is why I now consider it false science. Believing in theories that are unproven requires a leap of faith.
     
     For those of you interested in detailed scientific "theory" about ID, which is well thought out and presented, check out "I Don't Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist" by Frank Turek. I found the arguments interesting and impressive, although I still can't qualify them as totally scientific and require some faith.
     
     Some of you who are claiming to be so knowledgeable about evolution, are only parroting what you've been taught through a system which represses any counter thought like ID, which is whole point of Stein's movie. Sometimes in analyzing each little point about things, we miss the big picture. Is the premise of Expelled true? Are academia and other professionals cast out and cast aside if they disagree with the "scientifically accepted" explanation of the origins of life? No doubt. That's the big picture.

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371. 371. Frank M 01:37 AM 5/25/08

     Fallen Away, don't you know it is "pseudo-science" to observe what the EVIDENCE is showing you? Only unproven conjecture that follows no logic or math is allowed to be taught as undisputed fact in science class.
     
     I also was a staunch Darwinian. My Dad bought me a book about evolution while I was in high school and I ate it up. I went to college to learn Biology and thought the theory of Darwinian evolution was both factually based and logically sound. But then I learned too much. I started asking my professors questions they couldn't even begin to answer.
     
     As to micro versus macro evolution, repudiation of either one falls under the theory of ID. I have corresponded with many IDists who feel that microevo, but not macroevo, could have happened by accident.
     
     There is a sharp dividing line here. Macroevolution requires a whole new genome, a range of sudden new physiologies and the inability to procreate with the species from which you were begat. None of these three things should be possible, nor have any been observed. The only new speciation we have seen has been polyploidal plant speciation or insects that debatably are not a new species.
     
     Still, I will not side with you if you believe microevolution can occur by accident. Any observed variations that constitute a functional, beneficial modification should be accompanied by quintillions of messy asymettrical freakish mutations, unless something is guiding the genetics.
     
     I do agree with your inference that a system that "represses any counter thought" should be suspect as far as credibility goes. It behooves all of us who care about science to take a strong stance against the type of intellectual repression that sciam supports.

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372. 372. Frank M 04:07 AM 5/25/08

     Tommo and sologos, allow me to add my two cents on the "God of the Gaps" versus "Science of the Gaps" argument.
     
     My first point is that Darwinism isn't a fully explanatory system that just awaits the discovery of a missing link to tidy up a few "gaps". The theory is nothing BUT gaps.
     
     But the question remains as to how to deal with gaps. I would say that we need to be very clear about what the gaps are when we teach a theory to a science class. We shouldn't teach Darwinism as undisputed fact when there is so much to refute it. Even if there were just one flaw that we have no answer for, we should note that this may be a fatal flaw. We should note that we do NOT have a real complete answer.
     
     I will also say that ID is not entirely comprised of refutation of mainstream Darwinist evolution. Much of it is based on solid evidence of how we reproduce in modern day observation. ID merely states that we have always reproduced and functioned as intelligently as we do today. I'm not talking about the intelligence of the human brain, but the intelligence of our overall design and the intelligence of our genetics.
     
     We should never assume that gaps will be filled at some later date. We should not pretend that they ARE filled with our fingers crossed behind our backs, hoping that some new discovery will emerge to fulfill our hopes. If there are gaps, then our theory is in doubt, if not crisis, and essentially it is refuted until something fills the gap.

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373. 373. Frank M 05:37 AM 5/25/08

     Sologos, you bring up some excellent points. You stated it well when you said the "big mystery" is not survival of the fittest, but ARRIVAL of the fittest. We had to be created before "selection" could do anything at all. The million dollar questions are all pertinaing to PRE-selection mysteries, so we reallt need to drop this "selection" distraction.
     
     Selection is a subtractive filter that eliminates the very thing that random mutations ought to create. The Darwinists insist that something had to have lived, but this is not the case at all. If chaos was alone at the helm, we would have begun and ended in primordial soup, as you say.
     
     Sologos> "The thought that dumb laws could create consciousness appears counterintuitive because it is."
     
     I agree that it is counterintuitive, and I am not the least bit persuaded by Materialist claims. Neuroscientists such as Abel and Kandel have demonstrated that thoughts are immaterial and it is immaterial thought that CAUSES changes to chemicals, electrical activity and cell wall formation.
     
     You noted this in another message and I completely agree: The suggested thoughts of a third party do create neural pathways. Materialists say that reading and hearing are visual and audible stimuli and that the brain is acting upon that data, but it takes intelligence to process data. And it takes free will, a desire to live and intelligence to do something about it that is self-preserving.
     
     Sologos> "Gallapagos finches, with their abilit to morph both frontwards and backwards would be an excellent place to begin."
     
     I agree, because they are a proven case of predictable genetic editing. There is nothing remotely random in the genetic formation of their beaks. This has been shown to be a genetic modification that jumps back and forth between genetic codes, each time according to need. The concept that genetics are random is hopelessly refuted.
     
     Likewise experiments with the peppered moth, collared doves and bacteria have been nothing less than jaw-dropping. I have believed for 30 years now that genetics were intelligent, but I had never dreamed the evidence would be this startling.
     
     Sologos> "Let us remember that there are not an infinite variety of mutations, only certain types."
     
     True, you don't see much genetic editing on our inner organs, just the cosmetics of our face, skin or skeletal system. Oddly, our fingerprints change every time.
     
     I don't even use the word "mutation" unless we are talking about a radiation or chemically induced interference with the natural state of intelligent genetic editing. The asymmettrical malformation of radiation victims is telling, because it proves that genetics COULD create asymmettry and freakish forms. It just never does, unless something goes wrong.
     
     Sologos> "Nor are there an infinite number of base pairs to play with."
     
     You had to go there. I'm not sure our group of "that's what they told me in school" Darwinists are ready to accept this argument, but you are dropping a bombshell here. There are roughly 3 billion base pairs to play with in us humans. This sounds like a huge number, but it is nowhere near the number of cells to be specifically placed, let alone the contingencies of regulatory systems and the timing of growth or the instructions for pregnancy and so forth.
     
     In other words, what we have is enough information to fill an Encyclopedia, but we need enough information to fill a city library. Where do we get the rest of the information?
     
     Much of what is inherited is not genetic. Instincts, for example, are inherited thoughts that are not genetic. This is hard enough for Materialsists to accept, but realistically, much of what happens internally in our bodies could not be genetic or accidental.
     
     We have already discussed brain formation and the formation of neural pathways. This is, of course, not genetic, at least not in any specific cell formation way. Electrical activity in the body and especially in the brain is not genetically precise in its activity. It is controlled with incredible precision by something immaterial that we are not aware of.
     
     Other body parts also grow and develop based on need, not on genetics. Your vascualr system is an amazing example. Genetics don't tell your blood vessels where to form. But something does. If you are skinny, but then put on 100 pounds or so, your vascular system will re-form and grow to keep up, automatically. Existing artieries and veins will not only allow seamless splicing, but they will re-form their diameters to allow for increased flow and proper blood pressure. The FGF-1 proteins will be racing ahead, creating veins and capillaries for every new artery and other proteins will, in unison, create new arteriole muscles with anchor points for blood flow regulation.
     
     Count on it. But none of this is explained by luck or by specific genetic DNA-RNA-protein style placement of connective tissues. There will be no random variations that affect this, nor have there been since the first closed circilatory systems evolved.
     
     Sologos> "One has to wonder at the driving force to eliminate the obvious explanation of design"
     
     It is no longer seriously possible to confront the obvious reality that we were designed and are being molded and created constantly by a superior intelligence. Why does this bother a lot of people to just admit it?
     
     Well, I was reluctant at first myself, so I understand the reticence to a point. It almost seems like failure when you have to admit something that SEEMS unscientific turned out to be the real answer. I came from the scientific background, not the religious, so it is hard to admit I was wrong. But the evidence is too overwhelming and conclusive. In the end, though, I would rather promote the truth and continue seeking the truth than seek solace in something I already know is a lie.

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374. 374. rooseveltdecosta 06:38 PM 5/25/08

     Distinguished friends of science and others,
     
     You may have noticed that I have refrained from posting for quite some time. My trust in the intelligence and enlightenment of man has been greatly shaken by the postings from the heavily vitriolic, yet grossly misguided creationists. Please do not regal me with arguments concerning "ID", it is already an established fact that "Intelligent Design" is merely creationism with an amaturely applied paint job. However, my blood was recently boiled by the comical postings of Mr. FrankM. His disregard for established fact reminds me of an infant who has not yet achieved object permanency. His propagation of unscientific filth in a scientific arena reminds me of the young child who asks his father why it rains, and then believes his father's answer that it rains because the angels are crying. However, rest assured, it is not the angels who are crying, but God himself as he sees how far his children have strayed from their path. I need not produce any articles to prove the illegitimacy of Creationism. All I need to do is observe a man like Ben Stein and like minded others. It then becomes readily apparent that there was no intelligence involved when he was designed.
     
     Mahalo,
     R

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375. 375. EastwoodDC 08:29 PM 5/25/08

     Catching up with Frank M:
     
     Eastwood> "There is one and only one way for a likelihood of a given hypothesis to equal 1.0. You do this by presuming a hypothesis is correct and not allowing even the possibility of any alternative. Is this science?"
     
     Frank M> No, it's math. If you have a penny, what are the odds that you have a penny? 100%.
     
     A penny is a penny. Congratulations Frank, you have discovered mathematical identify. What sort of hypothesis is this?
     
     Frank M> Now, to apply it from math to science, one must be open-minded enough to leave the door open to future discoveries, but if all you have as an argument is the "anything's possible - some day they might think of something" uselessness, then don't expect anyone to be impressed with your "science".
     
     How about leaving the door open to apply scientific methods? Oh wait, ID can’t do that without invalidating itself, can it?
     
     Frank M> … The subject matter was statistical impossibility, of which I use Borel's standard of 1 out of 10 to the 50th as a threshhold beyond which we should all agree to look elsewhere. I use it because I see most mathematicians using it.
     
     Really? Where? Oh that’s right ... you don’t do facts, do you?. I looked up the Borel limit because I strongly suspected it was being misquoted and abused. Guess what? (http://www.aetheling.com/essays/Borel.html) It is.
     I thought I might have to dig out some really old journals for this, but others have been there before me. It is so nice to work from a solid foundation built by others; I really think it’s an idea that might catch on.
     
     Frank M> Your assertion that statistical likelihoods are "ALWAYS very small" (caps yours) is false. Even if you want to hold me to something just less than 100%, it still is not "small".
     
     Perhaps “small” is a relative term, and I should have been more specific, but my point still stands. I regularly calculate model likelihoods hundreds of orders of magnitude smaller than this Borel limit (10^-50). Therefore ID is impossible too. Right?
     
     For the record, my previous statement about ID is NOT a valid inference. It is just some numbers taken out of context, which is my point. The methods of ID are intentionally misleading and abusive.
     
     The bases of almost everything I have posted are nothing more than the requirements of a simple hypothesis test. Most people in science related fields have some exposure to basic statistical methods and understand this quite well.
     A serious discussion of likelihoods would require some knowledge of basic probability and statistical theory. I used likelihoods to illustrate my point, but they are not really necessary, because ID never gets so far as to pose a testable hypothesis under which that probability can be correctly calculated, much less evaluated. As I previously stated, ID does a lot of arithmetic (not even statistics) to no purpose but misleading people.
     
     > Do you have a point to make (other than just "ID is crap" with nothing to back it up)?
     
     I think my point is clear, and [i]I could not have asked for a better demonstration of all that is wrong with ID[/i] than the examples you provide. I have no expectation of changing your mind; I just want to point out the false reasoning of ID for anyone else that may read through. In this you have been enormously helpful.

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376. 376. Frank M 01:44 AM 5/26/08

     roosevelt-whatever, it is no wonder you have not posted in a while as it seems you have nothing of value to say.
     
     I may strongly disagree with Eastwood, Pigeon and Natedog, but at least they are attempting intelligent discussion.
     
     I need only point out that your "insight" was as devoid of anything resembling "science" or even any particular argument - outside of childish name-calling - as most Darwinist have shown so far.
     
     Thank you for being the proverbial classic example of the absolute absence of science in the Luck Theorist camp.
     
     Hilarious....

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377. 377. sologos 02:56 AM 5/26/08

     Eastwood writes,
     
     sologos:
     
     >> Crystal clear. I am in agreement.
     > agreement. Naturalistic explanations can be and ought
     >>> to be sought. It offers a type of verifiability that
     > revelation cannot.
     
     
     Eastwood:
     
     >>Thank you, that was the sort of answer I was looking for, and I think this is a key point. Where you say that reductionism is in error, I would say it is doing exactly what it is intended to do.
     
     
     At least partially, the confusion arises fom my use of the term. Some entries back, I was referencing "materialistic reductionism" which is basically an ideology that rejects the very existence of anything that isn't amenable to naturalistic methodologies. What you see, is what you get, and all you get. I have been using the shorter term, reductionism to mean that ideology. I believe your use of the term relates to the more common definition, reduction of complex systems to the simple components, which is how the experimental method operates.
     
     But semantics may not tell the whole tale of our differences. There remains implicit within the experimental method, the often unintended denial of the existence of the immaterial. Therein is th inherent weakness and limitation of the method.
     
     Surprisingly, the loss is not limited to the supernatural. There are many other boundaries in reality by which methodological naturalism is inherently repelled. The brain/mind connection is one of the obvious examples that comes up, but it doesn’t stop there. Thought, ideas, even art and music don't really “exist” to the strict reductionist either, if we carry out the implicit world view within naturalism. You can break down music to the properties of sound , harmonics, sensory reception, neural pathways, even different CNS centers, and still not get the point.
     
     It's not that most who use the methodology actually believe that .You yourself(if I understand you correctly) would like to work with a paradigm whereby a naturalistic explanation somehow doesn’t ,of necessity, deny the supernatural, and thus you can still believe that the jury is out on immateial. This, for the most part unintended "side effect" of naturalism, is either unrecognized or ignored as "outside of our discipline". People seem quite happy to carry out their investigations not feeling compelled to connect the dots to any metaphysical roots.
     
     My experience is that most would simply say, who cares? It is not within our domain. But I would contend that it most certainly must be within the domain of science (the very word means the quest of knowledge). Should it not be the realm of science to inquire into the origin of substance, for example? Does predicting behaviour of an entity define what that entity is? If science is about cause and effect, what causes ideas? To deny the connection is at best naïve, at worst intentional blindness.
     
     The problem, it appears to me is that science has come to be defined more than anything else by its methodology. Despite the many refinements over the last 400 years, this methodology remains quite primitive in that it cannot factor in the immaterial. We don’t see it as primitive, of course, because we are duly impressed by the spectacular and glamorous progeny of the method, technology. We’ve been swept up in the momentum of 400 years of “success”. It’s time, however, to realize that science is bigger than that. ID is simply one of the brakes on the pendulum swing. The problem that these people are finding is that there doesn’t appear to be any room in the equation for the metaphysical. Its not that methodological naturalism is bad or wrong or obstinate. It’s just too primitive to entertain the immaterial. Hence the clumsy efforts to introduce a new science. This is not unlike the introduction of any new paradigms over the long (5000 years) history of recorded and prehistoric science. It is the guardians of the old paradigm whose job it is, as good apologists of the old paradigm to point out that it doesn’t fit. They are correct, if unimaginative.
     
     
     > By the same token when they
     > e token when they contradict or ignore metaphysical
     > realities or explanations, then there is either a
     > communication mishap between the 2 or one is wrong.
     
     
     Eastwood writes,
     >>I am not sure what you mean by metaphysical realities, but perhaps that is beside the point? Given different methods of reasoning, it is no surprise that different conclusions are reached. This does not imply (again IMO) that one must be wrong, it just illustrate the difference in methods.
     
     There ought not be different conclusions. God wrote 2 books. They are speaking of 2 dimensions of the same reality. No conflict, just different angles of view.
     
     Eastwood:
     >>This is one strength I see in your arguments; you admit to more that reductionist reasoning, where others claim their methods are reductionist (scientific) to prove that which reductionism cannot. (Again, I am uncertain of the correct terminology and hope that my intent is clear.)
     
     I agree.
     
     > Both do well to keep the dialogue going.
     > There is a proverb that states: "With wisdom,
     > the worlds were created". Wouldn't you agree
     > that the information systems
     > that "run" this universe are clever? Perhaps, on the
     > other hand, there is no such thing as "intelligence",
     > which would be the logical outcome of a purely
     > naturalistic explanation>
     
     Eastwood:
     >>I'm going to have to look up "naturalistic" again, because you seem to be saying something I did not expect. Still, I think I take your point. There is more I would say, but time forbids.
     
     OK
     
     Eastwood:
     
     >>I'll close with this bit of wisdom:
     "I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine. Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose." (JBS Haldane)
     
     Yes!

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378. 378. rooseveltdecosta 04:03 PM 5/26/08

     Ah-ha, well I don't prefer for events to have played out this way, but somebody has to expose the ID apologists for what they truly are...liars. FrankM, I did not need to present any evidence because it has already been said. However, since you clearly seem unable to peruse a scientific text, I will provide you with a link to an article which is representative of actual science and the scientific method, http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2008/05/behe-vs-lamprey.html, and not evangelist propaganda. Concerning those who still believe that "ID" is somehow different than creationism you may refer any questions to Dr. Eugenie C. Scott. She has exhaustively and unequivocally proved that they are one and the same. Again, seeing as how you proved your inability to conduct meaningful research of any kind, FrankM, I will do your work for you and provide you with the link to the Institute from which she derives employment, http://www.ncseweb.org/article.asp?category=21 . My child, you see that in order to develop a competing theory to evolution regarding the origin of man, the onus would be on actual scientists to provide tangible evidence that can refute the mountains of evidence supporting evolution. Any rational child can easily understand that Creationism fulfills none of those requirements. The next time that you want to try to play with the adults, you should go and buy some scientific textbooks and read them whilst in the comfort of your mother's basement. Please do not hesitate to ask if you would like me to clear anything else up for you. Another one bites the dust!
     
     Mahalo,
     R

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379. 379. EastwoodDC 08:47 PM 5/26/08

     This is somewhat off-topic, but I think it might be helpful to take a moment and read about trolls:
     
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sockpuppet_%28Internet%29
     http://www.flayme.com/troll/
     http://www.flayme.com/troll/eradication.shtml
     
     I have also engaged in the practice of [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll]"feeding a troll"[/url] because of statements so egregious I could not let them pass unchallenged. I did modify my strategy though, and I have been much happier with the results since doing so.

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380. 380. EastwoodDC 09:00 PM 5/26/08

     Sologos:
     
     Wow! Nearly 400 posts into the thread and we finally have some common ground. This calls for celebration, and maybe a national holiday (which conveniently it is, in the USA anyway). :)
     
     Though I disagree on any number of points, I respect the basis of your position and thank you for your calm persistence. There are any number of things we might discuss further, but I think I will call this progress and take the rest of the day off.

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381. 381. kakskee 09:16 PM 5/26/08

     Would an intelligent designer allow religious fundamentalists to evolve? ... However, I believe that all things that exist and events that occur do serve a purpose or they would not happen. Natural law.
     
     History indicates that scientific evidence eventually proves its theories and the religious will mostly come to accept the proof.

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382. 382. Frank M 05:41 AM 5/27/08

     Eastwood, I'm not even sure what your points are. One problem with trying to make links do all of your talking is that it leaves it entirely unclear what you are trying to say. For some reason you seem to be taking issue with either the concept of statistical impossibility or for the particular standard used. Actually, I have no idea what your point is.
     
     Frank > "The subject matter was statistical impossibility, of which I use Borel's standard of 1 out of 10 to the 50th as a threshhold beyond which we should all agree to look elsewhere. I use it because I see most mathematicians using it."
     
     Eastwood> "Really? Where? Oh that’s right ... you don’t do facts, do you?. I looked up the Borel limit because I strongly suspected it was being misquoted and abused. Guess what? (http://www.aetheling.com/essays/Borel.html) It is."
     
     Your link certainly doesn't provide any assertion of misquote, since it is Borel who popularized the statistical impossibility threshhold. He did it because he felt that there needed to be a common sense agreement that beyond a certain point, we should agree that a thing can not happen.
     
     I certainly wasn't claiming that Borel himself agreed that any particular genetic change was statistically impossible, if that is your concern. I doubt he knew anything about genetics in his lifetime. I only mentioned the man because you posted a link decrying Dembski's version of statistical impossiiblity and I said I use Borel's, not Dembski's.
     
     Could you please state your complaint about statistical impossibility? Too arbitrary? Do you feel it is too low a number? Disagree about who should get credit for creating it? What "facts" are you disputing? What is your point?
     
     The individual who created the website you linked did not dispute the validity of statistical impossibility itself, nor did he take issue with Borel. Obviously anti-Creationist, he did express his reasons for disagreeing with the APPLICATION of Borel's limit in the case for intelligent evolution. On this, I can give him more credit than I could give you, however, his reasoning is horribly flawed.
     
     He is essentially trying the anti-math Eastwood approach that nothing can be calculated. He laughably uses the following example as his sole refutation: He points out a particular desert and asks what are the odds of the desert occurring by chance. If he knew anything about weather systems and ecology, he would know the answer is 100% - or should I say just less than ;) 100 %. We know why the desert exists.
     
     Genetics are particularly easy to calculate odds for, because of their very nature. Same thing with card games or lotteries - they are mathematical in nature and therefore, lend themselves to clear and precise calculations rather than estimations.
     
     DNA crosspieces have encoded information on them that is spelled out in a series of codines using as bits of information four nucleotides arranged in varying orders. The nucleotides being A, G, C and T (adenine, guanine, cytosine and thymine). These codes translate through RNA to proteins telling the proteins what to do in building the body and carrying out its functions. Most possible outcomes would render quick death to the host creature, plant or human, but the encoded arrangements stay within a certain gene pool of functional and beneficial usages. In other words, they maintain coherence, as a book would maintain language and topic.
     
     But a book couldn't maintain coherence in language and topic by simply typing haphazardly, could it? Beyond the remote odds of one or two delete buttons or minor keystroke additions, that even then would have to incredibly lucky, the answer is no, it is not possible to randomly enter information into a book and maintain coherence. The more you try to add, the more likely that you will be typing gibberish and any large-scale re-write by accident is in Borel's territory, even with quadrillions of attempts.
     
     Even moreso with biological creatures, even the slightest change is likely to bring death or great harm. Even small upgrades would require at least a few dozen bits of information, and most observable changes would be measured in the thousands. A species change would be a gigantic number and it was the Darwinist J. Huxley who calculated that it would take 1 x 10 the the 3000th power new bits of information to go from single cell to horse. Can it happen by accident?
     
     No. And to say it cannot be calculated is a bald faced lie. It is, in fact, simple to calculate, once they determine the number of bits of information that had to change and the number of births available for the modification. They can figure the odds of getting it just as well as they can figure the odds of typing a coherent book.
     
     Eastwood> "Perhaps 'small' is a relative term, and I should have been more specific, but my point still stands."
     
     You have a point? Really? Which link spoke for you on "your" point?
     
     Small IS a relative term. Is 99.9999999% "small" to you?
     
     Maybe we should drop this "all statistics are small" stupidity, but here you are saying your point still stands or even that you have a point.
     
     Eastwood> "I regularly calculate model likelihoods hundreds of orders of magnitude smaller than this Borel limit (10^-50)."
     
     Are you sure Borel would have approved of your usage of his standard? So you do statistics for a living? If the likelihoods are less than Borel's limit, do you disagree with Borel and say that it is still a possibility worth consideration? I am really trying to fish here to see if you actually have a point.
     
     Eastwood> "Therefore ID is impossible too. Right?"
     
     Not sure what you meant by this, but yes, theoretically it could be said to be impossible, except for the fact that, unlike Darwinism, we actually SEE it.
     
     Eastwood> "For the record, my previous statement about ID is NOT a valid inference. It is just some numbers taken out of context, which is my point. The methods of ID are intentionally misleading and abusive."
     
     All I see here is that is seems as if YOU are admitting to being misleading. You can speak for yourself, but you have no idea what the intent of others might be. I still await the first example of anything "misleading" or even "abusive" in the mathematics of ID.
     
     Frank> "Do you have a point to make (other than just "ID is crap" with nothing to back it up)?"
     
     Eastwood> "I think my point is clear"
     
     I wouldn't have asked if your point was clear, but I see that you still are refusing to make a point.

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383. 383. EastwoodDC 06:44 PM 5/27/08

     > Would an intelligent designer allow religious
     > fundamentalists to evolve? ... However, I believe
     > that all things that exist and events that occur do
     > serve a purpose or they would not happen. Natural
     > law.
     >
     > History indicates that scientific evidence eventually
     > proves its theories and the religious will mostly
     > come to accept the proof.
     
     Indeed. The Christian fundamentalist "literal" interpretation of the bible is itself a reaction to the development of a scientific theory of evolution (no time to dig for a reference today). Two hundred years ago no one would have suggested that the bible was meant to be interpreted literally. In a sense, this whole movement has [i]evolved[/i] due to the pressures of the social environment. Nice irony there.

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384. 384. Frank M 12:17 AM 5/28/08

     rooseveltdecosta, I am already quite familiar with both of your links and have been studying the life sciences for three decades since the days I was a Biology Major in college. It is more than a little humorous to be called "my child" as I am 50 years old and a grandfather.
     
     I am not a Creationist or evangelist, let alone a child, nor am I opposed to evolution. Why would you reference evidence for evolution when I have been a staunch supporter of evolution my entire life? I am an evolutionist.
     
     roosevelt: "Ah-ha, well I don't prefer for events to have played out this way, but somebody has to expose the ID apologists for what they truly are...liars."
     
     Ooooh. Are you sure it isn't a bit too harsh to unleash your dreaded reference to Genie Scott? What a brutal onslaught of "information" you gave me. So now do I reference somebody who supports ID and back and forth to prove ourselves?
     
     Obviously that is some sarcasm as I am having a little fun with your top hat and pompous demeanor. Really, I am not sure why you would not have prefered "for events to have played out this way", as it is customary to state opinions on a blog. The attempts at belittling me by referencing me as a child really just reflect on your own maturity, of course.
     
     Your only real claim on your latest message was to re-state the lie that ID and Creationism are the same. You or Genie Scott could fool people who know nothing about ID, but I happen to BE an IDist, so I KNOW what I stand for and am willing to keep fighting the good fight in defense of science.
     
     ID is completely different than Creationism or Materialism. Both Creationism and Materialism start with a pre-drawn conclusion with nothing but old texts as a reference. Then they stodgily defend their a priori determinations despite having no evidence and mountains of evidence against them. In fact, both Creationism and Darwinism are religious faiths, resting only on wishful thinking against all evidence.
     
     ID, on the other hand, is exclusively evidence-based. We start with no "default truth" as the Darwinists and Creationists do. We observe the evidence and find the best explanatory measure for the evidence. We do not rule out either the material or the immaterial as possibilities. The results of open-minded learning have been astonishing.
     
     Mathematical realities as well as the realities of modern day observations are clear on at least one thing - molecules are not animating, reproducing or thinking by random acts of luck. There isn't much else we have eliminated yet, but Darwinism belongs in the trash bin.
     
     Creationists say God did it.
     Darwinists say random luck did it.
     IDists say SOMETHING other than luck did it.
     
     roosevelt> "The next time that you want to try to play with the adults, you should go and buy some scientific textbooks and read them whilst in the comfort of your mother's basement."
     
     In the future, please try to raise the level of maturity in your blogs. Thank you in advance.
     
     roosevelt> "Please do not hesitate to ask if you would like me to clear anything else up for you."
     
     Ah! I think I'll take you up on that. Where shall we start?
     
     1. What combination of materials are needed to create a consciousness? If intelligence itself isn't a sign of intelligence, what is?
     
     2. How did the first living thing form? How did the first ancestor combine the ability to animate, reproduce, process energy and process proteins into a little fragment of mud with a mathematically impossible genetic code?
     
     3. If genetic modifications are random, why do we fear radiation's effects? Aren't random mutations Darwin's way of improving all creatures? Shouldn't we relish mutations?
     
     4. Why don't living things have ANY tissues that have never had a purpose, even those that could do us neither harm not good?
     
     5. What are the odds of a mouse becoming a bat by random mutations? I'm certain that you have done extensive research to determine the number of bits of encoded information that were necessary for the jump, so I won't insult you with that, but what odds do you feel are accurate?
     
     6. How is it that each sexually reproducing species has both a male and a female, when becoming a new species requires a new genome incapable of procreating with any other species?
     
     7. How do the beaks of Galapogos finches genetically change back and forth between two beneficial sizes and shapes? Are mutations predictable and two-way, in other words need-based and intelligent?
     
     8. What animates matter in living things? Specifically, what animates matter during reproduction? Can anything reproduce without matter animation?
     
     9. What are instincts? Are they genetically inherited? Of so, how can mammals be domesticated, usually in just a couple of generations?
     
     10. When we form neural pathways in the brain: Are the formations pre-determined by genetics? Are they remnants of millions of years of "selection"? Are they random luck?
     
     There is much more, but this will do as a starting point. I have another 10 questions regarding proteins and their adherence to the genetic code and how they could possibly do it, but I don't want to get into the hard stuff yet.
     
     roosevelt> "Another one bites the dust!"
     
     How's it taste?

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385. 385. Tommo0809 02:47 AM 5/28/08

     Food for thought
     http://evolutionlist.blogspot.com/
     check out the SET/Margulis article when you get a chance.
     
     Frank M. - I'm still catching up after the long weekend, I'll get after your legitimate questions later this week (unless someone else decides to jump in). Howerver, one thing that I can agree with you on is that roosevelt character... pomposity at its finest. Although I don't exhibit the same amount of disdain towards those with whom I am discussing evolution, I do share his feelings of exasperation.

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386. 386. EastwoodDC 07:00 PM 5/28/08

     Tommo0809 posted:
     > Food for thought
     > http://evolutionlist.blogspot.com/
     > check out the SET/Margulis article when you get a
     > chance.
     
     That's a nice find, and there are some good comments following too. Now if only proponents of ID could do the kind of work that any other scientists have to do, then ID might gain some respect. I won't hold my breathe thought; The last I heard this kind of serious research on ID consists of 3 people in a back room at the Discovery Institute, and they are releasing any results for review.
     
     Here is something else to check out:
     "CAN PROBABILITY THEORY BE USED TO REFUTE EVOLUTION?"
     By [url=http://scienceblogs.com/evolutionblog/]Jason Rosenhouse[/url]
     In two parts:
     [url=http://http://www.csicop.org/intelligentdesignwatch/probability-one.html]PART ONE[/url]
     [url=http://www.csicop.org/intelligentdesignwatch/probability-two.html]PART TWO[/url]
     
     It is a bit of a read, but well worth the effort. Rosenhouse covers a lot of ground, from basic probability to expectations of the unlikely, and all at a very non-technical level.

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387. 387. rooseveltdecosta 03:09 AM 5/29/08

     Mr. Eastwood, Tommo, et al
     
     Gentlemen, it truly warms my heart to see that there are some of us who have the courage to stand up to the fanatical religious hacks. I commend you fellows on your commitment to the scientific method. It encourages me to fight for what is right each day that I can. Now, if we could only get those pesky little Creationists in line. Mr. Frank, in reference to your comments about Dr. Scott, some may find it very insulting how you dismissed the work of such a world renowned researcher. However, I know you simply do not have the capability to comprehend the nuances of her work, so I'll let that one slide. About my tophat, on the other hand, gentlemen such as those aforementioned and myself, when dealing with the rational and civilized world, have a responsibility to retain the dignity that the Almighty has bestowed upon men of our country. You see, my child, that many in this country espouse views that embarrass us on the world stage. If you would like the name of a tailor who can cut a fine suit, I would be much obliged to proffer you with one. Regarding your questions, I stopped reading them when I reached the one about the mouse/bat. I must say, thirty years spent in biology, if I were you I would request a refund because you clearly have no knowledge of the sort. Regarding your "research sources" I have actually utilized some of the same. You see I was recently conducting a study concerning the life expectancy of prehistoric man. Utilizing your sources, I came across data that proved ancient man lived on the order of 900 years! However, with a bit of cross-checking, I found out that the methods taken to record the data were faulty. My point is, you can make any scientific conclusion that you like, however, until you realize that one must utilize actual, with emphasis on actual, data and not just faulty logic to base that conclusion on, you will never be taken seriously in a scientific arena. I need not waste any more time dismissing Creationism. To the aforementioned Gentlemen, a giant Huzzah, you are the forces that pull our country out of the mud and into greatness. Bravo!
     
     Mahalo,
     
     R

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388. 388. Frank M 05:29 AM 5/29/08

     Eastwood, I had a feeling you had been reading somebody's website.
     
     Are you aware of the series of "Wistar" conferences, the first of which was held at the Wistar Academy? These were gatherings of Darwinists versus Mathematicians, and I use the word "versus" only because they were in sharp disagreement. With a total of 600 PhD's present, the best and brightest, there were some biologists there who opposed Darwinism, but the mathematicians were unanimously and unequivocally opposed to Darwinist math.
     
     Now let us break down Rosenhouse's objections, which sound a lot like your assertion that it is "impossible" to make calculations of genetic probabilities.
     
     Rosenhouse seemed to fully understand that "selection" does nothing to enhance odds, but later included "selection" as one of his two main objections to mainstream mathematicians. Which is it?
     
     His other objection was that "we simply assumed that every hundred-letter gene sequence was as likely as any other."
     
     To the extent that he is correct, we must understand that this factor works powerfully AGAINST the Darwinists. First, by far the likeliest outcome, based on all observations fossil and contemporary, is stasis. Tens of millions of years of consistency in body organs within a species have confirmed this profoundly. The eye, his example, developed in multiple species at once around 540 million years ago. It appears to be immediate and simultaneous, with a margin of error of about 10 million years.
     
     And it has stayed functional since, except in those creatures that no longer need sight. (Note, too, that vertebrate populations and probably birth rates were minimal at that time, so you don't have 12-digit scientific nomenclature to work with here.) Stasis, then, is by far the likeliest outcome, with only the tiniest sliver of exceptions.
     
     Further, the odds of such a contraption as a visual system requires the perfect balance of visual receptors (which are IC on their own), a pair of optic nerves that just happen to be in the right places, and a part of the brain that interprets these complex signals that can not be duplicated in a lab.
     
     Moreover, in order for the eye socket to form, the brain, respiratory system and exoskeleton had to alter themselves to make room.
     
     Furthermore, any gradualism ideations requires a SERIES of repeatedly lucky changes that just happen to follow the same pathway. If the eye development did any back and forth variation or developed by a more circuitous route (as probabilities would call for), then the odds get even worse.
     
     So when he says "some outcomes are more likely than others!" as a supposed objection, the eye would have to be considered one of the LEAST likely conceivable outcomes.
     
     However, we do the Darwinists a HUGE favor and treat ALL genetic code likelihoods as equal, just to avoid any crying foul.
     
     Rosenhouse> "Improbable things happen all the time, you see, and the fact that something is improbable does not mean that it cannot happen."
     
     However, once we get below 1 out 10>50th power (and we are FAR below that with the eye in each of the separate parallel modifications) we have a statistically impossible situation, which is exactly our point. "Improbable" happens. "Impossible" doesn't.
     
     Rosenhouse> "As a simple example, the next time you drive somewhere think about how improbable it was that all of the drivers in cars near you would be on the same road at the same time."
     
     This is mathematical idiocy, and as a professional he should be ashamed at being so misleading. So if there is a car on the road near me tomorrow I can win the lottery, right? He is essentially trying to claim that because the odds of one thing are extremely high, then all odds of all things are extremely high. This is a low point in non-math.
     
     Rosenhouse really shows his colors when he says the number of bits of information needed to make the eye is 100 bits, then innocently adds that the real number would be "far larger".
     
     Far larger indeed. 100 bits wouldn't get you a tear duct. The eye would have to measured in the tens of thousands of codines, if not considerably higher. Try explaining in any code how to build an eyeball, socket, optic nerve, rods, cones, muscles, lids, pupils, electrochemical impulses, visual recognition neural matter and that tear duct in 100 bits of information, using - not prose, but quantum mechanics at the molecular level as your point of reference.
     
     Bear in mind that once you get into double digits in bits, the odds become VERY large numbers, from which the number of births available become almost a moot point.
     
     My take is that those who try so desperately to claim that we "can't" calculate odds against their theory are really just not particularly happy about what the math is telling them. The good news is that the numbers against Darwinism are SO bad, that we can be VERY generous and still lock this down tight. They are trying to create everything from nothing - living, moving, replicating machines so complex that we can't even begin to understand how they work, all by a series of errors with blobs of goo. There is a reason Darwinists like to disregard mathematics.

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389. 389. Tommo0809 12:20 PM 5/29/08

     Frank: Your continued use of IC is as perplexing as your obvious misunderstanding of evolution (i.e. how does a mouse jump to a bat) as to your math argument, read a book:
     http://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Evolution-Fred-Hoyle/dp/0966993403
     
     Eastwood: interesting stuff again, I think Dawkins tackles it pretty well in his god delusion book, but this guys stuff is a litte more ground level for those of us who haven't seriously worked with probability since their undergrad years.

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390. 390. EastwoodDC 04:36 PM 5/29/08

     [b]Tommo0809[/b] wrote:
     > Eastwood: interesting stuff again, I think Dawkins
     > tackles it pretty well in his god delusion book, but
     > this guys stuff is a little more ground level for
     > those of us who haven't seriously worked with
     > probability since their undergrad years.
     
     Yes, and I'm not likely to gain much ground trying to explain graduate level stat-theory in a discussion forum either, so I try to keep my sources simple. ;-) You don't really need a lot of math though, just a basic understanding of what it means to pose a research hypothesis.
     
     I'm not sure how relevant a ~40 year old conference is, but after 5 minutes of digging I found many references to how creationist misuse publications of the [url=http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/barkercarrier.html#Wistar]Wistar institute[/url] (one of them, anyway). That link is a long read mostly concerned with another debate, but references [url=http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/barkercarrier.html#11]#11 and #12[/url] are more specific.
     
     Here is the [u]good[/u] part if you want to skip the long read: The one paper presented at Wistar (author: Eden Murry) that made any claim against evolution was thoroughly criticized by the Wistar institute itself, and the author retracted any such claims in the same publication (see first link).
     
     [url=http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2008/02/id-intelligent.html]Panda's Thumb[/url] has a good write up on the 1966 Wistar conference too (far better than mine).
     
     --
     Edited by EastwoodDC at 05/29/2008 10:51 AM

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391. 391. Tommo0809 05:52 PM 5/29/08

     > [b]Tommo0809[/b] wrote:
     > > Eastwood: interesting stuff again, I think
     > Dawkins
     
     >
     > I'm not sure how relevant a ~40 year old conference
     > is, but after 5 minutes of digging I found many
     > references to how creationist misuse publications of
     > the
     > [url=http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_ca
     > rrier/barkercarrier.html#Wistar]Wistar
     > institute[/url]. That link is a long read mostly
     > concerned with another debate, but references
     > [url=http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_ca
     > rrier/barkercarrier.html#11]#11 and #12[/url] are
     > more specific.
     
     -essentially its "history-mining" as opposed to quote-mining

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392. 392. Frank M 02:31 AM 5/30/08

     roosevelt, I can see you are a bit of a loon, but I should go ahead and clarify something so that other readers aren't misled by you.
     
     I do not reference the Bible as a source and I consider the Bible to be a work of men who had no idea what they were writing, not some divine document. So please don't put words in my mouth. I already stated clearly that I am not a Creationist.
     
     Has anyone heard from Pigeon? I had a good conversation going with him. He actually is one of the few Darwinists I have seen attempt to make a point in favor of his theory.
     
     Speaking of pigeons, anyone heard about Darwin's dabbling in the British Pigeon Clubs? He joined two of them to study the effects of the artificial selection of the pigeons. The pigeons were getting some outstanding plumage from such selection techniques.
     
     What troubled Darwin was the predictable nature of the modifications despite the fact that they were clearly different family lines held in captivity. He also noted that no matter how much the pigeons changed, they still remained pigeons.
     
     What bothered him most, though, was the disturbing fact that as soon as the pigeon collectors stopped artificial selection practices, the birds went right back to their original genetically dominant grayish color.
     
     Genetics aren't random. There are variations within a gene pool that essentially remain functional, formed, symettrical and in cohesive units. They are indeed a "pool", not an ever-widening river.

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393. 393. rooseveltdecosta 05:33 PM 5/30/08

     FrankM,
     
     This is going to be a rather long post, however, since I am taking the time to present this material that you have failed to dispute, I hope that you take the time to read it. If you are unable, please scroll down to number 5. Regarding your comments, a bit of the pot calling the kettle black.I believe a loon is somebody is repeats the same action over and over while expecting a different result. To me, that sounds a lot like the creationists/IDists, making the same claims all to the same effect, yet bewildered by the fact that they are still considered lunatics by mainstream society. Misleading, a slight chuckle to myself, misleading is the main business of the ID establishment, as you soon shall realize.
     
     1. Introduction: Of Pandas and People, the foundational work of the 'Intelligent Design' movement by Nick Matzke.
     In this article the author presents evidence for his conclusion that, "In fact, all of the basic arguments of these ID proponents are found in essentially modern form in the 1989 Of Pandas and People (Behe's irreducibly complexity argument is found in the 1993 edition of Pandas)."
     
     2. Affirmation of ID by the fanatical religious right from ,
     Scott (1992): Televangelist Promotes Of Pandas and People
     by Eugenie C. Scott, "and as was actively promoted for public school use by creationists, starting in Alabama in 1989 and continuing throughout the 1990's. After 2000, Pandas activity largely died down (the last edition having been published in 1993), but in 2004 the school board in Dover, Pennsylvania accepted an anonymous donation of 50 copies of the Pandas book, now 11 years old. The board subsequently passed a policy mandating the teaching of ID
     Televangelist James Dobson's group, "Focus on the Family," is a leading proponent of the religious right agenda. In the summer 1992 edition of his Citizen newsletter, Dobson
     directs his supporters to march down to the school board and demand of Of Pandas and People be used when evolution is taught. Pandas, of course, is a creationist "intelligent design" book intended as a supplement to high school biology courses."
     
     3. The result of a little bit of scrutiny of the sources of the so ironically named discovery institute, Analysis of the Discovery Institute's Bibliography (2002 Ohio Board of Education Science Standards)
     by NCSE Staff
     "NCSE concludes that the only purpose of the Discovery Institute's Bibliography is to mislead members
     of the Board and of the public about the status of evolution."
     
     4. A quick, yet interesting look at how the "institute" has evolved over the years.
     http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/articles/8325_evolving_banners_at_the_discov_8_29_2002.asp
     
     5. And finally, the most interesting evidence at all, a couple of court cases. (Tommo, you sound as if you have a background in the legal arena, you may be able to verify the veracity of these for Mr. FrankM as he has proven himself unable to in the past)
     
     In 1997, in Freiler v. Tangipahoa Parish Board of Education, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana
     Besides addressing disclaimer policies, the decision is noteworthy for recognizing that curriculum proposals for "intelligent design" are equivalent to proposals for teaching "creation science".
     On August 13, 1999, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the decision; on June 19, 2000, the Supreme Court declined to hear the School Board's appeal, thus letting the lower court's decision stand.
     In his 139-page ruling, Judge Jones wrote it was "abundantly clear that the Board's ID Policy violates the Establishment Clause". Furthermore, Judge Jones ruled that "ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist,
     and thus religious, antecedents". In reference to whether Intelligent Design is science Judge Jones
     wrote ID "is not science and cannot be adjudged a valid, accepted scientific theory as it has failed to publish in peer-reviewed journals, engage in research and testing, and gain acceptance in the scientific community". This was the first challenge to the constitutionality of teaching "intelligent design" in the public school science classroom. (Tammy Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al., Case No. 04cv2688)
     
     A most damaging indictment indeed of the link between creationism and intelligent design. Consequently, I feel that this scientific forum should no longer acknowledge any points of argume nt from the "religionists" because it has been proven that they have displayed no scientific intiative. Instead, we should devote our time to examining the complexities of the theory of evolution in order to further our understanding so as to better lead those children who have gone astray. Gentlemen, today is a bright day for our cause and will surely be remembered as a victory against those intent on returning America and its people to the religious fearmongering reminiscient of the middle ages.
     
     Mahalo,
     
     R
     
     --
     Edited by rooseveltdecosta at 05/30/2008 10:39 AM

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394. 394. EastwoodDC 06:59 PM 5/30/08

     Roosevelt:
     Thank you for your kind words. As a statistician I am fortunate to be able to contribute my skills to the efforts of a great number of researchers. This is often far more than just crunching the numbers, because a big part of my job is to help investigators pose their ideas as testable hypotheses. I hope that some of this comes through in the discussion.
     
     You beat me to the punch on the "evolution" of the DI banners, I was about to post that one myself. :-)
     
     May I suggest you go back and read my post about trolls? [url http://www.scohen.org/scohen/archives/2006/03/29/like-wrestling-with-a-pig/]Wrestling with a pig[/url] gets old after a while.
     [on the edit-->] If you think you can actually persuade Frank then you are more optimistic than I. Still, someone should take the time to smoke out the falsehoods, and I believe that any serious reader will appreciate your efforts. Nice job too.
     
     [b]PS[/b]: I recently discovered the "Invite Friend" link (under Menu in the profiles), and some of you folks should check your messages (Left hand sidebar: My Content --> messages).
     
     --
     Edited by EastwoodDC at 05/31/2008 6:59 PM

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395. 395. sologos 05:10 AM 6/1/08

     Friends, I am having trouble getting my comments posted, as SCIAM appears to be blocking my entries, saying that the content violates their standards. I am not sure why this is happening. Any suggestions?

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396. 396. sologos 05:18 AM 6/1/08

     I will try to break this post up into several entries to see if I can get this posted.
     
     Tommo suggests the following read:
     
     >Food for thought
     http://evolutionlist.blogspot.com/
     check out the SET/Margulis article when you get a chance.

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397. 397. sologos 05:20 AM 6/1/08

     2nd entry
     Thank you Tommo. I enjoyed taking in that information. As a creationist, myself, you might imagine that I would have a different take on some of the thoughts expressed in this blog as well as the precise significance of Margulis' work.
     
     Firstly, I do admire the persistence that she has shown despite the unfavorable 30 or so years of criticism from the Darwinist community. You may take exception to my reaction to that, but I must say that it sounds a lot like the persistence of those who believe in the theory of design. Before you react too reflexively to this comment, however, allow me to express a few other thoughts that might be relevant.

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398. 398. sologos 05:23 AM 6/1/08

     3rd entry:
     
     
     I took note that Margulis did address what I consider to be one of the big dilemmas that Darwinists are yet to acknowledge, and that is time. With every turn of the wheel of complexity, the chances that 5 billion (or 5 trillion years, for that matter) is sufficient time for Darwinian forces alone to bring us to he present state of complexity and diversity becomes more remote. .

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399. 399. sologos 05:28 AM 6/1/08

     4th entry
     
     At least,she addresses that, though probably not expressly. The jump in complexity from prokaryotes to Eukaryotes is made in hyperspeed with her paradigm as compared to Darwinian evolution.

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400. 400. sologos 05:33 AM 6/1/08

     5th entry
     
     She must have taken off billions(I am, of course, speaking through my hat. No one knows how long it would really take, but evolutionists in general don't seem to worry about time) of years off the required time.

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401. 401. sologos 05:36 AM 6/1/08

     6th entry (Iam really sorry about this)
     
     As to her much admired work and proof of her theory, I noticed by reading some of the links (again I sincerely appreciate this reference, Tommo. No sarcasm intended) that iher theory lacked the gold standard (here, however, you will note sarcasm) of a testable hypothesis. There was no insistence that something predictable and/or falsifiable be given before it would qualify as "legitimate science "
     
     What does take me back about the general ultimate endorsement of Margulis' work by the very community that scorned it to begin with, is the lack of demand that she propose, by experiment something that is testable.
     
     Now, before you jump on me, I am actually quite impressed by the evidence that she gives for her theory(though I do not agree with the theory, for many of the same reasons that I disagree with the inadequate explanatory thery of Darwinism). She is making observations that would indicate consistency
     with her theory. She has, most laudably, as apparently all, even the prototypic Darwinist, Dawkins would admit, done her homework and gotten her "hands dirty". She has amassed a considerable body of "evidence" to support her theory. But having said all this, the final acceptance of her theory along with all the rewards that science bestows on its great thinkers, has not been based on any experimental proof!
     
     Verifiability, which apologists for naturalism will tell you, belongs only to the realm of methodological naturalism with all its refinements over the last 400 years. I certainly say amen to that. No philosophy or religion can claim that status. So why then, in this case(and truth be known huge swarths of science, especially science of origins fall into this category), no insistence on the sort of lab work that Einstein's theory of relativity had to undergo before it was spoken of as reality?

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402. 402. sologos 05:38 AM 6/1/08

     7th entry:
     
     
     Why has no one insisted that Lynn get a couple of hundred vats of prokaryotes with known genotypes and subject them to all sorts of conditions. Feed them, starve them, heat them freeze them, oxygenate them, deoxygenate them, spill oil on them and subject them to wind waves, predators etc, and after the critical "TIME", examine them and see if any eukaryotes with new genotypes have emerged.
     
     
     The answer is clear, is it not? It is the same reason that we have not been able to demonstrate the theory of macro-evolution. We don't really have a couple of billon years to work with. Now I sympathize with the logistical problems that the "science" of evolution has in its attempts to actually show by experimental method that its theory (not the individual principles but the whole synthesis theory) cannot be thus verified. But I have to wonder at the sort of double standard that is being used when the evolutionary community flexes its muscles against a fledgling science that is trying to demonstrate design, insisting that it give what evolution cannot. In fact, if you will examine this very commentary where we are writing these entries, you will find it is replete with calls for ID to put up or shut up! It ia dificult enough for a new theory to try to explain itself to a hostile order, let alone that order insisting on a double standard.
     
     What will be acceptable as science?. Hasn't every new paradigm (not every new discovery) been resisted by the established scientific community? It appears that old paradigms lock us in to methods, tools, instruments(indeed even units or modes of measurements) and most of all world views that won't, because they can't "see" the new paradigm coming.
     
     My specific criticism of Margulis" work, having most solemnly acknowledged her dirty hands, is as follows. It suffers from the same lack of explanatory power as Darwinism. It makes observations that "could" be consistent with a larger picture of evolution, if, and only if evolution is the larger picture. The question is, can evolutionists step outside of their own thinking to recognize that they have so strongly adopted this theory, that everything seems to fit.
     
     
     But, it will be argued, look at all the massive amounts of evidence. I agree that there is a lot of pretty good and usable data out there. Darwin seems to have probed pretty deep into the fabric of the very universe (the universe is said to have evolved by similar principles on a cosmic level). Natural selection as a principle, it must be acknowledged, is a stroke of genius. But the theory of evolution is, in and of itself, not sufficient to explain it all. I am not speaking of the refinements that are yet to be made to the paradigm. I am speaking of the entire paradigm.
     
     There are massive assumptions made by Margulis. Ingestion of smaller by bigger organisms resulting in a mutually symbiotic union(something recognized by biologists for over a hundred years) is different than generating a new species. No mechanism is offered for the immeasurably more complex symbiotic union of inheritable material. Bacteria, in particular, are quite stable when it comes to translational intransigency.
     
     http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?
     
     
     
     Furthermore, the fact that mitochondria have their own genetic material does necessitate the assumption that it once
     must have been itself an organism. The corollary of this is the assumption that this genetic material is a vestigial remnant. Doctors used to lop out tonsils fairly regularly when youngsters got repeated tonsillitis because we assumed that tonsils were unneeded vestigial remnants.Then we realized that they play a lifetime role in immunity, not just against microbes but against carcinogens as well. In fact, all 37 genes that are in human mitochondria are essential for it's function. Which also leaves one wondering why would this genetic material be duplicated in the nucleus, a requirement for Margulis' SET? In point of fact, these very genes are capable of mutating,causing disease.
     
     http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/chromosome=MT
     
     Likewise, the extra membranes that are seen as vistigial remnants, actually serve other purposes. We have not even scratched the surface of the complexity of all God's creatures. The trend is not towards junk parts(even in DNA!) but rather towards functionality in the complexity. The double membranes are, in fact, essential and disruption of either membrane would cause certain cell death.
     
     http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1369163
     
     In general, the similarities she sees within these organelles as compared to other organisms has a simple explanation. It works!. Like limbs at all all sorts of levels in the taxonomic tree, they are a good idea for getting along with the environment. Yes, that sounds like creative selection (or as Dawkins might say, gives the "appearance" of selection.) Perhaps because in an evolutionary world view, there is no room for design. God must not be in this picture. This, I hope it will be clear is, in my view, far from achieving the desired neutrality, a particular bias.
     
     
     I will say tis about the blog. Though it may be informative, it is impossible, when the blogger has an agenda (and to be fair, this goes both ways)to tease out truth.

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403. 403. sologos 05:48 AM 6/1/08

     There. I got it all out, but I had to break it up into 7 entries. I did not change anything either. Does anyone kn ow why it was blocked?

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404. 404. Frank M 05:57 AM 6/1/08

     Eastwood, your "5-minute research" seems to be a quick trip to any website that is anti-ID, not much substance.
     
     Eastwood> "I'm not sure how relevant a ~40 year old conference is, but after 5 minutes of digging I found many references to how creationist misuse publications of the Wistar institute"
     
     You sure do cling to a century and a half old book that has been hopelessly disproven, but 40 years is ancient history I guess. Also, you felt pretty proud of a website from a fresh-out of-college "mathematician" who was been blogging against ID long before he became a mathematician, but you see HUNDREDS of the top minds in mathematics all assembled in one symposium as "irrelevent".
     
     ...And any evidence against you is "misuse", "misquote" or even "abuse". Yet you drool over Panda's Thumb, talkorigins and Wikipedia. Bastions of even-handed objectivity all. I am still left wondering if you have the capacity to speak for yourself without linking extremists.
     
     Eastwood> "The one paper presented at Wistar (author: Eden Murry) that made any claim against evolution was thoroughly criticized by the Wistar institute itself, and the author retracted any such claims in the same publication (see first link)."
     
     First, the man's name is Murray Eden, not Eden Murray, a chemical / electrical / biomedical engineering professor at MIT. He did NOT repudiate his lifelong stance against Darwinism. He was the only one who presented a paper because he was the one who's research and mathematical work refuting Darwinism was what led him to suggest the need for this conference in the first place. Invitees were not supposed to be submitting papers, although I suppose they could have at any point.
     
     OF COURSE, his work was rejected by Wistar, a branch of the Univ of PA, because it was an Academy of Physiology and Biology, a haven of Darwinism. It was not a Mathematics Institute, so it opposed the Mathematicians that it hosted.
     
     Moreover, Wistar was actually just the beginning of a series of such conferences over many years. They were held in places like Chicago and New York, but the name "Wistar" is often used to encompass all of them.
     
     So if you really want to know what the top minds in mathematics, working alongside Biologists, have to say about the math of Darwinism, there isn't a better place to refer to. What could be more important than 600 PhD's in Biology, Engineering, Physics and Mathematics gathering to work out the mathematical viability of Darwinist evolutionary theory? There could be no more powerful statement than that of this esteemed group.
     
     So why haven't you ever heard of it? (I'm assuming this, since you didn't even know Eden's name.) Why don't we teach it in science class? Why do Biologists try to silence it or dismiss it?
     
     Because it didn't turn out the way they hoped. The Mathematicians and Physicists soundly rebuffed the stupidity of the Darwinist illogic and mathematcal idiocy.

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405. 405. Frank M 06:45 AM 6/1/08

     Tommo, I have read Fred Hoyle and he was very influential for me. I'll try to quote him from memory: "You can be both scientist and atheist, and you can be both mathematician and atheist, but you cannot be a scientist, mathematician and atheist. To him, if you understand both biology and math (my two majors in college) you had to believe in God.
     
     Tommo> "Your continued use of IC is as perplexing as your obvious misunderstanding of evolution (i.e. how does a mouse jump to a bat) as to your math argument, read a book"
     
     Not much in the way of actual rebuttal there from you nor anyone else on this site (other than Pigeon). Can you make a statement that explains WHY you feel that we do not need to study the transition to becoming a flying mammal? Can you address my opinions about IC rather than just stating how perplexing it is? I can certainly read books just fine on my own, but this is a blog, not Amazon.
     
     As you see, none of my 10 questions to roosevelt (he failed to answer any) involved IC, and I don't lay too much weight on the Behe IC argument for design. I don't disagree with Behe, but IC is really a moot point that does not - by itself - disprove luck as a mechanism for creating life.
     
     It is silly to say that nothing is IC. Everything is IC. More importantly, evidence shows that organs come and go in full, cohesive units, not partially open / partially closed circulatory systems with half a heart gradually stretching pulmonary arteries toward the quasi-lung. There were no quarter stomachs gradually forming into full stomachs and then later getting digestive enzymes. Venomous snakes did not get tubes shooting out their fangs and then later get the ability to create venom.
     
     If you believe in the fantasies of the Darwinists, you know nothing about the life sciences. Our evidence never shows Darwinism. Fossil evidence shows that full teeth come and go, sometimes in pairs, fours or singles, but always eventually combining as foursomes. Quite designed and not the least bit random. We get no half teeth and the teeth are always the right shape for their function. Modern day evidence of the declining incidence of wisdom teeth shows that teeth do DE-volve in full tooth absences.
     
     More convincing yet are radiation mutation studies on rhodents. When they lose an organ, it is usually an entire organ at once. I would also note that we have no partial organs nor even any tissues that have never had a purpose in us.
     
     Tommo> "I think Dawkins tackles it pretty well in his god delusion book"
     
     Dawkins is a fool who made an idiot of himself on Expelled, but there is nothing funnnier in all comedy than Dawkins' hliarious attempt to describe how a watch could self-create. As Provine said before he died: If that is the best you've got, "the game is over".

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406. 406. Frank M 07:02 AM 6/1/08

     Roosevelt, if you want to know what someone thinks or believes, ask them. Want to know what the Progressive Party advocates? Read their platform. Want to know what I believe? Read my posts or just ask.
     
     But if you listen to people who are OPPOSED to ID and expect them to speak to the intentions of ID, you are not going to get an understanding of ID. Would a man ask for his ex-wife to be a character reference at a job? Obviously if you ask a bitter enemy of ID about ID, they will paint as ugly a picture as they can.
     
     I am an IDist, therefore you certainly can't convince me that I am a Creationist because I know better. You might falsely convince someone else, but how could you expect to convince ME - with ANY reference - as to what MY intentions are? I already know you are full of crap as soon as you start to type, because I know my own beliefs are not what you think they are.
     
     Of course there are some Creationists who use ID arguments to advance their own position. They are not IDists. If they use the G-word, they are jumping beyond ID into the world of faith.
     
     On the other hand, science is too tightly controlled by an Atheist sect that insists on limiting knowledge and evidence only to that which promotes materialist pre-determinations. We must rid scientific study of ALL religious bias, both for or against immaterial aspects of life.

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407. 407. Frank M 05:50 PM 6/1/08

     Darwinists are so bad at math they don't even know when a factor works for them or against them. They will complain that life may have started at an extremely simple pre-cellular form, not realizing it hurts their odds. They will insist on gradualism, despite the evidence, because it SEEMS more mathematically likely. (It isn't.) Their pride and joy, of course, is "selection", which only hurts their odds most of all.
     
     Let's see, we could live in a world where we reproduce and change by luck where nothing ever dies, or we could live in a world and change by luck where the environment and other factors kill off some of our creations. Which gives us better odds of forming highly complex creatures?
     
     A subtractive filter decreases odds of anything being created. "Selection" is a poorly named term that really means "most of them die, especially the poorly adapted ones." At the least they could call it what it is: DEselection.
     
     The only real use for selection as an argument for the Darwinists is as an excuse as to why we rarely see any bad, harmful or useless modifications. The excuse falls far short, because there should still be signs of useless but unharmful physiologies, but at least it should be acknowledged that death reduces the odds of life.
     
     Likewise gradualism betrays the Darwinists who cling to it, against all evidence. As soon as the first step in a gradual evolutionary development is identified, we have narrowed our pool of prospective upgraders to a single lineage. All other hopefuls are eliminated from the pageant.
     
     Now to attain step two, we may eventually populate with the supposedly slightly upgraded model, but we would have to find a supposedly random variation that affects the exact same part of the body. And it would have to proceed in the same general direction or it does not help us get down our gradual path, so only one type of change matters and only one lineage can have it, or gradualism is defeated as a model.
     
     And, of course, once we get this miracle step two, whatever populating we did between steps one and two is reduced back to precisely one lucky critter that must get to work keeping that gradual pathway going. It is a self-defeating process. Compare it to getting all the changes needed at once - a full and fully functional ocular system for example. Either way you still need to get from point A to Point B, but sudden leaps are far more likely odds.
     
     Yet we get treated to this drivel:
     
     Eastwood> "Roosevelt: Thank you for your kind words. As a statistician I am fortunate to be able to contribute my skills to the efforts of a great number of researchers."
     
     Excuse me while I go throw up. Do you give those researchers links to Wikipedia? Or do you actually speak for yourself? You seem completely incapable of explaining yourself here, except to claim the impossibility of doing math at all.

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408. 408. kakskee 11:47 PM 6/1/08

     A bit more evidence for evolution...
     
     We have witnessed a sector of creationists evolve into IDists - and there are still abundant creationists yet in existence.
     
     Evolution theory, I feel quite confidant, will eventually evolve into law of evolution. Darwin's law.

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409. 409. EastwoodDC 03:16 AM 6/2/08

     Sologos: (in reply to your recent posts)
     
     You sound as if you are unhappy with evolution because it does not yet offer all the answers. Is this not a bit too much to expect of ANY science, or for that matter, any discipline, philosophy, or religion?
     
     We seem to agree that there are some questions that are beyond the scope of science. Yet the very idea of using science to prove the existence of a designer (or God, if you want) is a direct contradiction to this.
     
     On a completely different subject, I have no idea why you were not able to post, unless maybe someone mistook you for Frank. ;)

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410. 410. Frank M 03:41 AM 6/2/08

     kakskee, confidence comes before the fall.
     
     Kakskee> "We have witnessed a sector of creationists evolve into IDists"
     
     Funny, I was a Darwinist who evolved into an IDist. Yet another example of parallel evolution, I guess!
     
     Just as Anthony Flew, the darling of the Darwinists for years, smartened up and turned IDist in his later years.
     
     I'll add you to the list of Darwinists with the usual trait of never presenting any ACTUAL evidence for the Luck Theory.

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411. 411. Frank M 04:26 AM 6/2/08

     Eastwood, the closest thing I could find to an argument from you in any of your posts is that you say IDist math doesn't consider other possible paths to the same outcome.
     
     That is not correct, but at least it is a point made, so I will reference it. Two main points: One, your accusation isn't true, and two, even just calculating the odds of the one successful pathway to the outcome has value.
     
     If you would read more neutral websites or books you would know that mathematicians DO take other pathways to the same possible outcome into account. No, they don't give every possibility among infinite scenarios equal weight. They give any particular possibility the weight it deserves, just as a risk assessor for an insurance company would do.
     
     Generally, they take an estimate of all births / hatches that took place in the species and in the time frame being examined. This becomes a part of the numerator in the ratio expressed as a fraction, but the number usually isn't much more than a dozen or so zeros, so it is essentially worthless as an offset to the huge denominator.
     
     Secondly, there is tremendous value in determining the odds of the ACTUAL pathway to an advantageous physiology or to a new species. As long as it is acknowledged that the odds given are for the actual pathway, then this is not "flawed", but a valuable piece of the puzzle.
     
     For example, many biologists and mathematicians have expressed concern over the rapid change in a branch of mammals from land animal to whale. The number of codines that had to change, while maintaining coherence and life-giving function, was huge. Yet in just a few generations (at most) a hooved, four-legged arteriodactyl became an early whale. The nostril gradually crawled up through the skull bones becoming a blowhole.
     
     The odds against this are easy to calculate, given the maximum number of births possible (for all we know the whale formed in one generation, but we take a liberally high number) and the bits of information that had to change. The odds against this are other worldly, but is this calculation "flawed" because it only takes into account the one pathway, the actual one?
     
     No, it is not. It gives extremely valuable insight. The actual path could be seen as by far the likeliest path, but we must acknowledge that there may have been other likely paths. We must count all births, not just of arteriodactyls, but of any pig-like creatures or any mammals that tended to venture into the sea at that time. (It actually helps the Darwinists that there are no transitional fossils, not that they realize this.) Still, even if you counted the births of every metazoan on the planet, you couldn't have turned a four-legged creature into a whale that quickly.
     
     Knowing the odds of the successful pathway gives us the ability to calculate further, learning the odds of other pathways as well.
     
     My general take on your posts, Eastwood, is that you want to stifle and dismiss all attempts to learn anything about the mathematical odds against Darwinism. It is as if you and other Darwinists are desperate to prevent people from asking questions, learning and unveiling the truth. If you truly wanted to promote the truth, you would be actively trying to FIND ways to better calculate odds, but that does not appear to be your goal.
     
     No matter. There are plenty of mathematicians who CAN do what you claim "can't" be done. We do need another Wistar soon, though.

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412. 412. kakskee 05:01 AM 6/2/08

     FrankM
     
     Could I challenge you to convince me (and maybe some interested readers) into becoming ID believers?
     
     I'd be interested in seeing a clear precise, brief as possible statement of belief relating to intelligent design.

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413. 413. Tommo0809 12:56 PM 6/2/08

     Tommo, I have read Fred Hoyle and he was very influential for me. I'll try to quote him from memory: "You can be both scientist and atheist, and you can be both mathematician and atheist, but you cannot be a scientist, mathematician and atheist. To him, if you understand both biology and math (my two majors in college) you had to believe in God.
     
     -so what are we talking about? IC? ID? evolution?god?. Hoyle's book makes the case for evolution through your numbers game. My last post doesn't say anything about believing in god and science, anyone is certainly entitled to "believe" in god, although some might say those two beliefs are quite irreconcilable. The book was merely an example of where the numbers work out for evolution, despite your repeated claims to the contrary.
     
     
     t is silly to say that nothing is IC. Everything is IC. More importantly, evidence shows that organs come and go in full, cohesive units, not partially open / partially closed circulatory systems with half a heart gradually stretching pulmonary arteries toward the quasi-lung. There were no quarter stomachs gradually forming into full stomachs and then later getting digestive enzymes. Venomous snakes did not get tubes shooting out their fangs and then later get the ability to create venom.
     
     -I figure that debunking one of your examples would be the same as debunking them all. Please check out the flock of dodo's documentary, there is a fairly concise description of digestive systems in nature and their fundamental flaws. (the description of the rabbit having to eat its food, pass it and then eat it again is pretty interesting if not stomach turning) Definitely not designed. Definitely not irreducibly complex. Same with the heart etc...
     This just seems to be a recurring problem with creationists, you guys look at something, say to yourself "it must be too complex" and then don't bother to do any research. Do you really expect people to believe these things just based solely on your say-so?
     
     
     
     http://bl[url http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2008/01/17/turning-a-mouse-into-a-bat-like-weirdo-in-one-easy-step/][/url]ogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2008/01/17/turning-a-mouse-into-a-bat-like-weirdo-in-one-easy-step/
     
     his section is responsible for regulating the levels of a[i] single protein in the developing lim[/i]b—with the protein at elevated bat levels, the mouse’s fingers grew long and slender.
     
     -maybe this is some evidence of how a mouse "jumps" to a bat.
     
     
     
     Dawkins is a fool who made an idiot of himself on Expelled, but there is nothing funnnier in all comedy than Dawkins' hliarious attempt to describe how a watch could self-create. As Provine said before he died: If that is the best you've got, "the game is over".
     
     
     -I imagine someone like yourself is not a big Micheal Moore fan. How is what stein and co. does in his movie anything different? He deceived noted scientists/"evolutionists"/athiests about the nature of the film and then played only roughly cut portions of their interviews. Not very objective Frank. Its funny that you think Dawkins was making a fool of himself, but his explanation was meant as an "example" of how life may have begun on earth (if were talking about the same thing here). At least the space aliens would be based in reality and not some unquantifiable, all-seer/doer/knower. As to the watch explanation, its the same as behe's mousetrap. Its all been refuted and its a faulty analogy at best. I'm not familiar with dawkins explanation of the watch, but to think that would have ANY bearing on the validity of evolution as a theory/natural law is ridiculous.
     
     -you can watch this whole video, (it might educate you a bit) but about three minutes into it there is a funny "ID" explanation for how the banana "proves" creation:
     http://www.rockefeller.edu/evolution/video.php?src=coyne[url http://www.rockefeller.edu/evolution/video.php?src=coyne][/url]
     
     
     
     -I began to reply to your 10 questions on roosevelts behalf, but by the time I read through them I realized that there was no point. You have not provided one piece of evidence for any of your arguments, most of these are just ideas in your head aren't they? Please point any of us to some type of peer reviewed research that will provide evidence in support of ID's hypothesis(ID has a ton of that stuff right? There is a hypothesis for ID right?). All I can see is your irrational distaste for evo masquerading as "improbability". And please don't think that those 10 questions you posed are unanswerable, there's a reason why they weren't addressed here, but you can find answers to many of those in a basic psych text book (read sections on cognitive, perceptual and developmental psych)
     
     --
     Edited by Tommo0809 at 06/02/2008 6:02 AM

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414. 414. Tommo0809 01:09 PM 6/2/08

     Sologos: I haven't had a chance to go through all of your responses, hell I haven't even had a chance to read through all of margulis's work. I just posted it as an example of work, like the big bang theory etc..., that was initially rejected en toto by the scientific community, but through research attained at least a modicum of respectability and upon being repeatedly tested and having its predictions verified moved into the mainstream... As opposed to staging a PR campaign and trying to force it into schools with arguably ulterior motives and then engaging in hand-waving and fairly dishonest behavior as a response.

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415. 415. Frank M 02:44 PM 6/2/08

     Tommo, you are trying to use one of the leading proponents AGAINST Darwinism as a proponent FOR Darwinism. I don't want to make you look bad here, but at least read your own Amazon book report.
     
     I actually read much of this book before it was published thanks to a newspaper editoriialist I corresponded with in the 1990's. Sir Fred Hoyle is famous for coining the term "Big Bang" and for his 747 analogy, but mostly he is famous for doggedly opposing every aspect of Darwinism. Despite the quote I referenced (intended as MY favorite quote, not yours), Hoyle was not a theist in the standard concept. Like Einstein, he believed in God through the combination of math and science, not faith.
     
     Tommo> "Hoyle's book makes the case for evolution through your numbers game."
     
     Did you even read it??? The exact opposite is true. The book is called "The Mathematics of Evolution", but it essentially shows the Darwinistic expression of evolution to be false. And it is not a "game" - It is hard facts. Mathematically there is not a shred of possibility that Darwinism is remotely sufficient to explain evolution. It is undeniable: Darwin was entirely wrong.
     
     Ironic that you would choose Hoyle to make your stand in favor of the Luck Theory. Amazing actually.
     
     Tommo> "I figure that debunking one of your examples would be the same as debunking them all."
     
     Oh really? Then since you just embarassingly debunked YOURSELF, does that mean everything you say is trash? What a lazy man's way of dodging discussion on an issue in which you clearly are either in over your head or know you are dead wrong. Nothing is "debunked" by linking a differing opinion (even if it had been one). It just means that the issue is contested, not that the most recent posting is now the "correct" version and others are falsified. Nor does providing dissent for one point invalidate ALL points, so your logic is extremely poor here. Even though you were wrong about Hoyle, you could be right somewhere else.
     
     I am also familiar with the flock of dodos doc. The entire concept of looking for "flaws" and then pronouncing an absence of design is ridiculous, because it completely misunderstands what design inference is. Moreover, the "flaws" listed are usually a matter of opinion.
     
     For example, the rabbit digestive system is actually ideally suited to it. It has a digestive chamber located in a unique location specific to the needs of a rabbit. Eating its own feces may turn your stomach, but the fact that they will eat their feces even when other food is abundant says they feel otherwise. Many of them live in areas where their main source of food is covered by snow all winter, so they are fortunate to have such an efficient use of nutrients.
     
     I have to laugh when I hear how desperate Darwinists have to reach to find so-called "flaws", but this is beside the larger point. Design inference is not based on limitless perfection agreed upon by all observers. Virtually everything that has even been designed has flaws, limitations and - eventually - complete breakdown. If the Space Shuttle blows up because of a bad O-Ring, does that mean it couldn't have been designed?
     
     The inference is based on a preponderance of the evidence. If we were accidentally formed, we would be a mess of asymmettrical blobs, none of which is functional and all of which is a complete mess. At the very least we should be loaded with unneeded, but unharmful, tissues and body parts. Any functionality at all (on a level more complex than padding, spacing or ballast) powerfully indicates design, because it can't happen by luck.
     
     Why did the rabbit even have a digestive chamber at all? Couldn't it have a bag of juices that DON'T just happen to connect to the digesto-excretory tract? How could any digestive system have such an IC enzyme production system or detailed and symettrical system of villi absorbing nutrients (and nutrients only) into the bloodstream?
     
     Behe was not refuted. I refer to my original point that just because others made a weak attempt to counter him does not refute him. It simply duly notes that there is dissent.
     
     I consider the fact that not one of my 10 questions were answered to be a challenge unmet by people not up to the task. Anyone with an interest in science would salivate over such scientific mysteries and the attempt to explain them. How sad that not one of you has even ventured to attempt any thoughts on any of it.
     
     Sologos, not even you? You are the only one here who seems to have a grasp of scientific knowledge.
     
     I thought this was "Scientific" American. Hmm.

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416. 416. Tommo0809 06:56 PM 6/2/08

     You are absolutely right about the hoyle remark. I should have double checked my sources an not relied on a book review from a crackpot website. Especially upon reading up on the hackneyed nonsense about the intelligent cosmic creator.
     
     -as for everything I've said being trash, I've merely attempted to provide examples of where your absolutism is wrong. I seem to remember your accusing roosevelt of being pompous, but have you read anything that you've typed? It's repetitiveness lands it somewhere between narcissistic and nonsensical. You say that you don't rely on IC and then cite it repeatedly. The only reason any of your arguments carry the slightest bit of weight is because of a vague, meandering defintion of ID. All you have is the argument from ignorance over and over and over again with a little bit of the old creationists' improbability. And it seems to me that you consider complexity to be similar/ if not identical to improbability. So like I said, debunking one of your examples is essentially the same as debunking them all because they all attempt to make the same point in the same way and many of them have already been refuted. (IE digestive system, eye etc...)
     
     -as to your questions, again, no need to revel in the fact that no one has answered them on this site. Some may in fact be legit (if only slightly irrelevant to the evolution debate), however, many of them have been answered. You obviously are having a hard time coming to grips with facts and prefer to shout "evolution has been disproved" repeatedly but never really saying how. I might give you some credit if you could provide ANY evidence for that, but its become quite apparent that you are unable.

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417. 417. EastwoodDC 08:00 PM 6/2/08

     Tommo0809 wrote:
     > ... I might give you [Frank] some credit if
     > you could provide ANY evidence for that, but its
     > become quite apparent that you are unable.
     
     I tried giving Frank some credit once, he just argued against it. ;) If you argued that white is white and black is black, he would probably disagree with that too. Frank is an [i]internet troll[/i]. He doesn't care how wrong he is, he just wants a forum to spout his beliefs. Replying directly only feeds into his bad behavior, but like you, I can't bear to let his comments pass unchallenged. I have taken to simply correcting some of his more egregious errors in a more indirect manner (like this post).
     The good news is, posting a few facts that any reasonable person can verify for themselves takes only a few minutes of time, while Frank's ravings cost him hours (or more, if his kids shut off the computer. Go kids!). All in all I think it a few minutes for the cause of science seems to be time well spent.
     
     I should add that although Frank and Sologos support some of the same conclusions, Sologos is at least able to state his case without being a troll. Proof positive that good people can disagree on good terms.
     
     One more: I looked up "argument of incredulity", a term you used a few days ago that I wasn't previously familiar with. Fabulous! A perfect description for Frank.
     
     --
     Edited by EastwoodDC at 06/02/2008 1:02 PM

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418. 418. Tommo0809 08:20 PM 6/2/08

     Eastwood, I think i've learned my lesson. Thanks. You know I originally thought the troll moniker was reserved for our buddy roosevelt at first, but after a few go arounds with Frank I've been able to put two and two together.

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419. 419. Frank M 08:53 PM 6/2/08

     Tommo> "I rather like Michael Moore's movies, actually, but I have little empathy for people who say they would have "answered differently" if they had known that the opposition would also be allowed to speak. Say what you mean and mean what you say, otherwise don't blame anyone else when your own words come back to haunt you. False pretenses? Did they not know it was a movie about the causes of evolution? Please.
     
     I do believe that there is a need for PR in the ID movement. The evidence is in and the results are conclusive. Yet the problem is that any talk of an immaterial force at work in life and reproduction is met with intense opposition, because there is a Materialist mandate in place. Academia and those empowered in the scientific community have ruled out in advance any answer that includes an intelligence at work.
     
     The public believes that there is overwhelming evidence against Intelligent Design, but that religious zeolots keep trying to infuse faith into the equation. The truth is strikingly the opposite: ALL evidence points to Evolution by Intelligent Design, and only blind faith against all hope keeps Darwinism alive, but a powerful minority of scientists insist that only Materialist (Atheist) answers will be acceptable.

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420. 420. EastwoodDC 09:00 PM 6/2/08

     Tommo0809:
     
     Roosevelt is merely "righteously indignant". :)
     
     Please don't think your time has been wasted. You make insightful comments that have let me learn something new, even if Frank is a lost cause. I suspect there are other readers (lots of them) that agree.

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421. 421. kakskee 09:22 PM 6/2/08

     Well...I'm sure Mr FrankM et al could make great hockey superstars if they could stick-handle a puck as well as they can stick-handle their verbosity.
     I'm assuming today must be "pick on FrankM day.

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422. 422. Tommo0809 11:35 PM 6/2/08

     Eastwood: Same to you. And by no means do I find this website a waste of time. For example I noticed that you are a fan of PZ's Pharyngula blog. I like going there to get a hold of current events type stuff relative to the field (some of it is admittedly over my head), but what I don't like is that the discussion on his site seems VERY one sided. Most of his regular readers/commentors share similar beliefs and similar backgrounds so there isn't a whole lot of back and forth at a level at which I can regularly participate (some of his readers do get into it with each other regarding a lot of the more technical aspects, but I don't have the background to hang with that and go to school at the same time.) However this site definitely has a more diverse following which allows for a more accessible debate to those of us who don't hold a PhD in Bio etc...

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423. 423. Frank M 02:22 AM 6/3/08

     kakskee, I'm not sure I can sum up all of the reasons to be an IDist in one blog message, but I will try to narrow it down to general catagories of evidence. Most people start with the lack of evidence for, and the mathematical impossibility of, Darwinistic evolution. But I will begin with a general description of the Anti-Materialist explanation of life itself:
     
     Life is an immaterial force that intelligently animates and forms matter (and intelligently controls electrical impulses) for the purpose of sustaining itself. This life force IS your intelligent consciousness (and subconsciousness) and as soon as you lose it, all of life's activity stops. As long as you have this force - proteins, chemicals and other organic matierials will be animated, formed and energized VERY intelligently and efficiently for the purpose of keeping you alive. This animation of matter is required for reproduction and even genetics are intelligently encoded for your needs or for those of your offspring.
     
     You will never read the above in a school textbook, because of the "implications", but it is far more widely believed (if not the vast majority) in the scientific community than sciam would have you aware of. Materialists, of course, hold the opposite view: that luck combined molecules in such a way that they cooperate, replicate, animate, grow, heal, self-fuel, process proteins, see, feel and even THINK, by sheer accident.
     
     Neuroscientists differ, as some of the top in the world, such as Abel, Kandel and Squire, insist that thoughts release electrons and cause chemo-electric data transfers. (Rather than chemo-electrics and neural formations CAUSING random thoughts). Thoughts form dendrites and even full neural pathways, not genetic placement of materials, not selection, not "millions of years".
     
     Likewise with the formation of your vascular system, as it will change and re-form according to your needs. Injury and illness healing also happens intelligently and according to your needs.
     
     Genetics also are intelligently controlled and need-based. Bacteria, which remain in stasis for millions of years get the genetic upgrades they need within minutes in a petri dish when anti-biotics are applied. The Galapagos finches get genetic modifications back and forth depending on drought or rain conditions on the island. These have been confirmed as genetic changes to their beaks and they are not family lineage related as Darwin predicted. Similar results have been found in the peppered moth and collared doves, as well as arthropods. Genetics are clearly not random.
     
     If genetics were random even one parent to child birth would be a disaster. The only truly "random" mutations occur when there is harmful exposure to radiation or certain chemicals. In radiation experiments, physiologies are asymmettrical, messy and usually lethal. When not lethal, somatic mutations are not inheritable. Gametic mutations are sometimes inheritable to one generation.
     
     You see, there is a huge difference between truly random mutations and genetic variation within a gene pool. Imagine driving through suburbia, noting the differences between the homes. Sometimes the differences are minimal, but they are all intact functional homes. This is called "variation". Randomness, on the other hand, would put nails, planks, paint, glass, pipes and wires all over the premises in completely useless ways. Even if you started with a good home and made a random change, you would make a mess.
     
     What are the odds of making an upgrade - ANY upgrade at all - randomly? With no intelligent placement of materials, no common sense at all? Unless the upgrade is as simple as a doorstop or abstract art, you can throw as many construction materials as you want at as many as a billion homes at once and it would still not happen in billions of years. Even if it did happen ONCE, there would be a complete mess everywhere else in quintillions of homes.
     
     So where are all these messy mutant freaks that Darwin predicted? He said they all died off by natural selection apparently so fast we have no evidence of them, but basic field observations in recent centuries have pretty much blown the lid off that fallacy. There are not many wrong answers at all, even though we know by radiation experiments that freakish forms CAN happen.
     
     And there are absolutely NO tissues formed without having a need. The only purposeless tissues in any living thing anywhere are vestigial, which means they formerly had a purpose. Where are the stacks of useless but non-lethal blobs or muscles not connected to tendons or neural pathways going nowhere? Two million species and trillions of births/hatches/divisions have been observed and it seems that Darwin's numbers are literally reversed.
     
     But it still could have happened in prehistoric times, right? I mean, sure there are interrelated systems and complex microbiological systems galore, but they could have evolved gradually over millions of years, right?
     
     Wrong. First, we needed most of that stuff at the outset of metazoan life or we would have died. Next, gradualism is even more mathematically prohibitive than sudden leaps. Next, the evolution was parallel, in various classes of animals at once, not down one lineage. Moreover, the fossil evidence shows the sudden emergence of most of the irreducibly complex stuff all at once in the early Cambrian Period. Nothing gradual at all. Speciation likewise remained in stasis for millions of years and then suddenly changed to a new species, per the fossil evidence. Not getting into the "transitional fossil" debates here, just noting there was nothing Darwinian at all.
     
     As to the odds against any upgraded physiology in any living thing, or any new species, I'll leave that to the mathematicians who almost unanimously reject Darwinism as untenable. Entire conferences of mathematicians have soundly falsified Darwin's ridiculous attempt to create everything from nothing.
     
     It is easy to calculate odds, because genetics are mathematically based. These are actual bits of information that have to change during any modification. It is as easy to calculate as odds in cards or the lottery. But the odds are far worse than any lottery. The odds against accidental formation of complex functioning units is astronomical and must be written in scientific notation. A few billion births is negligible as an offset, so every single step of new physiology, new microbiological system or new species is statistically impossible.
     
     You asked for a "brief" synopsis, so I will skip about 90 powerful points and jump to the clincher.
     
     The code. There is no possibility that a detailed coherent code could accidentally arise. The only thing that is more a certainty of intelligence is the presence of intelligence itself (which we also have). If we found this code in outer space, we would say it is a certainty of extraterrestrial life. Yet biologists dodge the implications when it is in our hands.
     
     The code had to have directions for replicating itself in the very first living thing, a statistical impossibility as well as an unduplicated feat by the best and brightest of mankind. And any added information just becomes even more impossible because it would have to maintain coherency, which translates to form and function. Sometimes the modification of information happens by frame shift, which is a little like creating a changing image with a rubics cube.
     
     This code is not just gibberish or even a simplistic work of fiction. It is the extremely explicit quantum mechanical directions for creating complex living things, the greatest work of engineering ever.
     
     Oh but this amazing code doesn't just passively exist and make sense. This code is transcribed, read and obeyed unfailingly by what should be unthinking pieces of matter.
     
     RNA happens to coexist with it always, and this RNA happens to become attracted to it and perfectly aligns itself with it. Then the RNA actually TRANSCRIBES this supposedly haphazardly accidental code. Then the RNA breaks free and completes rhibozymal activity by dispatching proteins on functional errands.
     
     Let's stop here for a moment in case you are wondering if there is some sort of known force causing all these movements (you WERE wondering that, weren't you?). The answer is that there is no explanation as to motive force for RNA, any more than we have an explanation for cell wall and organelle movement in meiosis or cell wall movement in the thought process. Nothing appears to be moving the RNA to the precise correct places. But it gets wierder.
     
     The proteins that were dispatched do even more amazing things. They use organic materials to build parts of the body. They travel down through arteries and somehow knowing where in the body they are, they deposit the exact correct material in exactly the right place at exactly the right time as directed by the DNA. How they know where they are told to be or how they know where they are with no navigational skills is a complete mystery.
     
     We only know it is NOT a random accident, because they follow the code without fail, no matter what.
     
     All aspects of life are intelligent, including intelligence itself. Even instincts are non-genetic inherited intelligent thoughts. Fortunately, genetic material is just as intelligent as everything else in living things or we wouldn't be here. We couldn't live five minutes by accident, let alone 5 billion years. Nothing reproduces without intelligent animation of matter, an animation that has no known motive force, and inexplicably follows a mathematically impossible code.
     
     There is no third option to the basic question: Accident or non-accident? Unintentional or intentional? Is all of life, including intelligence itself, just an ongoing incredibly lucky string of errors, creating a consciousness? Or did consciousness itself animate matter and energy in an intelligent way to stay alive as it still appears to do today?
     
     We believe the latter is supported by all evidence.

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424. 424. Frank M 03:19 AM 6/3/08

     Tommo, I did not say your opinions were trash. I used that term as a rhetorical comeback to your assertion that you were "debunking" me with a book that actually runs completely favorable to my point.
     
     Just to reiterate, as I see a few of you are bent on making this personal, you said:
     
     Tommo> "I figure that debunking one of your examples would be the same as debunking them all."
     
     I said: "Then since you just embarassingly debunked YOURSELF, does that mean everything you say is trash?"
     
     To which I later answered my own question:
     
     Frank> "Even though you were wrong about Hoyle, you could be right somewhere else."
     
     So I did NOT say your opinions were trash, just defended myself from your sweeping generalizations.
     
     I am REALLY trying to keep this ON SUBJECT and factual, not a petty personal spitting match. Eastwood, your last half dozen posts or so have been laced with ad hominem attacks instead of anything scientific or factual. That reflects badly on you, not me.
     
     We strongly disagree on a hot button topic. That doesn't mean we have to squabble like children.
     
     People read this and can see for themselves who has presented evidence for their case. They can see who has stayed civil and who has resorted to personal barbs. Myself, I was out of line when I called roosevelt a "loon" and I regret it, but a couple of you guys do nothing but insult, which is a sign of weakness of both your argument and your character.

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425. 425. sologos 03:44 AM 6/3/08

     Several people seem to be thinkiung that Dawkins' remarks about extra terrestial origin of intelligent input, silly as some may think it sounds, is yet, in some way explanatory.
     
     
     Am I missing something? Isn't it clear that that just bumps back the situation a notch? Where did the ET's get it?

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426. 426. Frank M 04:11 AM 6/3/08

     Tommo, I will agree with you on this much. Hanging out at a one-sided extremist crackpot site like Myers' site is bound to do no good. With no dissenting opinions allowed, sweeping untruths are religiously embraced. Then when out in the real world, if anyone dares to disagree, it causes culture shock and frustration.
     
     From my experience, when Myers gets out on open websites and is faced with opposition he folds like a lawn chair, like when he thought he could sneak into a free showing of Expelled.
     
     I will give Sciam this must credit: Although they use petty ad hominem garbage to try to belittle opposition to their Materialist opinions, they DO allow dissent. I am living proof of that, since I am of a completely different opinion.
     
     Tommo> "The only reason any of your arguments carry the slightest bit of weight is because of a vague, meandering defintion of ID."
     
     Evolution by Intelligent Design holds that the facts of evolution as shown in the evidence are best explained by intelligent cause, not random accident.
     
     If there is something in particular that you find vague or meandering about that, let me know and I will try to explain. Obviously a lot can fall under that umbrella. Some IDists may feel that microevolution, but not macroevolution, can happen by accident and others do not. (I do not.) Let me know what your questions are.
     
     Tommo> "All you have is the argument from ignorance over and over and over again with a little bit of the old creationists' improbability."
     
     None of the mathematicians that I have read up on were Creationists. Even Dembski, who I have not read much of, is a Christian, but not a Creationist. He believes in common descent as do I. How does something as clearly mathematical in nature as statistical impossibility (not "improbability") get tangled in with the Bible?
     
     The oft misapplied "argument from ignorance" refrain is a Darwinist trick to try to make their lack of evidence seem like it makes them right. They complain that if you point out why they are wrong, it somehow makes US wrong, which then makes them right by default.
     
     An argument from ignorance essentially says that we know of no way that you could be correct, therefore, we believe that you are probably not correct. This is an extremely powerful argument, not a fallacy, but it is not in itself conclusive proof. A door is still open for as yet unnamed future revelations that may not even be a reality, but the evidence isn't looking good for your standpoint. The Eastwood excuse of "someday we might think of something" is a weak comeback and not compelling as an argument, since you could use it for anything. It is the true argument from ignorance, in fact.
     
     An argument from ignorance also implies that it is truly ignorance that is the problem. For example, if someone says they were in New York and Miami at the same time, then you know they were wrong. It is not an argument from ignorance to say "I can't see how you could have done that." It is an argument from knowledge.
     
     ID is an argument from knowledge.

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427. 427. Frank M 04:38 AM 6/3/08

     sologos, ID holds that evolution was caused by an intelligence, but does not specify the intelligence. There are IDists who stringently specify ET intelligence, but I remain open-minded.
     
     sologos> "Isn't it clear that that just bumps back the situation a notch? Where did the ET's get it?"
     
     Well, according to Dawkins the ET's would have gotten their intelligence through Darwinism as well.
     
     Bear in mind that the Materialists have no explanation for the beginning of life anyway, so no matter how you look at it, they are a house with no foundation. They are refuted before the first life formed. Why would this bother them? Minor details like whether or not their theory is possible aren't on the table for discussion.
     
     Still, I don't really think bumping the situation makes ET panspermian theory wrong. If there was evidence for ET intelligence forming life, then it adds strength to the argument whether it opens up new questions or not. There is, however, no credible evidence for ET's at all, let alone as life-givers.
     
     My opinion: If ET beings were our designers, then they would need to be invisible to us, despite the ongoing life force within us. They also would need to have the ability to animate matter and the ability to give US the ability to think and to animate matter. They would have to be incredibly intelligent, but I suppose that is possible. They would have to be able to bestow us with a consciousness. They would also have to write a code and be able to cause organic materials to obey the code.
     
     It seems counterintuitive, I know, but scientifically, it needs to remain on the table since we don't know if aliens can bestow a consciousness or not. Personally, I tend to doubt that it could be ET's.

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428. 428. sologos 05:24 AM 6/3/08

     Eastwood, you have read my unhappiness with evolution correctly, but you have guessed the wrong reason for it.
     
     You wrote:
     
     >>You sound as if you are unhappy with evolution because it does not yet offer all the answers. Is this not a bit too much to expect of ANY science, or for that matter, any discipline, philosophy, or religion?
     
     
     Actually, the reason I am unhappy with evolution isnot the paucity of answers but the opposite. It claims to be able to deliver on too many answers. The party line is that they have yet to be formulated, but they will come. Eventually.
     
     
     I am not looking for refinements to the theory that will clean up the rough edges. I think the entire paradigm of "chance and necessity" is an entirely erroneous way of looking at the question of origins. I look at the support for the theory and it is riddled with wrong assumptions. The proofs are of a circular nature. They use the theory to explain the theory Their very own data, when it can be relied on as generally legitimate, actually supports intentional design more than Darwinism.
     
     A good example of this is the various examples of so called micro-evolution. Most seem to reflect genetic drift than new supply of information. In this, they actually show a loss of information. This narows rather than favors future choices. This is the actually counter productive to evolution as there should be a gain of information as we move up the evolutionary chain.
     The bi diretiionality of phenotypic changes in micro-evolution would seem to favor front loading of genetic potential, anathema to the chance-ists. Some evolutionist actually claim that there is never a reversal of the arrow. Evolution marches inexorably forward.
     
     None of this is to say that there are not some sound principles in the theory. Natural selection does occur and it seems to be a profound physical and biological phenomenon. The conclusions of the theory is the problem. It is not merely insufficient. It is entirely an incorrect theory for explaining the origin of the species.
     
     
     >We seem to agree that there are some questions that are beyond the scope of science. Yet the very idea of using science to prove the existence of a designer (or God, if you want) is a direct contradiction to this.
     
     
     Yes, I hear many people say that on this and other websites. Naturalistically perhaps, but mathematically, I am not convinced. Perhaps one way of doing this would rest on whether there is such a thing as statistically detecting design in any situation. Good question for a statistician. What say you, Eastwood?

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429. 429. kakskee 06:26 AM 6/3/08

     FrankM
     
     Anthony Flew, in his later years, made the statement of his view of God as " merely a first cause who does not interfere in creation." Where do you find any statement from him that he committed to becoming an IDist?
     
     I cannot accept Behe' s "irreducible complexity" because I believe natural law has more validity. Natural law does not incorporate random accident or... what in H is Luck Theory?...another imaginative creation of ID? I could possibly consider a snow flake, for example, a valid creation of ID.
     
     When IDists make statements like calling evolutionary science "materialism" it amounts to being a deceptive prop.

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430. 430. kakskee 07:27 AM 6/3/08

     I must correct a grossly negligent error I made when I said " natural law does not incorporate random accident". To correct I quote Laurence Nolan "accidents and contingency abound in the history of life. Evolution by accident is an accurate description of how evolution occurs."

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431. 431. Tommo0809 11:26 AM 6/3/08

     > Several people seem to be thinkiung that Dawkins'
     > remarks about extra terrestial origin of intelligent
     > input, silly as some may think it sounds, is yet, in
     > some way explanatory.
     >
     >
     > Am I missing something? Isn't it clear that that
     > hat just bumps back the situation a notch? Where did
     > the ET's get it?
     
     -I'm not saying what I think one way or another about Dawkins example, but your statement that it just bumps it back a notch...isn't that the same as asking who designed ID's designer or agent or whatever? what would make "aliens" less of a possibility than that agent?

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432. 432. rvedrenne 06:51 PM 6/3/08

     The premise of the movie was not that all scientist reject God, it was that the academic/scientific community rejects ID on the basis that it is inferior science when in reality Darwinian evolution and the naturalism that is built on that particular WORLD VIEW is based on a similar presuppositional structure. It was more a telling of intellectual totalitarianism than of the religious leanings of any one or group of scientists. Methodology aside, the premise is the issue. Methodological naturalism is not necessarily rejected by proponents of ID. It is way too simplistic to use the straw man argument used in this article that ID uses linguistic shell games to prove a "god". Come on, at least be honest.

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433. 433. EastwoodDC 08:06 PM 6/3/08

     [i]I have noticed that the "Quote Original" feature seems to introduce some extra text not in the original. I will correct this where I can, and any that remain are not due to Sologos. Anyone else notice this problem? [/i]
     
     Sologos Wrote:
     > Actually, the reason I am unhappy with
     > with evolution isnot the paucity of answers but
     > the opposite. It claims to be able to deliver on too
     > many answers. The party line is that they have yet to
     > be formulated, but they will come. Eventually.
     >
     > I am not looking for refinements to the theory
     > that will clean up the rough edges. I think
     > the entire paradigm of "chance and necessity" is ...
     > entirely erroneous ...
     
     Without calling you wrong (because this discussion has been there already), I would characterize that either a misunderstanding, or a deliberately misrepresentation of the reality. There is more to discussion here, but my time is limited today. Rain check?
     
     > A good example of this is the various examples
     > of so called micro-evolution. Most seem to
     > reflect genetic drift than new supply of information.
     > In this, they actually show a loss of information. ...
     
     I would need to take a closer look at the "information" arguments to really tackle this (references would be interesting), but something seems amiss already. If I recall, "up the evolutionary chain" is something of a misnomer, because being "better adapted" is not necessary the same as being superior (which is relative to the environment).
     
     > The conclusions of the theory is the problem.
     > It is not merely insufficient. It is entirely an incorrect
     > theory for explaining the origin of the species.
     
     Which conclusion? About micro evolution? About the entirety of evolutionary theory? I'm not really following your line of reasoning to this point, and I did give it an honest effort. Perhaps we should skip this point for now and get to the interesting part, which is ...
     
     > EastwoodDC wrote>We seem to agree that there are some questions that
     > are beyond the scope of science. Yet the very idea of
     > using science to prove the existence of a designer
     > (or God, if you want) is a direct contradiction to
     > this.
     >
     >
     Sologos wrote > Yes, I hear many people say that on this and other
     > websites. Naturalistically perhaps, but
     > mathematically, I am not convinced. Perhaps one way
     > of doing this would rest on whether there is[b] such a
     > thing as statistically detecting design in any
     > situation[/b]. Good question for a statistician. What
     > say you, Eastwood?
     
     :) I had actually been considering doing something along these lines, and I would invite your comments. Since it seems a rather separate discussion I will write up something along these lines and post it to my blog. Further, I will send a copy for your review, comments, and suggestions prior to posting it. My schedule is busy this week, but perhaps over the weekend I can give this some time. Please watch your personal messages.

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434. 434. Rogi1981 08:23 PM 6/3/08

     If statistical probability of life becoming so complex (and diverse) is too grat according to some, then what does it say about statistical probability of a designer who must be invariably more complex then the current most complex organisms? Of course attempts to calculate the "improbability" of complex life on earth are generally flawed, in part because often an assumption is made that each degree of complexity is an independent variable rather than having its probability dependent on the previous degree of complexity in the life form.

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435. 435. dankuriluk 10:43 PM 6/3/08

     Hello to All,
     
     I have been following this posting thread for quite some time, and I have to admit that I have both learned a great deal about the theory of evolution, and how ignorant and close-minded some members of our populace can be. I must say, however, that congratulations are due to the posters who go by FrankM and Sologos. You have played the devils advocate role almost perfectly. You have managed to dig up almost all of misleading and baseless arguments that ID supporters have tried to pass since its inception. You have duplicated the ignorant and dismissive behavior of the so called "scientists" who routinely have their "research" rejected by reputable scientific journals. For example, when FrankM posed the hilarious question of how a mouse turns into a bat, Tommo (and Eastwood in other instances), playing the part of a responsible poster, actually found a study that demonstrated how Scientists were able to entice the forearms of a mouse to continue to grow when they manipulated the genes to resemble the changes that have occurred as the mouse evolved into its winged cousin. Conveniently, just as ID supporters usually do, FrankM forgot to mention that fact in his next post. Although I know a person with a true interest in science wouldn't so irresponsibly post an argument without providing any type of evidence for it on this site, it was amazing how well the two aforementioned gentlemen are able to so accurately represent the intentionally misleading tactics of the ID supporters. However, according to some of the information that the quirky fellow Roosevelt put out, it seems as if the change from creationism to ID was really a change in name only. I have to say well done gentlemen, your work has reaffirmed my belief in the legitimacy of the Theory of Evolution. It is a good exercise to keep the true scientists on their toes so when they face an actual challenge, they will be up to the task.
     
     Cheers,
     
     Dan

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436. 436. MrPeach 12:27 AM 6/4/08

     > The premise of the movie was not that all scientist
     > reject God, it was that the academic/scientific
     > community rejects ID on the basis that it is inferior
     > science
     
     Which it is.
     
     > when in reality Darwinian evolution and the
     > naturalism that is built on that particular WORLD
     > VIEW is based on a similar presuppositional
     > structure.
     
     The only presupposition of science is that we can observe and test to determine the nature of reality. You and your ilk would have us fall back on superstitious nonsense anytime a ready answer was not found. No matter how you cut it, that's not science. Or even sensible.
     
     Don't you think we've had enough centuries of that particular conceit?
     
     > It was more a telling of intellectual
     > totalitarianism than of the religious leanings of any
     > one or group of scientists.
     
     Hmmm, intellectual totalitarianism... What delicious irony.
     
     > Methodology aside, the
     > premise is the issue. Methodological naturalism is
     > not necessarily rejected by proponents of ID.
     
     Oh yes, it most certainly is. As soon as it gores their sacred cow they get all up in arms and come up with this cockamamie pseudo-science they try to foist upon our kids.
     
     At least it's better than the pitchforks and torches they used to use.
     
     > It is
     > way too simplistic to use the straw man argument used
     > in this article that ID uses linguistic shell games
     > to prove a "god". Come on, at least be honest.
     
     Disingenuity seems to be the modus operandi of the new creationists. They don't have science to back them up so they are forced to use the only other tool at hand - rhetoric.
     
     No one can possibly accuse men of science of misrepresenting their intentions. They don't have an agenda other than to do good science.

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437. 437. Frank M 12:34 AM 6/4/08

     Rogi and Tommo asked similar valid questions that I would like to address.
     
     Rogi> "If statistical probability of life becoming so complex (and diverse) is too grat according to some, then what does it say about statistical probability of a designer who must be invariably more complex then the current most complex organisms?"
     
     The effects of an intelligence are clearly seen, regardless of the seeming impossibility of it. That said, what we really are discussing is the probability that the effects exist, which is exceedingly high, in the range of 100%, though some would disagree as to how high it is.
     
     Bear in mind that ID posits that the intelligence and matter animation, as well as the intelligent aspects of reproduction and other life's functions, have always existed as they do today. We base much of our theory on modern day observations of intelligence in genetics. So it isn't some guesswork of something that we can never see in action. Unlike Darwin's starting point, it is testable and verifiable.
     
     In other words, we state what is OBSERVED, and nothing more, which is what I love about ID. It is clear about what we know with certainty and what is not certain.
     
     Darwinism requires an impossible starting line itself. That first common ancestor would need to merely be a piece of matter that intelligently animates, reproduces, processes proteins, processes energy and happens to contain a mathematically impossible code that gets obeyed.
     
     Darwinism tries to sidestep this issue as if it isn't a part of the evolutionary process, but the impossibility of it doesn't go away, and they are left with no explanation for a starting point. No starting point means no possibility.
     
     Bear in mind that whether it is ET, God, Spaghetti Monster or the miraculous first common ancestor of Luck, the start of it all remains entirely unexplained in all theories. In Darwinism, however, not just the start, but the whole of it is unseen and impossible. The odds actually get WORSE after the impossible start.
     
     If ET is our designer, then he/she/it would have to be able to give us an intelligent consciousness that has the ability to animate matter with our free will. If your alien can do that, then he is a potential candidate.
     
     Also, if it was ET, and I am agreeing with sologos here, then something intelligent gave it the power to animate matter intelligently. At the start point of any scenario, there is the need for an ability to animate matter intelligently and a will to do so. Nothing starts until that exists because all self-replication requires intelligent matter animation.
     
     Rogi> "Of course attempts to calculate the 'improbability' of complex life on earth are generally flawed, in part because often an assumption is made that each degree of complexity is an independent variable rather than having its probability dependent on the previous degree of complexity in the life form."
     
     Lol. Hardly. Mathematicians are not likely to overlook such a basic. Can any of you Darwinists name even one mathematician who supposedly made such glaring errors that even you know better?
     
     The calculations are based on how many bits of information (codines) had to change and how many births/hatches it had to get that modification. They can calculate from unicell to human or they can calculate chimp to human. Either way, they take the number of bits that changed and the number of births in that time frame.
     
     So Darwinism is the only one of the theories mentioned that lacks both a starting point AND a mechanism for further evolution. But no matter which theory you stand for, it had to start with the ability to animate and form matter intelligently.

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438. 438. EastwoodDC 12:53 AM 6/4/08

     Rogi1981:
     Very good! Do we have another statistician in the house?
     
     Dan Kunluk:
     
     Thanks for joining in.
     I have to come to Sologo's defense on this one, because I find he is very different from FrankM.
     
     Sologos has a basis for his argument, which is that the methods of science are lacking when applied to something inherently more than science. In this, he may be correct. He goes on to some conclusions that I disagree with, but I appreciate that he expresses his position in a reasonable manner. I think he is sincere in his beliefs. If we are to have any sort of meaningful dialog with supporters of Creationism, then we should respect people like Sologos, whether we agree with them or not.
     
     FrankM on the other hand, is ... a [url=http://www.flayme.com/troll/]troll[/url]. He posts not from sincerity but because it gives him the illusion of power. I have mostly stopped responding directly because this only feeds his illusion (ie: DNFTT). I suppose I should pity him, but I can no longer muster any sort of sympathy. Besides, anyone that misquotes Douglas Adams like he did has it coming. ;)
     
     --
     Edited by EastwoodDC at 06/03/2008 5:56 PM

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439. 439. Frank M 01:25 AM 6/4/08

     Dan, how does any evidence that a mouse turned into a bat counter Evolution by Intelligent Design? We believe in common descent and intelligent genetics.
     
     Dan> "For example, when FrankM posed the hilarious question of how a mouse turns into a bat...:"
     
     How is such a question "hilarious"? Roosevelt even stopped readin my post at that question. Why? Is not evolution from one species into another the very central question of our discussion?
     
     Dan> "Tommo... playing the part of a responsible poster, actually found a study that demonstrated how Scientists were able to entice the forearms of a mouse to continue to grow when they manipulated the genes to resemble the changes that have occurred as the mouse evolved into its winged cousin."
     
     He did? There has been scant evidence presented by any Darwinist so far, so I would think I would have noticed. If you are referring to Tommo's post on May 29th at 8:20, he turned out to be mistaken in that his reference was actually an author strongly opposed to Darwinism.
     
     Dan> "Conveniently, just as ID supporters usually do, FrankM forgot to mention that fact in his next post."
     
     Why would I intentionally overlook evidence that supports my position? I must say, though, that I truly did not see this evidence presented. Regardless, ID posits that the bat did come from a mouse, so I don't see your point.
     
     The rest of your message was a typically non-scientific sweeping ad hominem bluster not worthy of response.

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440. 440. deciple 01:25 AM 6/4/08

     Almighty God created everything ! get over it !you can't be a follower of the Lord and a beliver of evolution too ,one or the other God creates by speaking thing's into being man does not have this power and no need to wonder why look at all the trouble we as a race get into with out that power!

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441. 441. Rogi1981 04:27 PM 6/4/08

     I'm just going to ignore the posts by Deciple (sic?). I probably should ignore FrankM's also, but it's too tempting. The person who commits statistical fallacies in calculating the improbability of evolution of complex life form is none other then Fred Hoyle (and everyone else who parrots him). Of course I only have a very basic background in Statistics. Notwithstanding same, the probability calculations using dependent and independent variables is covered by those basics.

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442. 442. Rogi1981 04:35 PM 6/4/08

     Moreover, the fact that you discount the seeming impossibility of a designer, but then use the seeming impossibility as an argument against evolutionary theory, and then say that there is a 100%certainty of a designer (calculated how?) shows that you are not interested in any kind of intellectually honest and productive debate. That is something that hampers ID proponents as well, which is why it is not considered a scientific theory (among other things).

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443. 443. EastwoodDC 06:23 PM 6/4/08

     [b]Rogi1981[/b]:
     
     Hey! No fair ... you're using [i]logic[/i]! :^O
     
     It IS tempting, isn't it? Of course, Frank hasn't recognized logic so far, so don't expect him to start now.
     
     --
     Edited by EastwoodDC at 06/04/2008 11:25 AM

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444. 444. Rogi1981 07:06 PM 6/4/08

     Logic is a bitch ain't it ( and it's also an invaluable component of many things computer and science related).
     
     EastwoodDC: I notice your background in statistics is a little deeper than my intro college course, so maybe you can elaborate on the fallacy of Fred Hoyle's 747 Boeing theory. Additionally, a similar improbability argument is used to discount the possibility of accidental formation of organic material and subsequently life as accounted for by abiogenesis. FrankM like many ID proponents continuously tries to conflate that hypothesis with evolutionary theory (possibly to discredit the latter through tenuous nature of the former).

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445. 445. EastwoodDC 12:44 AM 6/5/08

     > EastwoodDC: I notice your background in statistics is
     > a little deeper than [b]my intro college course[/b], so
     > maybe you can elaborate on the fallacy of Fred
     > Hoyle's 747 Boeing theory.
     
     One intro course? You just made my day. :)
     
     The 747 analogy (or the Mt. Rushmore analogy) is flawed because of [i]expectations[/i] of things we understand. We have a strong expectation that a pile of parts [i]will not[/i] spontaneously self-assemble into a 747, or that the forces of erosion [i]will not[/i] produce a Mt. Rushmore. We know parts have to be assembled, and know that erosion produces mountainsides that look like ... mountains.
     
     We [i]should not[/i] have expectation of things we do not understand. That's not quite right either ... try this ... we should [i]expect to be surprised[/i] by that we do not understand*. We should expect to find surprising things in biology (or most anything else).
     It's a little harder to think about this, but consider naturally occurring events we understand now, but were once astounding: fire, eclipses, etc.. There might be naturally occurring places or objects that fit this too. The Grand Canyon comes to mind. Yellowstone?
     
     * Sologo might say that some surprises may never be understood, and that's OK. I find it possible to understand something and still be astounded by it too.
     
     Here is a longer explanation (the same I posted previously by Jason Rosenhouse), which doesn't get to expectations until the middle of part II. It's a good read.
     http://www.csicop.org/intelligentdesignwatch/probability-one.html
     http://www.csicop.org/intelligentdesignwatch/probability-two.html
     
     > Additionally, a similar
     > improbability argument is used to discount the
     > possibility of accidental formation of organic
     > material and subsequently life as accounted for by
     > abiogenesis.
     
     I would have to look into this one a little more, but as you note: evolution is not origins. You could try a search on "biology origins theory".
     
     That all for today, for I have miles of hypotheses to test before I sleep. :)

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446. 446. Frank M 12:53 AM 6/5/08

     Rogi, I don't discount the impossibility of a designer nor do I propose that we know there is one.
     
     I said that we see the EFFECTS of intelligence. Whether this constitutes a personified "designer" or not is up for debate.
     
     Rogi> "but then use the seeming impossibility as an argument against evolutionary theory"
     
     Get it right. I also am an evolutionist. I am not against evolutionary theory. I merely state that mathematically it couldn't have happened by accident.
     
     Rogi> "and then say that there is a 100%certainty of a designer"
     
     Again, get it right. I said "in the range of" 100% because science is never 100% on anything. And I didn't say "designer". That's your word. If I ever use that word it will have the word "might" with it because we don't know. We only know luck could not have done it and "selection" has nothing to do with the odds against Darwinism.
     
     As the odds against chance formation get so close to zero that they may as well BE zero, the odds of non-accidental (intentional) formation of life near 100%.
     
     Rogi> "(calculated how?)"
     
     I think I have explained this at least 5 times in the past few pages. If you really missed all 5 explanations, let me know and I will go over it again.
     
     Rogi> "shows that you are not interested in any kind of intellectually honest and productive debate."
     
     Then why am I the one discussing the subject matter and all you guys do is attack the messenger rather than any specific refutations of the message?
     
     Seriously, let me know if you truly do not understand how simple it is to calculate odds against accidental complexity, and I will be happy to go over the basics. Otherwise read ANY book written by a mathematician regarding evolution. All the top mathematician's off all time oppose Darwinism.
     
     And no they are not ALL "parroting" Hoyle. Hoyle used his math wizardry on astrology in his early career, and was instrumental in calculations of planetary movement. He was a pioneer of Big Bang cosmology and even coined the term while people were stil laughing at him about it. He was knighted by the Queen in the 70's.
     
     He didn't get into evolution until after all four Wistar conferences, so nobody was parroting him. I first read Hoyle in the 90's, long after I had abandoned my belief in Darwinism and concluded for myself that evolution was a farce mathematically. I can't credit him for being an ID pioneer, but his ability to tackle the tough issues of the life sciences was brilliant.

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447. 447. Tommo0809 01:20 AM 6/5/08

     > Then why am I the one discussing the subject matter
     > and all you guys do is attack the messenger rather
     > than any specific refutations of the message?
     Frank:
     -without reaching the merits of anything you've typed, this is just providing one example. Maybe its an honest mistake, maybe whatever parameters youre using to define ID need to be refined if that is possible (an acknowledged and endemic problem with the various ID theories), but this is fairly exemplary of a few of the self-contradictions you've displayed so far.
     
     first you said:
     
     > Get it right. I also am an evolutionist. I am not
     > against evolutionary theory. I merely state that
     > mathematically it couldn't have happened by
     > accident.
     
     and then later in the same post:
     
     >long after I had
     > abandoned my belief in Darwinism and concluded for
     > myself that evolution was a farce mathematically.
     
     so evolution is a farce, which you believe in, because it works but doesn't work.
     
     --
     Edited by Tommo0809 at 06/04/2008 6:20 PM

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448. 448. Frank M 02:27 AM 6/5/08

     sologos, I do enjoy reading your opinions, but you posted one yesterday that was outstanding.
     
     Sologos> "The party line is that they have yet to be formulated, but they will come. Eventually."
     
     They have no clue whether they will ever figure out how life evolved, but in the absence of evidence they fiercely maintain a blind faith not the least bit unlike a religion, that some day they will.
     
     But you can say "maybe someday we'll think of something" to prop up any failed theory. You could just as easily say that you will prove the tooth fairy some day. It means nothing to say maybe they will have an answer later.
     
     Because maybe they won't.
     
     Sologos> "I am not looking for refinements to the theory that will clean up the rough edges. I think the entire paradigm of 'chance and necessity' is an entirely erroneous way of looking at the question of origins. I look at the support for the theory and it is riddled with wrong assumptions."
     
     Exactly! They think they have this GREAT theory that just needs a transitional fossil or two. The only thing Darwin added to what was already well understood about evolution was that he claimed it happened by luck.
     
     Luck. Some "elegant" theory.
     
     They started with a mud puddle (abiogenesis) and used a "theory" that would create a mud puddle even if you started with complex organisms (random accident). Then they think they came up with a creation mechanism by running this through a subtractive filter (selection) that eliminates everything except complex organisms and mud puddles.
     
     So why aren't we mud puddles? Well, since "selection" can only cause death, we are left with random chaos and vows that someday they will think of something.
     
     Great. Let's teach the kids in school that this is undiputed and that we have all the answers.
     
     sologos> "The proofs are of a circular nature. They use the theory to explain the theory"
     
     If you live you are selected. Therefore selection is the cause of you living.
     
     sologos> "Their very own data, when it can be relied on as generally legitimate, actually supports intentional design more than Darwinism."
     
     Every time without fail. They complain about wanting new evidence, but all evidence so far has worked against them. This isn't about some new discovery needed. They already have a lot of explaining to do based on what we already see in the evidence.
     
     sologos> "The bi diretiionality of phenotypic changes in micro-evolution would seem to favor front loading of genetic potential, anathema to the chance-ists."
     
     Geneticists would use the term gene pool or genome, but "genetic potential" is actually a very appropriate word based on the evidence. The bi-directionality you mentioned absolutely crushes Darwinism or any serious assertions of "random" genetics.
     
     While I do agree with your use of the term "front-loading" in this context, I would assert that an intelligence works constantly in an ongoing manner as well. So, yes, there does appear to be front-loading, but I would caution against that term being used as proof that all intelligence found in life is front-loaded. I would be interested in discussing your opinions on front-loading more at some point.
     
     sologos> "Perhaps one way of doing this would rest on whether there is such a thing as statistically detecting design in any situation. Good question for a statistician. What say you, Eastwood?"
     
     I eagerly await the answer from our self-appointed "inference expert". Can anyone ever detect the work of intelligence? For example can SETI determine signs of intelligent life in the cosmos or are they wasting our tax dollars? Can archeologists determine sculpture from natural formations? If so, how, and how does it differ from design inference in evolution?
     
     sologos> "The conclusions of the theory is the problem."
     
     Very true. We are all looking at the same evidence. But Darwinists are looking at design so complex and interrelated that we can not begin to figure out how it all works and they are slopping it off as dumb luck.
     
     sologos> "It is entirely an incorrect theory for explaining the origin of the species."
     
     Amen.

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449. 449. sologos 02:51 AM 6/5/08

     It appears that tis discussion is veering more and more to mathematics. That, as far as science goes is a good place to find our bearings. There has often been a schism between physics and math, but eventually they seem to call a truce, recognize their inter-relatedness, and it becomes a win-win situation.
     Keppler believed that the orbits must be functions of geometric design, and under such an assumption went on to neasure and describe them. Newton finally put physics on firm footing when he actually described physical forces with concise formulas. Einstein worked out his theory of relativity mathematically, long before it was demonstrated in "the lab".
     Being a creationist myself, I believe that ID has some philosophical problems, but I certainly understand their strategy to at least attempt to play the game by the rules of science rather than belief. Whether or not you think that they are,in fact, playing by the rules, one thing seems to be apparent. A large component of ID 's "science" is mathematically oriented.
     
     Frank M. says:
     >As the odds against chance formation get so close to zero that they may as well BE zero, the odds of non-accidental (intentional) formation of life near 100%.
     
     
     This. at least at face value, is a mathematical statement about nature. One may disagree or agree. on several points with this statement. But it seems to me, that if one disagrees from either a biological or mathematical or even logical perspective, one ought to refute it based on it's scientific or mathematic merit with specific arguments.
     
     Apparently, Frank M believes that evolution is not accidental. Furthermore, it appears that Frank M is saying that this is mathematically discernible to a very high degree. Finally it appears that non-accidental means intentional.
     
     In other words, Frank M. has made a series of actually refutable statements. I, for one, would like to learn and be exercised in my own views by people who have scientific or mathematical, or even philosophical (ie philosophy of science)

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450. 450. Tommo0809 03:34 AM 6/5/08

     a little off topic as to recent discussion, I found this on...cover your eyes frank...pharyngula, but it seems to be more of the same. scopes, edwards, kitzmiller....I imagine this is the type of effect the DI and stein were shooting for.
     
     http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/04/us/04evolution.html?pagewanted=1&_r=3&partner;=rssnyt&emc;=rss][/url]
     
     “You’ve got a creationist system and a naturalist system,” he said.
     Dr. McLeroy believes that Earth’s appearance is a recent geologic event — thousands of years old, not 4.5 billion. “I believe a lot of incredible things,” he said, “The most incredible thing I believe is the Christmas story. That little baby born in the manger was the god that created the universe.”
     
     -yikes.
     
     --
     Edited by Tommo0809 at 06/04/2008 8:38 PM

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451. 451. Frank M 05:20 AM 6/5/08

     Eastwood, don't expect to be published, let alone knighted, any time soon. Your statistical inference skills are the worst I have ever seen. There is no way you do this for a living.
     
     "The 747 analogy (or the Mt. Rushmore analogy) is flawed because of expectations of things we understand."
     
     Say what?? Expectations may lead us to common sense inference, but mathematics determine the odds more precisely. It is a simple ratio between the functional and formed, as compared to the non-functional and non-formed possibilities. Needless to say, the ratio is weighted toward non-functional by orders of magnitude beyond any conceivable birth rate.
     
     Again you are sticking to your insistence that odds can not be calculated - not just for evolution - but for ANYTHING. And you are proceeding with your usual mantra that we just "don't understand" and "might think of something someday that explains it in a Materialist way."
     
     So if you came across a previously undiscovered Mount Rushmore while wandering the wilderness, you would not assume it was a carving?
     
     You aren't explaining yourself well here, so let me go after Rosehouse's fallacy again. Allow me to use an example to try to explain the flawed thinking. He is conflating expectations that SEEM unlikely with prohibitive mathematical odds.
     
     When my brother's office pool asks him to pick 7 numbers out of 49 for the lottery, he says "1,2,3,4,5,6,7" so that he can remember it. They say "What? You're crazy! That'll never happen!" But in reality it is as likely as any other set of 7 numbers. My brother is quite correct, although it SEEMS like a ridiculous expectation. This seems to be Rosehouse's thinking as well - that any outcome is as likely as any other. So why is Rosenhouse wrong?
     
     Because life isn't a lottery of equal expectations. A better analogy would be if the lottery gave you the choice to put your money on 7 consecutive numbers or 7 non-consecutive numbers being pulled off ping pong balls. The smart money is on non-consecutive. Granted, any combination is as likely as any other, but non-ordered sequences as a group are far MORE likely. Just as non-functional combinations of junkyard parts as a group are vastly more likely than the accidental flying aircraft group.
     
     But it still COULD happen, right? Well, not so much. First, the numbers are astronomically FAR worse than any lottery sequence. It is way beyond the level of statistical impossibility (1 out of 10>50th power).
     
     Understand the magnitude of this number. It is NOT just ten times higher than 10>5th power. In fact, even if you subtract 10>49th power from 10>50th power, you still end up with a number far higher than the combined total of all things that have ever lived. To put the number 10>50th power in perspective, there are only 10>80th power particles (electrons, neutrons and protons) in the universe.
     
     If your odds are worse than 1 out of 10> 50th power, mathematicians agree that you should consider it impossible that you will ever see it happen.
     
     OK, but it could happen just in one incredibly lucky shot, right? I mean, maybe this was just our lucky day (or our lucky Big Bang), right?
     
     Only in a theoretical sense, but even if that were true, Darwinism relies on continuously beating these odds millions of generations down millions of lineages. Even if we did happen to get lucky enough to defeat odds far beyond statistically impossible (and found a way to intelligently animate matter for reproduction) we would have to turn around and do it again and again and again millions of times consecutively and branching out down separate lines.
     
     This is why the only way theorists say that Darwinism is possible is if there are infinite universes. But the infinite universes theory means that everything is not just possible but inevitable. That means God is proven, but so is Zeus. Realistically, since Darwinism is down to suggesting infinite universes, it is time to hang it up.
     
     Eastwood> "We have a strong expectation that a pile of parts will not spontaneously self-assemble into a 747, or that the forces of erosion will not produce a Mt. Rushmore. We know parts have to be assembled, and know that erosion produces mountainsides that look like ... mountains."
     
     Gee, thanks for the lesson. :)

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452. 452. Frank M 06:04 AM 6/5/08

     Tommo, I told you guys to stay off websites like Pharyngula!
     
     Just kidding, but I do hope you seek out websites on both sides of the issue so as not to get caught up in the one-way thinking trap of the propaganda machines.
     
     Some comments on your link: First, I totally support the concept of "strengths and weaknesses" and I can't even imagine why anybody would oppose it.
     
     As strong an advocate for ID as I am, I do not support identifying it by name in a science class at this point. But I also oppose teaching Darwinism as undisputed fact with all the answers. I do NOT agree with that guy Fischer who claimed that holes in Darwinism do not constitute weaknesses. Really? Then what IS a weakness?
     
     McLeroy's belief that a baby in a manger created the universe does not bother me as long as he teaches scientific fact in the science class. Likewise if a teacher believes that there is no God, they need to stick to the proven facts, not their belief system. Public schools must be neutral on the subject, but teachers in their personal lives can believe whatever they want. Most Americans believe in God and even that baby in the manger. That doesn't mean they can't teach science. I am not what you would call religious but Theists are closer to the scientific truth than Atheists.
     
     Words weild enormous power. Your article clearly put ID in opposition to evolution, which we are not. Then they simply note the mountains of evidence for evolution as if it makes us a bunch of religious fanatics who disregard evidence, which we do not. One of the great failures of the ID movement is to allow themselves to be identified as anti-evolution, even though we ALL support evolution, common descent and the reality that men came from apes.
     
     Sologos, you say you are a Creationist. Do you believe in common descent?

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453. 453. Tommo0809 12:06 PM 6/5/08

     Frank- what websites are you suggesting?

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454. 454. sephers165 04:24 PM 6/5/08

     Man I haven't been on here in a long time but everyone is still going. This is crazy. Please read, but don't just skim.
     
     I'm not sure why those who believe we came from nothing but evolved get so upset at Frank, what he believes is very similar to what you believe. At least the how, not the why. He thinks that we evolved but it was guided by intelligence. In a sense it seems to me all he is saying 50 million years is not enough time for humans to randomly evolve without intelligent help.
     
     Kind of like if we set up an experiment to prove evolution and in it we just said OK go and waited for critters to evolve, it would take forever if it would happen at all. On the other hand we could adjust the environment to try and evolve specific things and maybe it would have a better chance of happening. But that is intelligently (if you can call humans that) guided. By the way does anyone know if an experiment like this has been attempted? If you do I would be interested in learning more.
     
     Anyways you guys should have a beef with people like me. I think God created us and all the animals 10,000 years ago or less which to most the scientific world is preposterous.
     
     I account for lets say diverse skin color in a different way than evolutionists. Rather than assume all humans at one point had black skin and then a mutation caused lighter skin that allowed those to survive in the parts of the globe further from the equator I think Adam and Eve were middle brown skin (Big B little b kind of thing, but more complicated) and their kids subsequently were something like BB, Bb, bb. or black, brown and white. Think Gregor Mendel.
     
     Here's a kind of example
     
     
     Then over time due to survival of the fittest (yes I believe in that), BB's survived better in Africa, and bb's survived better in Europe.
     
     Since most of you disagree with me can you give me constructive criticism of why my logic is wrong, and I don't mean my crazy presuppositions about the Bible being true, I mean my skin color logic. I'm not saying I'm going to jump aboard the Evolution bus if you do have a great answer but in the pursuit of knowledge I would like to better informed.
     
     Thanks
     
     Seth

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455. 455. Rogi1981 06:25 PM 6/5/08

     Seth: if you're truly interested in the pursuit of knowledge, would you acknowledge the possibility that bible is wrong (at the very least the literal reading of the bible), the earth is not under 10,000 years old, etc. Or is there nothing short of some impossible demonstration lasting 4-5 billions of years that you can witness that will convince you that evolution is an unguided process. You see, Seth, FrankM may say he believes in evolutionary theory, but then he's an entirely different kind of ID proponent, because ID does not say that humans have evolved through natural selection, but rather through some type of designer using some unidentified method.

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456. 456. Tommo0809 07:54 PM 6/5/08

     Frank in response to your response to the link: this isn't from pharyngula so don't worry, but one of my mates on another website posted this as part of a discussion and I think it sums up my thoughts on that subject quite well, especially when he gets to the codespeak part.
     
     Here's the problem I have with it. What's the goal of the science class? To teach the best science we know at the time. Does anyone think that 12 year olds are capable of having a fruitful discussion judging the merits and demerits of each case? I sure don't. They don't have the basic grounding in science necessary to weigh up those "strengths and weaknesses" in order to reach a rational conclusion about the various proposals.
     
     Do we insist on allowing students to weigh up the strengths and weaknesses of various forms of governments? Would these same people be arguing that we should make discussion of "strengths and weaknesses" a part of every type of class?
     
     The "strengths and weaknesses of abstinence" in sex-ed?
     The "strengths and weaknesses of Euclidean geometry" in math class?
     et cetera?
     
     Until you build the base from which those strengths and weaknesses can be judged, you teach the dominant theory-- and if you're really forward thinking, you try to teach critical thinking skills so that eventually the students will be able to make the judgments these clowns seem to think pre-adolescents are capable of making.
     
     The whole "strengths and weaknesses" meme is rightfully identified here as code-speak for more creationism nonsense. Teach what we know with some degree of confidence. If the students are interested in the subject enough to pursue it, they're going to get to the stuff that we don't have much confidence in on their own.
     
     And this cracked me up--
     
     [i]If the teaching of weaknesses is mandated, a textbook might be forced to say that evolution has an “inability to explain the Cambrian Explosion,” according to the group Texans for Better Science Education, which questions evolution.[/i]
     
     "Inability"? In what way is evolution unable to explain the Cambrian explosion? Now, fossil rabbits in the Pre-cambrian-- THAT would be something evolution would be unable to explain. Sadly for creationists, those haven't ever been found.

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457. 457. Rogi1981 08:50 PM 6/5/08

     Not to mention that teaching all the strength of the evolutionary theory in proportion to its weaknesses, will occupy significantly more time than the curriculum allows, will confuse the children (do we really expect 12-18 year olds understand every single method of radioactive dating, nuances of genetic sequencing, etc.), and result in further complaints that the strengths are taught in disproportion to the weaknesses from ID and Creationism proponents. Additionally, which weaknesses of the evolutionary theory will be taught? The actual ones, which have a basis in realities of science limitations (i.e. limited fossil record due to the simple fact that a very minor portion of creatures were fossilized, inability to replicate something that lasted billions of years, etc), or the perceived ones resulting from the ID proponens' arguments? Will irreducible complexity be pushed forward as a weakness? Will they have to mention every single specie for which a transitional fossil has not been found for one reason or another.
     
     Maybe we should teach the strengths and weaknesses of Newtonian Physics in high school, let's see if those kids figure out special and general theories of relativity and inability to account for dark matter.

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458. 458. sephers165 09:08 PM 6/5/08

     Ah but you see it's just that Rogi. I do have doubts about the Bible always being right. But my convictions and experience tell me that it is true because so much is relevant to my life and beliefs. I believe in justice the Bible explains it to me, stuff like that.
     
     The same question can be asked of you, if you are in the pursuit of knowledge, acknowledge the possibility that Evolution is wrong. Then look at the same evidence. For instance the evidence of Evolution of humans like different skin color in humans, if I start with the presupposition Evolution is true, I can conclude that whites were due to mutations in genes from the first humans who were black.
     
     If I start with the presupposition that the Bible is true then my previous argument about how adam and eve were Bb and their kids were BB Bb bb is another explanation. That is why I was asking where my logic was flawed so I could no whether that was a poor argument or not.
     
     So anyways think about it, you already believe Evolution so when you see the evidence the explanation is made in Evolutionary terms. But when something can be proven the best way to do it is by falsifying the opposite assumption. Or in this case assume Evolution is false, and Common Descent doesn't happen. Then when you go out and look at all the Evidence it should disprove that. Therefore it proves Evolution to be true or at least not untrue.
     
     The same goes for the opposite of me, I'll start with assuming the Bible is untrue, and then find evidence to falsify my claim. The difference is in my experience there has been much archaeological evidence supporting the old testament and much reason for believing the New testament to be historically accurate (even if not true in the absolute sense). Although there are problems there too like not finding Noah's ark.
     
     When I use to believe Evolution it made perfect sense, but when I started to question it and consider other possible explanations those also made sense. After examining my presuppositions I arrived at my new conclusion. Don't worry though I have doubts like everyone else and that is why I don't just ignore what other people have to say.

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459. 459. sephers165 09:13 PM 6/5/08

     Good point and I am glad you acknowledge that there are weaknesses. If you only taught what was wrong no one would ever believe it.
     
     I guess I am kind of the opposite though, I play devils advocate (for all you know maybe I actually am an Evolutionist, just trying to provoke thought), so when people try so hard to convince me of something but don't tell me the weaknesses I become very skeptical.
     
     Just like how people in Sunday school told me things like Jesus is the only way, and that was that, but never explained to me how he could be the only way when there are so many people out there who seem to live better lives than some Christians yet they are going the wrong way. In that case not explaining the weakness of that argument lessened the argument as a whole.

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460. 460. sephers165 09:21 PM 6/5/08

     By the way the thing I was trying to reference in that first reply was the Confirmation bias, first investigated by Peter Cathcart Wason.
     
     from wikipedia:
     
     In essence, the subjects were choosing to examine only cards that could confirm the given rule rather than refute it. Confirmation bias has been used to explain why people believe pseudoscientific ideas.
     
     replace "cards" with "evidence" and "the given rule" with "Evolution" and you have in my mind Evolutionists.
     
     replace "the given rule" with "Creation" and you have in my mind Creationists. I know you disagree and say it is only Creationists that do it, but in my experience both sides do it. With good reason too, why should any of us assume we are wrong

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461. 461. sologos 09:21 PM 6/5/08

     Thankyou Eastwood for those 2 interesting mathematical papers. I have a some thoughts and I'll try to keep them brief and salient:'. I will bounce off some of the statements but I won't print the whole paper. If anyone is interested, one could read along with the cotents from Eastwood's posted URL's June4th 8:44
     
     JR writes:
     >>>As a conservative estimate, let us suppose that a gene one hundred letters in length is necessary to construct an eye. The actual number is surely far larger than this.
     
     This is a far more vast understatement than JR. is implying . I'm sure he's trying to keep it simple for argument's sake bu t it actually is part of JR's problem, as I hope to point out
     
     
     JR>>>There are surely a fair number of trivial changes we could make in the precise gene sequence that will also produce the eye. Therefore, the number of favorable outcomes in this case will surely be greater than one. However, we can assert with some confidence that the number of favorable outcomes will be far smaller than the number of possible outcomes.
     
     
     Perhaps it is true that there can be some minor base pair change that will not reflect badly on the final product (though we should note that sickle cell anemia is only one amino acid change in the hemoglobin molecule) but the real issue with this statement is the use of the word "favorable". We are using the theory here to verify the theory. While it is true that we have a successful DNA molecule indicating a "favorable" molecule, the queston is whether or not RANDOM mutations can actually produce a fitter phenotype. There is no example of this even in the so-called micro-evolution examples. Note, the emphasis is on "random".This assumption, of course, runs through the rest of JR's logic.
     
     
     JR>>>Perhaps you have already spotted the flaw in this argument. In carrying out our calculation, we simply assumed that every hundred-letter gene sequence was as likely as any other.
     
     
     Yes, there is a flaw, but not where JR concludes. Random, in fact mean any and every possible mutation as likely as the next.
     
     He follows with:
     
     >>>This assumption is completely unwarranted, for two reasons.
     
     And here is where JR errors both in logic and in underestimating the enemy's current state of sophistication.
     
     
     JR:>>>First, keep in mind that evolution works its magic by modifying preexisting structures. Consequently, the particular gene sequences likely to occur in a given generation are those attainable from preexisting sequences via known genetic mechanisms. As an example, suppose that in some organism we find the gene sequence ACGATCT. One source of genetic variation is the point mutation, in which an individual nucleotide is replaced in the next generation with a different nucleotide. Thus, it is perfectly reasonable to suppose that the offspring of our hypothetical organism will possess the gene sequence ATGATCT. By contrast, it is highly unlikely that we will encounter the sequence TGATAAG.
     
     
     Magic it would have to be. What JR is missing is that instead of opening the field to evolution, he is actually arrowing the possible outcomes. He is making an assumption that only one base pair change will have a felicitous result. The possibilities are thus narrowed by the commitment to gradualism by JR's proposal. The argument for gradualism lacks explanatory power because it fails at the molecular level.
     
     
     
     Jr's second conclusion:
     
     >>>Second, we have ignored the action of natural selection in our reasoning thus far. Most of the hundred-letter gene sequences we could write down would lead to a badly defective organism were they to be found in nature. So even if the odd macromutation caused one of these sequences to appear in some unfortunate organism, natural selection would ensure that the gene was quickly flushed from the population in subsequent generations.
     
     
     Natural selection would most certainly flush out the rejects. The question is whether or not natural selection can teleologically draw out a positive mutation. The answer that a Darwinian would give is no, of course. Evolution is shopping off the shelf, but again, JR's language belies a different belief implicit among Darwinians. Somehow, consciousness, technological know how, even religion i s drawn out and thus embedded within the "dumb" physical forces through which selection operates. Why should we ever get anything more interesting than primordial soup? It is indeed impossible, it would appear, for Darwinists to transcend this magical thinking . It amounts to an awesome empowerment of the gods of chance and necessity. To my own shame, I lack that kind of faith in my Lord.
     
     
     JR shows his disdain for the Floozies in the creationist camp earlier in the paper.:
     
     >>>As a professional mathematician, I am well aware of how impressive such calculations can appear to people untrained in probability. Math is unique in its ability to bamboozle a lay audience, which helps explain why creationists find it so appealing. Happily, though, you do not need to slog through the details of such a calculation to know that it is not correct. Probability theory is a major branch of mathematics that finds countless applications in a variety of sciences, but it is not powerful enough to support the sweeping conclusions creationists are trying to draw.
     
     Has he ever read any of the work by Dr. Gerald Schroeder. No Christian fundamentalist he, or even an amateur blogger, Schroeder ia san MIT trained physicist whose work has been written up in SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN as well as TIME and NEWSWEEK. Eastwood, you asked me for references as to how information theory works in creationistic thinking. You ought to google him. He states that the basic unit of the universe is neither matter or energy, but bits of informatiom ! What I eally like about Dr. Schroeder is the way he uses scripture to bridge science and theology: "With wisdom, God founded the earth"Proverbs3:19.
     Wisdom? why information of course!
     
     JR continues:
     
     >>>It would require almost God-like knowledge of natural history and the physiologies of long-extinct organisms to produce a meaningful probability calculation for any complex biological system.
     
     
     This I believe shows a lack of imagination. Consider the number of generation from the time Pan and Homo diverged. There may only be a 3-4% diference between the 2. Cut that in half to gratify the amount of diversion that has occurred in both(Chimps evolving to survive in th tree tops, while humans evolving to survive on the ground) and we still have about 60 million changes that had to take place. Assuming that it is a lot less likely for 2 "favorable" mutations to occur in one generation adjusting to 2 unfavorable environmental changes whilst knocking off the progenitors (remember, the theory holds that progenitors must be wiped out to prevent gene contamination), we are left with 60 million generations, all with unfavorable environments. Given the fact that there is no molecular evidence that Homo has changed at all in last 50 or more generations, and that there have only been at most 50,000 generations, ...well you do the math.
     
     
     I have violated by own self-impose rule tomkeep it brief, so I will stop here and consider the second paper with more discretion, so as to not disturb your EYE. Fortunately, part of the complexity of the eye is it's regenerative properties (which also must, as per the Darwinist, be under the direction of DNA

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462. 462. sologos 09:54 PM 6/5/08

     Tommo writes:
     
     
     >Until you build the base from which those strengths and weaknesses can be judged, you teach the dominant theory-- and if you're really forward thinking, you try to teach critical thinking skills so that eventually the students will be able to make the judgments these clowns seem to think pre-adolescents are capable of making.
     
     On the surface, Tommo, this appears to be quite reasonable. Critical thinking should be taught. But what effect do you think it would have a long term interest in science, and a confidence in scientific institutions if the paradigm of evolution does eventually give way, even to other naturalistic explanations, all the while official policy forbidding the consideration of the controversy, and even summarily dismissing it without open discussion?

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463. 463. sologos 09:57 PM 6/5/08

     part 2:
     
     Don't you agree that critical thinking is actually helped by defending the theory against its chief critic. It's not as if these preadolescents haven't heard about the controversy. What an excellent opportunity to show how science works, and how it doesn't work.

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464. 464. sologos 09:58 PM 6/5/08

     part 3
     
     
     Actually design arguments should be seen by the by both educators and scientists as the best thing that ever happened to evolution.The debate has not only spiked an interest in the audience at large, but has forced the evolutionists to formulate more clearly their position, and check out their science. I don't know about you, but I am learning a lot just participating on this website.

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465. 465. rooseveltdecosta 12:33 AM 6/6/08

     Ladies and Gentlemen, and IDiots,
     
     It finally must be said, anyone who believes in Creationism/ID/Strengths Vs. Weaknesses is a moron. There is no tiptoeing around the subject anymore. Since you are all obviously incapable of understanding rational argument, you have no right to be on this website. People wonder why the children of our great country compare so poorly, in terms of education, with children of other countries such as India and China. The reason why, quite frankly, is because of people like you. You divert our, and by our I mean intelligent people, time and attention away from educating our children to trying to argue with your fanatical groups. That is fine if you want to believe in that junk, but please do us all a favor and move into a compound so you either can all commit suicide the next time Hale Bop comet passes or you are taken out in a standoff with federal law enforcement. The arguments that you try to make are filled only with rhetoric and false logic. I need not explain why because you have all proved to be incapable of understanding even your own incapability. FrankM, your nonsensical rantings about probability are quite hilarious. It only proves that not only can you teach a parrot to say anything, you can actually convince it to believe anything. If you actually did receive a degree from an online website, I would ask for a refund because they obviously did not teach you to think for yourself. The ID apologists have sufficiently displayed that they have not developed the ability to reason and, consequently, have displayed no desire to engage the scientific community and abide by its guiding principles and regulations. Instead, their only goals are to force this country to return to its glory days of religious fearmongering from our past by trying to paint honest scientists as scourges of society. In truth, it should be observed the other way around because instead of using our vast resources to help our children advance and reclaim our position among the World's elite, you force us to divert those resources solely to protect the minds of our growing children from your treacherous influence. You have every right to believe in whatever trash you like, but keep it out of our schools so our children do not end up as inadequate and uneducated as all of you purport to be. I apologize for my rather serious tone, yet these people deserve to be dealt with in no other way. They are trying to destroy this country, and true citizens should not stand for it. To the children of science, I wish you all the best of luck in any endeavor that you shall encounter. To the others, I pray every night for your salvation and that one day our children may forgive you for the damage that you have already caused.
     
     Mahalo,
     
     R
     
     --
     Edited by rooseveltdecosta at 06/05/2008 6:00 PM

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466. 466. rooseveltdecosta 12:52 AM 6/6/08

     Please forgive me,
     
     I did forget one thing.
     
     Seph- That explanation you gave about skin color had me in stitches. I really needed a good laugh today. Thank you very much. Make sure you tell your father that he needs to log off of his account next time so you can't get on and sully his good name even more than you already have.
     
     Mahalo,
     
     R

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467. 467. Tommo0809 01:04 AM 6/6/08

     righteous indignation indeed.

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468. 468. EastwoodDC 02:45 AM 6/6/08

     Sologos:
     
     I am way too tired to catch up on your posts tonight, but I will give them a longer look tomorrow. At first glance though, I'd have to say you are stepping far from our patch of common ground. ;)
     
     Thanks for the suggestion about [i]Gerald Schroeder[/i], I will spend some time on that too. Here is the very first thing I found:
     
     [url=http://alum.mit.edu/ne/noteworthy/profiles/schroeder.html]Nuclear scientist Gerald Schroeder '59 sees no conflict between religion and science.[/url]
     
     I don't see any conflict either. Science is a matter of reason. Religion is a matter of faith. They tell us different things, and each has its own purpose.
     
     On the other hand there is a conflict between science and those who claim science proves their religion. There is conflict over the teaching of creationism in public schools under the guise of science. You may have noticed?
     
     I have not forgotten your request for me to consider a statistical approach to test design, but I haven't had time. This won't be easy (check your private messages please).

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469. 469. rooseveltdecosta 03:07 AM 6/6/08

     Tommo,
     
     Righteous Indignation Indeed, musn't we forget what happened the last time our country miscalculated in trying to accomodate a fanatical minority...Germany circa 1930's. Food for thought.
     
     Mahalo,
     
     R
     
     --
     Edited by rooseveltdecosta at 06/05/2008 8:11 PM

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470. 470. rooseveltdecosta 03:08 AM 6/6/08

     Tommo,
     
     Righteous Indignation Indeed, mustn't we forget what happened the last time our country miscalculated in trying to accomodate a fanatical minority...Germany circa 1930's. Food for thought.
     
     Mahalo,
     
     R

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471. 471. sephers165 03:18 AM 6/6/08

     Ahh you have a large misunderstanding. I am here to learn more. in your previous post you told me we have no business even being on this site because of what we believe. Well let's say I grew up in hick ville and never once heard about evolution, therefore it would make sense that I would believe all they tell me about the Bible. So then I come on this sight trying to find out more, giving an example of how my belief could be supported allowing you to give a rebuttal. But instead of trying to teach me you tell me I don't have a right to learn because I don't believe in Evolution already.
     
     in summary you make a logical error in your argument. You refuse to educate the idiots that believe other theories than Evolution, but you yourself had to come to believe Evolution. Now if you aren't allowed to be taught Evolution until you believe it then how did you ever come to believe it?
     
     In essence you prove my point, Evolutionists and Creationists alike have a confirmation bias.
     
     You also commit what they might call a redherring fallacy specifically the Ad hominem fallacy ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem ) when rather than answer my question of why my logic was flawed with the skin color question (which I asked), you simply made a statement (which might be true) about how Creationists are stupid.
     
     Another fallacy commonly used by both Creationists and Evolutionists
     
     argumentum ad populum
     
     So anyways I'll give you another opportunity to explain why my argument was dumb (the one about skin color). And I'll ask you one question? Have you even read Origin of Species. I myself am reading Origin of species, have read the Dawkins Delusion, have read the Evolution section in Biology textbooks and have read the Bible. What have you read?
     
     TO anyone else, can someone explain what I am doing wrong that I can't get a good discussion going on. Eastwood and Sologos seem to be having one. I mean is my tone really bitter, am I being too forceful, what is it? Please help, I'm interested in having a intellectual discussion even if it proves me wrong but no one responds except with Ad hominem responses.

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472. 472. sephers165 03:28 AM 6/6/08

     Why, by the way, are you so scared of Creationists. If it is obviously wrong then even if we taught it to our children they will be disproved when presented with an argument that defeats it right?
     
     
     And I hope your answer is that because it's brainwashing, so after they learn it, it is much harder for them to accept other ideas.
     
     It amazes me to find an intelligent person who fights against something which he does not at all believe exists. --Mohandas Gandhi
     
     You think you are too intelligent to believe in God. I am not like you. --Napoleon Bonaparte
     
     I'm not fighting against Evolution I am trying to challenge Evolutionists to ask more questions about what they believe as well as challenge myself about what I believe. If you want to discuss with me and challenge me with questions about what I believe and are willing to be challenged in what you believe I would love to discuss with you.

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473. 473. sephers165 03:32 AM 6/6/08

     > It amazes me to find an intelligent person who fights
     > against something which he does not at all believe
     > exists. --Mohandas Gandhi
     >
     > You think you are too intelligent to believe in God.
     > I am not like you. --Napoleon Bonaparte
     >
     
     You know you're bored when you start quoting yourself.
     
     POP QUIZ
     If I said Gandhi believed in God and he was an incredible person therefore God exists, what fallacy am I committing? I give you ten minutes to answer

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474. 474. Frank M 04:45 AM 6/6/08

     Tommo, sorry I typed the wrong word there....
     
     Frank> "long after I had
     > abandoned my belief in Darwinism and concluded for
     > myself that evolution was a farce mathematically."
     
     I meant to say "Darwinism is a farce mathematically, not evolution.
     
     People on all sides of this debate use the terms Darwinism and evolution as synonyms. They aren't. Evolution is supported by evidence. Darwinism isn't.
     
     This time I got them switched. Sorry for any confusion.

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475. 475. Frank M 05:53 AM 6/6/08

     Seth, welcome back. No you do not come across as rude or bitter. You aren'y getting answers for the same reason I am not getting answers.
     
     They have none.
     
     They are reduced to ad hominem attacks as their sole version of scientific method. Yeah, it's pretty lame.
     
     I can't join you on the Biblical literalist thing, but your response to the Rosenhouse fallacy was outstanding.
     
     Your explanation of the gene pool was not far off. The earliest versions of man, like any species, already had a range within their genome that they could vary within, including skin color.
     
     You said I believe as the Darwinists do, but I just think they don't have enough time in millions of years to evolve. Sologos alluded to a similar issue (not enough time) with Darwinism, although he did not attribute it to me.
     
     I can see why you might think the problem is a lack of time, because we calculate odds against Darwinism with number of births as a part of the numerator (functional or beneficial traits being the other part). But time is not the big issue.
     
     Bear in mind that in doing calcualtions we give Darwinism some generous breaks, to say the least, and more or less do our calculations based on their own flawed thinking to reduce the complaints.
     
     Random accident leads to chaos. Even if a superbeing was suddenly created out of nothing with the ability to reproduce identically except with slight random mutations, the being's descendents would inescapably become the proverbial mud puddle before long. Order and function would decline and disappear.
     
     So time is the enemy of the Darwinist, who claims that their theory starts with an already fully functional being, capable of animating, reproducing, processing proteins and obtaining energy sources. Even if it did get this magical, wholly unexplained starting point, the lucky life form's days are numbered. They would never leave that puddle.
     
     Rogi, you make a statement alluding to my beliefs that is much further from the truth.
     
     Rogi> "You see, Seth, FrankM may say he believes in evolutionary theory, but then he's an entirely different kind of ID proponent, because ID does not say that humans have evolved through natural selection, but rather through some type of designer using some unidentified method."
     
     Quite the opposite, I utterly reject selection as a causal force in creating living things, as all it explains is death. AND I agree with mainstream IDists who believe in evolution and common descent, but not Darwinism. Darwin's explanation of evolution included random mutations and natural selection. Both of these can occur, but neither explains evolution at all.
     
     IDists do support common descent, as I do. Any seeming exceptions are Creationists using our label. Dembski, Behe, Sternberg, Berlinski and all major IDists promote common descent.
     
     Tommo, try the BIPED website as a non-religious home page for the various ID theories and related links. It is essentially a dissent to Darwinism group that attempts to encompass all arguments against Darwinism. There are many.

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476. 476. Frank M 06:52 AM 6/6/08

     Rogi and Tommo, as you could probably guess I am in strong disagreement with you on teaching the strengths and weaknesses of Darwinism in science class. My only concern is that there are no STRENGTHS to teach.
     
     I do feel strongly about this issue since I studied evolutionary theory in college (no, Roosevelt, it was not an online degree) and I am thouroughly disgusted by their unwillingness to teach the truth in science class. I paid for that "education", but public school is just as bad.
     
     Tommo> "What's the goal of the science class? To teach the best science we know at the time."
     
     Aside from my obvious disagreement about what the "best" is, why would it have to be so all-or-nothing anyway? My answer to your question would be to teach the truth. If a theory is under heavy dissent, so much so that every student knows it, why try to hide that from the students? Why not explain what the objections are? Why lie and say that everything is explained and undisputed and we have all the answers when we have nothing?
     
     Tommo> "Does anyone think that 12 year olds are capable of having a fruitful discussion judging the merits and demerits of each case?"
     
     On an age appropriate level, youth are capable of having fruitful discussions on merits and demerits of competing theories, yes. At age 12 it would probably not get too deep, but by high school Biology we should be able to discuss the general controversy and the evidence. We don't need the government to take sides and declare one opinion right. We simply need to present the evidence and let the students think for themselves.
     
     Tommo> "They don't have the basic grounding in science necessary to weigh up those 'strengths and weaknesses' in order to reach a rational conclusion about the various proposals.
     
     So shut up and let the wack jobs make the conclusions for you? Trust us, even though 90 percent of the population of the country finds our explanations inadequate? Whatever you do, children, don't think! Blindly trust us as we trusted our science teachers. What? You have questions? You get an F. Actually I advocate drawing NO conclusions on this issue. Present ALL evidence and NO conclusions.
     
     Because of the unavoidable religious connotations, It is unconstitutional for a public school to force either answer conclusively as an "official" answer. Neutrality on religion does not mean indoctrination as Atheists. It means the government presents facts and has no official opinion on unknown theories that have religious implications.
     
     Tommo> "Do we insist on allowing students to weigh up the strengths and weaknesses of various forms of governments?"
     
     YES !!! We do. We don't force them to believe in liberalism or conservatism. We let them know what both political wings believe and let them begin the process of forming their own beliefs in life.
     
     Tommo> "The 'strengths and weaknesses of abstinence' in sex-ed?"
     
     Actually we do that too, like it or not.
     
     Tommo> "you try to teach critical thinking skills so that eventually the students will be able to make the judgments"
     
     ...By banning critical thinking and judgement you hope to increase their abilities for critical thinking and judgement?
     
     How can outlawing dissent and punishing children who disagree with their teachers, forcing teachers to lie to kids when they know what they are saying is a fraud, and refusing to let the students even know there is a controversy, let alone allowing any critical thinking help kids learn how to evaluate a scientific theory?
     
     Tommo> "The whole 'strengths and weaknesses' meme is rightfully identified here as code-speak for more creationism nonsense."
     
     It is an attempt to get SCIENCE back in a science classroom.
     
     The attempt to at least MENTION Intellgient Design theory having failed, this at least can point out the flaws in Darwinism, which hurts nobody. Heck, it might even encourage a student or two to seek out answers to the mysteries that the Darwinist ACLU lawyers don't want them to know even exist.
     
     Tommo> "t we don't have much confidence in on their own.
     
     A "strengths and weaknesses" proponent on the website you posted> "If the teaching of weaknesses is mandated, a textbook might be forced to say that evolution has an 'inability to explain the Cambrian Explosion,' according to the group Texans for Better Science Education, which questions evolution.
     
     Tommo> "'Inability'? In what way is evolution unable to explain the Cambrian explosion?"
     
     Hello?? The Cambrian Explosion shows that evolution did not happen the way Darwin thought it did. It was not gradual and it was not down a single lineage, which then branched out. The Cambrian Explosion is as anti-Darwinian as it gets.
     
     Tommo> "Now, fossil rabbits in the Pre-cambrian-- THAT would be something evolution would be unable to explain."
     
     This makes no sense. Nobody is claiming rabbits in the Pre-Cambrian. This is straw man stupidity, not a rebuttal. The Early Cambrian already had all of the irreducibly complex necessities and most of the fully formed organs that have ever existed, right at the beginning of metazoan life. They did not gradually appear. That is the point. According to the fossil evidence, Darwin was wrong.

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477. 477. Rogi1981 01:38 PM 6/6/08

     Sephers: I will never make the mistake of confusing you for an "Evolutionist". Darwinist, evolutionist, etc. are terms used by opponents of evolutionary theory. You will notice that the common trend among evolution proponents is their overall dedication to scientific method and skepticism, not blind belief in evolution. As to the proposed weaknesses, they are weaknesses to the same extent Newtonian Physics had a "weakness" weakness corrected by the general theory of relativity. All of those "weaknesses" are taught at the college and AP level, and thousands of physics and biology students go one to improve upon the theory using the scientific method. They formulate a hypothesis and try to disprove it (so much for confirmation bias right). Alternative explanations provided to date, like ID, do not rely on the same principle but rather assumptions. Evolutionary theory is tested every single day and for all the evidence supporting it a single find could tear it into shambles. That is the scientific method, and that is how science progress is measured, not through incredulous notions of irreducible complexity or inference of design..

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478. 478. Rogi1981 01:45 PM 6/6/08

     FrankM: We've established that you have no understanding of the scientific method and no interest in conducting an intellectually honest and productive debate. That is why rabbit fossils in the Precambrian (or any other period where they don't belong) makes no sense to you as merely one of simple ways evolutionary theory is falsifiable. You continue undermining your own credibility by throwing in perceived problem of liberalism, which has nothing to do with validity of evolution as a theory. Should we venture off topic and accuse ID/Creationists of trying to push a conservative agenda on the kids? The validity of scientific theory is unrelated to political affiliation of a party. In fact, whenever politics interfere, we see results akin to Lysenkoism.

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479. 479. Frank M 12:28 AM 6/7/08

     Rogi, please either try to keep up with the conversation or tone down your verbal assaults. Your own errors are causing your frustration.
     
     It was Tommo who brought up government and politics and asked if we should teach both sides of it. I said that yes, we DO exactly that and it works quite well, actually. I clearly was not mixing anything political into the mix other than directly responding to Tommo's question.
     
     Rogi> "FrankM, We've established that you have no understanding of the scientific method and no interest in conducting an intellectually honest and productive debate."
     
     Again I ask if that is the case, why are you the ones attacking the message-bearer not the message? Can you PLEASE stick to the topic? Is that really too much to ask?
     
     Rogi> "That is why rabbit fossils in the Precambrian (or any other period where they don't belong) makes no sense to you as merely one of simple ways evolutionary theory is falsifiable."
     
     The point is that nobody is saying that rabbits lived in the Pre-Cambrian, so finding them would send us ALL back to the drawing board. It is a straw man, which means that he creates a false argument to refute. Finding a rabbit fossil in the Pre-Cambrian would falsify ID.
     
     However, ALL evidence leads to Intelligent Design and no evidence leads to Darwinism.
     
     Rogi> "You continue undermining your own credibility by throwing in perceived problem of liberalism, which has nothing to do with validity of evolution as a theory."
     
     You undermine your own credibilty by an astonishing inability to follow a conversation. Of course politics have nothing to do with evolution and I never attempted to connect the two, nor did I say there was a "problem" with liberalism at all. I am an Independent just left of center, myself, but how could you possibly draw that conclusion from what was posted? Absolutely amazing...
     
     Try READING the posts, then think, then type.

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480. 480. sephers165 12:36 AM 6/7/08

     > That is why rabbit fossils in the
     > Precambrian (or any other period where they don't
     > belong) makes no sense to you as merely one of simple
     > ways evolutionary theory is falsifiable.
     
     Rogi, thank you, at least you make sense by saying you wouldn't believe Evolution if they found a rabbit in the fossil record (which they haven't found by the way). I know a lot of Evolutionists who say "see it's falsifiable if this and this is discovered" but then when they do find evidence rather than say Evolution is false they assume Evolution theory is just flawed.
     
     What I mean by that is I am given to a lot of ways the current Evolution theory can be falsified but none how Evolution the process can be falsified. Which is a problem because that just means the theory gets changed while Evolution is inherently accepted as true. Am I making any sense with my question? It is kind of hard for me to express.
     
     Example: Evolution theories stated that live births started around 150 million years ago, but then they recently found a fish with an umbilical cord that was 350 million years old. That falsifies the current Evolution theory but only to be replaced by a newer one.
     
     So I guess my question is if a rabbit is found in the pre cambrian, does that falsify Evolution as a whole, or just the current theory. By the way that isn't likely because i think nearly all the fossil record appears around the same time, what they call the Cambrian explosion. I have a different interpretation about the evidence of the Cambrian explosion but I'll keep that to myself since it would be disregarded in a Scientific American forum.
     
     --
     Edited by sephers165 at 06/06/2008 5:39 PM

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481. 481. Frank M 02:42 AM 6/7/08

     Rogi> "You will notice that the common trend among evolution proponents is their overall dedication to scientific method and skepticism, not blind belief in evolution."
     
     Unfortunately the opposite is what we have noticed, as you have amply demonstrated by your own attitudes. Thus the need for the movie Expelled and organizations committed to return science to the true open discussion forum it used to be before the Darwinists came along.
     
     Skepticism? Did I miss something? As soon as anybody dares to suggest that there just might be anything wrong with your precious theory of nothing causing everything, you go on personal attacks. You seem to have a complete inability to even consider any evidence or factual information of any kind. In this, you are very much like roosevelt and the rest of the blowhard Darwinists who absolutely NEVER post anything related to the topic. You do nothing but insist that people who agree with you are saints of self-questioning virtue and those who dare to disagree are insane troublemakers out to get you.
     
     I posted 10 questions posed to any Darwinist who had the intellect and the courage to answer any of them. Not one of you even ventured a comment. Sologos and Seth both have posed very straightforward questions to you. How long do you think you can dodge intelligent discussion before it becomes blatantly obvious to all readers that your entire "selection" charade is as intellectually vacant as your blogs? Can any of you even answer a question or pose a question? Make a topic-related comment?
     
     Just praising yourself and those who agree while assaulting dissenters as evil incarnate is not scientific method. Nor does not impress anyone. Except each other, I guess.
     
     Rogi> "Evolutionary theory is tested every single day and for all the evidence supporting it a single find could tear it into shambles."
     
     Are you some kind of idiot? Evolution by Intelligent Design is exactly what I have been saying all along. you are correct that my theory is tested every day and passes EVERY test.
     
     YOUR accident theory, on the other hand, NEVER shows up in the evidence. You would think just by random luck (no pun intended) SOMETHING that Darwin predicted might be seen just once in a while.
     
     Do you even understand your own theory? Do you have any clue what differentiates your theory from mine? Hint: We BOTH believe in "evolutionary theory".

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482. 482. sologos 04:30 AM 6/7/08

     Eastwood says:
     
     
     This won't be easy (check your private messages please).
     
     
     Don't think me too ignorant, but please tell me where on this website I check my private messages.

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483. 483. sologos 06:09 AM 6/7/08

     Sephers writes:
     
     >If I said Gandhi believed in God and he was an incredible person therefore God exists, what fallacy am I committing? I give you ten minutes to answer
     
     Fallacy of necessity?

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484. 484. sologos 06:30 AM 6/7/08

     Sephers
     
     >Please help, I'm interested in having a intellectual discussion even if it proves me wrong but no one responds except with Ad hominem responses.
     
     I think your attempt to point out categories of fallacies may be helpful to all of us. None of us, after all, are actually carrying out expeiments but arguing theoretically. Logic is the policeman given by an intelligent being! If you have a good grasp of the rules and fallacies of logic, why ot apply them on this forum. Good place to get into a discussion,

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485. 485. sologos 07:07 AM 6/7/08

     Frank says:
     
     >Because of the unavoidable religious connotations, It is unconstitutional for a public school to force either answer conclusively as an "official" answer. Neutrality on religion does not mean indoctrination as Atheists. It means the government presents facts and has no official opinion on unknown theories that have religious implications.
     
     The constitutional law speaks specifically to he separation of CHURCH and state, not the separation of GOD and state. Speaking of creation is no the sole purview of any specific religion.
     
     Clarity in the issue of as to whether or not creation or ID have a role in the discussion of origins, will come if cool heads prevail. If indeed the whole thing begun by an act of God, then any methodology that cannot discern that is flawed. If that methodology claims this to be out of the realm of science, then a new methodology must be forged, for whateve else science may purport to discover, it must, at everyone's most basic definition, incorporate cause and effect. Naturalism is a narrow direction it took in the last 400 years, and so te powers that be in this narrow realm, have decided that it is not untill matter and energy and dimension and physical forces begin that we can "do" science. But if there be a connection between the physical and the metaphysical, why must some aspects of that connection be outside of he bounds of discoverable reality? What we are on the cusp of is a new paradigm, but this one is far more radical than chaos , relativity, and quantum. If those were rejected by the powers that be, then why should we expect anything differrent for this one. They all bought new mathematical formulations, new tools of investigation, and new theories of reality. This one must therefore do likewise, battling patiently on with the apostles of the former order, until some, here and there understand..
     
     --
     Edited by sologos at 06/07/2008 12:10 AM

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486. 486. Ditches 08:50 AM 6/7/08

     I'd like to apologize in advance for the coherence (or, rather, potential lack thereof) of this post, not to mention the multitude of spelling/grammar errors. Time constraints and fatigue...blah blah blah. Anyway, here it is:
     
     
     First off, can we stop the mud-slinging please? It really is quite boring to read.
     
     
     Frank,
     
     I notice that you continue to claim that most/all IDists accept common descent. Please see the quotes below:
     
     Dembski (from http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/ayalas-potemkin-village-review-of-francisco-ayalas-darwins-gift/#comment-139047):
     
     "For the record: I personally don’t believe in common descent though I think there are lines of evidence that suggest considerable evolutionary change. At the same time, there are lines of evidence that suggest considerable discontinuity among organisms."
     
     
     Phillip Johnson (from pg. 94/95 of "Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds"):
     
     "Granted that the materialist mechanism has to be discarded, what does this imply for what scientists call the "fact of evolution," the concept that all organisms share a common ancestor? Universal common ancestry is as much a product of materialist philosophy as is the mutation/selection mechanism....Put aside the materialism, however, and the common ancestry thesis is as dubious as the Darwinian mechanism."
     
     
     Stephen Meyer (from http://www.arn.org/docs/meyer/sm_lawscausesfacts.htm):
     
     "...I personally could quite easily accommodate common descent to my own belief that life owes its origin in some measure to intelligent design. I am simply unconvinced by the arguments for descent and by the philosophy of science that Professor Ruse and others invoke to make their case for it."
     
     
     These people are considered leading proponents of ID, and their statements about common descent seem non-commital at best; at the very least, they certainly do not appear to be as unanimously accepting as you've previously suggested. This is why you continue to get lumped in with creationists when you use the ID label. If common descent is not acknowledged, the only meaningful difference between ID and creationism is that ID does not specify God as the designer. I think it would behoove people such as yourself and Behe, in the scientific arena anyways, to distance yourselves from those whose opinion on this critical point do not agree with yours (i.e. stay away from the term "ID"). I suspect this will not happen though, because, from my observation, most who call themselves "IDists" are concerned with PR first and science a distant second.
     
     
     Moving on... I have stated before that I suspect there are other, as yet, unknown factors playing a non-trivial role in evolution besides natural selection. However, I still think natural selection plays a major role. You, though, seem to be down-right dismissive of this mechanism altogether. Your primary reasoning appears to be mathematical in nature, yet you still have not provided any of your calculations or links to works of a similar kind. I would really be interested to see how you have worked this out, as I think you are drastically over-simplifying the calculations that would be involved in order to arrive at a meaningful conclusion.
     
     Earlier, you had given an example about the odds of drawing an ordered sequence of seven numbers versus an unordered sequence, concluding that the ratio of ordered to unordered sequences is trivially small. This is true, but when you try to approach the topic of random mutations filtered through natural selection in the same way, things start to get very messy. In the case of the lottery, we can readily identify which sequences are ordered and which are unordered. With mutations, however, and correct me if I'm wrong here, I don't think we've even begun to scratch the surface as far as being able to idenify/quantify the whole of beneficial, neutral, and detrimental possibilities as well as their mathematical impact on "fitness." How, then, did you determine the values of such variables when you made your calculations?
     
     I do not doubt the possibility that natural selection, on its own, could operate too slowly to have produced life as we know it in the allotted time. However, I am not convinced that we know enough about the mechanism yet to definitively make this statement using only probabilistic calculations.
     
     --
     Edited by Ditches at 06/07/2008 2:00 AM
     
     --
     Edited by Ditches at 06/07/2008 2:07 AM

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487. 487. sologos 01:55 AM 6/8/08

     Good post, Ditches
     Thanks for th reminder for collegiality.
     
     You wrote,
     
     >>Moving on... I have stated before that I suspect there are other, as yet, unknown factors playing a non-trivial role in evolution besides natural selection. However, I still think natural selection plays a major role. You, though, seem to be down-right dismissive of this mechanism altogether.
     
     
     I agree that there are other non-trivial factors. Even those these may be appreciated as naturalistic, the data will increasingly favor design (as all biological mechanisms do despite their naturalistic elucidation). If the design theory is given serious consideration, all the legitimate data fits it better than it does Darwinist paradigm of chance and necessity.
     
     I agree that Natural selection plays a potent role in both function and form, but I like the way Frank M describes it as a "subtractive filter" rather than an additive one. It has no power to "draw" out "favorable" mutations, which every good Darwinist would agree, explicitly. However, there is an implicit belief within the Darwinistic mechanisms to see that the physical laws that are involved with selection are indeed able to produce "miraculous" traits. A good example of this is the ability of these dumb and blind laws to participate in the production of consciousness.
     
     Though I do not believe that evolution is responsible for the diversity and complexity of the species I would have to admit that natural selection does select out fitter phenotypes when it come to staphylococcus that have the ability to produce penicillinase. I can even understand how one might see how problem solving ability of a Homo species would confer on that individual a selective advantage. Its a bit more of a stretch, to say that the ability to deal with nano-technology is selected out
     
     Once Homo begins to form social groups, I think you would agree, there are artificial brakes placed on the pace of biological evolution, as specialization within the groups allows more individuals to achieve reproductive fruition. More so, when geographic stability of the group, as when societies turn from hunting and gathering to agriculture, does the brain have less impetus to evolve.
     
     Even the dispersal of smarter or stronger genes throughout the human genome is hindered by the protective role that these larger groups offer the weak. Someone can be weak or simple but still attract sexual activity. Sometime around 12,000 years ago, then, we would have reached a zenith of brain development. Whatever socialization skills or problem solving skills that had evolved by that time would have tended to remain fairly stable.
     
     We live in a very different society now, demanding skills and abilities that would not have been needed in more primitive societies. Since the has not been any appreciable evolution of the brain, one would have to conclude that these new skills were somehow latent in those brains.
     
     David Berlinsky, in his humorous yet insighful essay "The God Of The Gaps" that appeared in Commentary Magazine,
     
     http://www.commentarymagazine.com/currentissue.cfm?month=April&year;=2008¤t;=1
     
     points out the general similarity among Homo Sapiens. If, for example, a primitive native child of a hedhunte fom the Amazon Jungle were to be taken at an early age and trained in private schools and finally went to Harvard school of Journalism, we might see that individual succesfully land a job with the BBC and give an insightful apologetic for heaqdhunting in the Equadorian jungle.
     
     But the idea that a biological species may possess latent traits make no sense in Darwinian terms. It suggests th forbidden doctrine of frontloading. Just as useful genes would have been propagated, useless genes would have been deleted.
     
     Moreover the phenomenon of consciousness and it's development has no biological basis. Most Darwinistic explanations speak of learned abilities over time rather than a biologically determined phenomena.
     
     
     
     As to th rest of your comments, I would like to address them in a later post
     
     --
     Edited by sologos at 06/07/2008 7:14 PM

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488. 488. Frank M 03:03 AM 6/8/08

     Ditches, good to have you back and a good message.
     
     Ditches> "First off, can we stop the mud-slinging please?"
     
     On that note, Rogi, please accept my apology for my tone in my most recent post to you.
     
     Ditches, I don't know where you found that quote from Dembski, but it is very clear. Normally in debates Dembski is grilled pretty sharply about common descent and he keeps saying that the evidence for common descent is very strong. I never heard him say otherwise, but your link is clear about it.
     
     In the same link a blogger states that ID is non-committal about common descent. If so, it loses credibility as a scientific persuit because common descent is too solidly supported by the evidence to even question it.
     
     Ditches> "This is why you continue to get lumped in with creationists when you use the ID label."
     
     And yet Seth said recently that he felt that my theories were essentially the same as the Darwinists. I guess it depends on your perspective. From where I sit, both Creationism and Darwinism look like blind faith without evidence to speak of.
     
     Ditches> "If common descent is not acknowledged, the only meaningful difference between ID and creationism is that ID does not specify God as the designer."
     
     There are divisions within every branch of this debate. I don't think there is any way of avoiding being "lumped in" from both directions.
     
     My main push is for the acceptance of the role of intelligence in life and life's formation. In this, I share this common thread with IDists of all stripes, even if we differ on other grounds. You have to pick your battles and mine is against accidental evolution, because it is completely false and it is what is being taught to students as fact. It is the priority at this point.
     
     Ditches> "I think it would behoove people such as yourself and Behe, in the scientific arena anyways, to distance yourselves from those whose opinion on this critical point do not agree with yours (i.e. stay away from the term 'ID')."
     
     The term fits what I believe. Even if we did change it to a less-fitting identifier, it would be a matter of time before Creationists were jumping on our bandwagon anyway. Then what? Change again?
     
     Ditches> "I suspect this will not happen though, because, from my observation, most who call themselves 'IDists' are concerned with PR first and science a distant second."
     
     Really? Have you read the title of this blog? Which side of this debate is preoccupied with PR again? Have you read SciAm's messages regarding ID? There isn't a speck of science in it. On the other hand, we DO need PR or we will continue to be shut out and nothing makes any progress.
     
     Anyway, I will think about what you said. At the very least, I need to be more patient with people who misunderstand my position due to the "non-committal" aspect of some of my supposedly fellow IDists.
     
     Ditches> "I have stated before that I suspect there are other, as yet, unknown factors playing a non-trivial role in evolution besides natural selection."
     
     Like what? Any thoughts on what it might be or are you basically just saying there has to be something else because Darwinism is inadequate?
     
     Ditches> "However, I still think natural selection plays a major role."
     
     In that case I need to distance myself from you moreso than the Creationists. Selection explains death, as if that needed explaining, and has no effect whatsoever on creating any sort of complexity. Genes do all of the creating. Selection only takes place after the genes do the creating, but the genetics and whatever other non-trivial force did the creating.
     
     Do you understand the role of a subtractive filter? All "selection" does is destroy most of the highly complex creatures. You can not select what is not on the menu. If you go to a hardware store and select blueberry muffins, your selection accomplishes nothing. If you go to a bakery and select the muffins, even if you get them, your selection did not bake them. They would have been baked whether you showed up and selected or not.
     
     Selection is nothing but a poorly defined term that does not have any creative force at all. It is a hindrance, not a help, to evolution.
     
     Ditches> "You, though, seem to be down-right dismissive of this mechanism altogether."
     
     There is no mechanism to dismiss. Darwinism is nothing more than the following two nuggets of "science":
     
     1. (Random mutation) Functional animated beings accidentally improve. (Ignore what started life in the first place.)
     
     2. (Selection) They live because they didn't die.
     
     These are supposed to be explanations??
     
     Ditches> "Your primary reasoning appears to be mathematical in nature, yet you still have not provided any of your calculations or links to works of a similar kind."
     
     I have provided vastly more evidence to support my position than anyone else on this blog.
     
     Mathematics is a huge roadblock to Darwinism. Anybody who evokes accident to explain complexity ought to expect an uphill battle against hard math. But it is hardly the extent of the argument for ID or even the primary evidence.
     
     Your attempt to make it seem as if I have not shown any mathematical arguments is false. If you want links, google away. Personally, I prefer to read a book and I recommend books. They are far more in depth and explanatory, as compared to the sensationalism of website propaganda.
     
     I have given the names of several mathematicians at the top of their field who repudiate Darwinism, including Woit, Von Neuman, Overman, Eden and Hoyle. Plus, I don't know how it could ever be more conclusive than entire conferences of mathematicians working alongside biologists.
     
     Ditches> "I would really be interested to see how you have worked this out, as I think you are drastically over-simplifying the calculations that would be involved in order to arrive at a meaningful conclusion."
     
     I'll try to get into it more, although I'm surprised this is really being debated. There really is no equivocation from mathematicians on the falsification of Darwinism.
     
     Of course I am explaining the basics, and if you expect to see multiplication tables with 60 digit numbers on a five page blog that is a little unrealistic. I can cover the basics and answer any specific questions. For extensive mathematical calculations, you can read a book or a paper or get the Wistar edited transcripts for yourself.
     
     Ditches> "Earlier, you had given an example about the odds of drawing an ordered sequence of seven numbers versus an unordered sequence, concluding that the ratio of ordered to unordered sequences is trivially small. This is true, but when you try to approach the topic of random mutations filtered through natural selection in the same way, things start to get very messy."
     
     The odds get indescribably worse as we shift to biological beings. The lottery reference was an anology used to dispute Rosenhouse's "every possibility has equal odds" fallacy. As far as being "messy", the best way to approach that is to give every advantage to the Darwinists, who desperately want to keep math from becoming considered.
     
     The odds against ordered arrangements of such complexity are so high that it is an easy task to shoot down the Darwinists. We can exaggerate heavily in their favor and still watch as the numbers bury them. This is not a close call. It is a constant doggie paddle up Niagara Falls for the Darwinists.
     
     Ditches> "With mutations, however, and correct me if I'm wrong here, I don't think we've even begun to scratch the surface as far as being able to idenify/quantify the whole of beneficial, neutral, and detrimental possibilities as well as their mathematical impact on 'fitness'."
     
     I would say we are a good deal beyond scratching at the surface. To be sure, there will always be Darwinists claiming that functional and beneficial traits are underrepresented in the calculations, but ask them to attempt their own estimates and watch them run.
     
     The odds against functional formations are astronomical. The odds of any change occurring without getting extremely messy results are also ridiculously high. Unless something is guiding the modifications, microevolution or even a single healthy birth with modifications is not realistic.
     
     Ditches> "I do not doubt the possibility that natural selection, on its own, could operate too slowly to have produced life as we know it in the allotted time."
     
     It isn't that it works too slowly. It is that it doesn't work. It is, in fact, counterproductive. Darwinism contains two fatally destructive forces and no positive creative action, therefore time is its enemy.
     
     This "mechanism" of Darwin's is an entirely destructive process. Random chaos is invariably destructive to an intelligent code, and selection kills. There is no part of Darwinism that could allow survival, let alone increased complexity or benefit. Time plus Darwinism equals extinction of all life.

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489. 489. sologos 03:52 AM 6/8/08

     Better URL for the David Berlinski paper. It's a good read about 15 minutes.
     
     
     http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/the-god-of-the-gaps-11275?search=1

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490. 490. EastwoodDC 01:42 PM 6/8/08

     Sologos:
     
     > ... please tell me where
     > on this website I check my private messages.
     
     Scroll to the top of this (or any forum/blogs ) page. Look in the left-hand sidebar. At the bottom you should see "My Content".
     Click on "My Content" and a list of personal features will expand, one of which is "Messages".
     
     Some of the features of this forum are rather difficult to discover, it took me a while too.

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491. 491. Frank M 06:04 PM 6/8/08

     The odds against ordered arrangements are calculable, although they are extremely low numbers. The reason they are so low is that you aren't looking for a single event, but multiple events all of which are needed to create the order.
     
     To borrow from the Behe mousetrap analogy and Miller's subsequent Materialist fallacy, it is not nearly enough to note that the materials needed could exist. We KNOW the matierals needed existed. The question is what put just the right amount of just the right thing in just the right time and place.
     
     And precise positioning? What are the odds that a paper clip, a wooden shim, a spring and some glue could accidentally form a mousetrap? Put those items into a jar and shake and stir all you like. It will take on trillions of positions within the jar if you shake it all day for weeks, but they will not form a mousetrap, even though, theoretically, they could.
     
     Even if a few hundred people did this for years, they not only would never form a mousetrap, but they would get nothing remotely functional, other than the original elements by themselves. Yet there would be quadrillions of positions of the items in the jar. So what are the odds of forming a mousetrap this way? The ratio of functional outcomes to non-functional is a number that would require extremely high scientific notation in the denominator. It would be a higher number than we could wrap our minds around, statistically impossible or not.
     
     Now this is four items which, aside from the glue, are already cohesive units. The clip had to bend and later stiffen a bit (not to mention being held back against the potential energy of the spring), but the other two parts are already formed for us. In biological systems, we are on the molecular level, a decidedly larger challenge for functional assembly of parts, even once we leap beyond the cellular level. We also set up the perfect forming scenario, intelligently choosing items that could form a mousetrap and collecting them in jars so that they don't just wash away.
     
     Before anyone jumps on the "flaws" here, please understand that I do not consider this a complete mathematical argument. I would like to keep my posts shorter and entire books are written on this subject. My hope at this point is to overturn the Ken Miller fallacy, which represents the fallacy of all Materialist explanations of life.
     
     Even if you start with a handful of cohesive units, such as a muscle, tendon, bone, nerve cells and collagens, the odds against any of them lining up and attaching perfectly together to move a bone (or accomplish anything) are astronomically huge and quite impossible statistically.

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492. 492. Bradley 07:37 PM 6/8/08

     I have watched via PBS one of Bush's pals essentially argue that ID must be true because a large number is involved in computing an arbitrary probability (i.e., that this particular world was designed to support human life simply because it does support human life, whereas the Moon, for example, does not).
     
     Another arbitrary probability could be computed that the alleged intelligence designing all this factored in a large earthquake recently in China, as well as a tsunami a few years ago, neither of which seemed to support human life.
     
     Then again, there is the problem of malarial parasites.
     
     In the ancient world as well as now, some people have offered simplistic faith-based explanations of natural disasters as somehow depending on the will of some god, the relationship between the god and human beings, and other nonsense.
     
     Equally nonsensical is the notion that we live in a world designed especially for us and other living things. This is the Cosmic Mommy-Daddy hypothesis, i.e., there must be an omniscient intelligence greater than us who created us and wants us to be healthy and happy.
     
     One should not be easily swayed to ignore relevant data simply by the magnitude of numbers used in arbitrary probability calculations. These types of word problems only consider the preconceptions that the problem poser chose to address.

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493. 493. Frank M 08:32 PM 6/8/08

     If you want to know what randomness causes, look at any other planet. Put fruit in a blender. Randomly type keys on your keyboard. Turn a bull loose in a china shop.
     
     Randomness is not questions like: Why isn't a rabbit's fermentation chamber further up the digestive tract?
     
     Randomness is blobs. Randomness is incontinuous with holes and stoppages all over. Randomness is mixed mush. Randomness is utter lack of common sense or cohesiveness. Randomness is what you get during radiation induced genetic mutations, but not in standard genetic variations.
     
     Randomly formed brains are absolute madness. Randomly formed skeletal systems don't link and randomly formed skin leaks our insides all over the place. Randomly formed circulatory systems will not only leak, but there will be no tubes. Randomly placed teeth are on our skin and randomly placed sweat glands are on our shinbones.
     
     But we shouldn't even have teeth, skin or bones, let alone functional glands. Randomness can not form teeth as cohesive units, let alone arrange them in foursomes in millions of rearrangements. Randomness will not give us any symettry or repetitive shapes at all.
     
     Randomness is as likely to give us a ham sandwich as a liver, but even among all the things that look like a liver that might form, randomness does not give us functional livers nor functional anything.
     
     Randomness affects the functional formation of a tree the way a woodchipper does.
     
     Most of all, randomness is unavoidable devastation for encoded information. Changing just one or two bits of information in a coherent code would take extreme luck to maintain coherency. Changing 50 bits, as any detectable change to a biological being would have to be at minimum, is not possible to do without losing coherence.
     
     To imagine that randomness could create even a single functional formation of any sort even once is sophomoric wishful thinking. To contend that it happened millions of times in millions of lineages is sheer idiocy.

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494. 494. Frank M 09:23 PM 6/8/08

     Bradley, if you are trying to say that mathematics are false and your psychobabble is right, then could you please present some of your "data" that you alluded to?
     
     My education is in biology, not earth science, so i don't know how far to accept the intelligent design claims of the other sciences. But I can address your issues as far as life science and evolution are concerned.
     
     It is far from "arbitrary" to discuss the odds against life forming by accident, but I will add you to the list of Darwinists who attempt to prop up accident theory by claiming that math CAN'T be done. Or even if it can, it certainly does not mean more than a Darwinist's pre-drawn conclusions.
     
     Bradley> "Then again, there is the problem of malarial parasites."
     
     OK, now you are in my expertise, but I don't know what you mean by "problem". To the parasite, there is no problem. Another blogger here, Pigeon, called immunodeficiency a design flaw. Why? Viruses and parasites are living things. They have intelligence and are no less in need of life and comfort as we are. Moreover, wouldn't it be more correct to say that ANY immunity is an incredible design success? We don't need to be superbeings impervious to all harm to have been designed. All things that have ever been designed have flaws and will eventually fail completely.
     
     Bradley> "In the ancient world some people have offered simplistic faith-based explanations of natural disasters"
     
     Were they math based explanations or scientific evidence based explanations? If not I don't see how this applies. ID is entirely non-religious and fully supported by the evidence and mathemtics.
     
     Bradley> "This is the Cosmic Mommy-Daddy hypothesis, i.e., there must be an omniscient intelligence greater than us who created us and wants us to be healthy and happy."
     
     Omniscient? I thought you were talking about ID. We do not posit omniscience or limitless perfection. We simply state that there is inelligence involved. You are going way over the top with the "Cosmic Mommy-Daddy" silliness.
     
     What we know is that we are intelligent beings. Does intelligence and consciousness form by some random assortment of particles? If so, please show the data to support this and explain which materials it takes so that we may assemble those materials and create consciousness.
     
     Do molecules cooperate, animate, reproduce, self-fuel, sing, dance and think by accident?
     
     I don't think so, but for some bizzare reason, you do. That doesn't make your rather unique belief system valid.
     
     Bradley> "One should not be easily swayed to ignore relevant data simply by the magnitude of numbers used in arbitrary probability calculations."
     
     Where is your "relevent data"??? There is no more relevent data than cold hard math. The numbers don't lie, whether you like them or not. The magnitude of the numbers against Darwinism can not be wished away. They are realities that must be addressed.
     
     Bradley> "These types of word problems only consider the preconceptions that the problem poser chose to address."
     
     Please present any conceptions that you feel were overlooked. Failure to do so makes you just another blowhard with an Materialist or Atheist agenda that runs contrary to the evidence.
     
     My guess is that this is yet another desperate attempt to get people to ignore evidence.

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495. 495. sologos 06:03 AM 6/9/08

     Frank M says,
     
     >>selection kills
     
     I understand the concept of selection being a subtractive filter, killing off any new phenotype whose new trait is maladaptive. But it also allows traits that are better adaptive, does it not? IN this sense it is an additive filter.
     
     To me the issue is not whether there be additive changes, but progressive changes. Additive merely means a trait that was not evident before. The finch beak's change appears to be progressive until it moves back to its former appearance under a different set selective criteria. This speaks for deterministic potential within the actual genome, a concept which both darwinists and designists seem to have overlooked, because the genome is presumed to be where the evolution first begins to operaste before it allegedly presents its offspring for the selective filter. This bi-directionality speaks of "additive" from one generation's phenotype to the next, but not progression, thus making the term "micro-evolution" a misnomer.
     
     
     A possible mechanism for this front-loaded bi(multi?)-potential may rely on another portion of the genome, the so-called junk DNA, another misomer if ever I heard one. (God don't make junk)
     
     While I was considering Ditches comments on mutations, I came across a published report that seemed to indicate that non-fatal yet deleterious mutations are stored in this portion of the genome for later use. Amazingly, like a software patch whereby the writer comes up with(designs?) a patch to correct detrimental features in the software, Dna has the ability to modify detrimental mutations that are in storage to use when the occasion calls, utilizing the phenomenon of genetic drift.
     
     Furthermore, adaptive mutability, a concept first brought up by Cairns and late debunked" by the Darwinist community, seems to be enjoying a resurrection. This Lamarkian-like ability is in the DNA itself, again bumping back the onus for change not in the phenotype selection or de-selection process., but somehow to the genetic material itself, before selective processes apply!
     
     Evolving responsively: adaptive mutation, Rosenberg, Nature Reviews: Genetics: 2: 504-515 (2001)
     
     
     http://www.nature.com/hdy/journal/v99/n4/full/6801042a.html
     
     The central thesis of molecular evolution is that protein synthesis under genetic direcion and genetic change presents itself for selective process. Here the environment povide feedback to DNA to mutate directly. Information is transferred from the environment
     directly to the DNA
     
     
     Thus, natural selection plays a bigger role than merely subtractive. The big question for design vs. accidental and especially for design vs. the Synthesis Theory is that regulatory mechanisms appear to be operating before the "random" mutational supply of the fittest manifests. Like all the data in the science that has been spun to be consistent with a Darwinistic paradigm, careful comparative analysis substituting the design hypothesis, shows it to be more consistent with design than Darwinism.
     
     One should note, that naturalistic methods were used but the inferences are consistent not with natural-ISM but design. God obviously works in the natural realm, allowing us all to engage in our naturalistic methodologies with some degrees of success, but it alway points back to Him. Naturalistic elucidation never eliminates but rather enhances our appreciation of Him. A little wonder always helps, as well. Like all creation, when a scientist wonders at it al, it is akin to worship.
     
     --
     Edited by sologos at 06/08/2008 11:13 PM
     
     --
     Edited by sologos at 06/08/2008 11:15 PM

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496. 496. Tommo0809 05:50 PM 6/9/08

     Bradley,
     there's no need to feel obligated to respond to franks sarcastic "request" for "data". He has a profound knack for turning any/all evidence in support of evolution into support for ID by mere say-so. He also boasts of mountains of evidence that supposedly demonstrate that darwinian evolution has been "hopelessly disproven". But all he really provides is this same improbability argument the creationists used pre-scopes trial, while failing to consider the notion that the existence of a creator would be even more improbable. By all means post or provide any info you feel will support your argument, but don't expect him to pay attention to it.

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497. 497. EastwoodDC 07:39 PM 6/9/08

     [I'm a bit late on this one]
     
     [b]Sephers165[/b]:
     
     Sephers165 wrote> TO anyone else, can someone explain what I am doing
     > wrong that I can't get a good discussion going on.
     > Eastwood and Sologos seem to be having one. I mean is
     > my tone really bitter, am I being too forceful, what
     > is it? Please help, I'm interested in having a
     > intellectual discussion even if it proves me wrong
     > but no one responds except with Ad hominem responses.
     
     Sologos and I have established the basis of our viewpoints. I maintain that Faith and Reason are separate, and Sologos says they may intermingle. That's my paraphrase - Sologos might say it differently. We both seem to be arguing from two different sides of [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalism_(philosophy)]Naturalism[/url]. Sologos' view seems to make a distinction about the supernatural that I don't quite grok, because it seems a major disjoint in a single philosophy. [b]Sologos[/b] could perhaps describe the formal difference better than I.
     In short, we disagree with each other, but we at least understand [i]why[/i] we disagree.
     
     If you are interested in learning, then more power to you, because that is what it is really all about. May I suggest you begin with examining your own assumptions? This is where I began the first time I got into a discussion about ID, and I came to the conclusion that the whole ID/Evolution discussion is the latest incarnation of a much older debate - that between [i]Faith and Reason[/i] - which has been going on for centuries, and will no doubt continue after we are gone.
     (IIRC, this point about Faith and Reason was my first post in this discussion.)
     
     I haven't had time to read your recent posts very, but my impression is that you seem to be bringing a lot of big assumptions with you. Try examining the basis for why you believe as you do. Likewise, examine the basis for the opinions you disagree with. When you ask a question, what is it you really wish to learn? To understand any answer, you have to fully understand the question in the first place. [i]IMO, the entire ID/Evolution debate results from a misunderstanding of Faith and Reason, and the limits of both.[/i]
     Finally, I would caution against expectations of proving right or wrong. First, this isn't really a very good way to do it (what pages are we on now?). Second, right or wrong may depend on your perspective. I do not have any expectation of changing Sologos' opinion, but I do hope to understand him better.

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498. 498. EastwoodDC 07:51 PM 6/9/08

     And now a word from [b]Our Sponsor[/b]:
     
     [url=http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=regulating-evolution]Regulating Evolution: How Gene Switches Make Life[/url]
     
     While this is not directly relevant to any persons comments, Sologos' comment about junk DNA reminded me of it. This article does a nice of explaining the wide diversity of genetic expression seen from very similar DNA (between species).

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499. 499. sephers165 01:13 AM 6/10/08

     > I suggest you begin with examining your own
     > assumptions?
     
     Yes, I agree, and I have been. If you can't think critically of your own beliefs then it's most likely because you aren't convinced about how true they are. I should mention though I use to believe Evolution, but that was simply because I was told it was true and had no reason to question what I was told. I guess while getting my bachelor's I learned along the way to think critically and began to do so of Evolution. What made it so convincing was that I didn't want to believe in God before so in a sense it had to be true, but after I started believing in God then it wasn't the "only" option. With this view I was able to see how it didn't explain everything satisfactorily for me and I abandoned it. I admit though proving Creation is not likely to happen, but from the evidence I have seen for Evolution I have been only convinced that it proves Evolution if you first believe it to be true.
     
     Still I understand that most of the scientific community believes Evolution therefore my goal here was to find out if A: I'm just not educated enough and need to learn more or B: The others who believe it believe it for the same reasons I originally did.
     
     I've learned a lot more about the Theory of Evolution and what evidence is used to support it, but I am having a tough time finding out why people have originally believed it. It still seems like people believe it based off of the fact that "so many people believe it" but not necessarily because of their own findings.
     
     I'm looking for objective evidence for Evolution that can't be explained by creation, and what sucks is every argument the Evolutionists have I see one for Creation, every one the Creationists have I see the counter argument for Evolution.
     
     > the whole ID/Evolution discussion is
     > the latest incarnation of a much older debate - that
     > between [i]Faith and Reason[/i] - which has been
     > going on for centuries, and will no doubt continue
     > after we are gone.
     
     Maybe reason doesn't need faith, but in my opinion faith without reason is just dumb. It is still a matter of faith that new species will actually evolve, or that life came from non-life since we haven't see that, but this faith is perfectly acceptable since you used reasoning to arrive at the conclusion (Logos). And really even believing Evolution without knowing little about it but strictly because so many scientists believe it is reasonable. (Ethos).
     I just don't like being treated like I lack reasoning because I don't believe Evolution, indeed it was my reasoning that led me not to believe it.
     
     > Finally, I would caution against expectations of
     > proving right or wrong. First, this isn't really a
     > very good way to do it (what pages are we on now?).
     
     Definitely agree.
     
     > Second, right or wrong may depend on your
     > perspective. I do not have any expectation of
     > changing Sologos' opinion, but I do hope to
     > understand him better.
     
     I agree.
     
     
     
     The main thing I'm trying to understand now is why did people originally believe in Evolution? Not why they believe it now, but what led them to believe it in the first place.

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500. 500. Natedog 03:44 PM 6/10/08

     > sephers165: "The main thing I'm trying to understand now is why did people originally believe in Evolution? Not why they believe it now, but what led them to believe it in the first place."
     
     Personally I see creationism as two theories. One that deals with the origins of life and one that deals with life after creation.
     
     The body of scientific theories that deal with the origins of life are referred to as 'abiogenesis theories' and they attempt to explain our origins through natural means. Creationism theories compete directly with abiogenesis. After that you have the 'theory of evolution' and what I would call the 'post creationism theory'.
     
     Abiogenesis theories generally involve organisms that at first would have been extremely simple and evolved from there into more and more complex organisms over time. Creationism theories on the other hand generally start with the spontaneous creation of complex organism that as a result of their complexity have no aparent need to evolve afterwards. Post creationism theories would then simply be a maintaining of the status quo.
     
     The theory of evolution took off when individuals started studying not only the differences in various organisms alive today but the fossilized remains of past animals. They were surprised to discover that may of those fossilized animals either no longer existed (dinosaurs, etc) or had undergone drastic changes over time. Also, the further back they looked the less complex organism appeared to be. Of course I am giving you a some what simplified version of the history of the theory of evolution and much more complex and conclusive research has since confirmed those claims but you get general the idea of how it got started.
     
     No one has yet been able to successfully determine the de facto origins of life but we now know for certain that from whatever means life first came into existence it has continuously evolved thereafter.
     
     --
     Edited by Natedog at 06/10/2008 11:27 AM

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501. 501. sologos 06:35 PM 6/10/08

     sephers says:
     
     >Maybe reason doesn't need faith
     
     Ever since Galilleo, science has sought to free itself of any religious consideration. The experimental method with all the refinements in the lastt 400 years became the gold standard for discovering reality. Naturalistic methodology has had tremendous successes withtthe resuilt that many people began to equate science with its methodology rather than a broader perspevtive that characterized the pre enlightenment approach to understanding reality. The truth is that this approach has reached full circle in our time where the methodology has graduatred to the status of an odeology, called Naturalism.
     
     Naturalism like any other ideology has a set of beliefs that paint the perspective with which people view the world. one of the views is that there was never a time (if the word time can even apply) when there was nothingness ) from a physical). The universe in some from or preform has always existed and therefor there is not only no need to postulate a Creator from outside of time, but there is also no need to postulate such a Being for any
     of the universes processes, including the biological. People who suibscribe to this world view believe that everything in the universe can be explained naturalistically.
     
     These people use reason but come up with very different conclusions than do people who are Theists or even Deists who also use reason.
     
     
     There is a third group of people who also have a world view with regards to Science and God and pretty much believe the way Stphen Gould, the evolutionist who came up with the theory of the Cambrian explosion. Gould claimed the two areas of knowledge(if there are indeed 2) as two distinct non-overlapping Magesteria.
     
     
     Here are three r more distict beleief systems who all use reason (at least at times) but can, and often do come up with very different conclusions.
     
     It is not just in teir deductive processes that this difference manifests. The very way that they see data, indeed the very data they find is painted by this data. Someone who believes that all the world is land, will not be looking for whales, whereas the one who believes that all the worls is water, will not be looking for elephants.
     
     People tend to see their way as the objective way and feel they thus attain to neutrality. The fact is that neutrality and objectivity are not possible. When one thinks to rid onself of religion, one often sustitutes for religion a aother ideoogy complete with a moral system and deities. Reaosn has everything to do with beliefs.
     
     Faith on the other hand is something different. Faith in God not only posits a Diety but finds that the work of that Deity's hand to be excellent and perfect.

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502. 502. Natedog 07:48 PM 6/10/08

     >If indeed the whole thing begun by an act of God, then any methodology that cannot discern that is flawed. If that methodology claims this to be out of the realm of science, then a new methodology must be forged.
     
     The disciplines already exist to tackle such questions and they are called philosophy and theology. That is about as good as it gets when dealing with questions of a supernatural nature. You may find them lacking but so do most other people.
     
     > Naturalism is a narrow direction it took in the last 400 years, and so the powers that be in this narrow realm, have decided that it is not until matter and energy and dimension and physical forces begin that we can "do" science.
     
     It is not a matter of deciding it is a matter of necessity. You can not scientifically study what cannot be scientifically studied.
     
     > But if there be a connection between the physical and the metaphysical, why must some aspects of that connection be outside of he bounds of discoverable reality?
     
     Who says there is a connection between the physical and the metaphysical? Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy, not science.
     
     > What we are on the cusp of is a new paradigm, but this one is far more radical than chaos , relativity, and quantum. If those were rejected by the powers that be, then why should we expect anything different for this one. They all bought new mathematical formulations, new tools of investigation, and new theories of reality. This one must therefore do likewise, battling patiently on with the apostles of the former order, until some, here and there understand..
     
     Yeah, whatever…. Have fun with that.
     
     > Naturalistic methodology has had tremendous successes with the result that many people began to equate science with its methodology rather than a broader perspective that characterized the pre enlightenment approach to understanding reality. The truth is that this approach has reached full circle in our time where the methodology has graduated to the status of an ideology, called Naturalism. Naturalism like any other ideology has a set of beliefs that paint the perspective with which people view the world.
     
     Actually science utilizes our accumulated knowledge with regards to the nature of the universe aptly referred to as the laws of nature. If we can refer such notions as 2 + 2 = 4 as a fact and not just a widely held belief than in the same way natural science is not a belief system or an ideology and simply allows us to determine what is and what is not in accordance with the known laws of nature.
     
     > one of the views is that there was never a time (if the word time can even apply) when there was nothingness ) from a physical). The universe in some from or perform has always existed and therefore there is not only no need to postulate a Creator from outside of time, but there is also no need to postulate such a Being for any of the universes processes, including the biological. People who subscribe to this world view believe that everything in the universe can be explained naturalistically.
     
     That is one view as you stated but it is just that a belief. There is no science one way or another currently capable of tackling such a notion and such reasoning remains purely philosophical at this point.
     
     >These people use reason but come up with very different conclusions than do people who are Theists or even Deists who also use reason.
     
     I would argue otherwise. A theory which does not break the know natural laws has merit and whould be reasonable while any theory which requires the laws of nature to be broken is produced in the absence of reason.
     
     >Here are three or more distinct belief systems who all use reason (at least at times) but can, and often do come up with very different conclusions. It is not just in their deductive processes that this difference manifests. The very way that they see data, indeed the very data they find is painted by this data. Someone who believes that all the world is land, will not be looking for whales, whereas the one who believes that all the world is water, will not be looking for elephants.
     
     That is why the scientific method is so profound. It eliminates the bias on the part of the observer and results in only pure unaltered data. Scientists may not start out looking for whales on the land but if that is what they find science is capable of adjusting. A religion based on the belief that only elephants exist must either ignore the whales or cease to exist.
     
     > People tend to see their way as the objective way and feel they thus attain to neutrality. The fact is that neutrality and objectivity are not possible. When one thinks to rid ones self of religion, one often substitutes for religion a another ideology complete with a moral system and deities.
     
     Again this is why the scientific method is so strong. It has no room for personal opinion.
     
     > Reason has everything to do with beliefs.
     
     Reason can bolster ones beliefs but the opposite is not true. Beliefs do not increases ones ability to reason.
     
     > Faith on the other hand is something different.
     
     Faith and belief are one in the same. Reason is something else completely.
     
     --
     Edited by Natedog at 06/10/2008 1:31 PM

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503. 503. sologos 08:31 PM 6/10/08

     Greetings nat4dog, thank you for your response. You wrote
     
     >>Naturalistic methodology has had tremendous successes with the result that many people began to equate science with its methodology rather than a broader perspective that characterized the pre enlightenment approach to understanding reality. The truth is that this approach has reached full circle in our time where the methodology has graduated to the status of an ideology, called Naturalism. Naturalism like any other ideology has a set of beliefs that paint the perspective with which people view the world.
     
     >>>Actually science utilizes our accumulated knowledge with regards to the nature of the universe aptly referred to as the laws of nature. If we can refer such notions as 2 + 2 = 4 as a fact
     
     
     2=2=4 because we have all agreed to use a base 10 form of arithmetic. This is not the sort of belief I am talking about.
     
     
     >>>and not just a widely held belief than in the same way natural science is not a belief system or an ideology and has no perspective other than to allow us to determine what is and what is not in accordance with the known laws of nature.
     
     This arithmetic equation is not heldas a belief in the SAME WAY as an ideology. Incidentally, it is not the methodology that I fault. It is, of course, limited, and subject to both small (experimental errors) and large (complete paradigm shifts) problems. I am happy to live with that, as we will continue to cirrect things and shift when the alternative thinkers discover deeper aspects of nature. This is a never ending process. What is propagasted by an ideology, however, is more insidious than this. Whole institutions of society are affected when the errors in a belief system are propagated beyond the methodology. I think that is what the core of the discussion in this forum is about. You might disagree with whether or not those with whom you disagree are indeed using the methodology properly, but there is a definite antagonism to new ideas, even when they are coming from the non- ID non-creationist camp. Witness the discussion a few days ago about Lynn Margulis. This antagonism is not always because one is hoping to maitain thenpurity of the discipline, and is characteristic of the narow-mindedness of an ideology.
     
     MOre on this very interesting response that you have provided later.
     
     --
     Edited by sologos at 06/10/2008 1:34 PM

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504. 504. EastwoodDC 08:43 PM 6/10/08

     Sologos,
     You appear to be using the term "Naturalism" in a contradictory manner, or at least it seems that way to me. No criticism is intended, I'm just having a hard time understanding your usage. The Wikipedia definition for [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalism_(philosophy)]Naturalism[/url] includes the following:
     [i]"Some naturalists also insist that a legitimate distinction between supernatural entities and natural entities cannot be properly made (focusing on the conceptual distinction itself), and that when someone is talking or thinking about supernatural entities, they are actually referring to natural entities (though confusedly)."[/i]
     OK, I'm confused. Is this what you are meaning to say, that there is no legitimate distinction between the natural and supernatural? This would seem to be the only way we can both be claiming Naturalistic arguments.
     
     Now on to another question:
     
     Sologos wrote:
     > One should note, that naturalistic methods were
     > used but the inferences are consistent not
     > with natural-ISM but design. God obviously works in
     > the natural realm, allowing us all to engage in our
     > naturalistic methodologies with some degrees of
     > success, but it alway points back to Him.
     
     While I disagree with some of this, I'll save that for another day. I included this here because it sets the context for the following:
     
     > Naturalistic elucidation never eliminates but rather
     > enhances our appreciation of Him. A little wonder
     > always helps, as well. Like all creation, when a
     > scientist wonders at it all, it is akin to worship.
     
     I understand you, and I also have that appreciation - no argument there. However, doesn't this appreciation derive from Faith, and [u]not[/u] Naturalism or the scientific method?
     
     My scientific understanding and my faith are compatible, but I do not ascribe my faith to scientific understanding (or vice-versa). It would be a strange sort of faith indeed if scientific findings could validate or invalidate them.

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505. 505. sephers165 11:06 PM 6/10/08

     > The theory of evolution took off when individuals
     > started studying not only the differences in various
     > organisms alive today but the fossilized remains of
     > past animals. They were surprised to discover that
     > may of those fossilized animals either no longer
     > existed (dinosaurs, etc) or had undergone drastic
     > changes over time. Also, the further back they looked
     > the less complex organism appeared to be. Of course
     > I am giving you a some what simplified version of the
     > history of the theory of evolution and much more
     > complex and conclusive research has since confirmed
     > those claims but you get general the idea of how it
     > got started.
     
     That's helpful thanks. I will look into this area more. Do you know by chance what are the youngest complex fossils they've found and when the oldest complex fossils started to appear. Or maybe do you know where I can read more about this?
     
     Thanks,
     
     Seth

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506. 506. sologos 03:14 AM 6/11/08

     Natedog and Eastwood,
     
     Thank you both for your consideration of my entries. It is serving me well, in that it is forcing me to stay real
     
     Perhaps, before I attempt to answer some of your specific comments, I can make a few general comments by way of intro.
     You both seem to be agreeing with Gould in that you believe that, if there be any supernatural realm, it's relationship to the physical realm is that they co-exist as "non-overlapping magesteria". Thus God and science, faiith and reason, metaphysics and physics, can never be reconciled.
     It is true that they are distinct in that each each uses a different methodology and set of premises. Both, however, though it may not be readily appreciated by an apologist for naturalism, use logic. Both, also are part of the human experience, and consider matters of impotance to us humans. It has been said that fully 95% of what matters to us is never touched by science. Consider for yourselves. It is relationships, emnities, experiences of joy, sorrow, pleasures and pains that really occupy the majority of your thoughts, and in which you vest the most psychic energy. I know you love science, but I dare say you love your children more.
     If that were not enough to seek to reconcile the 2 into a unified understanding . then consider what really is the worth of a Grand unified Theory of the whole universe, if it doesn't address the 95%.
     I cannot tell you how in precise terms the 2 might be considered together, but since both do, in fact, follow logical lines, it would appear that mathematics would be the best tool we now have yo attempt the reconciliation. Frank M, agree with him or not, is, I believe trying to do just that with the concept of intelligence. In fact, the whole ID and Creationist movment has gained so much mometum in recent years, not because 20th century discoveries seemed to infer the possibility for some of a spiritual basis of reality to some, but because there was a void left behind by an ideology that basically gutted meaning and individual significance, and basically asked us to be satisfied that we are "part of a great continuum", never mind an unconsciousness part!
     If we all come from primordial muck and are headed into nothingness, it is pretty tough to hang any significance on the 80 years in between, by saying we are made of the same stuff as the stars and our material body will go back to cosmic dust.
     What I do believe we are ready for as a civilization is a dialogue between disciplines: metaphysics and physics, faith and reason, God and science. Not only are we ready because we share some common ground and interests, but perhaps more urgently, because we are also rapidly approachjing some critical moments in history where we have the power in so many ways to wipe out everything. Ethics is not a scientific phenomenon, and it doesn't help the matter any to fancy about how morals evolved by natural selection, without also considering that moral decisions must increasingly be made because with each of the basic sciences, we are now and will increasingly be in a position to self-destruct.
     But before i get too philosophical on this scientific forum , I should consider whether physics and metaphysics have anything to say to each other. Many, I suspect think it is only a one way conversation. The more physics learns, the less the need to even postulate a metaphysical reality. Ironically, to even make such a statement, one is basically engaging in metaphysics. Concepts themselves are metaphysical. That cute thought aside, there is, in reality, a lot that both have to say to each other.
     To physics belong the verifiability status of its methodology. It was physics that informed the church 400 year ago that their undersatanding from scripture was, at the very least, incorrect in interpretation. What followed was an upheaval in the way people would look at religion or revelation. The genie was out of the bag, and a force was set in motion that has turned the table so far that it is science now who calls the shots, and seems even to occupy the place of absolute authority that the church once occupied in peoples lives and society's institutions.
     But the fact tremains that science has shown that it can inform and even modify convincingly what people of faith believe. Meraphysics better listen carefully when physics speaks. But is this all there is to the story?
     How does metaphysics inform science. Ideas are metaphysical, and Ideas too carry a force that molds and shapes scientific investigation. Where do ideas come from? Even if you were to believe that they have somehow been selected for, they have an existence, and a force all their own, and science sometimes loses track of its most cherished idseas. Metaphysics must remind physics the law of cause and effect. So when science abandons the fact that the universe is an effect that must have a cause, science must heed, and seek to investigate rather than to simply say that it is eternal. Yes, where it all came from is, and ought to be, a question of science, and if our methodology is unable to detect that, then we need to find out how to bridge that gap.
     The very evaluation of whether the methodology can use a tune up or a refinement is a philosphical considerstion ie, the philosophy of science. It is only in the last few decades that falsifiability was understood to be a better judge of a principle's verifiability than predictability. Every scientist, in a sense engages in a metaphysical process when he or she considers the 4 steps of an experimental method.
     As alluded to above, as well, when a scientific ideology supports meaninglessness, and threatens to put into people's hands the means to destroy their bodies minds or souls, people have to decide if there indeed is any prupose to restraining or fettering science's discoveries and applications. Science , lets face it, is amoral. The end is answers, and the means is investigation. Investigate ,we must. Have you ever read Teller's view at Los Alamos? It is people using moral, religious based accountability and ehthicak considerations(all a metaphysical process)who have to decide. Likewise peoplealso have to decide whether or not the methodology at that point has become an ideology, and at what cost.
     But what about religion? What possible purpose can revelation, for example give to the scientific process? Isn't it just the other way around?
     For starters, it is basically what is keeping this whole discussion going. Are we not, essntially arguing about whether there is a source, or a force, or a spiritual basis for the physical universe? This discussion is, or at least should be clarifying for all their philosophy of science. Hopefully, some dialogue is going on that is helping people to either firm up thier old ideas or incorporate new ideas. But consider, why is there any discussion at all? Because some claim that there is an immaterial reality existing side by side with the physical universe.
     Finally, I guess the million dollar question that lies at the heart of the faith/reason, metaphysics/physics, and God/science dialogue can be phrased as follows. The naturalistic verifiability that science lays claim on in adressing the scriptural references to nature informs revealation as to how revelation ought to be interpreted, does the opposite hold true? Is there any thing that revelation can do for science.
     Without delving into the lengthy topic of how faith, as a faculty, operates to assess and understand reality, the truth is that revelation not only written but given through the natural worldt already has informed science and its processes.
     The fact that it emmanates from an orderly mind guarantees that cause and effect can be found. It didn't have to be that way. Why should we expect order? Why should math correlate with physics? Do we in some way have a right to expect that our brains can also produce ideas compatible with this knowable reality? It's no good to just say well that is the way it is. One must ask why? Why must one ask why? Because why is how, and science is the how question emanating from this unmerited order.
     But what about actual scripture? Is there any help for science in scripture? Actually, any scientist who knows scripture well soon, discovers that it is loaded with references to nature and, in fact, antedate scientific discoveries by millenia. Yes, correct interpretation can be helped by allowing itself to be informed by naturalistic elucidation, but revelation is light speed ahead , and has been throughout all history. Shakespears knew it before Freud.
     As to scripture, there are several which have been alluded to here.
     It is only on the last 400 years and especially in the computer age that physical laws can be basically seen as bits of information running systems in the universe. Gravity essentially keeps satelites moving in perpetual motion, and define the dimension and limits of such systems. It is information, like information from fextbook or a computer, that keeps the cosmos evolving. Where did this information come from and why is it the way it is. In our part of the iuniverse, the information has worked pretty well, no? It was in the time of David that the psalmist wrote, "with wisdom the worlds were framed" A correct assesment, form all inderstanding that anthropic principles elucidated 2500 years later. wouldn't you say?
     
     How about "He formed man out of dust from the ground" Pretty good scientific insight for 1500 BC. Or "He hangeth the earth on nothing" How did Job know that?
     One last one, before I lose you. There is great talk these days about finding the Grand Unified Theory and that there is basically only one force of which all other forces participate. Paul said it this way about 2,000 years ago."In Him all things hold together"
     Now I'm sure i've overstayed my welcome from some so I will cut this short and adress the comments later. Thanks for giving it a read.

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507. 507. Tommo0809 12:59 PM 6/11/08

     Eastwood you may have seen this, its pretty interesting towards the end when he glosses over speciation. Has anyone read his Sciam article, "what is a species?"
     
     [url http://scienceblogs.com/loom/2008/06/02/a_new_step_in_evolution.php][/url]
     
     p.s. has anyone read his microcosm book?
     
     --
     Edited by Tommo0809 at 06/11/2008 6:50 AM

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508. 508. EastwoodDC 03:59 PM 6/11/08

     > Eastwood you may have seen this, ...
     
     Yes, I just found that this morning. Here is a link to the [url=http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/105/23/7899]original article ([i]Blount, et al.[/i])[/url] that Zimmer discusses. [i](subscription is likely required for the full text, but anyone should be about to view the abstract, or message me and I could forward the PDF)[/i] . I believe I have read Zimmer's SciAm article as well. I might have to dig through my old issues and read it again.
     
     --
     Edited by EastwoodDC at 06/11/2008 9:02 AM

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509. 509. Rogi1981 05:06 PM 6/11/08

     [b]> One last one, before I lose you. There is great talk these days about finding the Grand Unified Theory and that there is basically only one force of which all other forces participate. Paul said it this way about 2,000 years ago."In Him all things hold together"[/b]
     
     Perhaps you mean the Unified Field Theory? Are you saying that rather than painstakingly researching and working to find a single guiding law of physics, which will explain micro and macro forces at work, there already is an easy answer that does not require any hard work or thinking? That is precisely the difference between science and religion. One states that there are things we can and do know (either certainly or within a reasonable degree) and then there are things we do not know but will discover one day, if they in fact exist. The other, seemingly, states that we already know everything in one easy answer. Had only Enstein and Newton known that gravitation was He (i.e God) holding the the planets in orbit and bending light from quasars. It would've saved them decades of painstaking work.
     
     [b] >How about "He formed man out of dust from the ground" Pretty good scientific insight for 1500 BC. Or "He hangeth the earth on nothing" How did Job know that?[/b]
     
     What's the scientific principle elucidated here, that the earth hangeth on nothing? That's hardly a scientific principle, as, due to scientific research, it is currently theorized that the earth does "not hang on nothing" Nor does Mercury. Nor does the Sun, which according to the Old Testament revolves around the earth (how did the ancients knew that "scientific principle"). Nor is the value of Pi 3, as stated in the Bible. The bible is no more a testament to scientific knowledge than a 4 year olds' observation of "green trees" a treatise on chlorophyl aided processing of sunlight in plants.
     
     [b]> "with wisdom the worlds were framed" A correct assesment, form all inderstanding that anthropic principles elucidated 2500 years later. wouldn't you say? [/b]
     
     Sologos, my apologies for the cheap shot, but it seems to me 2500 years later that statement is only partially correct, as elucidated today from the incredible lack of wisdom in many of the words formed by you.
     
     --
     Edited by Rogi1981 at 06/11/2008 10:11 AM

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510. 510. Rogi1981 05:14 PM 6/11/08

     On a different note, perhaps we should avoid getting further and further away from the original topic (Evolution and the crap that is "Expelled" ) by starting to delve into philosophical existentialist and theological conversations Sologos is embarking on, possibly as a result of inability to engage in a conversation based on "naturalistic" principles.
     
     --
     Edited by Rogi1981 at 06/11/2008 10:15 AM

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511. 511. Natedog 06:56 PM 6/11/08

     > I know you love science, but I dare say you love your children more. If that were not enough to seek to reconcile the 2 into a unified understanding then consider what really is the worth of a Grand unified Theory of the whole universe, if it doesn't address the 95%.
     
     I understand that you are unsatisfied with the inability of science to answer certain questions but it was never intended to and frankly is incapable of answering questions outside of the realm of science. Truth is that no discipline exists that is capable of answering questions of a spiritual nature. Aside from determining how emotions are chemically produced the best and only tool we have to tackle questions regarding joy, sorrow, pleasure and pain is philosophy and nothing would be gained from trying to unify philosophy and science into some form of pseudo-science.
     
     > I cannot tell you how in precise terms the 2 might be considered together, but since both do, in fact, follow logical lines, it would appear that mathematics would be the best tool we now have you attempt the reconciliation.
     
     No discipline will ever unify the two and they will forever be incompatible. You keep insisting that the two are based in logic but they are not. There is no logic involved in the speculation of supernatural phenomenon.
     
     > In fact, the whole ID and Creationist movement has gained so much momentum in recent years, not because 20th century discoveries seemed to infer the possibility for some of a spiritual basis of reality to some, but because there was a void left behind by an ideology that basically gutted meaning and individual significance, and basically asked us to be satisfied that we are "part of a great continuum", never mind an unconsciousness part!
     
     The ID movement exists for the sole purpose of trying to force religion into schools. The question: "Is there something more?" is one that will always exist and science, philosophy and theology will never be able to successfully answer it.
     
     >If we all come from primordial muck and are headed into nothingness, it is pretty tough to hang any significance on the 80 years in between, by saying we are made of the same stuff as the stars and our material body will go back to cosmic dust.
     
     What you are referring to is nihilism. I for one think that the knowledge that your time on earth is the only existence you will ever have places great significance on that period. I think treating your life as some kind of trail that you must suffer through in the hope that afterwards you will reach some place better is nothing short of a waste.
     
     > What I do believe we are ready for as a civilization is a dialogue between disciplines: metaphysics and physics, faith and reason, God and science. Not only are we ready because we share some common ground and interests, but perhaps more urgently, because we are also rapidly approaching some critical moments in history where we have the power in so many ways to wipe out everything. Ethics is not a scientific phenomenon, and it doesn't help the matter any to fancy about how morals evolved by natural selection, without also considering that moral decisions must increasingly be made because with each of the basic sciences, we are now and will increasingly be in a position to self-destruct.
     
     Mankind has always had the power to destroy itself by one means or another and that power must be respected but blurring the lines between disciplines will not do anything to increase our chances for survival, if anything it would be detrimental. For example, devising scientific methods to decrease the green house gases in our atmosphere can solve global warming but praying will do nothing.
     
     > I should consider whether physics and metaphysics have anything to say to each other. Many, I suspect think it is only a one way conversation. The more physics learns, the less the need to even postulate a metaphysical reality. Ironically, to even make such a statement, one is basically engaging in metaphysics. Concepts themselves are metaphysical. That cute thought aside, there is, in reality, a lot that both have to say to each other.
     
     Again, I disagree. Physics exists whether humans are around to experience it or not. Metaphysics is a form of philosophy which exists only in the minds of intelligent beans. Our ability to think provides us with the necessary tools to understand the world around us but the world around us in no way requires our understanding to operate.
     
     >So when science abandons the fact that the universe is an effect that must have a cause, science must heed, and seek to investigate rather than to simply say that it is external. Yes, where it all came from is, and ought to be, a question of science, and if our methodology is unable to detect that, then we need to find out how to bridge that gap.
     
     The universe may very well have a cause (or not) and where we came from is most certainly a question of science. However, a question does not guarantee an answer. Science may never be able to solve the question of how the universe first came into existence (if there was in fact a beginning) but if that is so it will not necessarily be a result of any failure on our part. Some questions are beyond our ability to answer and the best we can hope to do it postulate likely scenarios.
     
     > As alluded to above, as well, when a scientific ideology supports meaninglessness, and threatens to put into people's hands the means to destroy their bodies minds or souls, people have to decide if there indeed is any purpose to restraining or fettering science's discoveries and applications. Science , lets face it, is amoral. The end is answers, and the means is investigation.
     
     First of all what do you mean by supporting meaninglessness? Whether something is meaningless or not is a matter of opinion. Secondly, science like every profession is bound by the laws we impose upon it. The application of science should most certainly be controlled but the same cannot be said for scientific discovery. What can be known we should strive to know.
     
     > But what about religion? What possible purpose can revelation, for example give to the scientific process?
     
     Revelation which is the act of making known what was unknown means everything to the scientific process but religion is not a provider of revelation.
     
     >Are we not, essentially arguing about whether there is a source, or a force, or a spiritual basis for the physical universe?
     
     No not at all. We are arguing whether or not there is any scientific proof that there is a supernatural source, or force, or a spiritual basis for life.
     
     >But consider, why is there any discussion at all? Because some claim that there is an immaterial reality existing side by side with the physical universe.
     
     Yes, and they have every right to argue that position and frankly it is of little concern so long as they accept that it is a philosophical argument and not a scientific one.
     
     > Finally, I guess the million dollar question that lies at the heart of the faith/reason, metaphysics/physics, and God/science dialogue can be phrased as follows. The naturalistic verifiability that science lays claim on in addressing the scriptural references to nature informs revelation as to how revelation ought to be interpreted, does the opposite hold true? Is there any thing that revelation can do for science.
     
     Revelation is knowledge and as such is not open to interpretation. Of what knowledge we do posses all of it derives directly from our understanding of the natural world and none from the supernatural. Is there anything revelation can do for science? Science and mathematics are revelation!
     
     >Why should we expect order?
     
     Why shouldn't we expect order?
     
     > Why should math correlate with physics?
     
     Math doesn't always correlate with physics. Many things are mathematically possible but not physically possible.
     
     >Do we in some way have a right to expect that our brains can also produce ideas compatible with this knowable reality?
     
     No, of course not.
     
     > It's no good to just say well that is the way it is. One must ask why?
     
     And science is the tool best suited to discover that answer.
     
     > But what about actual scripture? Is there any help for science in scripture?
     
     Sure. The references that deal with natural phenomena can be of great use. The same is true of many other books. It is only those aspects which deal with the supernatural that serve no purpose.
     
     > Gravity essentially keeps satellites moving in perpetual motion, and define the dimension and limits of such systems. It is information, like information from textbook or a computer, that keeps the cosmos evolving.
     
     No, information is our understand of the evolving cosmos. The cosmos would just keep doing what it is doing with or without us.
     
     >Where did this information come from and why is it the way it is.
     
     What information are you referring to? And more importantly why must there be a why? Why shouldn't the universe be the way it is? It very well could have turned out differently but than wouldn't you or some other intelligent creature (if any existed) have the same questions regarding their own universe? That argument goes absolutely no where.
     
     > In our part of the universe, the information has worked pretty well, no?
     
     Again what information are you referring to? It is little surprise that we happen to live in a universe which allows for our existence. That is hardly an argument in favor of an intelligent creator.
     
     > It was in the time of David that the psalmist wrote, "with wisdom the worlds were framed" A correct assessment, form all understanding that anthropic principles elucidated 2500 years later. wouldn't you say?
     
     No. I don't see what wisdom has to do with anything accept our ability to understand the physical world. Our wisdom certainly didn't create the physical world.
     
     > How about "He formed man out of dust from the ground" Pretty good scientific insight for 1500 BC. Or "He hangeth the earth on nothing" How did Job know that?
     
     Maybe aliens told him. Job also said that God made Eve from one of Adam's ribs. How did he know that?!? Oh yeah, he didn't and was simply using metaphor.
     
     > Rogi1981 : On a different note, perhaps we should avoid getting further and further away from the original topic
     
     I agree but I put so much effort into my reply I just had to post it ;)
     
     --
     Edited by Natedog at 06/11/2008 12:15 PM

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512. 512. Rogi1981 07:21 PM 6/11/08

     Natedog: You certainly have a lot more patience (an possibly free time0 than I do. I certainly wasn't even attempting to address everything Sologos said, but the scientific insights via Bible certainly struck my fancy.

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513. 513. Natedog 07:46 PM 6/11/08

     >Natedog: You certainly have a lot more patience (an possibly free time) than I do.
     
     I am at work so yeah, lots of free time. :-D
     
     > Do you know by chance what are the youngest complex fossils they've found and when the oldest complex fossils started to appear. Or maybe do you know where I can read more about this?
     
     The oldest fossils I am aware of are bacterial creatures found in Australia and are estimated to be approx 3.5 billion years old.
     
     > Or maybe do you know where I can read more about this?
     
     I can tell you where you probably shouldn't be looking and that is on the web. The web is chalk full of sites providing all sorts of misinformation. I would recommend peer review scientific journals or a recently published textbook currently being used by respected universities.
     
     --
     Edited by Natedog at 06/11/2008 1:29 PM

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514. 514. Rogi1981 08:37 PM 6/11/08

     Peer reviewed scientific journals are great for an in depth look at evolution. What someone who is interested in learning about evolutionary theory depends on their already existing knowledge and level of education. I have a pretty good scientific background, albeit not in biology, and I read through Ernst Mayer's "What is Evolution?" finding some parts relatively complex. Of course I practice law now and haven't dealt with anything overly complex in science for 6 years. However, books like the one I just mentioned are a great overview of history and specifics of evolutionary theory.

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515. 515. Rogi1981 08:39 PM 6/11/08

     Natedog, any relation to Bronzedog who used to regularly post at Skeptico's blog?

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516. 516. Natedog 09:08 PM 6/11/08

     By the way I am not saying that you shouldn't read books from an alternative perspective as well but you should at least gain a understanding of what is and isn't a proper scientific theory first. Otherwise you would just be flying blind.
     
     > Natedog, any relation to Bronzedog who used to regularly post at Skeptico's blog?
     
     Nope, he is not of my litter.
     
     --
     Edited by Natedog at 06/11/2008 2:10 PM

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517. 517. Frank M 05:41 AM 6/15/08

     sologos, I have enjoyed reading your messages, but sometmes you open up even more questions.
     
     sologos> "I agree that there are other non-trivial factors."
     
     Since Ditches didn't seem to answer my question as to what he meant by "non-trivial factors" causing evolution, perhaps you will?
     
     Is this a shaded reference to divine intervention? If so, is your belief in other factors something that is based on evidence or religious belief?
     
     sologos> "If the design theory is given serious consideration, all the legitimate data fits it better than it does Darwinist paradigm of chance and necessity."
     
     No doubt. Anybody who knows anything about the life sciences would agree with this. ALL evidence points to Evolution by Intelligent Design. Darwinist accident would only create death.
     
     sologos> "I agree that Natural selection plays a potent role in both function and form, but I like the way Frank M describes it as a 'subtractive filter' rather than an additive one. It has no power to 'draw' out 'favorable' mutations, which every good Darwinist would agree, explicitly."
     
     Actually many of them don't understand this simple fact. Selection can't create anything. Neither can random mutations, but at least that part is just bad math. Really, really really bad math.
     
     sologos> "However, there is an implicit belief within the Darwinistic mechanisms to see that the physical laws that are involved with selection are indeed able to produce 'miraculous' traits. A good example of this is the ability of these dumb and blind laws to participate in the production of consciousness."
     
     No combination of matter can create consciousness, intelligence, free will nor any of the immaterial aspects of life. This is science fiction stupidity, not a basis on which to insist that all life science be based upon. These wack jobs have no evidence at all to support their beliefs, yet they can't understand why nobody buys their crap.
     
     sologos> "I can even understand how one might see how problem solving ability of a Homo species would confer on that individual a selective advantage. Its a bit more of a stretch, to say that the ability to deal with nano-technology is selected out."
     
     First, please understand that nothing can be selected IN. Selection can do nothing positive. It can only kill off bad mutations, which is really DE-selection.
     
     A "problem solving ability" can not accidentally form, by genetics or any other method. If it can't form in the first place, it can't be selected.
     
     It is more than just a "stretch" to say that nano-technological skills are created by Darwinism. But your point being that it is not explained as a means to increasing the likelihood of surviving to reproduce is pretty accurate.
     
     sologos> "Once Homo begins to form social groups, I think you would agree, there are artificial brakes placed on the pace of biological evolution, as specialization within the groups allows more individuals to achieve reproductive fruition."
     
     True, but despite the absence of selection in humans - who'da thunk it - evolution in humans has accelerated.
     
     sologos> "More so, when geographic stability of the group, as when societies turn from hunting and gathering to agriculture, does the brain have less impetus to evolve."
     
     There is no "impetus" in Darwinism. It is 100% unintelligent uncaused lucky error. Only ID explains intelligent genetics in light of environmental needs.
     
     sologos> "Even the dispersal of smarter or stronger genes throughout the human genome is hindered by the protective role that these larger groups offer the weak."
     
     Quite correct and quite non-Darwinian, as all evidence is.
     
     sologos> "Whatever socialization skills or problem solving skills that had evolved by that time would have tended to remain fairly stable."
     
     Solialization skills are not genetic, nor do they form accidentally. Problem solving requires intelligence and such a thing can not evolve, nor is it formed by chance positioning of molecules. An unintelligent being would continue to put it's paw or tentacle on a hot fire, not learning and not caring if it lives or dies. Intelligence can not be formed by accident.
     
     sologos> "We live in a very different society now, demanding skills and abilities that would not have been needed in more primitive societies. Since the has not been any appreciable evolution of the brain, one would have to conclude that these new skills were somehow latent in those brains."
     
     Berlinsky is quite correct in saying that the ability is already there, but be careful as genetics are not always front-loaded. Sometimes they modify only when needed.
     
     Moreover, there is the question of whether intelligence is caused by formation of the brain, or if formation of the brain is caused by intelligence. It seems to go both ways. Parts of the brain required for successfully completing a scholastic vocation at Harvard would never have developed in the subject if he had stayed in the Amazon. Physically, there would have been fewer strings of neurons in the needed areas of the brain. So is it really "latent" or is it formed as needed?
     
     Still, your point is well-taken. In fact, since the Amazon River native that he used as an example had this ability, we do rule out selection garbage as an instrument of creation.
     
     sologos> "But the idea that a biological species may possess latent traits make no sense in Darwinian terms. It suggests th forbidden doctrine of frontloading."
     
     No, front-loading doesn't make sense in Darwinian terms because nothing makes sense in Darwinian terms. I'm not disagreeing with you here, but you may not realize that the Darwinists just don't get it. They think frontloading DOES happen, but that it happens by luck. They say that de-selection just hasn't gotten around to happening yet and that it would have eventually, but - what luck - it turned out that the creature needed the trait later.
     
     For example, the Darwinists had a hard time explaining why mosquitos who used to be killed by pesticides are now genetically resistant. Their explanation is that a tiny percentage of the insects had the front-loaded trait, and that only the lineage of the lucky resistant bugs lives on.
     
     These explanations may seem like a stretch of credulity, but given how much magic they have already laid on the altar of lucky errors, this is a miniscule leap of faith.
     
     sologos> "Moreover the phenomenon of consciousness and it's development has no biological basis."
     
     None whatsoever. Consciousness can not be caused by some lucky assemblage of matter. That doesn't even make sense, yet Darwinists cling to this notion like a religion, because they have to. It is another in their dirty laundry list of fatal flaws.
     
     It almost gets tiresome coming up with all of the reasons why Datwinism can't possibly happen.

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518. 518. Frank M 09:20 PM 6/15/08

     The simple fact is that no part of life or evolution can happen by luck, happenstance or accident. Not the start of the first life, nor the evolution of life, nor even getting you through your day today - none of it can happen by luck.
     
     The reason this has been a one-way argument with the Darwinists never providing any attempts to show how random blobs of molecules could create animation and consciousness is because, well... they can't. It is a reversal of all mathematical laws, but it is impossible for more reasons than I can even list again.
     
     Darwinism is dead. The only reason we still smell the stench of its corpse is because Academia clings so desperately to it, fearing the implications of the alternative.
     
     The intelligent animation of matter is required for any reproduction to occur. So the very first living thing, be it a cell or a floppy string of amino acids (trying not to laugh), it still needed this uncanny ability at the very start. This requires superior intelligence and the ability to animate and form matter.
     
     Yes, this phenomenally lucky formation of matter had to itself be able to animate matter, or something else did. There has never been a reproduction - sexual, asexual, meiosis, mitosis - that has occurred without intelligent animation of matter. It is not possible folks. Something has to acquire the needed building blocks and assemble them according to a plan. Both acquiring and assembling into any particular formation means moving matter around in an intelligent way. It means forming matter in a functional formation.
     
     It means intelligence. It means we always had the ability to intelligently animate matter and energy as we still have today. There is no other answer.
     
     No sane person can look at the evidence and conclude "accident". The only explanation for the few who still talk about "selection" and "random" this or that, is that some people are blinded by irrational ideological bias.

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519. 519. Ditches 11:15 PM 6/15/08

     *sigh*
     
     I am sorry that I'm not more prompt with my responses. If I'm lucky, I find a couple of hours of downtime a week, and I don't always feel like spending that limited time surfing the SciAm forums (especially with what I've been reading here lately).
     
     Frank, I am severely disappointed with your latest comments. Once again, I read several things which piqued my interest, but the intermittent scathing remarks left me with an overall feeling of disgust. For the first, and final, time, I shall impulsively respond without allowing this feeling to subside (much to my discredit, I'm sure):
     
     Yours was a seemingly original take on this whole evolution debacle, and I found it somewhat interesting (as I'm not entirely satisified with the theory, as is, myself). However, I have grown tired of sifting through your vitriolic babble to get to the intriguing bits. You come off as a pompous twit, and I'm through giving you the benefit of the doubt while continuing to suffer the gag-inducing quips interspersed throughout your comments. Have a nice life, you silly, bitter person.
     
     Rather concise and petty, if I do say so myself; a superbly disreputable way to end my brief stint on these forums. I look forward to witnessing the Frank-led upheaval of the scientific establishment in the decades to come.
     
     So long, and thanks for all the fish.

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520. 520. sologos 05:44 AM 6/16/08

     Rogi,
     Perhaps before I even attempt to answer your objections, I should clarify what I am not saying. I do not mean that the Bible is a textbook of Physics or Biology. I do mean that references to nature are made by the Bible and when you consider the state of scientific knowledge at the time the Bible was written, the statements were right on the money. Understanding of this revelation, like understanding of nature progresses over the centuries. Neither Nature nor the Bible change, but the interpretations or elucidation of both grow. Both, as well, have been erroneously understood in one age, only to be corrected by a later generation.
     
     
     
     >>Perhaps you mean the Unified Field Theory? Are you saying that rather than painstakingly researching and working to find a single guiding law of physics, which will explain micro and macro forces at work, there already is an easy answer that does not require any hard work or thinking?
     
     
     No. Of course, it is necessary. Actually scholarship in Theology is just as painstaking as scientific research. It is also progressive in its understanding over the years. The answer that I am referring to is not the details but the inference that it is one single force. Both are referring to a natural phenomenon. The point is that the biblical reference came about 2000 years before Physics was even ready to consider that the 4 basic forces are really only one force. Do you think Ben Franklyn understood that the electricity he discovered could have possibly been related to gravity, as Newton had explained it.? Later, Faraday may very well have noticed the similarities of the formulas but still no clue as to the unity of the forces. Was Paul in some way aware of the unified field theory? of course not, but the statement he made by revelation was consistent with a single force. We are yet to identify that force, and all that naturalism ever does is describe relationships, so in what sense will that force be elucidated by naturalistic mechanism except to further describe how it behaves?
     
     
     .
     
     >How about "He formed man out of dust from the ground" Pretty good scientific insight for 1500 BC. Or "He hangeth the earth on nothing" How did Job know that?
     
     >>What's the scientific principle elucidated here, that the earth hangeth on nothing? That's hardly a scientific principle, as, due to scientific research, it is currently theorized that the earth does "not hang on nothing" Nor does Mercury.
     
     
     It was a statement that the earth was not held up by Atlas as believed by the Greeks or by giant Ppillars as believed by he Romans.. It would be 3000 years before it would be discovered that the earth is not flat. Again a true scientific statement. You need to judge the science of the day in light of the state of understanding. It was not the state of understanding that the earth was a sphere sarting suspended in space, though this scripture is consistent with that thought.
     
     
     Nor does the Sun, which according to the Old Testament revolves around the earth (how did the ancients knew that "scientific principle").
     
     The scripture did not affirm that. Some in the 15th century incorrectly interpreted scripture to mean that the sun revolves around the earth.
     
     
     >>Nor is the value of Pi 3, as stated in the Bible. The bible is no more a testament to scientific knowledge than a 4 year olds' observation of "green trees" a treatise on chlorophyl aided processing of sunlight in plants.
     
     Right, the Bible does not discuss photosynthesis. My point is that the references to nature, when properly interpreted, are correct.
     No one who penned the scripture "observed" these things in the naturalistic sense of the word "observe", yet these statements
     are consistent with the most sophisticated understanding of the 21st Century. "Man was made out of clay" is counterintuitive to observing man emerge from another human or even observing the detritus of the rotting human body. In the sense of the understanding of BC, to say that "from dust we came" was not an observation that "biologists" of that time made or had the capacity to understand. Aristotle, 400 BC thought that sperm has little men in them. For us to look back and judge the science of the day by today's knowledge base. makes no sense. These biblical statements were not scientific observations but revelation, yet they are not inconsistent with today's understanding. For that matter, How about the very first statement of Genesis 1:1:,"In the beginning" It infers that time has a beginning. Just like Hawking says.
     
     
     > "with wisdom the worlds were framed" A correct assesment, form all understanding that anthropic principles elucidated 2500 years later. wouldn't you say?
     
     >>Sologos, my apologies for the cheap shot, but it seems to me 2500 years later that statement is only partially correct, as elucidated today from the incredible lack of wisdom in many of the words formed by you.
     
     Apology accepted. Why don't we continue to argue the salient points. My point is that if the scripture has been correct in all its naturalistic inferences, then the notion of Creation is also correct. But then again, I don't think you need the Bible to tell you that. Yes, but how, you want to know? Well that is a question for science.

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521. 521. EastwoodDC 09:31 PM 6/16/08

     Ditches,
     
     You might find that FrankM's posts are much more intelligible if you first examine the contents of [url=http://science-community.sciam.com/ignore!ignore.jspa?userID=570001035]this page[/url], then reload the original page. After doing this I find everything he writes seem so much more [i]transparent[/i]. Try it! B-)

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522. 522. Frank M 10:59 PM 6/16/08

     Some Darwinists seem to think that the odds of getting a beneficial physical formation is a coin toss or maybe even a Saturday afternoon lottery pick. It is nothing like that. It is is flat impossible. No matter how many tries you give it, it will NEVER happen by random chance.
     
     Just to get a single cell by luck has been estimated at 1 out of 10 with an exponent of 40,000 zeros. (Fred Hoyle) and this is being overly kind. Just to get a few cells of the right type in the right place is already odds of hundreds of billions to one against, and the "formation" isn't even visible yet. The numbers don;t go up additively from there. They go up exponentially.
     
     Yet to form something like an eye, a heart or even a hand or mandible, this requires thousands of bits of information that would need to be coherent. Each of these cases and thousands more in each living thing had to happen at odds so high I couldn't write them here. And yet Darwinists claim this happened millions of times down millions of lineages and continues to truck along at an alarming rate - all by beating odds that really aren't odds - they are absolutely impossible on a cosmic scale.
     
     The number of births, hatches or divisions are petty and meaningless numbers compared to this statistical impossibility. Even when Murray Eden tried his best to find a way for two genes to form in mega-fast reproducing bacteria, he made them an inch thick across the surface of the globe for billions of years and could not reach statistical possibility.
     
     We don't have infinity to work with, folks. There are only 10 to the 80th particles in the entire cosmos and only a few billion years to pull this off. Soon enough, the sun will destroy the earth and luck couldn't have formed so much as a butterfly wing.

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523. 523. Frank M 12:59 AM 6/17/08

     OK, calm down guys. We disagree, but that doesn't mean we have to get nasty with each other.
     
     Eastwood's link takes you to a page where I am ignored unless you click "End Ignore".
     
     It is a low-class move to mislead people about what your link does and it shows your insecurity that the only way you can imagine yourself "winning" is to force people to ignore me through trickery. I guess your attempts to convince them I was a troll didn't work. You seem nothing less than obsessed with me. If I WERE a troll, which I obviously am not, you would be playing right into my hands by fretting over me so and by avoiding the subject matter.
     
     It is exactly because of people like you that I avoid using links on message blogs. Thanks for being one of those guys who ruin it for everybody else.
     
     Ditches, I don't know what your meltdown was about, but you admitted yourself that it was petty. Didn't you just preach to the group about avoiding insults? I have only insulted one guy here and I apologized. Guys, we disagree strongly and this is a hot button topic. That is no reason for tantrums or schemes to squelch opposition.
     
     At least my "scathing remarks" were toward the general subject matter, not individuals here, even those who seem to do nothing other than attack me. I would say such scathing comments go both ways on this blog, but at least I keep mine in general terms, not individuals here.
     
     Ditches: "I read several things which piqued my interest" and "Yours was a seemingly original take on this whole evolution debacle"
     
     It probably is not nearly as original as it seems. Only about 10 percent of the world's adult population agrees that Darwinism can explain evolution. A majority of the rest believe God created life, but a sizable percentage are kind of uncertain as to the true cause, God or not.
     
     I am neither Creationist nor Darwinist, so that means my theory does not get the media play or the funding or the public understanding as the extremists enjoy. It also means I am going to draw ire from others from both sides, neither of whom I agree with.
     
     I am not the slightest bit bitter, but I have studied this subject for thirty years and I am very sure of myself, which may come off as arrogant. I use the light-hearted humor because it is my style. I know it isn't even slightly funny, as my kids often remind me.
     
     I do hope you rise above this and come back. You are an interesting poster.

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524. 524. Frank M 01:08 AM 6/17/08

     ....And for those of you who choose to ignore, rather than being tricked into it by the REAL troll of the board...
     
     ...I hope you enjoy the comfort of affirmation.

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525. 525. Frank M 04:00 AM 6/17/08

     Actually I suppose I should thank Eastwood for so graphically demonstrating the universal approach of Darwinists toward ID:
     
     DO ANYTHING POSSIBLE TO MAKE SURE NOBODY HEARS THE EVIDENCE AGAINST DARWINISM.
     
     The primary focus of Darwinists is to keep all dissent out of Academia, out of the media and out of scientific journals. Eastwood has been desperately trying to get people to stop listening to my message for some strange reason and it should have been more obvious sooner. He is a mere brick in the wall of the Expelled clips. Any dictatorship knows that the best way to keep people from the truth is to stifle the free flow of information.
     
     If you want to learn how life evolved, keep reading. You will not hear the truth in school or in church. Evolution has nothing to do with Darwinism, because it is an utter impossibility. Science can not discern whether the intelligence that made us was God or not, but all matter animation that takes place during reproduction and growth is highly intelligent and can not be explained by random accident and certainly not selection.
     
     The first word you need to know to understand evolution is the first word you need to know to understand life:
     
     Animation.
     
     When matter moves and when energy flows, something has to cause it. It is particularly odd when energy is retained and released in precise and functional ways which indicate that something has a very intelligent control over electrical flow in the body.
     
     Matter movement is the key aspect of what separates living from non-living things on the physical front. The movement of matter in living things is divided between those movements over which we have free will control and those over which we have no control. Either way, however, the animation of matter is entirely intelligent. How the word "accident" ever got mixed in to any discussion about life is hard to see. Every involuntary movement is precisely tuned for your needs. Some preserve your life in ways that defy any gradual Darwinist explanation. Others are regulatory and meant for comfort, not "selective" survival.
     
     Voluntary matter movement, such as raising your arm, seems to be wisely separated from involuntary animation. You can tell as you do it that it is your own thoughts causing the movements, although the Materialists and Atheists who push Darwinism so hard will try to tell you otherwise.
     
     Free will is not genetic, nor is it made of materials, so Darwinists are desperate to make you believe that your arm moves by forces over which you have no control. If they admit the truth, they would also be admitting that immaterial intelligence animates matter.
     
     But in fact, immaterial intelligence DOES animate matter in living things. Sure, it sounds strange, but life IS strange and you will never hear an explanation that isn't strange. The good thing about ID that separates it from Creationism and Darwinism is that it is 100% evidence-based, without ANY pre-conceived conclusions about God or the absence of God. The evidence that something intelligent is moving matter in living things could not be more blatantly obvious.
     
     We would die in seconds if whatever is doing this inside of us ever leaves us. Nothing lives by accident or some random comedy of errors.
     
     This immaterial intelligence force at work animating matter is never more shockingly obvious than during reproduction. This is why abiogenesis is impossible and a waste of funding. Even when they are able to create a few amino acid chains, they don't move and therefore don't live and don't reproduce.
     
     Before any reproduction could ever happen, an immaterial intelligent force had to have existed first or at least simultaneously.
     
     Stay tuned or follow Eastwood into ignorance.

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526. 526. Tommo0809 10:56 PM 6/17/08

     @ eastwood: Thanks for the laugh.

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527. 527. Rogi1981 12:23 AM 6/18/08

     FrankM:
     
     1) You have no sense of humor (is this typical of ID proponents?). Eastwood's comment is not meant to trick, but to amuse. If you were tricked by it FrankM into ignoring yourself, I will apologize on behalf of Eastwood, but will note that no one can possibly be that dumb. Then again...
     2) You certainly aren't a Darwinist. Perhaps you're not a Creationist. I'm not even sure if you are IDist. I'll tell you what you are though, a trollist, as you submit "proof" of your proposed form of ID (since it is inconsistent with many statements of ardent ID movement leaders) in form of rants consisting of statements repeated ad nauseum. The majority of your postings can be reduced to the following: irreducible complexity (eye, butterfly wing, etc.) and Darwinist conspiracy keeping the honest ID guys down (yeah, join anti-vaccination folk, holocaust and HIV deniers, and 9/11 guys, what a club).

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528. 528. jmarbas 01:01 AM 6/18/08

     Sorry Frank M.....I can see you are using logic in a convoluted and dangerous way to try and twist facts to better suite your arguments...this is what all religious people do by default, because they havent done any research to back up their empty pointless claims.
     
     Also...Frank M, ...we're not arguing against YOU and miniscule amount of reading you seem to do...we are arguing against your ENTIRE GROUP. You're ENTIRE GROUP has ABSOLUTELY no clue. And after thousands of years your group(sorry, im including all stupid groups) still has no clue.
     
     Its not 'sephers165' and his tiny bit of understanding of the subject matter we are arguing about....its not 'Frank M' and his dangerous use of logic that we are saying is wrong....we are saying that your ENTIRE RELIGIOUS GROUP has DONE ABSOLUTELY NO, NADA, ZERO, NIL, ABSOLUTELY NOT A SINGLE SLICE OF WORK! ...at all....in the last thousand years.....to advance their arguments against science.
     
     Wait...Im sorry...let me correct that. Your group actually has done SOME WORK. Heres a list of them
     
     1)Suicide bombings because we must oppose people who dont do things we believe are right and what God wants.
     2)George Bush removed science from his agenda and as a result ignored much of the future environmental impacts on the world.
     3)My uncle a catholic priest said that they should allow unlimited hunting because animals were made for humans by God and that we should use them the way we want.
     4)Pro life - no abortions! (because we need to FORCE other people to understand that we KNOW what God wants)
     5)Multiple wives. I guess the women were meant to serve us dudes.
     6)Dont eat pork. (Because we need to determine what kinds of protiens that our childrens bodies process and use to determine future generations)
     7)No music! Because music is a waste of time in some religions. The problem is that all the really advanced civilizations have a RICH DIVERSITY of music, art and culture. So yeah. all these really advanced civilizations should drop music because it is stated by some religious text written by some guy that it is a waste of time.
     8)The christian ID movement, full of people who dont study the subject at hand, and then go and believe the religious leaders only because they heard them in church. Or read an email about it.
     9)The spanish inquisition. No need to explain the bad press this moment in history got.
     10)Generally imprison people who go against the current the religious leaders opinion.
     
     The list goes on and on.....which are fantastick accomplishments.
     
     And you cant use the arguments that science also brings about bad things, because whenever you REMOVE the POWER from the reigning religous people in power...life happens. You GIVE back the POWER to religous people.....a convoluted form of life happens....PLUS you also get the 10 points above as a BONUS!
     
     You GIVE POWER to science and you have most of the countries in the industrialized world. Yes its terrible isnt it. I say Switzerland and Italy should stop their war immediately. Austrailia should also stop bombing NewZealand.
     
     So...Frank M. You might be able to fool these technical scientific pinheads into wasting their time and arguing with you. But Ive meet people like you who come up with these really dangerous uses of LOGIC, and they bend and twist it around to try and force their arguments.
     
     Thats dangerous, and I dont waste my time time with people like you anymore.
     
     Yes Im catholic, and yes, my family STRONGLY believes what you are saying. But Im the only one of them who has caught on to this problem. Again, many in my family read about something for a few days(or maybe its just one religious email) and they believe it without thinking. But I know that they are easily misled.
     
     Face it Frank....its not that I dont want to waste time arguing with you ...I just basically think you're LAZY.
     
     But its not the laziness I care about, because the real problem is that there are people who believe your contrived incorrect use of logic, and that makes you and other religous people who also use logic incorrectly .....DANGEROUS.
     
     Your religious groups, HAD their chance...and LOOK what they DID to the world. They force people to put other people in jail because they have different beliefs.
     
     If Jesus were to come down now he would get kinda angry at all these different groups just like he got pissed when they turned the church into a market. All these different groups are doing is SELLING their various ideas and beliefs which are basically from the most recent guy in power of that particular religious group/sect/church/mosk at that time.
     
     I hope this is my last post, and that I dont get riled up and upset about your next response....because to be honest...I probably will.
     
     I can stand other peoples arguments but for some reason, you and your blatant forced incorrect and uneducated use of logic and your ridiculously wrong interpretation of the countless hundreds of years of discovery, research and study....really throws me. Reminds me of some people who have no clue whatsoever.
     
     So Im not going to read your response. Instead of telling your followers that Im another one who will DO ANYTHING POSSIBLE TO MAKE SURE NOBODY HEARS THE EVIDENCE AGAINST DARWINISM.
     
     Instead tell them, Im just another one that will DO ANYTHING POSSIBLE TO AVOID HEARING THE DANGEROUS INCORRECT USE OF LOGIC AND UTTER WRONG INTERPRETATION OF FACTS BY FRANK M.
     
     And btw I think the technical scientific pinheads need to see the bigger picture of the forest for the trees. Instead of arguing with each of these individual guys....they should argue against their powerful groups! Because it is these groups which are more dangerous.

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529. 529. EastwoodDC 02:44 PM 6/18/08

     In the immortal words of [i]Sergeant Hulka[/i] (Stripes, 1981)"
     
     [b][i][url=http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Agency/1140/lightenup.wav]"Lighten up, Francis."[/url][/i][/b]
     
     
     and to [b]jmarbas[/b]:
     
     While I understand your feelings, I think you are taking the wrong approach. There will always be people who disagree, but some are better than others at expressing themselves. Disagreement can be a good thing if it is done in a constructive manner. We should engage with those who want a constructive discussion. This is basic psychology; Reward the good behaviors, ignore the bad. Sooner or later people learn to do it right. (Well ... most people.)
     
     I also understand that sometimes we just cannot ignore the bad, and that someone needs to make a stand for reason. Your point about going after the source groups is also well taken, but we should be careful not to use "to broad a brush". Religion is not the problem - There are plenty of religious "groups" that are also [i]reasonable[/i] (In fact, they are the majority.).

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530. 530. sephers165 06:18 PM 6/18/08

     Wow, this guy is ridiculous who tries to think Christians have only invented horrible things like wars. He is pretty much the reason I find evolution so hard to believe, because he thinks any opinion except for the one held by him was arrived at through completely irrational means.
     
     I think Christianity is true because of rational reasoning. Just because it's incredible doesn't mean it is irrational.
     
     Well here is a few things invented by Christians.
     
     Hospitals are a Christian invention; they did not exist before Christianity Their very name is Christian in origin
     
     Medicine was another great area of Christian innovation
     
     The printing press was done by a Christian to make Bibles.
     
     Man I sure wish Christians never came around because I hate those things. I also hate the fact that they thought it important to educate people to read and write, because now we have the educational system. Urggh.
     
     I understand the venomous attitudes towards other thought. As Dresden James said. "When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic."
     
     Rather than just say we are irrational tell us what argument are irrational. No one will ever be convinced though. You can show a creationists why Evolution is right and he will have other arguments for why it is wrong. You can show an Evolutionist why he is not being rational but he has a perfectly acceptable reason for being so. It doesn't matter.
     I've been looking openly but critically at the evidence for Evolution and I'm still not convinced. I'ts not because I am an idiot but because it can just be explained in a different way. If i didn't believe in God, then of course it wouldn't make sense to believe in creation, but if you do believe in God, then it is easy to see how the evidence supports it.
     
     So far the best argument I've heard against Young Earth folk in which they don't have an answer that is satisfying is that of distant starlight. If we are that young how is the starlight so far away. I have a question for Evolutionists in which I haven't found an answer that doesn't make a million assumptions; what is the purpose of male and female, and why and how could they possibly develop?

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531. 531. EastwoodDC 07:47 PM 6/18/08

     Sephers165 wrote:
     > Wow, this guy is ridiculous who tries to think
     > Christians have only invented horrible things like
     > wars. He is pretty much the reason I find evolution
     > so hard to believe, because he thinks any opinion
     > except for the one held by him was arrived at through
     > completely irrational means.
     
     I agree that [b]jmarbas[/b]'s comments were rather over the top. If it helps, think of him as an [i]anti-[/i]FrankM.
     
     > I think Christianity is true because of rational
     > reasoning. Just because it's incredible doesn't mean
     > it is irrational.
     
     I'm being slightly unfair by taking your comment out of context, but I have to question this. What definition of "rational reasoning" are you using? Where does your faith end and you reasoning begin? This heads towards a more philosophical discussion, and [b]Sologos[/b] made quite an effort on this already - You might his older posts interesting. Also, you might look up "Naturalism".
     
     May I also suggest that you set aside Christianity for a bit and consider just the science (maybe a textbook?). You might find that the science can also be true. If you find that science and religion conflict, consider careful why you think this is so.
     
     > ... I have a
     > question for Evolutionists in which I haven't found
     > an answer that doesn't make a million assumptions;
     > what is the purpose of male and female, and why and
     > how could they possibly develop?
     
     Good question. Where have you looked for the answer?
     
     
     PS to [b]Sologos[/b]: The Wikipedia definition of [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalism_(philosophy)]Naturalism[/url] appears to have undergone a recent rewrite. I'm not sure though if it is better or worse - can you read this and comment?

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532. 532. Tommo0809 08:08 PM 6/18/08

     Eastwood, you beat me to the punch in most of those replies, but I just wanted to add one more thing that appears to be one of the underlying hindrances to productive discussion:
     
     "He is pretty much the reason I find evolution so hard to believe, because he thinks any opinion except for the one held by him was arrived at through completely irrational means."
     
     -it seems to me that its not evolution that you find so hard to believe, but due to your distaste for certain others you would rather be at odds with them when it comes to questions that are seemingly fundamental to our existence.
     
     For example, I don't have a problem with ID because I think all of its proponents are loons or obnoxious or too conservative or whatever(hypothetically speaking), my problem is with the hypothesis itself. On the other hand, I may not like some/most/a lot of persons who blindly support evolution or even those who support it after reviewing the merits(again, hypothetically speaking), but that has nothing to do with the independent validity of the available evidence.
     
     What this all points to is that regardless of whether someone gets on your nerves in a discussion, that doesn't make an argument or even an entire theory wrong, and anyways its poor form to base your belief/disbelief on something so potentially fickle.

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533. 533. Rogi1981 08:27 PM 6/18/08

     Sephers165:
     
     I'm glad that you are at least asking questions. While i generally have a problem with the institution of religion i do not credit it for the good nor do I blame it for the bad (just like it would be foolish to blame atheism for an atheist who commits atrocities, it would be foolish to blame a religious person for doing so). The problem with religion though, is that it enables good people to do bad things. Of course being an opponent of evolution simply because someone who believes in evolution is critical of your particular brand of religion is ridiculous. I would be akin to me supporting evolutionary theory because a religious person is critical for it. Instead, I let both, religion and evolution live or die on their own merits, and you may find that evolutionary theory has significantly more merits than it has flaws.
     
     As to your statements about various advances of Christianity, let's not rewrite history. While it is true that many innovations were effected by various religious institutions, they don't necessarily happen because of religion, but in spite of religion. In addition, frequently, religion stifled discovery. As to your specific examples, Gutenberg in fact developed the printing press in Europe, which originated in East Asia. Nonetheless, the Gutenberg Bible was published 5 years after the unveiling of the press. The concept of dedicated hospitals was introduced by Sinhalese, although early Greeks are known for advances in individual medical care.
     
     Now you have to understand that beating ones chest and saying hat a particular Ideology is responsible for the good or the bad does not aid public debate. This is not to discredit the good work religious people around the world have done, or to praise the good work non-religious people have done. Just setting the record straight. AND NOW back to evolution.

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534. 534. Rogi1981 08:28 PM 6/18/08

     And I was beaten to the punch by both of you, Eastwood and Tommo.

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535. 535. sephers165 08:38 PM 6/18/08

     Thanks Eastwood, I appreciate your response.
     
     > I agree that [b]jmarbas[/b]'s comments were rather
     > over the top. If it helps, think of him as an
     > [i]anti-[/i]FrankM.
     
     Yeah I kind of feel bad for Frank because his flavor of ID is much different than the creationists but it still isn't inline with Evolutionists so he doesn't have many to support him here. I think he makes rational arguments though.
     
     > I'm being slightly unfair by taking your comment out
     > of context, but I have to question this. What
     > definition of "rational reasoning" are you using?
     
     having its source in or being guided by the intellect (distinguished from experience or emotion); "a rational analysis"
     
     > Where does your faith end and you reasoning begin?
     
     The faith begins by assuming that it is reasonable to assume reasoning to be true. Or maybe the other way around because in that last statement I said it was reasonable to assume reasoning to be true, but at that point I'm using reasoning. AGhh, this is a philosophical discussion.
     Quick example then, I see evil in many parts of the world, I feel guilty when I do something wrong; I assume there is a reason for this. Much of which is explained by the "Fall" in the Bible and it is a reasonable explanation to explain the things I observe (if it is true), albeit I have to have faith that to believe it is indeed true.
     
     Even if you know nothing about Evolution It is still reasonable to assume Evolution is true simply because there are so many scientists that say it is true. However you need to have faith that they actually have evidence that proves it to be true. Does that make sense?
     
     > This heads towards a more philosophical discussion,
     > and [b]Sologos[/b] made quite an effort on this
     > already - You might his older posts interesting.
     > Also, you might look up "Naturalism".
     
     Yeah those were some in depth discussions. Whew.
     
     That is kind of my problem with naturalism it tries to make everything natural including your own rational thoughts, but it uses rational in itself so it invalidates itself.
     It is much like saying "I never tell the truth"
     
     If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true ... and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. J. B. S. Haldane
     
     > > ... I have a
     > > question for Evolutionists in which I haven't
     > found
     > > an answer that doesn't make a million
     > assumptions;
     > > what is the purpose of male and female, and why
     > and
     > > how could they possibly develop?
     >
     > Good question. Where have you looked for the answer?
     
     So far I've looked on talkorigins even though I find that site to be close minded and biased but their answer seemed to imply to mean that evolution is about how males and females together mate and their offspring evolve to form new species. But what I'm looking for is that other aspect of Evolution discussed here about how a single cell became more cells and then became male and female humans.
     
     Thanks for bearing with my ignorant self. I am learning and thinking more critically about what I believe and what others believe because of it.

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536. 536. sephers165 08:54 PM 6/18/08

     > As to your statements about various advances of
     > Christianity, let's not rewrite history. While it is
     > true that many innovations were effected by various
     > religious institutions, they don't necessarily happen
     > because of religion, but in spite of religion. In
     > addition, frequently, religion stifled discovery. As
     > to your specific examples, Gutenberg in fact
     > developed the printing press in Europe, which
     > originated in East Asia. Nonetheless, the Gutenberg
     > Bible was published 5 years after the unveiling of
     > the press. The concept of dedicated hospitals was
     > introduced by Sinhalese, although early Greeks are
     > known for advances in individual medical care.
     
     I know I was just making claims that can be somewhat substantiated in an attempt to mock what's his name.
     Sorry : )
     My point was in general it is ridiculous to say that not one of the billions of Christians over the years haven't contributed to science simply because of the bad things other Christians have done, or even more so that they can't contribute to science today while at the same time not believing Evolution. (Obviously they can't contribute to Evolution but there is more to science that just that)>
     
     
     > Now you have to understand that beating ones chest
     > and saying hat a particular Ideology is responsible
     > for the good or the bad does not aid public debate.
     > This is not to discredit the good work religious
     > people around the world have done, or to praise the
     > good work non-religious people have done. Just
     > setting the record straight. AND NOW back to
     > evolution.
     
     Yeah I agree, back to Evolution. Or maybe even back to the topic of this article about the movie expelled. Who has watched it? And what do you think? Since Evolution has so much more evidence it seems like discussing it openly would much quicker shoot down ID to rational, critical thinkers, rather than as the movie purports that IDists aren't even allowed to talk about it in an educational setting. I think all that does is cause those who haven't made their minds up look at ID and say "wow why are these people getting so mad about a theory that they say is preposterous." it is similar to the way atheists express their rage against God although in their view He does not exist.
     
     Thanks for the quick replies, I should've seen it coming with my ridiculous post. : )

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537. 537. Rogi1981 09:36 PM 6/18/08

     [b]So far I've looked on talkorigins even though I find that site to be close minded and biased but their answer seemed to imply to mean that evolution is about how males and females together mate and their offspring evolve to form new species.[/b]
     
     Well that is a very simplistic understanding of evolutionary processes. Try with the basics of evolutionary process, then expand onto more complex questions. You are jumping to the bigger "how", although I have a feeling you are more interested in the "why" Many ID proponents simply don't understand the elegance and simplicity of the basic evolutionary theory, yet argue against it (in part because of a more appealing ID argument -- i.e. it looks like someone made it and it's so complex because someone made it). The majority of ID arguments are based on logical fallacies (e.g. irreducible complexity) rather than any original research and empirical evidence; thus ID is widely rejected by scientific community. However, to call scientists close minded and elitist (as Expelled claims) simply because they utilize a rigid system for submission of findings is erroneous. You may call them demanding, but it is a necessary evil in order to ensure a great degree of accuracy in scientific research. I watched parts of Expelled, and read reviews (both from skeptics' side and from religious side), and I will tell you that any movie that insinuates that belief in evolution is somehow linked to Holocaust looses all credibility. You certainly don't see any documentaries on Nova or BBC on Jesus being responsible for the Inquisition, or Darwin being responsible for Lysenkoism and persecution of those who called it "rubbish." Of course there is a degree of truth to the movie's claims. Of course someone working in the field of evolutionary biology would be penalized for their views in Intelligent Design, especially if it stifles research in evolutionary biology. Irrespective of same, the majority of people mentioned in the movie were neither fired nor penalized for their views on ID, but either left alone or reprimanded for other reasons. Of course how do you argue with ID proponent's cry of "conspiracy"?

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538. 538. jmarbas 10:25 PM 6/18/08

     Ok. So I contradicted myself in saying that I wont post again. At least I admitted it.
     
     No I didnt say that religion was bad. Because of work and writings and quiet study that happened in quiet monastaries throughout Europe in the dark ages ...along with a few other technical advances...Europe became enlightenment and was pulled out from the dark ages and into the Renaissance period. Following this came the institutions of universities and the general idea that objective observation and study was a good thing.
     
     And yes. Your points are well taken. To sum it up, my temper tantrum points from my previous post are:
     
     1) I dont like religious groups with power.
     
     2) And yeh.......I dont like people using only logic or philosophy to argue about issues in the real world. Because issues in the real world cannot be solved with logic and talk alone.
     
     So to sum it up. I dont think religion in general is bad. And yeah, ok, Religious groups in general are not BAD....its only when I see them with any kind of power I get all riled up.
     
     I still have my own personal beliefs and I question things everyday in my own personal life, just like everybody else does. But these beliefs Ive come upon through my own experiences and revelations and will never force it upon anyone.
     
     Let me put it this way, even if a religous group were to tell me to believe that which I ALREADY believed....I would get upset because they are trying to tell me to do something(eventhough Im already doing it) that I would really like to figure it out on my own and not be told eventhough I ALREADY have figured it out on my own and eventhough I am agreeing. I still want to believe on my own.
     
     So basically I feel that religious people shouldnt even preach RELIGION!
     
     holy cow....now thats a new one even for me....
     
     Not only should they NOT TOUCH science.......they SHOULDNT EVEN TOUCH RELIGION.
     
     =/
     
     They should just quit their job at the pulpit, give it to God and say ...you know what?...let each person decide on their own whether or not to believe. I think God would be a lot less pissed at all these billion or so wannabe preachers.

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539. 539. sephers165 10:28 PM 6/18/08

     If IDers arguments are so ridiculous, incredulous and irrational wouldn't they just prove themselves to be so if allowed to speak and discuss. Since they are not allowed to speak and prove themselves wrong then it must be that the science community fears that the arguments are rational but just not true, or better- misinformed. If I told someone it is the sun actually rising in the sky and not the earth turning, if they believed me that doesn't prove them to be irrational (since that is how it appears) only that they are not well informed. In barring them [IDers] from speaking the science community admits that they [IDers] are making rational arguments but that the arguments are false or misinformed. Therefore their fear by the science community is that they are tricking those who are not well informed with their rational arguments.
     
     So you must at least admit that they make rational arguments albeit arguments that ultimately are untrue. Correct?
     
     What is, in your guys' opinion, the argument that IDers or creationists make, that is most likely to trick the person who is not well informed about all the evidence for Evolution? What information would you give to better inform this person so that he can see what is true?
     
     I think I am going to go on a creationists forum and argue for Evolution and see how the creationists react.
     
     You know what would be fun if they made a debate class and in it half the people were Evolutionists and half were creationists. But since who wins a debate isn't based on what side has the better argument but who better argues it, they have the Evolutionists argue for Creation, and the Creationist argue for Evolution. That would be a laugh.

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540. 540. Rogi1981 11:14 PM 6/18/08

     [b]If IDers arguments are so ridiculous, incredulous and irrational wouldn't they just prove themselves to be so if allowed to speak and discuss.[/b]
     
     And IDers are allowed to speak and discuss their ideas in public sphere, just like anyone else is allowed to speak out their beliefs no matter how ridiculous or offensive (at least in U.S. for private entities). What is not allowed is for any ridiculous idea to be taught in schools just because a group of people thinks their idea is correct. Holocaust deniers come up with some very complex arguments as to why Holocaust either never happened or wasn't systematic attempt to exterminate certain groups. That does not mean that they are allowed to publish papers in journals subject to peer review or taught in public schools. And believe me, even though some holocaust denier arguments are simple and merely bigoted, some of the arguments are very sophisticated and use complex historical and even scientific rationales, which can be very persuasive to someone who doesn't have an in depth historical and/or scientific knowledge. (I had one such argument grounded in chemistry. I barely detected flaws in the guy's argument and I studied chemistry in depth)
     
     But to cry wolf simply because peer reviewed scientific journals don't publish their work because of shoddy research and flawed reasoning, well many scientific papers don't get published for those same reasons, and ID is not even considered to be a scientific theory or hypothesis.
     
     [b]So you must at least admit that they make rational arguments albeit arguments that ultimately are untrue. Correct?[/b]
     
     Depends what you consider rational. Is it rational to say that something had a designer because it looks designed? Well to an ID proponent that is rational. To Creationist it's rational, except the designer must've been God. To a scientist it is an irrational inference because "something looks like, therefore it is" will never pass scientific muster in any scientific field. Science simply holds proof to a much higher standard, kinda like criminal law, because the the one time someone is wrong because of adopting a less rigorous standard the outcome may be disastrous. Engineer doesn't look at something and says "yeah it looks about 90 degrees." Imagine it being half a degree off when it comes to your car or a building.
     
     It is possible that IDists are correct, but lack of original peer reviewed publications in over 15 years, lack of original research and empirical findings, and a number of ID movement leaders operating under seemingly religious pretext all serve to undermine ID as a theory and as a science.
     
     [b]What is, in your guys' opinion, the argument that IDers or creationists make, that is most likely to trick the person who is not well informed about all the evidence for Evolution? [/b]
     
     I think Behe's arguments can be the most misleading. Behe is one of the few (if not the only) biologists who engage in ID advocacy. His basic premise of "irreducible complexity" is simple and quite refutable, not only from logical perspective but also by empirical evidence available to us. However, due to rather substantial knowledge about biological structures, it is very hard for a layman to see flaws in his reasoning. Of course when confronted with other experts in the field his argument holds no water (as seen in Dover)
     
     --
     Edited by Rogi1981 at 06/18/2008 4:17 PM

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541. 541. Frank M 12:05 AM 6/19/08

     When someone agrees with you they are "rational" and if they don't, they are "irrational". If someone you agree with goes on a rant of personal assaults, they are exhibiting "righteous indignation". If someone you agree with tries a low-class scummy trick they are "clever".
     
     Just wondering what you hypocrites would have done if I had done same thing to Eastwood? You'd be calling for my ejection from the board, not congratulating me on my hilarity. If someone disagrees with you and is trying to speak in gentle, agreeable terms, they are "poorly-defined, vapid, not really saying anything", yet if they speak clearly and confidently, they are "pompous" or "arrogant". I know the blogging attack game and tend to put it on auto-ignore, as I have been doing to Eastwood before this latest stunt.
     
     Sephers, no need to feel sorry for me. Open-minded people reading this board in an attempt to learn more about the arguments over evolution can see for themselves who is presenting evidence and compelling arguments, and who is just attacking the blogger. When someone is reduced to name calling and tricks, they are conceding defeat in the most obvious possible way.
     
     By the way, that is what real trolls do. They insult and attack, and care absolutely nothing about the subject matter, which they don't even want to discuss. Eastwood, seriously, give it a rest. You have a back-handed slam in nearly every post. Do you go to bed at night pounding the pillow and envisioning me or what? Talk about obsessed.
     
     Rogi> "1) You have no sense of humor (is this typical of ID proponents?)."
     
     When you feel your arguments are weak, use ad hominem and if at all possible stretch it to include anyone else who may agree with the despised opponent. After all, aren't all of THOSE people to be hated?
     
     I can't tell a joke, but I do spend a disproportionate amount of my day in laughter, especially here. So, yes I do have a sense of humor.
     
     Rogi> "I will apologize on behalf of Eastwood"
     
     Thanks, but the sad thing is that some people who don't live here every day, browsed by reading and missed the most substantial stuff. So you... ah, HE, owes them an apology. So I accept your apology on behalf of him on behalf of them.
     
     What is much worse is the open faced attacks on people's religious beliefs. There is no need for that. Whether Christians invented hospitals or not, they certainly build them and pay for their keep, in the name of their church and their God. Pointing out failures of religious people without recognizing this IS what trolls do, especially if you have to dig back several centuries to find your evil theologians.
     
     For the most part, I find it best to continue posting my arguments and evidence. There is nothing the Darwinists fear more and and the more you do it, the more hostile they become. (jmarbas) :)

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542. 542. sephers165 12:41 AM 6/19/08

     > And IDers are allowed to speak and discuss their
     > ideas in public sphere, just like anyone else is
     > allowed to speak out their beliefs no matter how
     > ridiculous or offensive (at least in U.S. for private
     > entities).
     
     But that was the point of the Expelled movie was that those who were at Universities in a science unrelated to Evolutionary biology were blacklisted when they spoke about something else.
     
     > What is not allowed is for any ridiculous
     > idea to be taught in schools just because a group of
     > people thinks their idea is correct.
     
     But the problem with that is that IDers and creationsists can argue with good reason that Evolution is ridiculous and since a group of people think Evolution is correct, albeit a large group, they teach it in schools even though they can't prove it either (via a controlled experiment), all they can do is after assuming it is true give evidence that supports it to be true.
     
     > Depends what you consider rational. Is it rational to
     > say that something had a designer because it looks
     > designed?
     
     Yes
     
     > Well to an ID proponent that is rational.
     > To Creationist it's rational, except the designer
     > must've been God.
     > To a scientist it is an
     > irrational inference because "something looks like,
     > therefore it is" will never pass scientific muster in
     > any scientific field.
     
     Then they shouldn't be afraid to introduce what IDists and creationists honestly believe if it is irrational. Besides if you are going to argue how IDers see something that looks designed so they assume it was designed isn't rational, then how the heck is arguing that something that looks designed and incredibly complex but is actually just random rational?
     
     > Science simply holds proof to a
     > much higher standard, kinda like criminal law,
     > because the the one time someone is wrong because of
     > adopting a less rigorous standard the outcome may be
     > disastrous. Engineer doesn't look at something and
     > says "yeah it looks about 90 degrees." Imagine it
     > being half a degree off when it comes to your car or
     > a building.
     
     Yeah but this reminds me of when they weren't able to find hardly any complex fossils after 530 million years ago and they just made up the Cambrian explosion as the answer. This is kind of how it went. "Hmm, if Evolution is true we should see more and more variety of complex fossils as time goes on, but instead we only see a bunch at one time then very few later on in life. I know! maybe all the animals appeared at once. But how can we explain that. Let's see if this this and this and this happened then it is possible that all the evolution of the animals exploded into their species, and we'll call it the Cambrian explosion."
     Sounds very hypothetical and circular.
     
     If Evolution is true then the Cambrian explosion is true, if the Cambrian explosion is true then that makes Evolution true.
     
     > I think Behe's arguments can be the most misleading.
     > Behe is one of the few (if not the only) biologists
     > s who engage in ID advocacy. His basic premise of
     > "irreducible complexity" is simple and quite
     > refutable, not only from logical perspective but also
     > by empirical evidence available to us. However, due
     > to rather substantial knowledge about biological
     > structures, it is very hard for a layman to see flaws
     > in his reasoning. Of course when confronted with
     > other experts in the field his argument holds no
     > water (as seen in Dover)
     
     Yeah it was a good refute about that, I've heard a good example involving a mousetrap or something to refute that.
     
     --
     Edited by sephers165 at 06/18/2008 10:20 PM

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543. 543. Frank M 03:40 AM 6/19/08

     A couple of you have expressed concern about Behe's Irreducibly Complex (IC) theory. We might find some agreement on this one, not that I think Behe is wrong, but that the argulment is convoluted, poorly defined and not conclusive. It may make the top 30 ID arguments, but not the top 20, IMHO.
     
     But then the so-called "refutations" are uncompelling
     stretches of credulity that practically make Behe's points for him. The refuters I have read are not the least bit learned in microbiology, as Behe is, and they generally do not avoid IC in their conjectural "refutations". They start with one thing and then bend, stretch alter and modify through dozens of non-functional steps that leave one wondering why they didn't just start from scratch.
     
     Rogi, what is your "empirical evidence"? What is your "logic"? I keep hearing you have this. Where is it?
     
     My concern about IC is that it gives too much credit to Darwinism. Behe is right when he says that the microbiological vision receptors-adjoining the optic nerve and then the visual decoders in the brain is an IC system.
     
     '''''''''Any of you microbiologists care to contest this?'''''''''
     
     Still, there is no reason these elements couldn't have existed non-functionally for as long as they needed to. There is no such thing as "selective pressure". Either a non-functional tissue set kills you or it doesn't and an optic nerve without an eye wouldn't kill you.
     
     In fact, a more powerful argument for ID is the fact that we DON'T have optic nerves all over our bodies and those of other animals. The precise placement of the nerves is not achievable by accident in the earth's life span, however. Sorry.
     
     Moreover there is no reason that the entire multiple point evolution couldn't have happened all at once. The fossil evidence shows that eye sockets formed all at once across several species, so this does strengthen ID. Besides gradualism is a mathematical dud anyway, even if it were seen in evidence.
     
     Everything is IC. Everything in you relies on something else. Everything. Bones need tendons and other bones positioned just right for them. Everything needs the accompanying vascular system, skeletal structure, digestive systems (which need excretory systems) and skin to hold it all in.
     
     Still, I would prefer the term "Interdependently complex" because anything CAN be reduced, even if it is always reduced to a non-functional mess.
     
     The Dover trial was nothing more than a judge getting snowed by a slick ACLU lawyer, not scientific method by any stretch. Behe was right, but he was giving too much credit to the fallacies of the Darwinists.

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544. 544. Frank M 03:58 AM 6/19/08

     How rational is it to observe something that appears designed and say it ISN'T? Are we supposed to be impressed with this astute deduction that is the opposite of the inferential evidence?
     
     How rational is it to observe a complex informational code and presume it happens by accident without accepting alternate viewpoints?
     
     How rational is it to insist that all studies of life presume that matter animation in living things is not intelligently controlled?
     
     How rational is it to conclude that intelligence itself is caused by chance assemblages of matter?
     
     How rational is it to say that everthing is caused by nothing?
     
     Since when did the Neo-Darwinists give two hoots about being RATIONAL?
     
     No matter. When something SEEMS irrational and well... ridiculous, it isn't hard to prove mathematically that it indeed IS.

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545. 545. sephers165 05:23 AM 6/19/08

     > How rational is it to conclude that intelligence
     > itself is caused by chance assemblages of matter?
     
     I agree, It's like i quoted earlier
     
     If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true ... and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. (J. B. S. Haldane, Possible Worlds, p. 209).
     
     Rational thouight can't stem from irrational means. Otherwise you are an irrational creature and argument you make using you will be forced to use rational which will prove yourself wrong like saying "I never tell the truth"

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546. 546. EastwoodDC 03:16 PM 6/19/08

     Sephers165:
     I don't have time to reply properly today, but I wanted you to know I appreciated your response. At times you had me laughing - with you - not at you. :)
     Check your private messages for a link you might find interesting (look in [u]My Content[/u] on left sidebar).
     
     > Rational thouight can't stem from irrational means.
     > Otherwise you are an irrational creature and argument
     > you make using you will be forced to use rational
     > which will prove yourself wrong like saying "I never
     > tell the truth"
     
     Wait ... [url=http://echosphere.net/star_trek_insp/insp_mudd_preview.jpg]I know this one[/url] ... Spock whispers that into the android's ear and then they all explode from the illogic? ;-)

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547. 547. Rogi1981 05:38 PM 6/19/08

     [b]The Dover trial was nothing more than a judge getting snowed by a slick ACLU lawyer, not scientific method by any stretch. Behe was right, but he was giving too much credit to the fallacies of the Darwinists.[/b]
     
     The Dover decision rejected ID because of its religious underpinnings as demonstrated by Discovery Institutes's Wedge Document, Behe's testimony, Of Panda's and People, etc. It decided not specifically the validity of ID as an independent theory, but that ID is not a scientific theory, that an overwhelming amount of evidence suggests that ID is merely creationism in disguise. As such, the Court concluded that the mention of ID and referral of students to the book, Of Pandas and People, constitutes and impermissible entanglement of church and state in violation of the First Amendment. That you would dismiss a lengthy trial consisting of testimony of multiple expert and non-expert witnesses in multiple fields (including theologists for Plaintiff, who are not Darwinists as you conclude), deposition testimonies, extensive discovery all resulting in a 140 page detailed opinion shows that you maintain some imaginary standard of proof that is only satisfied when your views are agreed upon. I am thoroughly familiar wih the trial, and leading ID proponents acknowledged that ID is a theory that relies on a [b][/b]supernatural[b][/b] creator. For you to say anything otherwise in face of evidence and testimony is intellectually dishonest. Essentially, not matter what evidence is presented against ID and that it is a religious movement's creation, you continue to sing the same tune. Either you genuinely don't see what is wrong with your arguments, or you refuse to acknowledge any flaws in them, dismissing everything as a conspiracy, or stupid judges, or ACLU lawyer hoodwinking people (same lawyers who would fight for even treatment of all religions, including Christianity). The only reason I am arguing with you FrankM is in hopes that others who are still uncertain will be able to judge the merits of our arguments and do so correctly.
     
     [b]When you feel your arguments are weak, use ad hominem and if at all possible stretch it to include anyone else who may agree with the despised opponent. [/b]
     
     For those uninitiated in the art of logical fallacies, an ad hominem fallacy is as follows. Person A makes claim X. Person B makes an attack on person A. Therefore A's claim is false. Of course no such thing happened here.I merely made a quip about FrankM's sense of humor, with no preceding argument and no subsequent conclusion that therefore his claims are false. A more concrete example of ad hominem fallacy is FrankM's:
     [i]The Dover trial was nothing more than a judge getting snowed by a slick ACLU lawyer, not scientific method by any stretch. Behe was right, but he was giving too much credit to the fallacies of the Darwinists[/i] Basically, Frank is insulting the attorney as "slick ACLU lawyer", therefore the lawyer was wrong in his arguments and "snowed" the judge. I can probably dig up a few more, but merely calling someone an idiot, or humorless may be an insult, inappropriate, whatever, but by itself not an adhominem attack. ID proponents aren't wrong because they are idiots, there are many other reasons for that.
     
     [b]How rational is it to conclude that intelligence itself is caused by chance assemblages of matter?[/b]
     
     Since you are trying to speak logic's language by pointing out my alleged ad hominem attack, what you are doing here is called a straw man fallacy (one of many, but who has time). You are stating something that is not claimed by evolutionary biologists, and then attacking your version of their argument as irrational.
     
     [b]But the problem with that is that IDers and creationsists can argue with good reason that Evolution is ridiculous and since a group of people think Evolution is correct, albeit a large group, they teach it in schools even though they can't prove it either (via a controlled experiment), all they can do is after assuming it is true give evidence that supports it to be true. [/b]
     
     Sephers: There are many things we can't prove via a controlled experiment due to current limitations of science. Recreating an experiment that lasted millions of years is currently impossible for obvious reasons. We know how supernova's are formed, but we can't recreate it, just observe them when they do happen. We can't recreate Big Bang, but can measure its aftereffects. With respect to evolution, Precambrian Explosion is not an explanation of what happened, but an observation of what happened for reasons yet unknown. Yet just because scientists are willing to admit we don't have a workable theory to explain that particular event does not mean that evolutionary theory is wrong, as that event is not incompatible with the theory. Finding fossils of creatures from a million years ago in a soil strata from 200 million years ago, for example, will put a serious dent in evolutionary theory. That is called falsifiability and is a necessary prerequisite for ANY scientific theory (something ID lacks). However, there are numerous experiments which demonstrate that organisms can (after only a few thousand generations) add genetic information allowing those organisms to do things they previously couldn't because these things are advantageous for ther perpetuation. That is in the course of a couple of decades, for visible physical changes to occur takes hundreds of thousands to millions of years.

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548. 548. jmarbas 08:36 PM 6/19/08

     "For the most part, I find it best to continue posting my arguments and evidence. There is nothing the Darwinists fear more and and the more you do it, the more hostile they become.(jmarbas)"
     
     Nothing is more "hostile" than a large group trying to change the laws inorder to force their ideology on people.
     
     So no Frank M Im not appologizing for my honest responses and opinions on here. Its better to be honest than to be contrived, fake and misleading.
     
     The more people like you spewing out dangerous incorrect logic, the more I'll keep cringing and reacting in a bad way ;) Like some high school chemicals you should never have mixed together.
     
     Its the inevitable Ying-Yang thing happening in the universe. For every Ying, there is a Yang. I think that its logically illogical that thats illogically logical. How about them logical apples!

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549. 549. sephers165 09:26 PM 6/19/08

     Ugh I'm sick of evolution. I still don't understand the point in it, or the reasons for believing it in the first place. Everything depends on "ifs". If I believe Evolution to be true then when someone tells me 530 million years ago things evolved all at once that makes sense, because voila there instantly was a bunch of complex critters running around and there is no other explanation since Evolution to me is true.
     
     But if I don't accept Evolution to be true it is just as reasonable to see the fact of all the fossils showing up at once as if they were all buried by huge amounts of sedimentation at once, and the reason only little non complex critters are found on the lower stratas is because they are little and wouldn't be able to survive as long as the complex ones.
     
     I guess what I'm getting at is where is the evidence that can convince me Evolution happened without having to believe it happened first. Maybe it would help if you guys pretended for a second to not believe Evolution but instead Creation via Aliens or something, and then say if I think Aliens created everything what would I need to see that would tell me otherwise. In a sense put yourself in my shoes. Because when I put myself in your guys' shoes and try to think how you think I totally see how your thoughts about it are rational and I am wondering if you would see how my thinking is actually rational if you were in my position with my presuppositions.
     
     I guess ultimately it seems like unless I could take you to when God created everything you would never believe Creation and unless you could show me things Evolving into new species, (over the millions of years it takes) I won't be able to believe Evolution. URGGHHH. Sorry I'm frustrated about the whole debate as I type. :-) Oh well, i think i need to quit debating anything like this, and just go learn about other stuff.
     
     Have you guys read the news about Cloned copies of man's own immune cell beat back cancer. Now that is cool, and useful.

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550. 550. sephers165 09:35 PM 6/19/08

     > Nothing is more "hostile" than a large group trying
     > to change the laws inorder to force their ideology on
     > people.
     
     Many of those that believe Evolution as fact have their own ideology that they would like forced on people though. Quick question. If you had to choose between both Evolution and ID being taught in school, or neither being taught in school what would you choose? In one a false and a true teaching are taught and in the other, no false teachings are taught. (And you can't say just Evolution, because a silly IDists would say just ID). lol
     
     > So no Frank M Im not appologizing for my honest
     > responses and opinions on here. Its better to be
     > honest than to be contrived, fake and misleading.
     
     Remember though that Frank isn't being fake and misleading because he truly believes it to be true. Misleading is knowing the truth and leading people away from it. If you believe something to be true then when you try to convince others of it, then that is fine.
     
     > Its the inevitable Ying-Yang thing happening in the
     > universe. For every Ying, there is a Yang. I think
     > that its logically illogical that thats illogically
     > logical. How about them logical apples!
     
     :^O That's funny. Lol.

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551. 551. sephers165 10:45 PM 6/19/08

     Can someone give me a brief overview of how Evolution uses the scientific method. I am familiar with the scientific method in controlled experiments but not as much in geology, or evolutionary biology.
     
     This is what I know the scientific method to model. Can you list the steps Evolution takes to prove itself based off of this picture. Unless of course this isn't a valid model of the scientific method. Plus as everyone knows even the scientific method has it's limitations especially when it is conducted by humans prone to a confirmation bias. (think young earth creationists ignoring the fact starlight can be millions of light years away)
     
     
     
     
     Thanks

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552. 552. Rogi1981 11:25 PM 6/19/08

     Look, Sepher's, it's not like evolutionary biologists just assume that evolutionary theory is correct and then work from that premise. Evolutionary theory became more or less axiomatic after 150 years of research and innovations is fields of geology, microbiology (germ theory had to come along), genetics, paleontology, etc. When Darwin originated the theory, he got some things right and some wrong due to obvious limitations and novelty of the theory, but he reached the conclusion that organisms descended from common ancestors and diversified over time due to empirical observations of fossil evidence and living organisms. When germ theory, radioactive testing, and genetics came along, the discoveries in those fields seemed to compliment Darwin's theoretical predictions (when they could've easily done otherwise, and so much for evolutionary theory). Science builds on existing knowledge. I don't have to discover and verify Bernoulli's principle every time for the masses just so we can improve on an airplane. That physics propensity of gas is taken for granted. Similarly, when it comes to common descent, on the overall scale it's taken for granted (mind that it took 150 years of work of thousands of brilliant minds in various fields). The details continue to vary (less then 1% of all species that has ever existed survived and even fewer fossilized). But should evolutionary theory fall for whatever reason (true chimeras, fossils in the wrong geo-strata, etc - there are many ways), that still doesn't make ID a science in any shape or form.
     
     [b]But if I don't accept Evolution to be true it is just as reasonable to see the fact of all the fossils showing up at once as if they were all buried by huge amounts of sedimentation at once, and the reason only little non complex critters are found on the lower stratas is because they are little and wouldn't be able to survive as long as the complex ones.[/b]
     
     Just like there were mass extinctions, the Cambrian Explosion is an interesting phenomenon, with many plausible explanations. You see an explosion of more complex organisms from much simpler ones that existed before.What you don't see is bacteria followed by fish or dinosaurs in the Cambrian. The change was gradual nonetheless taking small steps forward ever since.
     
     Of course we know that those fossils that we're lucky to find were not buried all at once because of radioactive dating (we can determine approximate age of the layer in which fossil is located using carbon dating, uranium dating, etc.) So you generally tend to see bacteria and single celled organisms as far back as 3 billion years ago, and no fish, animals, etc. Basically, as you're moving up the strata you see more complex, yet always somehow related organisms. It's not a simple linear progression high school books make it out to be, but you can only teach so much to 9th graders.
     
     It's a funny comment, but so you know bacteria can survive in the most hostile environments known to men, where nothing else can survive, that's what found all the way at the bottom, and it's consistent with predictions of evolutionary theory nd our knowledge of early earth's environment (which was oxygen deprived and very hostile).

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553. 553. Tommo0809 11:34 PM 6/19/08

     "[b]The Dover trial was nothing more than a judge getting snowed by a slick ACLU lawyer, not scientific method by any stretch.[/b]"
     
     -whomever wrote this originally obviously has no familiarity with a. The dover trial and b. the law in general.
     
     For starters, ACLU lawyers are paid little more than volunteers when the rest of the field is considered. So to refer to the case as one where a "slick aclu" lawyer snowed a judge is a poor attempt at conjuring up this image of the high-powered defense attorney who makes his money off of defending the likes of O.J. Simpson etc.., in reality ACLU attorneys serve the purpose of protecting the constitution and minority groups from being railroaded by the untrammeled will of the majority.
     
     But more importantly the case was not argued by an ACLU lawyer. He participated in the legal wrangling to put the wheels in motion but really the ACLU attorney acted as a liason between the families who were disturbed by the school boards outwardly religious motives and the corporate lawyers who volunteered to take up the case (they both wanted to have a shot at defending the constitution was their main reason if I recall correctly.)
     
     
     However, the law firm that defended the school board was The Thomas Moore Law center, which was founded by Tom Monaghan (domino's pizza) who is a a raving religious fanatic in his own right. The law firm is set up solely to advance/defend a fundamentalist christian agenda through american courts. Behe and the other lesser known "scientists" who participated as the defenses bumbling expert witnesses were all Paid for their time, while every expert, lawyer and aide on the Kitzmiller side worked as a volunteer.
     
     So, please, before you try to paint the Kitzmiller case as some type of legal snowjob, do a little bit of research.
     
     A fairly interesting account of the case, and the events surrounding the case both socially and legally, can be found in a book called Monkey Girl (by Edward Humes). I would HIGHLY recommend it.
     
     --
     Edited by Tommo0809 at 06/19/2008 4:47 PM
     
     --
     Edited by Tommo0809 at 06/19/2008 4:47 PM

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554. 554. Rogi1981 11:49 PM 6/19/08

     Thanks Tommo, for further questions on Kitzmiller v. Dover Board of Ed consult me (I read the 140 page decision and several depositions and have the legal knowhow) or find the case online as it's public information. It's very ironic that the same people badmouth ACLU that later call upon it to help them (KKK, Boy Scouts, etc.). I did pro bono work with ACLU and only wish I were intelligent enough and willing to forgo a good salary to work for them permanently.

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555. 555. Rogi1981 11:57 PM 6/19/08

     Interestingly enough, my plunge into Evolution ID debate started when I came upon a thread of several ID proponents discussing how the Judge Jones in the Dover case incorrectly considered scientific evidence in violation of Federal Rules of Evidence. Their argument was as ignorant of legal doctrine as it was of scientific one, which prompted me to feverishly research the subject of Intelligent Design.

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556. 556. Frank M 12:23 AM 6/20/08

     Frank> "The Dover trial was nothing more than a judge getting snowed by a slick ACLU lawyer, not scientific method by any stretch."
     
     Tommo> "-whomever wrote this originally obviously has no familiarity with a. The dover trial and b. the law in general."
     
     Excuse me, but if you are conflating "the law in general" with scientific method, you are greatly confusing yourself, as did another blogger. From a legal standpoint, Jones gave an unconstitutional decision, but I was contesting, not the legality, but the correctness of it.
     
     More to the point, though, is that someone was trying to use the Dover circus as "refutation" of IC, which is NOT, I repeat NOT, scientific method nor empirical evidence.
     
     The judge made a bad call. Those attempting to misinform pounded their chests, but it is not scientific to reference Dover when we are discussing the scientific merits of IC.
     
     Do you understand the difference between a legal decision and a scientific argument?
     
     It is not ad hominem to note that people with powerful lawyers win court cases all the time, even though they are completely wrong.

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557. 557. sephers165 12:25 AM 6/20/08

     How come in the Cambrian era then there are less and less fossils as time goes on? Wouldn't there most likely be the most fossils at the most recent dates and the least as you go back, that isn't the case, instead you see less as times goes further giving evidence of a mass extinction that happened rapidly.
     
     > etc. Basically, as you're moving up the strata you
     > see more complex, yet always somehow related
     > organisms. It's not a simple linear progression high
     > school books make it out to be, but you can only
     > teach so much to 9th graders.
     
     Point me to the evidence of this. Evidence that shows explicitly what you just stated. If you can show me that I'll be more convinced of what you guys actually say. Otherwise I should believe it just the same way when I tell you, there is much evidence that there was a sudden massive flood, and things that serve no evolutionary purpose. Plus not even counting the fake footprints in texas there has been many accounts of human footprints in dinosaur footprints that were authentic, plus they've seen trees growing through "millions" of years of strata. You won't believe a thing I say though unless I show you the evidence so why would I believe you when you just say "A bunch of people over the past 150 years have seen this evidence"
     
     Please show me where to go to see this evidence in your previous post because if it is there then that is pretty convincing.
     
     Also can you still answer my question relating to the diagram of the scientific method and how Evolutionary biology and geology, things like that, follow the method.
     
     Thanks

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558. 558. Frank M 12:49 AM 6/20/08

     Frank> "How rational is it to conclude that intelligence
     > itself is caused by chance assemblages of matter?"
     
     Sologos quoting J.B.S. Haldane in response:
     
     "If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true ... and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. (J. B. S. Haldane, Possible Worlds, p. 209)."
     
     Sologos> "Rational thouight can't stem from irrational means."
     
     Correct. It is completely impossible and yet for a Darwinist to admit this obvious reality means that their theory is completely squashed. Tommo called this a "straw man" argument, but hurriedly changed the subject without explaining himself.
     
     It is this simple: Either accident can create intelligence or it can not. There is no logical pathway to accidental intelligence, therefore, Accidentalism (and all Materialist explanations of life, including the Darwin Fallacy) fall with no hope of rising.
     
     Let's say a person has a brain trauma. He survives but everytime he goes to walk he has the sensation of falling so vivid, that he has to keep reminding himself he isn't falling. Did he "learn" that he was falling? No, because accident doesn't create truth, knowledge or learning, but he did learn to deal with it.
     
     Anything taking place by sheer accident is not knowledge, even in the wildly unlikely chance confluence of accidental mishap and truth. If accident is in charge, it still is not knowledge and there is no ability to learn anything. Kind of like a Darwinist.
     
     It's why computer intelligence can never expand beyond what it is given. It has no "common sense", no "will to live", and no ability to learn. It may seem intelligent, but it is only bleeping back what it is told to do when given data input.
     
     Intelligence forms the matter in your brain every day. It retains and releases electrical energy in precise, intelligent and functional ways that are not in any way explainable by genetics, accident or millions of years excuses.
     
     There is not any remote possibility that Darwinism or Materialism have any hope of being a reality, if for no other reason that that they can not explain intelligence, will, love, consciousness or, for that matter, animation of matter and energy itself. ID explains all of this, because ID takes such important features of living things into account and Darwinism sticks it's head in a hole, trying to pretend it will all go away.

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559. 559. Frank M 01:02 AM 6/20/08

     Which is the more rational statement:
     
     A. "There is the appearance of design in the symettry and and interdependent functionality of living things. Therefore there is reason to believe that we were designed. We need further investigation, but in the absence of evidence to the contrary, the explanation of intelligent design best fits the evidence."
     
     B. "There is the appearance of design in the symettry and interdependent functionality of living things. Therefore there is no possibility that we were designed. We must halt further investigation or discussion of this concept at all fronts, proclaiming the opposite of the evidence to be scientific fact."

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560. 560. sologos 01:06 AM 6/20/08

     Eastwood writes:
     
     >>PS to Sologos: The Wikipedia definition of Naturalism appears to have undergone a recent rewrite. I'm not sure though if it is better or worse - can you read this and comment?
     
     
     The Wikipedia definition, I think gets at the heart of it. There we read:
     
     
     >>>Naturalism is the view that reality is solely comprised of natural phenomena.
     
     This is essentially the iideology of Naturalism. How someone can see a work of art and say it is only some colored smudges on a piece of canvas and ignore the notion that it can fetch $500,000 at auction is beyond me. It has a value. It evokes emotion. It engenders thought. How does it do that? Which chemical in the red pigment evokes the response? Are all these reactions somehow illusory? Even if we could( and It appears we soon will) pinpoint the exact place in the brain that is active(and all the subsequent nerve tracts and nuclei that will fire) when one looks at or even thinks of the painting, how does that comprehensively account for the reaction perceived by the individual? Here is one of the myriad places where the physical and the meta-physical meet.
     
     Wikepedia continues:
     
     >>>It is important at the outset to distinguish pure naturalism from Methodological Naturalism. Methodological Naturalism does not necessarily claim that phenomena or hypotheses commonly labeled as supernatural do not exist or are wrong, but insists that all phenomena and hypotheses can be explained in terms of natural causes (that is, causes which are described by the physical sciences) and therefore anything considered supernatural is either nonexistent or not inherently different from natural phenomena or hypotheses.
     
     This is essentially the same error. This is, incidentally to be distinguished from naturalistic methodology. N.M. has been a useful methodology of science. The problem, and it may be an occupational hazard for scientists, is that N.M. often becomes for the practitioner, M.N. The methodology so mesmerizes that the unwary can end up believing that all there is is the physical.
     This is particularly attractive to someone who has a vested interest in eliminating God. On a more secular note, I think it is also pushed in an educational system that stresses science to the exclusion of the humanities.
     
     Wi:
     
     >>>Some naturalists also insist that a legitimate distinction between supernatural entities and natural entities cannot be properly made (focusing on the conceptual distinction itself),
     
     
     Perhaps if that part of the brain and soul have not been properly exercised.
     
     >>>and that when someone is talking or thinking about supernatural entities, they are actually referring to natural entities (though confusedly).
     
     This may be true for some entities, BUT THAT DOES NOT INVALIDATE A TRUE SUPERNATURAL EXPERIENCE. If one wants this, one may need to simply an humbly ask. You may look at science differently after that..
     
     >>>Any method of inquiry or investigation or any procedure for gaining knowledge that limits itself to natural, physical, and material approaches and explanations can be described as naturalistic.
     
     Right, and as an inquiry, an investigation, or a methodology its limited but workable(in fact it has worked quite well,though a double edged sword) as long as the individual realizes that there is more. On the other hand, if the immaterial does indeed interact with the material, then this methodology, though constantly inferring it, will never detect it. A new methodology is needed.

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561. 561. Frank M 01:06 AM 6/20/08

     Sephers, the reason the Darwinists fail to utilize the scientific method is they fail on your red oval where it says:
     
     "Think! Try again!"

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562. 562. sologos 01:34 AM 6/20/08

     Sephers quotes:
     
     >>>If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true ... and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms.
     
     The fact that we build bridges that work, and cook up vaccinations that heal tells us that somehow our mental processes do, indeed, help us to gain a foothold in reality. An intelligible universe complements an intelligence is us. Why? The whole thing is designed. Natural selection, the laws that applies selective pressure on to anything nature can serve up, either has an imbedded intelligence in it to direct it's product to reflect upon the process, or an intelligent Creator has designed the complementarity. I find the latter more persuasive, but either way, to deny this intelligence is to redefine the word, and make it something less.
     
     Nice thought, Sephers.
     .

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563. 563. Tommo0809 02:01 AM 6/20/08

     Frank:
     Excuse me, but if you are conflating "the law in general" with scientific method, you are greatly confusing yourself, as did another blogger. From a legal standpoint, Jones gave an unconstitutional decision, but I was contesting, not the legality, but the correctness of it.
     
     -LIke my post said, I was speaking of the law. More specifically to this misconstrual of the ACLU as the slick snow jobbing organization. Rogi addressed their existence fairly well, they defend people in one case and then in a later case have to turn around a protect those who were protesting their involvement in the first.
     And no Judge Jones did not give an unconstitutional decision. If you'd like I can run through the whole lemon or endorsement or coercion tests that the supreme court uses to analyze these issues, but the board's actions certainly fail all three.
     
     
     Rogi- I hear you on wanting to do the ACLU jaunt. Right now I'm applying for the student entry program for the navy jag corps, but after I finish that I'm hoping to get into a private practice that will afford me some time to muck about with the godless/liberal/heathen/sodomite/babykilling Liberties Union. But in reality I will probably just tuck my tail and try to find the cushiest job possible.

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564. 564. Tommo0809 02:09 AM 6/20/08

     B. "There is the appearance of design in the symettry and interdependent functionality of living things. Therefore there is no possibility that we were designed. We must halt further investigation or discussion of this concept at all fronts, proclaiming the opposite of the evidence to be scientific fact."
     
     -you said that I accused you of using a straw man argument elsewhere (which I do not recall and would rather not sift through a couple hundred posts to find only because I'm fairly certain I haven't used the words "straw man" on here)...what exactly would this be? straw man? hyperbole? outrageous argument? humor?

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565. 565. sologos 02:46 AM 6/20/08

     Rogi writes:
     
     >That you would dismiss a lengthy trial consisting of testimony of multiple expert and non-expert witnesses in multiple fields (including theologists for Plaintiff, who are not Darwinists as you conclude), deposition testimonies, extensive discovery all resulting in a 140 page detailed opinion shows that you maintain some imaginary standard of proof that is only satisfied when your views are agreed upon.
     
     In the 16th century, the acceptable scientific truth was determined not by scientific consensus, not by a secular court of law, but by people who held the awesome power to define reality by virtue of an ideology that the masses believed, based on the authority of that ideology. Is it so difficult to entertain that that same thing has happened at Dover? Galileo, though publicly acquiescing, never privately gave up what the church had claimed to be his immaginary standard of proof. We are living in a day when the ideology of naturalism dominates all the institutions no less authoritatively than did the midiieval church.
     
     He further writes
     >There are many things we can't prove via a controlled experiment due to current limitations of science. Recreating an experiment that lasted millions of years is currently impossible for obvious reasons.
     
     It obviously goes both ways. Inferences must be made from evidence. No one (rational) is denying the evidence, but proposing an alternative explanation. It's not an attack on evolution solely from a religious perspective.
     
     Rogi:
     >Yet just because scientists are willing to admit we don't have a workable theory to explain that particular event does not mean that evolutionary theory is wrong, as that event is not incompatible with the theory.
     
     Both ways?
     
     
     Rogi:
     
     Finding fossils of creatures from a million years ago in a soil strata from 200 million years ago, for example, will put a serious dent in evolutionary theory. That is called falsifiability and is a necessary prerequisite for ANY scientific theory (something ID lacks
     
     If Cambrian explosion doesn't falsify, why should a 200 million year find falsify. It will just be used to push back dates further. W
     Evolution is in the same boat with creationism on that count. Create something from nothing and it will put a serious dent in Creationism? It is hard to be objective in this matter.It's always the other guy whose position is untenable.
     
     Rogi:
     
     >However, there are numerous experiments which demonstrate that organisms can (after only a few thousand generations) add genetic information allowing those organisms to do things they previously couldn't because these things are advantageous for ther perpetuation. That is in the course of a couple of decades, for visible physical changes to occur takes hundreds of thousands to millions of years.
     
     Experiments with E Coli, for example, do not see addition from mutation. The bugs show genetic change Just like Darwin's finches. E Coli get better at slugging down glucose but worse at imbibing fructose. The long nose finches have a temporary longer beak, good for some activities and not good for other activities. But when the conditions change the finches revert. Likewise, put E.coli in fructose and they will likely revert back, both genotypically and phenotypicaly. How is that progress? Sounds more like design in th genome itself. Apparently, the environment can even stimulate it in some experiments. There's a switch. It's not a random mutation selected out, but a selective pressure causing the genome to become hyper-mutable in a selective (predetermined?) fashion. Arid climate doesn't affect the feet or the brain or the heart to "evolve". It tells the genotype to produce a different beak. Suggests front-loading. no?
     
     --
     Edited by sologos at 06/19/2008 7:51 PM

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566. 566. Frank M 03:21 AM 6/20/08

     Tommo, the evidence you speak of aligns, not with Darwinism, but with ID. All evidence of evolution will either falsify Darwinism or falsify ID. They are separated by so many magnitudes of order that it is blatantly obvious which one is holding true every time. Darwinism is falsified and ID is held up.... every time.
     
     Tommo> "However, there are numerous experiments which demonstrate that organisms can (after only a few thousand generations) add genetic information allowing those organisms to do things they previously couldn't because these things are advantageous for ther perpetuation. That is in the course of a couple of decades, for visible physical changes to occur takes hundreds of thousands to millions of years."
     
     First, to correct your statement to avoid anyone being misled. What you say here insinuates that gradual changes have been seen to happen to a species over hundreds of thousands to millions of years. Such a gradual change over time is NOT what is seen in the evidence. We see extremely long periods of stasis. Changes appear to happen wholesale overnight, not necessarily restricted to lineages. So it doesn't take that long at all. Visible genetic physiological changes have been seen to happen in a generation. Name any visible change to a species that took hundreds of thousands or millions of years.
     
     Next, you say it was observed in experiments that genetic information was "added". Unless you are talking about some sort of polyploidy, which really does not add information, we still have not seen or determined how we ever could "add" a single crosspiece, let alone genes. It would seem to be physically impossible to do so. We know long-term it happens, but it has never been observed or explained. The genetic code is modified, not added to, in field observations across decades. The number of base pairs remains the same, but the information changes.
     
     Thirdly, I hope your use of the word "because" in that context doesn't mislead anyone to believe that any advantage can CAUSE a genetic upgrade. An advantage can only explain why such a creature didn't die, but it does not explain the genetic modification.
     
     Lastly, to reach the level of new functionality a change would probably be at least a couple dozen bits of information (unless you can present an exception?) so the odds of accomplishing such a thing, without disastrous results in decillions of less fortunate beings, are prohibitive.
     
     The mutant failures, vastly outnumbering the successes by decillions to one at best, should far more easily be observed than any beneficial fluke. In fact, that many in a couple of decades should require full-time gatherers to get rid of and bury.
     
     In fact, such experiments as bacterial exposure to anti-biotics have shown repeatedly that the genetic upgrades happen under direct observation, further rejecting Darwinism and supporting intelligent genetics.
     
     Tommo> "Yet just because scientists are willing to admit we don't have a workable theory to explain that particular event does not mean that evolutionary theory is wrong, as that event is not incompatible with the theory."
     
     The Cambrian Explosion is incompatible with Darwinism. The problem is they are NOT willing to admit this in academia. Please find this admission of falsification in any school textbook.

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567. 567. Rogi1981 03:46 AM 6/20/08

     [b]Experiments with E Coli, for example, do not see addition from mutation. The bugs show genetic change Just like Darwin's finches. [/b]
     
     You contradict yourself, since genetic change is an addition from mutation. In the following example that is precisely what happened as a new DNA sequence appeared in the one of 12 strands (all of which originated from a single e-coli strand) two decades and 40 thousand generations later. .
     
     [i]But sometime around the 31,500th generation, something dramatic happened in just one of the populations – the bacteria suddenly acquired the ability to metabolize citrate, a second nutrient in their culture medium that E. coli normally cannot use.
     
     Indeed, the inability to use citrate is one of the traits by which bacteriologists distinguish E. coli from other species. The citrate-using mutants increased in population size and diversity"It's the most profound change we have seen during the experiment. This was clearly something quite different for them, and it's outside what was normally considered the bounds of E. coli as a species, which makes it especially interesting," says Lenski..[/i]
     
     http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/dn14094-bacteria-make-major-evolutionary-shift-in-the-lab.html
     http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=134600
     
     --
     Edited by Rogi1981 at 06/19/2008 9:06 PM

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568. 568. Rogi1981 03:57 AM 6/20/08

     But since Tommo, Eastwood, and I have been patiently answering everyone's questions about evidence on evolution, and dressignt alleged flaws in evolutionary theory, let me ask one simple question: [b]Is Intelligent Design a SCIENTIFIC THEORY or does it have religious underpinnings?[/b] After all, this is what started this thread. For all the problems that any scientific theory may have (and all have some, since scientific method ensures a continuing exploration of evidence and possible explanations). Please be honest, because I have two transcripts in front of me (and will provide online links) from Kitzmiller by Professors Behe and Minnich who testified for defense as well as the full text of the decision describing and quoting the Wedge Document prepared by the publishers Of Pandas and People.
     
     http://www.pamd.uscourts.gov/kitzmiller/kitzmiller_342.pdf -- decision.
     
     --
     Edited by Rogi1981 at 06/19/2008 9:07 PM

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569. 569. Rogi1981 04:02 AM 6/20/08

     [b]If Cambrian explosion doesn't falsify, why should a 200 million year find falsify. It will just be used to push back dates further.[/b]
     
     Because if a a fossil of particular organism (let's say prehistoric version of the trout) is found in a strata date before such specie was supposed to appear (only bacteria and single celled organisms are around) that means that it did not evolve from simpler to more complex organism as evolutionary theory predicts. (incidentally, Creationists will have their first sample of empirical evidence supporting their position that all creatures were created the way they are today at the same time-still nothing for God though, but that's another story)
     
     --
     Edited by Rogi1981 at 06/19/2008 9:11 PM

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570. 570. sephers165 06:31 AM 6/20/08

     > evolutionary theory, let me ask one simple question:
     > [b]Is Intelligent Design a SCIENTIFIC THEORY or does
     > s it have religious underpinnings?[/b] After all,
     > this is what started this thread.
     
     My guess is it does have religious underpinnings and it is as much a scientific theory as you can get without being able to have controlled experiments. But you seem to be implying that Evolutionary theory is completely objective and doesn't have any agenda of it's own. Like it or not Evolution has atheistic underpinnings and it's own presuppositions that it makes.
     
     Put it this way, if you don't believe in an omniscient and omnipotent God with the power to create, you are first making a presupposition about God which is acceptable since you can neither prove nor disprove God, and secondly of course you wouldn't believe things were created so the only explanation left is Evolution, or Goo to You.
     
     Now just because I might have faith in God doesn't mean my science is wack. I might make a presupposition about the fact God created everything thing as in the Bible, and then when I go to support that I see evidence of it everywhere. Secondly, I can still believe things evolve, but I don't in the same way Evolutionists mean it. Technology has evolved, a species has evolved within itself as a species (like the ash colored moths) but not into a new species (grey or brown they're both moths)
     
     Ultimately I am sure they intended what they said in the wedge document and I think that is where Creationism fails big time. Not as a science, but as its goal in the wedge document. If you don't believe in God or don't think him to be omniscient then no matter what evidence they bring up creationism just can't be true.
     
     I will look even more closely at all the good arguments Evolutionists make, and will use them to challenge my own beliefs, but I challenge you to look at what presuppositions you are making when you interpret this evidence as supporting evolution.
     
     Remember we actually believe this stuff to be true, and we're not trying to trick people into anything, just as you actually believe Evolution to be true and are likewise trying to open my eyes to the truth.

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571. 571. Tommo0809 12:05 PM 6/20/08

     Frank, Maybe you should take a break for awhile....or take a break from attributing other's comments to me :)
     
     Rogi- I would have to say that I'm a big fan of the "IntelligentCeationistponents" that was uncovered in the Panda's text (I wish I could remember how they mis-edited it, and I'll fix if I can find it)
     
     --
     Edited by Tommo0809 at 06/20/2008 5:09 AM

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572. 572. Rogi1981 12:39 PM 6/20/08

     I'll post on revisions of Pandas in a little bit. And Sephers, of course evolutionary theory is objective. Is gravitation theory objective? Is Biog Bang theory objective? The agenda behind proponents of those theories is to try explain the observable phenomena using non-supernatural explanations. Quite an agenda considering the agenda of ID proponents is to get their brand of religion teaching back into schools since teaching creationism under the guise of creation science failed as impermissible violation of Establishment Clause, and before that because teaching evolutionary theory was decriminalized, and so on, and so forth. Please consider the two agendas..

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573. 573. Rogi1981 01:59 PM 6/20/08

     [b]Like it or not Evolution has atheistic underpinnings and it's own presuppositions that it make[/b]
     
     While abiogenesis might, Evolution only has atheistic underpinnings if you believe in literalist interpretation of the Bible. Other than that, evolutionary theory is perfectly compatible with a variety of religious believes and a great deal of people maintain their belief in whatever deity they believe in in and recognize evolution as scientific fact (including many scientists). At any rate, atheism is not a religion, but that's a topic for another day, and has a philosophical rather than factual basis.
     
     [b]My guess is it does have religious underpinnings and it is as much a scientific theory as you can get without being able to have controlled experiments[/b]
     
     it is as much a scientific theory as creation science was. Science has rigid requirements for asserting something a theory. Merely adding word "theory" to something or "scientific" (as in case of "creation science") does not satisfy these requirements. The creationist origins of ID and requirement of belief in god before acceptance of it as a "scientific theory" are well documented and were even admitted to by the leading proponents of ID at Dover trial.
     
     [b]Now just because I might have faith in God doesn't mean my science is wack.[/b]
     
     Of course not, but if that is a prerequisite for your science to work then it is wack as far as science goes.
     
     [b]I might make a presupposition about the fact God created everything thing as in the Bible, and then when I go to support that I see evidence of it everywhere.[/b]
     
     Exactly, thats the exact opposite of any scientific theory, including evolutionary theory where first Darwin observed things that supported yet [u]nonexistent theory[/u], he formulated a hypothesis than thn tried to disprove it using empirical evidence. Remember, science works in reverse, constantly trying to find a an observation that will fail to confirm the hypothesis. Until such thing happens the theory is the most accurate explanation of the observable phenomenon.
     
     [b]Remember we actually believe this stuff to be true, and we're not trying to trick people into anything, just as you actually believe Evolution to be true and are likewise trying to open my eyes to the truth. [/b]
     
     You might not be trying to trick anyone, the Dover trial proved otherwise about ID proponents' intentions. I no more believe in evolution then I believe in gravitation or fusion/fission. Note that evolutionary theory had many other scientific alternatives that did not make it, and none of them had anything to do with a necessary belief in god. they failed because evolutionary theory provided a better explanation for the observable evidence. By definition, ID and Creationism cannot fail, which is why the debate continues despite lack of evidence or original research supporting either one (how do you disaprove or prove existence of a creator that operates outside of known laws of the existing universe?).

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574. 574. sephers165 06:22 PM 6/20/08

     > I'll post on revisions of Pandas in a little bit. And
     > Sephers, of course evolutionary theory is objective.
     > Is gravitation theory objective?
     Oh don't even try to compare gravitation theory to Evolution. You say Evolution happens I say show me. I say Gravitation happens and I drop a bouncy ball and it repeatedly falls. One can be proved using the scientific method in a controlled experiment while one cannot.
     
     > Is Big Bang theory objective?
     No
     
     Definitions of objective on the Web:
     
     * undistorted by emotion or personal bias; based on observable phenomena; "an objective appraisal"; "objective evidence"
     
     By the way I'm not saying Evolution isn't objective and Creation is, I'm saying they're both Subjective.
     
     > Quite an agenda
     > considering the agenda of ID proponents is to get
     > their brand of religion teaching back into schools
     
     By the way there is a difference from saying the Bible says this and then going and proving it, and saying this and this has happened and how do we know because the Bible says so. We don't just say creation happened and our evidence is the Bible, we say the Bible says creation happened and the evidence is in the world around us.
     
     Question for thought? [i]If[/i] the Bible were true, wouldn't it make sense to teach what it says?

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575. 575. Rogi1981 07:03 PM 6/20/08

     [b]Oh don't even try to compare gravitation theory to Evolution. You say Evolution happens I say show me. I say Gravitation happens and I drop a bouncy ball and it repeatedly falls. One can be proved using the scientific method in a controlled experiment while one cannot.[/b]
     
     Why shouldn't I try to compare gravitation theory to evolution. How would one prove gravitation theory using scientific method? You probably don't know that either (forgive me if I'm making a wrong assumption here, for all I know you're a theoretical physicist), yet you give gravitation theory (not to be confused with newton's law of gravity) significantly more credence that evolutionary theory.
     
     [b]Q. Is Big Bang theory objective?
     A. No. [/b]
     
     Why not? There is empirical evidence in a form of semi-constant background microwave radiation in universe indicating a large explosion. While it is only one of the theories as to formation of the universe it has scientific validity (and please don't tell me we assumed Big Bang happened and then started seeing the evidence for it everywhere).
     
     According to your definition of objectivity evolutionary theory qualifies. Many evolutionary biologists have their particular brand of faith, yet they leave that behind. That is the point of peer review, that if you have any kind of bias that guided you in interpreting your results others lacking that bias (either because of their views, or because the experiments and findings are not their) will see it. I believe you are convinced Evolutionary theory lacks objectivity because you think scientists run all of their experiments in the field of evolutionary biology trying to prove what they think is true. Of course the scientific method dictates that you are constantly trying to disprove your hypothesis when you run an experiment. I also provided you with just one example of how an organism can through random mutations that at some point will give it an advantage add genetic information onto their DNA sequence in only 2 decades. The reality is that (due to obvious limitations) few people are experts in every single field of science, and most are barely knowledgeable in all, yet it is mostly evolution that comes under fire from religious groups because it conflicts with the literal interpretation of the scripture.. Coincidence? If only you knew how many holes there are in chemistry, yet no one (other than other chemists who do so on a rational basis) claim that the atomic theory is incorrect. No one claims gravitation theory is incorrect even though it has drawbacks on subatomic level and is irreconcilable with that. Scientists are human and exhibit voluntary or involuntary bias (subjectivity) in all those areas, which is why peer review is so crucial. Evolutionary theory's limitation is that it's an objective scientific theory and can only make observable predictions. Like I said before, other scientific theories explaining diversity of life rose and fell, and their proponents didn't seek legal recourse, didn't try to teach it in schools despite being shown of the errors, didn't complain of conspiracies, etc. I

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576. 576. Rogi1981 07:06 PM 6/20/08

     [b]Question for thought? If the Bible were true, wouldn't it make sense to teach what it says?[/b]
     
     Of course. But you simply can't prove it true or false. There is a spectrum of diverging views among theologians and believers, many of whom don't want faith conflated with science because it demeans their faith.

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577. 577. sologos 05:54 AM 6/21/08

     Rogi, I think the problem ma be that we are using terms in different ways: From one of you entries on June 19:
     
     >Experiments with E Coli, for example, do not see addition from mutation. The bugs show genetic change Just like Darwin's finches.
     
     >>You contradict yourself, since genetic change is an addition from mutation. In the following example that is precisely what happened as a new DNA sequence appeared in the one of 12 strands (all of which originated from a single e-coli strand) two decades and 40 thousand generations later. .
     
     Genetic change is an addition of sorts, I would agree, but I do not see how this contributes to the ADDITIONAL genome seen when moving from simpler to more complex species. The Lemski experiments, as far as I have read thus far, do not show new genes (what I mean by addition) but changes in genes already present. In fact, it could be argued that this citrate eater (if it really was not a contaminant) , was a deleterious or downgrading mutation. What great advantage does citrate eating confer upon an organism that has all the glucose it can eat, and is, in fact, thriving?
     
     There are many genetic illnesses that are caused by mutations (oncogenes, for example) that leave an organism able to survive (and even reproduce) but present a handicap to the individual. They are genetic changes for sure, and I suppose you could call it an "additional" trait, but it is hardly moving up the genetic tree from common ancestor to more highly fit descendants.
     
     My big question with Lemski's experiment, (which BTW I find commendable and a tremendous source of data with which to study genomics, but prejudiced in its deductions), is that like all the other cases of so-called micro-evolution, the changes seem to be pre-programmed, another remarkable manifestation of the Designer's awesome creation, rather than dumb luck.
     
     A good example of this is the hyermutability occurring when organisms are stressed by the environment
     
     
     Note for example these links:
     
     http://www.sci.sdsu.edu/~smaloy/MicrobialGenetics/topics/mutations/fluctuation.html
     
     or:
     http://jb.asm.org/cgi/content/full/186/15/4846
     
     or, a quick and simple summary from wikepedia:
     
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_mutation
     
     Yes the genome is changing (not adding but changing), yes, it is manifesting in a new phenotype, but contrary to the Darwinian paradigm of chance and necessity, it is rather necessity calling on the genome to maximize its built in potential. Big difference, and it speaks for design.

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578. 578. sologos 06:35 AM 6/21/08

     Rogi, Again we are on different pages. On the same day another entry in response to me:
     
     >>If Cambrian explosion doesn't falsify, why should a 200 million year find falsify. It will just be used to push back dates further.
     
     >Because if a a fossil of particular organism (let's say prehistoric version of the trout) is found in a strata date before such specie was supposed to appear (only bacteria and single celled organisms are around) that means that it did not evolve from simpler to more complex organism as evolutionary theory predicts. (incidentally, Creationists will have their first sample of empirical evidence supporting their position that all creatures were created the way they are today at the same time-still nothing for God though, but that's another story)
     
     
     
     I didn't mean that your 200 million year fossil would not send the evolutionists back to the drawing board, I just meant that they would come back with a plausible explanation. They could simply push back the dates like they have, for example, with the appearance of HOMO genus.
     
     
     Like religion, as the evolutionists are fond of pointing out, when you have a theory that fills in all the gaps with speculation and just so explanations, anything is actually possible. The mind is infinitely creative.
     
     The issue is that Mr Darwin, genius that he was, discovered some profound insights into how the world appears to function. The problem is that no matter how profound one gets, there are ALWAYS levels that are more profound.
     
     Consider Ptolemy's solution to the irregularities observed for 500 years in the movements of the planets and othe celestial bodies.. It was brilliantly conceived, extensively documented and elaborately explained. It appeared to solve he problem of apparent backwards movement of some of the planets, and, as a paradigm, was elaborated and expanded upon, and refined by the cosmological community for over a millennium. Ptolemy even announced that speculation about divine causation leads only to "guesswork" and that if the goal was to acheive certainty, then the only way to do that was though mathematics.The problem was, of course, that though good science, derived from painstakingly careful observations, it was based on a faulty assumption, that th earth was the center of the universe, and everything revolved around it.

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579. 579. sephers165 05:51 PM 6/21/08

     > Why shouldn't I try to compare gravitation theory to
     > evolution.
     
     Sorry I didn't mean the crazy reasons why gravity happens, I mean the fact of gravity, (that things falls when dropped) is much more of a fact than the fact of Evolution. One can be observed, and one can be speculated.
     
     Evolution abuses science in that it is a completely naturalistic world view that wraps itself in scientific theory that only works if the initial assumptions it makes are true. That is the assumption that chance and the laws of nature can account for everything we see around us. Even living things.
     
     Now I'm not trying to imply that Creation science doesn't abuse science but simply that Evolution does. Before you can verify Evolution you need to prove that assumption made above.
     
     Now since the assumption that chance and the laws of the nature account for everything we see around us, is so hard to prove I understand why you guys just accept it so that you can then go and use the evidence you see for Evolution. But you need to admit at least you make that initial assumption. If you deny making that assumption then you have no reason to believe Evolution. But I know what you will probably say is that you aren't making an assumptin becuase it is true. If that is the case I would like for you to show me how you have proven that statement true.
     
     I do not make the assumption so I have no reason to believe Evolution to be true until it is no longer an assumption.

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580. 580. Frank M 09:54 AM 6/22/08

     sologos >>"If Cambrian explosion doesn't falsify, why should a 200 million year find falsify. It will just be used to push back dates further."
     
     Rogi >"Because if a a fossil of particular organism (let's say prehistoric version of the trout) is found in a strata date before such specie was supposed to appear (only bacteria and single celled organisms are around) that means that it did not evolve from simpler to more complex organism as evolutionary theory predicts."
     
     First, there were a whole lot more critters on this planet than just bacteria and single-celled 200 million years ago.
     
     Wouldn't Darwinism be just as likely to reduce complexity as to raise it? Darwinism holds that random accident is the causal force of increasingly complex information (as upside down as that logic is), so Darwinism predicts nothing as patterned as increased complexity. There should be as much getting simpler as more complex, yet metazoans started highly complex and only rarely get simpler.
     
     Still sologos is right when he says that finding a trout or rabbit where we hadn't believed they had lived would not refute Darwinism, at least not according to the Darwinists. We constantly find fossils that throw Darwinists on their ears for awhile and they merely re-draw the lines on their tree of life. That is sologos' point.
     
     For example, Darwinists were stumped to find that the first known multi-cell animal ancestor is not the simple sponge, as it had been believed, but the highly complex comb jellyfish. Genetically, the sponge had to have evolved after the jellyfish. It took the red-faced Darwinist blogsters about a week to dig up and move the goal posts on that one, but they have been re-drawing this map on a monthly basis for years. Sologos is quite correct.
     
     The amazing thing is not Darwinism being so well-proven, but the fact that Darwin seems to ALWAYS be falsified. There are exceptions, but you would think a few would fall Charles' way by sheer luck once in a while. According to the evidence, nothing was Darwinian. It was all long periods of stasis and then sudden change to something hundreds of thousands of codines different.
     
     One last note: The Cambrian Explosion DOES falsify Darwinism.

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581. 581. Frank M 05:32 PM 6/22/08

     Tommo, I stand corrected on attributing Rogi's comments to you. Please accept my apologies.
     
     You did not conflate law with scientific method "proof" against IC. Rogi did. Then you responded to MY comments about the failures of the Jones decision.
     
     In the same message Rogi said that intelligence creating neural pathways was a "straw man" argument against Darwinism and I thought that was you too. I feel particularly bad about this one because I also accused you of changing the subject without explaining yourself and it wasn't even you I should have been talking about.
     
     I will say this to both you and Rogi, I have seen this ACLU lawyer at Dover and I am not conjuring up an image. If you looked up "slick" in the dictionary, you get this guy. He could solve the world's oil supply problems with his personality. While I recognize that you are correct in calling this ad hominem, I also maintain that a court case does not always derive the best answer and sometimes the best legal representation wins, rather than the party in the right. This court case did not derive the best answer for the students, however, if there were no IDists there to say that their opinions were non-religious, then the judge may have made the only legal decision at that time.
     
     I hope there are further court cases and that next time the supporters of science and education do a better job against those trying to limit knowledge and force their ideologies. In Dover, knowledge lost.

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582. 582. Frank M 07:19 PM 6/22/08

     Tommo, actually I would be interested in what the court uses in finding whatever it is you felt was the appropriate determination of the Jones court. But only if it is brief and no trouble. I have already misstepped with you and it is only a tangent topic.
     
     My quote of how I feel Materialists approach their flawed methodology: "There is the appearance of design in the symettry and interdependent functionality of living things. Therefore there is no possibility that we were designed. We must halt further investigation or discussion of this concept at all fronts, proclaiming the opposite of the evidence to be scientific fact."
     
     Tommo > "what exactly would this be? straw man?hyperbole? outrageous argument? humor?"
     
     This is what the Darwinists sound like to me. They seem desperate to stifle evidence and keep it from being considered in any venue, especially academia.
     
     Let me ask you this: Do you see ANY evidence for Intelligent Design?

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583. 583. Frank M 08:01 PM 6/22/08

     sologos, again I have to fully agree with you when you say that it is environmental need that causes an intelligent genetic response, according to experiments in both single and macro-cellular creatures. You also are correct that we still have never seen and cannot explain the addition of genes. It seems impossible, but it had to have happened.
     
     sologos> "Yes the genome is changing (not adding but changing), yes, it is manifesting in a new phenotype, but contrary to the Darwinian paradigm of chance and necessity, it is rather necessity calling on the genome to maximize its built in potential. Big difference, and it speaks for design."
     
     It screams for design and closes the door on random accident as a cause of evolution.
     
     When you say "built in potential" are you refering to the "front-loading" aspect of Creationism? If so, I would caution that it could be difficult to argue whether this shows a pre-determined gene pool based on psychic or omniscient aforeknowledge of need, or alternatively it could be a matter of an intelligently created modification to the gene pool, developed after the need arises.
     
     The chart on your link would seem to show front-loading miracles of Biblical proportions and that was on her attempt to show random mutations! It was a very poorly contrived chart, especially putting the supposed random mutations one or two cell divisions before they were needed. And it had an even more poorly contrived theory of how to determine randomness versus intelligent genetics. If we are seeing predictable mutations before our eyes - it isn't random. Her use of 1 out of 10 to the -8th as a probability shows she was using actuals, not probability calculations, which she circularly uses as proof that the expected rate occured to support Darwinism.
     
     I hate to give ammunition to a Creationist, but I am honest enough to admit when evidence goes the opposite of my primary belief. One such strong indicator of front-loading is in frame shifting. Frameshifts are some of the most amazing genetic contortions that I can imagine. It is like drawing pictures with a 6 thousand piece rubics cube and maintaining coherent images on all sides of the cube at all turns. It is like writing an almanac and then exchanging every thousand letters or so, while still spelling every word and telling a slightly different story. You may want to read up on it.
     
     The second link of yours was outstanding! It was a powerful indicator of Intelligent Genetics.

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584. 584. Frank M 08:20 PM 6/22/08

     sologos, I agree that the problem with "Methodological" Naturalism is that it uses flawed methodology. They can call themselves whatever long word they want, but if they don't know what it means, they fail.
     
     sologos> "Right, and as an inquiry, an investigation, or a methodology its limited but workable(in fact it has worked quite well,though a double edged sword) as long as the individual realizes that there is more. On the other hand, if the immaterial does indeed interact with the material, then this methodology, though constantly inferring it, will never detect it. A new methodology is needed."
     
     Their methodology is hopeless on its face. Yet they can't understand why they constantly confront impossibilities and nobody believes their conclusions that seem to mirror their pre-determinations so identically, except with "gaps".
     
     Sorry, but they are one giant gap from beginning to end. I wouldn't mind if it were really limited the individual using this approach, but they proclaim their ideology as scientific fact, and proclaim it "proven" after it has been falsified for the umpteenth time. Then they teach it to students and fight bitterly against evidence from people who understand the immaterial nature of life can not be excluded from the understanding of any of life's works.
     
     The immaterial IS evident everywhere you turn in biology. It simply can not be overlooked, ignored or denied because it is central to everything that makes life life. An immaterial force of some kind intelligently animates matter or reproduction is impossible and we would all die immediately anyway. If any biologist plans to dismiss the immaterial life force as "supernatural" or even "metaphysics", they are doomed to misunderstand their subject matter and everything about it. Life IS an immaterial intelligence.

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585. 585. Frank M 04:17 AM 6/23/08

     Rogi> "But since Tommo, Eastwood, and I have been patiently answering everyone's questions about evidence on evolution"
     
     You answered questions? Did I miss it? How sweet that you have been so "patient".
     
     You have done nothing but the usual avoidance of scientific evidence and the usual retreat to accusations of some sort of conspiracy of evil theologians.
     
     Here you go again....
     
     Rogi> "Is Intelligent Design a SCIENTIFIC THEORY or does it have religious underpinnings?"
     
     It is 100% a scientific theory, with no religion allowed.
     
     However I agree with another poster who said the real problem is the infusion of powerful Atheists into the Materialist doctrines that have caused such widespread ignorance in the first place.
     
     I never read the Wedge Document let alone signed it or consider it some sort of master plan. That some Creationists call themselves IDists does not make it so. If they are Biblical Literalists, claim God did it or deny common descent, they are NOT true IDists. The Discovery Institute does not represent ID.
     
     Creationism has religious underpinnings. Darwinism has Atheist underpinnings. ID has scientific evidence underpinnings.

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586. 586. Rogi1981 07:15 PM 6/23/08

     [b]usual retreat to accusations of some sort of conspiracy of evil theologians.[/b]
     
     Please point out a single instance where I referred to any "conspiracy "by "evil theologians?" It is very disingenuous when you keep on attributing statements (or even ideas) not presented by the person. Stop attacking straw men FrankM.
     
     [b]That some Creationists call themselves IDists does not make it so. If they are Biblical Literalists, claim God did it or deny common descent, they are NOT true IDists. The Discovery Institute does not represent ID.[/b]
     
     Accordingly, you wouldn't call Behe, Miller, Discovery Institute, and the publishers and writers of Panda's Thumb "TRUE IDISTS."
     Who would you consider a true IDist, people claiming abductions by a UFO? Youself perhaps? You are certainly setting a different standard for ID as a theory than the majority of ID Movement. Is ID undergoing reformation this fast?
     
     [b]I never read the Wedge Document let alone signed it or consider it some sort of master plan.[/b]
     
     Well of course you didn't;Discovery Institute did. Just because many Christians never read the whole Bible or participated in the Council of Nicea doesn't make them any less of believers or the Bible.
     
     [b]Creationism has religious underpinnings. Darwinism has Atheist underpinnings. ID has scientific evidence underpinnings. [/b]
     
     Please point out any way in which evolutionary theory supports atheism, or provides support or mentioners the nonexistence of any supernatural being. Perhaps it has atheistic underpinnings because it conflicts with your version and interpretation of creation, but it's no more of an atheistic theory than gravitation, or germ theory..

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587. 587. sephers165 09:54 PM 6/23/08

     > Please point out any way in which evolutionary theory
     > supports atheism, or provides support or mentioners
     > the nonexistence of any supernatural being. Perhaps
     > it has atheistic underpinnings because it conflicts
     > with your version and interpretation of creation, but
     > it's no more of an atheistic theory than gravitation,
     > or germ theory..
     
     You are reaching on that one Rogi. You can't really believe Evolution and Gravitation support Atheism equally the same. One says it is OK for cells to become thinking people, and everything was due to random changes and the fit surviving, so all your thoughts and consciousness are just random events and not stemming from a soul. Another says big heavy objects pull things towards them. It is one thing to say Evolution has less religious underpinnings (the religion of atheism) than creationism, and whole different things to say it has the same amount of religious underpinning as gravity.
     
     Even if Evolutionary Biologists never say directly that it supports atheism they do so indirectly. Name one atheist who doesn't believe in Evolution.
     
     Like I said earlier Evolution rests entirely on the assumption that chance and the laws of nature can account for everything we see around us. Even living things. So if that assumption is true then Evolution can be true, but if it is true that also means there is no need for God to do anything, so maybe God doesn't exist.

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588. 588. Rogi1981 11:53 PM 6/23/08

     [b]One says it is OK for cells to become thinking people, and everything was due to random changes and the fit surviving, so all your thoughts and consciousness are just random events and not stemming from a soul. [/b]
     
     Evolutionary theory doesn't say anything about it being OK for sells to become thinking people and fit surviving. Sorry to nitpick, but generalizing all the time and misconstruing what evolutionary theory does say, results in further strawmen attacks of what it doesn't say. This may have atheistic underpinnings for YOU, Sephers, because it might be incompatible with YOUR particular religious belief, and the reason why we're having Creationism/ID debate in the first place. For millions of other interpretations of what came before simpler organisms became more complex and more diverse via natural selection (not survival of the fittest which Darwin never said) and chance DNA mutations. Whatever your religion is, you can address the complete lack of mention of god in that scientific theory dealing with observable and measurable universe whichever way you want (god set the wheels in motion, god is guiding the process of evolution, many different scenarios). Of course if your particular religion mandates a strict interpretation of creation story in the Bible, then all of the sudden the evolutionary theory become atheistic in origin or atheist biased. So Sephers, while I appreciate your willingness to conduct a civil and rational discourse, try to think outside of your religious views in order to evaluate something (if that is what in fact motivated that remark).
     
     
     As top gravitation (not gravity, I'll leave it to you to learn the difference), it mentions nothing about any deity moving the planets, or bending light, or creating neutron stars, why wouldn't the maker of the universe involve himself in such things? Yet it's no more of an atheistic theory than evolution unless you still adhere to literal interpretation of some parts of the bible (and some ultra-orthodox religious do).
     
     [b]Even if Evolutionary Biologists never say directly that it supports atheism they do so indirectly. Name one atheist who doesn't believe in Evolution.[/b]
     
     Can't say, one or two perhaps. I don't know that many, but I do know many religious people who accept evolutionary theory as fact without any problems. So you see, while atheists, being atheist possibly due to their skeptical nature, or for whatever other reason, may accept evolution more so than the religious, that is not because evolutionary theory has atheistic underpinnings, but because it deals with natural world without mention of god allowing for almost any kind of belief or even a complete lack thereof including atheism.
     
     [b]Like I said earlier Evolution rests entirely on the assumption that chance and the laws of nature can account for everything we see around us. [/b]
     
     Sure, just like I operate on the assumption that what I can observe is tangible, so I don't try to walk through walls. Science rests on that precise foundation, and without those "assumptions" we wouldn't have germ theory.
     
     [b]So if that assumption is true then Evolution can be true, but if it is true that also means there is no need for God to do anything, so maybe God doesn't exist.[/b]
     
     Of course now we're getting into a theological/philosophical argument. That might be your interpretation of things as dictated by your particular religious views, but then why should everyone hold such a bleak/cynical view. If you're unable to get over what's written and transcribed over thousands of years by fallible HUMANS some of whom like all humans might at one point or another have a particular agenda, then maybe the problem is not evolutionary theory. For the sake of the argument, why did god create everything at once the way it is today? Maybe people who wrote the Bible interpreted it that way. The whole point is that how do you measure and comprehend the mind of an omniscient and omnipotent being? Maybe that is the mark of an omniscient and omnipotent being, to create something so beautiful (DNA) that it will become infinitely complex on its own? I can ask a million questions that may or may not make you question why YOUR particular view conflicts with evolutionary theory so much, but if you already made up your mind then what's the point of constructive debate.

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589. 589. Tommo0809 01:37 AM 6/24/08

     Tommo > "what exactly would this be? straw man?hyperbole? outrageous argument? humor?"
     
     FrankM> This is what the Darwinists sound like to me. They seem desperate to stifle evidence and keep it from being considered in any venue, especially academia.
     
     -Frank, I posted those questions in response to your description of evolution that, I'm hoping, missed the mark so completely on purpose so as to present a bit of a snarky hobson's choice. You posted that questionnaire with the faulty definition of evolution (maybe the one that YOU personally choose for neo-darwinism) and I was hoping you weren't really expecting someone to make a real choice, so I was trying to verify your underlying motive is all.
     
     
     
     Tommo, actually I would be interested in what the court uses in finding whatever it is you felt was the appropriate determination of the Jones court. But only if it is brief and no trouble.
     
     -I will try my best to keep it short, since Im trying to make this my profession a few years down the road I tend to get towards rambling on far beyond whatever is necessary. (and apology from earlier accepted, or should I say no need to apologize, with about a dozen different conversations going on between as many people about twice as many topics its tricky to keep who said what to whom perfectly straight)
     
     Here's a cut and paste from a brief section of the "endorsement test" that is normally used by the supreme court from my first year constitutional law outline (trimmed down to bare bones). For the most part we were instructed to more-or-less memorize this type of interpretation so as to obtain the maximum amount of points if we were to get an establishment clause question on the bar exam:
     
     1. look at speech/act from perspective of speaker and listener
     • is gov’ts actual purpose to advance religion?
     -use testimony, comments made in session/out of session to news etc..., congressional record etc...as evidence
     • similar to lemon’s neutrality element
     Lemon's neutrality element: law will be more likely to pass analysis if its EFFECTS are religiously neutral and the speech is FACIALLY neutral.
     
     2. Whether a reasonable observer would understand that gov’ts purpose is to advance/endorse religion (someone who is familiar with context and history)
     • if gov’t endorses a particular religions view it makes those who are a part of the religion feel as though they were insiders to political community- if not they feel like outsiders
     
     
     -Jones may not have used this exact interpretive modality, but this is very similar to what the supreme court uses and thus very similar to what all lower federal and state courts use (because judges try to avoid any risk of being overruled on appeal). After running through these questions the court will also look at their responses in light of existing case law and lean strongly towards giving credence to their past decisions (Edwards and even scopes).
     
     To attempt to run through the entire analysis of all potential issues in a post would be pointless, Jones opinion was close to 140 pages I believe. He knew going in that despite his credentials (George W. appointee etc...) he would be accused of activism by the conservative side, but he found essentially that the brand of intelligent design pushed by Dover board was inextricably linked with religion.
     
     -Hope that helps, there are two books about creationism/ID in schools and the resultant court decisions that are pretty informative yet still pretty light in that they stick mostly to a narrative that I would HIGHLY recommend to anyone with interest in the topic.
     
     The first is Monkey Girl by Edward Humes- it talks about the Kitzmiller ruling, as a bit of a warning the book seems to have a bit of a bias towards the evo side of things, but does a pretty good job of explaining the surroundings of the case
     
     the second is Summer for the Gods by Edward Larson- Essentially a brief history of Evolution v Creationism, it was written pre-kitzmiller so there's little/no ID talk but gives a background on the ACLU and some of the Xtian groups that like to involve themselves.
     
     Hope this helps a bit.
     
     --
     Edited by Tommo0809 at 06/23/2008 6:44 PM
     
     --
     Edited by Tommo0809 at 06/23/2008 6:52 PM

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590. 590. sephers165 07:08 AM 6/24/08

     [b][i]Like I said earlier Evolution rests entirely on the assumption that chance and the laws of nature can account for everything we see around us. Including Living things.[/b][/i]
     
     [b]own? I can ask a million questions that may or may not make you question why YOUR particular view conflicts with evolutionary theory so much, but if you already made up your mind then what's the point of constructive debate.[/b]
     
     Because maybe you can flip me back again to Evolution. I believed Evolution once, but then I saw how it all rested on that one assumption that cannot be proven to be true. As I questioned it I saw how it was very likely and even obvious in many cases that we didn't simply evolve, nor could have we.
     
     And by the way some of the things you bring up are very challenging, and I like to challenge what I believe because I think it allows me to know the truth even better. That being said I appreciate the discourse and the fact that everyone here has been pretty amiable even though we both seem to think each others ideas foolish.

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591. 591. Rogi1981 02:16 PM 6/24/08

     I hope you're sincere Sephers. Maybe that's the problem, that you used to [i]believe[/i] in evolution. I admit, for the majority of people (especially in the U.S.) this amounts to belief, since secondary education provides bare bones and simplified instruction on the subject. And that simplified instruction obviously cannot withstand some scrutiny, especially for those uninitiated in the complexities of the subject and logical fallacies.
     
     I, personally, disliked biology in high school, and only acquired my interest in science starting with chemistry. I went on to do extensive research in biochemistry, publishing a paper on a study of a method used to research DNA structural formation. That peaked my interest in DNA origins and all things related. I also learned to appreciate the method used in study of anything in science, how meticulous it is and how there are rarely any assumptions. When you talk of evolutionary theory based on assumptions that chance governs complexity and speciation, and that another assumption is made that natural view of the world can explain everything you're in part correct. The latter assumption is fundamental to science in general. Scientists accept that some things we may never know, but that we can explain that, which we can measure and observe. That is true of physics, chemistry, etc. Science deals with HOW of the things, the WHY is left to other subjects. The importance of scientific method and then the peer review in science is to ensure that (1) a uniform process is used which ensures the most accurate results (2) to account for human bias (3) to ensure that flaws in methodology or reasoning are scrutinized by other experts in the field in a public forum.
     
     Having said that, it doesn't mean science is infallible, but we'll leave infallible things to infallible universe and specie. Scientific process is as good as it gets and the reason why we enjoy longer health, better technology, space travel, etc. As I pointed out all scientific theories have things we don't know, that's why research is continuously done adjusting and correcting the erors as new discoveries arise. Science is self correcting. As such, if evidence is found contradicting theory of evolution, then it has to be changed accordingly, to the extent that if we find a designer (alien specie comes down and tells us they created everything, or alternatively, alien specie comes down and says they planted the seed to evolve as we theorize) scientists will accept such designer. Until then, there is no reason to presuppose that for which there is no objective evidence. Evolution's flaws are not unique to evolution, but none of them are fatal to the theory as ample fossil record, radioactive dating, subsequent genetic similarity among fossils related to each other, gradual complexity and diversity of life, gradual change in related physical structures over time as evidenced by fossil record, and ongoing research which shows acquisition of genetic information in species, even over short period of time. Of course, even if evolutionary theory falls on its face (and no need to speculate that it will adjust to explain something contradictory, as I stated previously fossils in completely wrong places, or chimera's are inconsistent with the theory and are destructive to it) that STILL doesn't render ID or any other explanation resting on supernatural unmeasurable guiding force a science or correct. And ID is inherently that, it doesn't follow the proper research methodology, it doesn't publish peer reviewed article and when confronted on the subject people cry wolf and conspiracy, and more importantly it's central basis is an assumption that a designer exists for which, other than a subjective explanation that "it looks designed" no evidence exists. Furthermore, as the Dover case demonstrated through testimony of defense's own expert witnesses (Behe and Minnich (i said Miller earlier)) admit that a belief in an outside or supernatural designer is necessary to accept ID.
     
     At some point Sephers, the amount of evidence becomes so great that a conclusion has to be reached in favor of the evidence, even if you don't have 100% of what you can find. Setting an unreasonable burden of proof for any theory will mean that no scientific research will move forward, because there will always be gaps (we don't know precisely why subatomic particles function according to laws different then large objects, but that doesn't render Einstein's theory wrong, we don't have explanations for the formation of some of the elements, that doesn't mean that atomic theory is wrong, etc.) When dogma and not science rules criticisms of any scientific theory, the results are disastrous. We saw that throughout history (Lysenko, Galileo, Law of Attraction).

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592. 592. sephers165 05:01 PM 6/24/08

     [b]At some point Sephers, the amount of evidence becomes so great that a conclusion has to be reached in favor of the evidence, even if you don't have 100% of what you can find.[/b]
     
     I agree. And you know I often consider things like, well what if I was wrong. What would it look like, and I challenge myself to test the conclusions I've reached. I think that is a very good thing to do, because it either A: Allows me to be more confident and sure of what I already believe or B: Cause me to turn back and learn what is really true.
     
     My hope is that everyone else will do the same. Not all, but I know many, Evolutionists who refuse to accept even the what if this is wrong, what if that assumption that life is a matter of chance could be wrong. The thing is usually the more confident people are in something that is true, the more willing they are to say, well let's say this is wrong, what would be the cause, and what are the other explanations.
     
     In the Expelled movie there was one thing Stein quotes which I believe was "Beware of the one hand clapping" or something like that. Saying for every argument there usually a counter argument, and when you only hear one and all others are shut out you should be suspicious.
     
     My point is, I feel like I am open to listen to all the evidence of the other argument, and even though I am biased by my differing presuppositions, I listen and am willing to challenge my own. On the other hand, when those I discuss with, who are sure they are right the way I am, refuse to even listen to other explanations, it makes me less able to assume that they actually have reason to believe it. So let's say Evolution is a fact like gravity and I just haven't believed it yet, what has helped me most to believe it (not that I do yet, nor who knows if i will, depends, I still have lots to learn, before I would ever overturn the other evidence I've seen) is when Evolutionists have been willing to say what if it is wrong.
     
     Thanks to you all for the discussion. I don't have much left to argue so I will just listen and learn. There seems to be three different versions of what people believe so far. Frank's ID, the standard Evolution by most of you, and Sologos.
     
     We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.
     C. S. Lewis

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593. 593. Rogi1981 06:09 PM 6/24/08

     That's good Sephers, but you have to understand the reluctance of many evolutionary theory proponents to cater to the particular religious belief and many of the dishonest and canard tactics employed by those who hold that belief. It is one thing to hold a particular religious belief, it is another thing to claim that others have to adhere to that belief and other must be informed of that belief and furthermore at the expense of the state in an attempt to supplant a scientific theory. For most scientist the objective evidence supporting the evolutionary theory is the legal equivalent of "beyond the reasonable doubt." And for people like FrankM (who seems to have an ID version completely different from the one they attempted to teach in schools, and the one held by the main body of ID movement) and other ID proponents any admission of the alleged weakness turns into "I told you the entire theory was wrong, ID is therefore correct." The movie Expelled and the article following it is an example of it. How credible would be any of my arguments against say physicists if i claim that Boyle's Law resulted in gassing in extermination camps. Granted many evolution opponents have abandoned such a ridiculous argument, but lies to promote your particular religious belief will get people nowhere and will only anger the opposition whether evolutionary theory supporters or just rational people.

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594. 594. sephers165 07:06 PM 6/24/08

     I'm not so concerned about the whole what do we teach in school stuff, but more so about how individuals that believe Evolution won't take an approach of what if I am wrong, what if there is another explanation. Now I know Creationists folk do this to, but my point is that Evolutionists do it as well.
     
     I know what you mean by "the dishonest and canard tactics employed by those who hold that belief" because many of the attacks are based on emotional appeals rather than logic. Like Nazis believed Evolution to be true so they killed a bunch of people so Evolution isn't true. That argument is just as convincing as a bunch of Christians in the Middle Ages led Crusades and killed people, so Christianity isn't true. (By the way that is why when I read "God Delusion" I found it so unconvincing because it relied on so much rhetoric of pathos and ethos.)
     
     That being said Evolutionists have been dishonest at times too. A lot of the old pictures of the monkey turning into man, and of all the embryos were not accurate depictions of what is true are akin to me of the fake human prints in dino prints in texas.
     
     So once again I'm not arguing for a group of people, or to say how Creationism should be taught in schools. What I'm trying to do is challenge [i]you[/i] to think in terms of what if this is wrong. What if that initial assumption of life being chance is wrong. Maybe you have already done this, and if you have I would like to know what things you found most challenging, and how you were still able to resolve them and continue to believe in Evolution.
     If you haven't then I'm challenging you to do so because when I did it, I started seeing Evolution to be false, but maybe as you said I just wasn't learned enough, so maybe when you do it all it will do is allow you to better know the arguments Creationists/IDists make so you will be able to argue against them more effectively by knowing specifics rather than just generalities.
     It's why I like Darwin as a person because in Origin of Species he understood the difficulties of the theory and didn't try to hide them but admitted them openly.

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595. 595. Tommo0809 07:09 PM 6/24/08

     Some interesting stuff for whoever is following the Lenski experiment
     
     [url http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/06/lenski_gives_conservapdia_a_le.php#more][/url]

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596. 596. Rogi1981 09:49 PM 6/24/08

     Oh yeah, Schlafly is up to his old antics. I wonder if he's ever been sanctioned for unethical conduct.

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597. 597. Rogi1981 09:54 PM 6/24/08

     Lenski should just do what I do in light overly demanding discovery: rather than bother the judge to resolve the so hated discovery dispute I just provide everything asked for and then some at the requesting party's expense. Let them dig through the mess they created for me. Eventually, though, these attorneys learn the harsh lesson Shoemaker just did when he was sanctioned for his quashed subpoena.

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598. 598. Tommo0809 10:13 PM 6/24/08

     Have you read the whole set of emails and responses? What an ass Schalfly [sp] is. I have no problem with healthy skepticism, but the amount of incredulity and condescension in his requests is unbelievable; especially when you consider: 1. that he does not work in the same/similar field and 2. the utter lack of evidence supporting his "beliefs".

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599. 599. Rogi1981 10:22 PM 6/24/08

     I have read about as much as I could tolerate. I occasionally venture onto Conservapedia, mostly to gauge the ratio of intelligence to stupidity on that site. There are some attorneys that give a bad name to our profession and Andrew Schlafly is one of them.

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600. 600. Frank M 11:46 PM 6/25/08

     Rogi, you do seem to fall back on painting a dark picture of the motives and personal traits of IDists as an "argument", using such unfalttering words as "canards" and claiming that it is all a big trick to get religion taught in science class.
     
     No, you didn't use the term "evil theologians" - that was my sarcasm at work - but you do seem to insist that anyone not believing in accidental life formation is someone beholden to a secret document, suggesting that you are buying into conspiracy theory.
     
     Rogi> "Accordingly, you wouldn't call Behe, Miller, Discovery Institute, and the publishers and writers of Panda's Thumb 'TRUE IDISTS'."
     
     Behe is an IDist as he recognizes common descent but refutes Darwinism. Affiliation with DI does not disqualify a person from being an IDist, but by the same token the entire concept of Evolution by Intelligent Design is hardly wrapped up on a single floor of a building in Seattle. Ken Miller is a luck theorist who doesn't understand evolution.
     
     Rogi> "Is ID undergoing reformation this fast?"
     
     Well, my opinions haven't changed much in the past 13 years, and I don't see much changes in ID. I think you have been reading sources of what ID is from people who are not IDists. There is a lot of misrepresentation out there. It is not Creationism, in disguise or otherwise.
     
     Franki> "I never read the Wedge Document let alone signed it or consider it some sort of master plan."
     
     Rogi> "Well of course you didn't;Discovery Institute did. Just because many Christians never read the whole Bible or participated in the Council of Nicea doesn't make them any less of believers or the Bible."
     
     Bad analogy. Christianity centers around the Bible, particularly the New Testament. The Wedge Document was written by a handful of Creationists and it in no way relates to the validity of any theory. Should I throw quotes in your face written by Darwinists and hold them against you? Shall I quote Mein Kampff as a means of demeaning YOUR opinions? Look, I don't buy into what was done or said on the Wedge, and if that isn't good enough for you I really don't care. You are up against science and the evidence against you, not a web of lying holy warriors.
     
     Frank> "Creationism has religious underpinnings. Darwinism has Atheist underpinnings. ID has scientific evidence underpinnings."
     
     Rogi> "Please point out any way in which evolutionary theory supports atheism"
     
     I said Darwinism, not evolution. DARWINISM is supported BY Atheism, and not much else. It is supported, not by evidence, logic, math or common sense, but by a dillusional attempt to pretend life is no different than any inanimate object. The only thing protecting it from its full public exposure as a fraud is a fear of religion and misinformed public perception. The Christians are a problem, but not nearly as much so as the Atheists who have stifled the study of the Life Sciences.

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601. 601. Frank M 12:04 AM 6/26/08

     Tommo, thank you for indulging. I have a question on one thing you said, regarding one of the prongs of the Lemon test. How can one test for the EFFECTS of teaching factual information in school and then consider it unlawful, even though true, to teach it, just because it may have a religious effect?
     
     If we are learning History, should we bypass the Spanish Inquisition because it could have the effect of causing Christians to doubt the sactity of their clergy?
     
     Or does the Lemon test only ward against the government's official unconstitutional Atheist stance? Or is it constitutional as long as the factual information turns people away from faith? Does constitutional neutrality on religion mandate a clear favoring of Atheism over other beliefs? Or isn't the role of government to assure that they neither favor nor oppress any conviction? Atheist or Theist...
     
     Shouldn't the real test be whether or not the material being presented is fact or faith? Even disputed fact is factual in nature, as long as it is reasonably based on evidence. If any learning of any kind leads one closer to, or further from, religion, it should not be seen as the government picking sides as long as it is based on evidence.
     
     In fact, what should be presented IS evidence, not sweeping unsubstatiated conclusions such as Darwinism.

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602. 602. sephers165 12:13 AM 6/26/08

     So far from what I've read in articles about things that Evolved, it appears that Evolution is a God who designed things. Everything mentions how Evolution designed female humans to have curvier spines than monkeys because they stand upright and on and on. I realized if I just replace the word Evolution with God and evolved with created, then all the article then sound like they are supporting creation. Or in other words the evidence for Evolution just seems to be that species alive today have characteristics that allow them to survive.
     
     I had never heard of Conservapedia till you guys started talking about it. Thanks. I like being able to read from the two opposite biased views. For instance I like to read an article on CBSnews and then go read the same article on FoxNews and then I can determine what parts are the same and more likely true, and what parts are biased and need more investigating.
     
     Well I still think God created us, and the Bible is true, but I think there is speciation, and natural selection, but I don't think these are supportive of Evolution.
     
     Welp if you guys want quote me selectively and make me sound like an idiot. Or on the other hand you would probably say I did that simply by talking and not supporting a flawed theory. Oh well. I hope everyone here discovers the truth. I'm sure that I know the truth and that is God created everything and all species and designed into them the ability to adapt, but you guys also are sure you know the truth and that is that everything evolved by chance from a cell a billion years ago. Well maybe by the time we get the only thing guaranteed in life (death) we will know.

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603. 603. Frank M 01:33 AM 6/26/08

     Rogi, what you don't seem to be hearing sephers trying to tell you is that your flawed methodology is what caued the fallacy of Darwinism in the first place and corrupts the validity of anything you present.
     
     To study life while avoiding any discussion of immaterial animation of matter and energy is like studying mathematics while steadfastly stifling any mention of numbers. If you don't recognize what makes life different from non-life, then you can never explain how life arose from non-life. You already know you can not possibly explain the formation of life if you run and hide from defining what life is.
     
     You are trying to explain the origins of materials and ending up with materials and nothing that explains anything. Why even call it Life Science? If the idea of immaterial forces seems unscientific don't study physics and if the concept of intelligent animation disturbs you stay out of biology.
     
     Rogi> "I also learned to appreciate the method used in study of anything in science, how meticulous it is and how there are rarely any assumptions."
     
     Then why do make the most damning assumption of all? I appreciate science, not your a priori beliefs.
     
     Rogi> "When you talk of evolutionary theory based on assumptions that chance governs complexity and speciation, and that another assumption is made that natural view of the world can explain everything you're in part correct."
     
     Neither of you are at all correct. You both misdefine both evolutionary theory and natural. Evolution means "change over time", nothing more. Evolutionary theory has nothing to do with Darwinism and your failure to make the distinction is confusing and misleading, probably intentionally so. I believe in evolution caused by nature, so please don't try to use vague definitions to distract from the real issues at hand.
     
     Rogi> "The latter assumption is fundamental to science in general."
     
     No, determining the truth is fundamental to science as is avoidance the distortions of pre-determined bias.
     
     I get so tired of hearing self-gratifying pseudoscientists blather on about how great their science is as they fail to even practice the rudiments of it.
     
     Rogi> "Science deals with HOW of the things, the WHY is left to other subjects."
     
     That's why Darwinism, which simply shrugs it off as luck, despite the hopeless impossibility of such an angle, is NOT science. No Darwinist can claim to be a true scientist.
     
     Rogi> "Scientific process is as good as it gets and the reason why we enjoy longer health, better technology, space travel, etc."
     
     But you have to actually USE the scientific method, not just prattle on endlessly about it. Falsehood has no benefit to society or knowledge. Darwinism has had disastrous results on the biomedical industry.
     
     Rogi> "...if we find a designer (alien specie comes down and tells us they created everything..."
     
     There is no need for such a "find" as the only way to refute the stupidity of accidental complexity, which fails on its own well enough.
     
     This is not the theory of "designer". It is ID, which posits that life is intelligent animation of matter and energy, including genetics. The concept of a personalized designer is far beyond what we are saying. We are saying that you can not understand reproduction, evolution or life without understanding its immaterial nature. Also note that "immaterial" and "supernatural" are not synonyms.
     
     Rogi> "there is no reason to presuppose that for which there is no objective evidence."
     
     Then why do you back Darwinism? Got any evidence of it?
     
     Rogi> "Evolution's flaws are not unique to evolution, but none of them are fatal to the theory"
     
     There are dozens of fatal flaws to Darwinism. Fatal means it's dead.
     
     Rogi> "...gradual change in related physical structures over time as evidenced by fossil record, and ongoing research which shows acquisition of genetic information in species, even over short period of time."
     
     The changes to physical structures are sudden, not gradual, but yes, acquisition of genetic information DOES happen in a short period of time, which is exactly why Darwinism is a hoax. Darwinism posits "millions of years" as its excuse to offset the astronomical odds against it. Anything in a short period of time eliminates Darwinism from the equation, even for the hard core Materialists.
     
     Rogi> (if Darwinism as a model fails...) "that STILL doesn't render ID or any other explanation resting on supernatural unmeasurable guiding force a science or correct."
     
     1. Darwinism HAS failed.
     2. ID does not rest on the supernatural.
     3. Intelligent animation is not "unmeasurable". It is quite quite blatantly apparent and observable. In fact, to the 90% of the population not as blinded as you, it is undeniable.
     4. Although Darwinism has been falsified, ID stands on both positive evidence and the immpossibility of accidentalism.
     
     Rogi> "And ID is inherently that, it doesn't follow the proper research methodology..."
     
     What? A priori conclusions? Such as Materialism? Please do not speak to methodology until you are prepared to practice it.
     
     Rogi> "when confronted on the subject people cry wolf and conspiracy"
     
     Aren't you the guy who thinks we all signed a secret document to put Bibles in science classes?
     
     Rogi> "and more importantly it's central basis is an assumption that a designer exists"
     
     False. Learn your subject matter. It is not "central" at all, but just one possible offshoot of ID, one that we openly acknowledge we have no direct evidence of.
     
     Rogi> "...other than a subjective explanation that 'it looks designed' no evidence exists."
     
     That you all keep minimizing the evidence against you does not make it so. The design inference is only a starting point that should make ID the likelier answer to all those with the common sense you lack. To all those of you with no common sense, mathematics prove the obvious to the point of certainty. It is more than just "looking" designed.
     
     And as we have been explaining to you for 600 blogs now, there are mountains of evidence of all kinds supporting ID and absolutely NOTHING supporting your quack job.
     
     Rogi> "Setting an unreasonable burden of proof for any theory will mean that no scientific research will move forward, because there will always be gaps"
     
     Gaps?? You have NOTHING. Life is particles that fell together by luck and oh just spontaneously reproduce??? This is a theory? You call this crap "science"???
     
     You have nothing but unsubstantiated impossible guesswork that answers nothing. No wonder you have to close your mind to alternate viewpoints and evidence.
     
     Thanks for the speech. Now start practicing what you preach.

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604. 604. Frank M 02:56 AM 6/26/08

     Step One: "Class, we are going to begin our demonstration of proper methodology by ASSUMING that life is nothing more than a chance collection of materials that just happen to animate and reproduce by, uh.. luck. Any evidence to the contrary is illegal and religious."
     
     Step Two: "Let's see... No explanation for the beginning of life... no explanation for an mathematically impossible code... no explanation why matter obeys this code and builds beings... No explanation how matter animates... No explanation of how electrical energy is retained and released intelligently... No explanation of how a cell formed... No explanation of how multi-cellular creatures formed... Mathematical impossibility of increased complexity by way of random mess... The absence of any evidence of Darwinism... The Cambrian explosion.... Parallel Evolution.... No explanation for Symettry, cohesive units or repetitive designs.... No explanation for irreducible complexity... No explanation for the existence of a consciousness... The rarity of random mutations... The reliability of non-random mutations... The back and forth genetic editing in ovarian life... The intelligent genetics in Bacterial experimentation... No explanation for instinct... Sudden leaps of hundreds of thousands of codines in speciation... No explanation for speciation or the addition of genes... No explanation for sexual differentiation... No explanation for the utter absence of any body tissues that have never served a purpose... No explanation for intelligence.
     
     "Class, these are, uh, "gaps". It is unreasonable to expect our theory to fit the evidence."
     
     Step Three: After meticulously combing through all of the evidence we conclude our scientific method with the following deduction (drumroll.....) We find that life is a chance collection of materials that just happen to animate and reproduce by luck, as we suspected all along. Of course our theory could have failed at any point, but there were no rabbit fossils in the Cambrian. Class, I hope you learned your lesson today so that our school doesn't get an F.
     
     If only we were this open with our students, but unfortunately all they hear is Step Three. Not only is it not allowed to admit any refuting evidence against Darwinism in an academic setting, but we don't even do step one: Admit up front that we are outlawing the truth about evoution and pre-determining to come up with our contrived but false answer.
     
     So schoolchildren go to school, assuming that what they are being told in science class is the unvarnished truth, as it is purported to be. They aren't told that there is a pre-determination. So they think "Well, it seems like we are designed and I do feel like I have a consciousness, but if they say they have evidence that we are just a random accident of molecules that fell into a pile, I guess it must be so."
     
     But it isn't so. It is a lie.

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605. 605. Guestguy 03:11 AM 6/26/08

     Frank M:
     
     Hypothetically, what discovery could falsify your particular brand of ID (this version is completely new to me)? What would it take to prove that intelligence was not involved in the process? I don't want to hear: "Well it obviously is, so there is nothing that could disprove it." That's not the point of my question. Hypotheses must be falsifiable, so, please, demonstrate to me that yours exhibits such a characteristic.
     
     Note that I don't care about your feelings on Darwinism, as I don't consider myself a "Darwinist," so please spare me the diatribe. My question relates specifically to the scientific merits of your hypothesis, independent of Darwinism entirely. If you mention it at all, I will assume that your hypothesis cannot stand without using the "failure of Darwinism" as a crutch.
     
     --
     Edited by Guestguy at 06/25/2008 8:26 PM

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606. 606. Tommo0809 04:04 AM 6/26/08

     > the Lemon test. How can one test for the EFFECTS of
     > teaching factual information in school and then
     > consider it unlawful, even though true, to teach it,
     > just because it may have a religious effect?
     
     -I'll need some type of example because I'm not sure exactly what youre asking here, and if youre referring to ID I think thats really just begging the question.
     
     When it comes to school cases the type of effects the courts worry about is namely Indoctrination, especially when there is little/no choice for the students but to either sit through it or be forced into an outgroup. (don't want kids opting out of science class to avoid hearing religious material, don't want to force parents to send kids to another, non-public school for which they have to pay, etc...) The main reason for ID's failure in the courts was that it was found to be inextricably entangled with religion. In the Kitzmiller case there was no doubt left about what the designer was and what religion was being endorsed.
     
     
     >
     > If we are learning History, should we bypass the
     > Spanish Inquisition because it could have the effect
     > of causing Christians to doubt the sactity of their
     > clergy?
     
     -The diffrerence here is that it is mere instruction about events that occurred in the past. By telling a student that the spanish inquisition "happened" the teacher is merely recounting an undisputed event in the past, and is neither taking a side, nor endorsing the practice. Now if a protestant teacher had said "those evil, sinning catholics began torturing other (christians/jews/whatever) in the 15th century" that would create an issue that could find its way into the courts. So to relate it back to evo, the difference here is that Evolution makes no explicit statements about god, whereas in this case ID does. (upon reading the testimony of the various dover board members and statements made by several ID proponents close to the case it is more than arguable that the agent is the same god spoken about in creation science etc...)
     
     >
     > Or does the Lemon test only ward against the
     > government's official unconstitutional Atheist
     > stance? Or is it constitutional as long as the
     > factual information turns people away from faith?
     > Does constitutional neutrality on religion mandate a
     > clear favoring of Atheism over other beliefs? Or
     > isn't the role of government to assure that they
     > neither favor nor oppress any conviction? Atheist or
     > Theist...
     
     -The Lemon test stands only to ensure that the government is advancing a non-sham, secular purpose (not necessarily Atheist ) the effects of which do not excessively entangle gov't and religion and do not inhibit/promote one sect over another.
     
     -now are you honestly asking these questions or are they just a means for demonstrating what you think about the government's relationship with religion? Because youre last question/statement is correct and that is one of the true purposes of the constitution. I think one of the underlying problems is that certain, usually the most vocal, people see evolution as entirely incompatible with their version of a personal, christian god and they view these court cases as some type of attack on their religion. Whats slightly ironic is that in most cases the plaintiffs are actually long time christians themselves. Moreover, one of the reasons why dover was such a sound decision was the multitude of statements made by board members, both in their official capacity and privately that absolutely betrayed their underlying motives. (aside from evincing a ridiculous persecution complex)
     
     
     >
     > Shouldn't the real test be whether or not the
     > material being presented is fact or faith? Even
     > disputed fact is factual in nature, as long as it is
     > reasonably based on evidence. If any learning of any
     > kind leads one closer to, or further from, religion,
     > it should not be seen as the government picking sides
     > as long as it is based on evidence.
     
     
     -You might prefer to use your "fact or faith" analysis, but it seems fairly presumptuous of you to suggest that the Supreme Court uses faulty methods in analysing an issue. It really isn't the province of the court to decide what is fact or faith, but to interpret the law and its application. It was the schoolboard's job to determine what should be taught in their schools (they clearly chose faith). Certain members of the board were sure that ID was indeed fact. However they did this not based on the merits (or lack thereof) of ID, but because they found it to be more compatible with their religious beliefs(the boardmember's testimony is almost cringe-worthy regarding their misunderstanding of existing science and ID) . The problem was that they took what they viewed as an inherently religious hypothesis (while dishonestly claiming the opposite during depositions) and attempted to mandate its teaching. Application of this law would have worked a religious endorsement/coercion/indoctrination of public school students and thats why the judge struck it.

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607. 607. Tommo0809 04:11 AM 6/26/08

     > Step One: "Class, we are going to begin our
     > demonstration of proper methodology by ASSUMING that
     > life is nothing more than a chance collection of
     > materials that just happen to animate and reproduce
     > by, uh.. luck. Any evidence to the contrary is
     > illegal and religious."
     >
     > Step Two: "Let's see... No explanation for the
     > beginning of life... no explanation for an
     > mathematically impossible code... no explanation why
     > matter obeys this code and builds beings... No
     > explanation how matter animates... No explanation of
     > how electrical energy is retained and released
     > intelligently... No explanation of how a cell
     > formed... No explanation of how multi-cellular
     > creatures formed... Mathematical impossibility of
     > increased complexity by way of random mess... The
     > absence of any evidence of Darwinism... The Cambrian
     > explosion.... Parallel Evolution.... No explanation
     > for Symettry, cohesive units or repetitive
     > designs.... No explanation for irreducible
     > complexity... No explanation for the existence of a
     > consciousness... The rarity of random mutations...
     > The reliability of non-random mutations... The back
     > and forth genetic editing in ovarian life... The
     > intelligent genetics in Bacterial experimentation...
     > No explanation for instinct... Sudden leaps of
     > hundreds of thousands of codines in speciation... No
     > explanation for speciation or the addition of
     > genes... No explanation for sexual differentiation...
     > No explanation for the utter absence of any body
     > tissues that have never served a purpose... No
     > explanation for intelligence.
     >
     > "Class, these are, uh, "gaps". It is unreasonable to
     > expect our theory to fit the evidence."
     >
     > Step Three: After meticulously combing through all of
     > the evidence we conclude our scientific method with
     > the following deduction (drumroll.....) We find that
     > life is a chance collection of materials that just
     > happen to animate and reproduce by luck, as we
     > suspected all along. Of course our theory could have
     > failed at any point, but there were no rabbit fossils
     > in the Cambrian. Class, I hope you learned your
     > lesson today so that our school doesn't get an F.
     >
     > If only we were this open with our students, but
     > unfortunately all they hear is Step Three. Not only
     > is it not allowed to admit any refuting evidence
     > against Darwinism in an academic setting, but we
     > don't even do step one: Admit up front that we are
     > outlawing the truth about evoution and
     > pre-determining to come up with our contrived but
     > false answer.
     >
     > So schoolchildren go to school, assuming that what
     > they are being told in science class is the
     > unvarnished truth, as it is purported to be. They
     > aren't told that there is a pre-determination. So
     > they think "Well, it seems like we are designed and I
     > do feel like I have a consciousness, but if they say
     > they have evidence that we are just a random accident
     > of molecules that fell into a pile, I guess it must
     > be so."
     
     So I guess this would be the example of ID:
     
     "Class...and god said let there be light... class dismissed."

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608. 608. sologos 05:57 AM 6/26/08

     Tommo, you wrote:
     
     >>So to relate it back to evo, the difference here is that Evolution makes no explicit statements about god, whereas in this case ID does. (upon reading the testimony of the various dover board members and statements made by several ID proponents close to the case it is more than arguable that the agent is the same god spoken about in creation science etc...)
     
     
     You are correct that there is no EXPLICIT statement about God in the class on evolution, but the problem is that there is most definitely an implicit assumption, and therein lies the core of the problem. There is a tacit agreement made that God is not involved. That, in and of itself, may be a reasonable approach to a class on naturalistic methodology, but the text, the teacher, and the discussion take it beyond the facts, and begin to speculate about an ideology. Let me explain.
     
     The problem does not arise when you engage in experimentation and derives legitimate data. It arises when you begin to speculate that all aspects of nature can be explained in naturalistic terms there is no need to postulate God.
     
     Note, that it is not the issue that the God question should be reserved for the Theology class (which by the way is not mandated, so what's all this talk about reserving it for the right subject), and does not belong in the science class. If a theistic ideology is not permitted, why should an atheistic one be permitted? If you are going to speculate about an ideology that explains origins and leaves God out of the picture, then why are evolutionists so surprised that some people feel that the "science class" has subtly turned into a class on atheistic ideology?
     
     One may naively believe that one has somehow achieved religious neutrality when one moves from environmental selectable-ity to random supply of the fittest, but, in fact, an enormous ideological leap has been made. One has, at that point, moved away from facts of science to a specific speculation with a specific agenda, and that is not, as one might wish to believe, the agenda of science.
     
     Neutrality on the God issue can be achieved when one discusses Boyle's law or Newton's principle of force, as easily as one can achieve neutrality in a class on plumbing or English grammar. It is another matter entirely to think that one can achieve God-neutrality when speculating on origins. This is the point where one moves from science to ideology, be it Darwinism or Creationism, a line has been crossed in either case. Want to discuss Darwinism in the class? OK , but why should everyone be so shocked that some want to mention the possibility that God, not chance, created?
     
     I am happy about the principle of the separation of church and state, as delineated in the establishment clause. I feel protected by it. I don't, however, see that the constitution ever speaks about the separation of God and state. Over 90% of this world believes in God, so who are we serving by refusing to allow the creative power of God into the science class while allowing the creative power of chance, or for that matter,it's co-creator necessity.

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609. 609. Guestguy 12:25 PM 6/26/08

     > You are correct that there is no EXPLICIT statement
     > about God in the class on evolution, but the problem
     > is that there is most definitely an implicit
     > assumption, and therein lies the core of the problem.
     > There is a tacit agreement made that God is not
     > involved. That, in and of itself, may be a reasonable
     > approach to a class on naturalistic methodology, but
     > the text, the teacher, and the discussion take it
     > beyond the facts, and begin to speculate about an
     > ideology. Let me explain.
     >
     > The problem does not arise when you
     > e when you engage in experimentation and derives
     > legitimate data. It arises when you begin to
     > speculate that all aspects of nature can be explained
     > in naturalistic terms there is no need to postulate
     > God.
     >
     Wrong. The only implicit statement made by evolution about religion is that different species were not poofed into existence without having developed over time. That doesn't speak to the existence of God as a constant influence or prime mover whatsoever. Just because it happens to contradict a literal interpretation of the Bible does not mean it has an atheist agenda. Science is, and should always remain, agnostic.
     >
     >
     > One may naively believe that one has somehow
     > ehow achieved religious neutrality when one moves
     > from environmental selectable-ity to random supply of
     > the fittest, but, in fact, an enormous ideological
     > leap has been made. One has, at that point, moved
     > away from facts of science to a specific speculation
     > with a specific agenda, and that is not, as one might
     > wish to believe, the agenda of science.
     >
     From my experience, high-school teachers don't touch on the Darwinistic "random" aspect of mutations. They simply say that mutations happen, and the most beneficial of these will obviously have a better chance of being propagated because of the advantage to survival that they impart. They don't say whether the mutations occurred reactively to the environment, that they were guided intelligently, or that they are completely independent of any outside influence. The teachers just state that they occur. This is vague enough that it doesn't endorse any particular "theory."
     
     --
     Edited by Guestguy at 06/26/2008 5:26 AM
     
     --
     Edited by Guestguy at 06/26/2008 5:28 AM

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610. 610. Tommo0809 12:43 PM 6/26/08

     > Tommo, you wrote:
     >
     > >>So to relate it back to evo, the difference here is
     > that Evolution makes no explicit statements about
     > god, whereas in this case ID does. (upon reading the
     > testimony of the various dover board members and
     > statements made by several ID proponents close to the
     > case it is more than arguable that the agent is the
     > same god spoken about in creation science etc...)
     >
     >
     > You are correct that there is no EXPLICIT statement
     > about God in the class on evolution, but the problem
     > is that there is most definitely an implicit
     > assumption, and therein lies the core of the problem.
     > There is a tacit agreement made that God is not
     > involved. That, in and of itself, may be a reasonable
     > approach to a class on naturalistic methodology, but
     > the text, the teacher, and the discussion take it
     > beyond the facts, and begin to speculate about an
     > ideology. Let me explain.
     >
     > The problem does not arise when you
     > e when you engage in experimentation and derives
     > legitimate data. It arises when you begin to
     > speculate that all aspects of nature can be explained
     > in naturalistic terms there is no need to postulate
     > God.
     >
     > Note, that it is not the issue that the God
     > he God question should be reserved for the Theology
     > class (which by the way is not mandated, so what's
     > all this talk about reserving it for the right
     > subject), and does not belong in the science class.
     > If a theistic ideology is not permitted, why should
     > an atheistic one be permitted? If you are going to
     > speculate about an ideology that explains origins and
     > leaves God out of the picture, then why are
     > evolutionists so surprised that some people feel that
     > the "science class" has subtly turned into a class on
     > atheistic ideology?
     
     -Without running back through all of the posts to make sure were using the same definition I'll first say that I was taking the view of evolution that speaks of origins of species, and not of life.
     
     Now, if the question really does turn on this "implicit" agreement, I really think that the effects of that implicit agreement, in turn, rely upon a persons understanding of the nature of god in (or not in) their every day lives. Some scientists (Ken Miller for example) feel as though there is no conflict between evolution and their faith and their need not be. Some scientists (dawkins etc) find evolution to preclude religion. Some scientists (behe, lemskii) try to shape it to more closely fit their religious beliefs. Personally, when I was sitting in Bio class in highschool I didn't view my teacher's evolution lesson plan as a statement that god could not exist, and to be honest I still don't view it that way.
     
     So I guess you really have to make assumptions about what brand/type of religion a student believes in before you can make an assertion that teaching evolution is the same as espousing an "atheist ideology". You and I can debate about whether evolution necessitates atheism all day and get nowhere ( actually I am quite certain that you would come out on top sologos), but in reality I think most people share Eastwood's sentiments (eastwood please let me know if I'm telling tales out of school here) in that teaching evolution does not equate with making a bald, or even subtle, statement that god does not exist. It really seems to me that this only becomes an issue when those who believe in their faith to more fanatical extents view "big science" as a threat to their children's afterlife.
     
     
     
     
     > I am happy about the principle of the separation of
     > church and state, as delineated in the establishment
     > clause. I feel protected by it. I don't, however, see
     > that the constitution ever speaks about the
     > separation of God and state. Over 90% of this world
     > believes in God, so who are we serving by refusing to
     > allow the creative power of God into the science
     > class while allowing the creative power of chance, or
     > for that matter,it's co-creator necessity.
     
     -Firstly, the majoritarian argument is a complete non-starter for me. The mere fact that a lot of people say they believe in a creator does not grant them the right to force that upon those who do not believe.
     
     
     -As to the more substantive issues:
     
     I think the question here, when talking about separation of god and state vs. separation of church and state, becomes: what god do you speak of? Judeo-christian god? Hindu gods? Native American spirit guides?
     
     The Dover trial may actually have been a closer question if there was no evidence of the school board's rabid endorsement of Christianity. But even without that endorsement, there still remains the question that science teachers would be forced to discuss in class as to what type of god is the driving force/designer/whatever behind evolution. And when a bio teacher insists that Brahma created all that we see, she immidiately precludes the possibility of a judeo-christian form of creation. As much as some people view this as an athiest v. theist debate, one of the more dispositive questions is really (brand x religion) v. (brand y religion).

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611. 611. EastwoodDC 04:54 PM 6/26/08

     This thread has been busy! Pardon my absence; an unfortunate lightning strike required my attention to home repairs (still better than the flooding so many had to deal with).
     
     Guestguy wrote:
     > Wrong. The only implicit statement made by evolution about religion
     > is that different species were not poofed into existence without having
     > developed over time. That doesn't speak to the existence of God as a
     > constant influence or prime mover whatsoever. Just because it happens
     > to contradict a literal interpretation of the Bible does not mean it has an
     > atheist agenda. Science is, and should always remain, agnostic.
     
     That in fact seems to be (in part) the very definition of science and the scientific method – not that God does not exist, but that the existence of God is irrelevant to the method of investigation.
     
     Sologos and I have covered some of this ground before, and we agree (I think) that to show the existence of a designer requires something more than can be achieved by the scientific method.
     
     Sologos wrote:
     > You are correct that there is no EXPLICIT statement about God in the class
     > on evolution, but the problem is that there is most definitely an implicit
     > assumption, and therein lies the core of the problem. There is a tacit
     > agreement made that God is not involved. That, in and of itself, may be a
     > reasonable approach to a class on naturalistic methodology, but the text,
     > the teacher, and the discussion take it beyond the facts, and begin to
     > speculate about an ideology. Let me explain.
     
     This sort of tacit agreement seems implies that science is more than that which it is defined to be (did that make sense?). I think you (Sologos) are applying a double standard with regard to the definition of science.
     
     > Neutrality on the God issue can be achieved when one discusses
     > Boyle's law or Newton's principle of force, as easily as one can achieve
     > neutrality in a class on plumbing or English grammar. It is another
     > matter entirely to think that one can achieve God-neutrality when
     > speculating on origins. This is the point where one moves from science
     > to ideology, be it Darwinism or Creationism, a line has been crossed in
     > either case. Want to discuss Darwinism in the class? OK , but why
     > should everyone be so shocked that some want to mention the
     > possibility that God, not chance, created?
     
     But the scientific method remains the same whether we discuss Boyle’s law or evolution. Why should there be one standard for (example) Boyle’s law, and another for biology? Further, if such a line exists we ought to be able to put any field of inquiry on one side (God not relevant) or the other (God required). ***I am not suggesting that we should attempt this – we might be here a very very long time!*** I do suggest that it is not possible to draw such a line between biology and chemistry or physics, etc.. At least not in any way that can be described as hard science.
     
     As mentioned, Sologos and I have been down this road before, and we seem to keep coming back to this point. This is, I think, a key point of disagreement. Perhaps THE point of disagreement, which is the limits of what we are able to learn from science.
     
     Tommo0809 wrote (to Sologos):
     > You and I can debate about whether evolution necessitates atheism
     > all day and get nowhere ( actually I am quite certain that you would
     > come out on top sologos), but in reality I think most people share
     > Eastwood's sentiments (eastwood please let me know if I'm telling
     > tales out of school here) in that teaching evolution does not equate
     > with making a bald, or even subtle, statement that god does not
     > exist. It really seems to me that this only becomes an issue when
     > those who believe in their faith to more fanatical extents view
     > "big science" as a threat to their children's afterlife.
     
     I can agree to that. I most certainly agree that science does not imply anything at all about God, one way or the other. (I would also claim to be among the majority, but that isn’t really important).
     I do acknowledge there are atheists that make such claims, but I don’t agree with them either. To be fair, many of the atheists saying such things are refuting religious claims for proof of God in the first place.
     
     Sologos wrote:
     > One may naively believe that one has somehow achieved religious
     > neutrality when one moves from environmental selectable-ity to random
     > supply of the fittest, but, in fact, an enormous ideological leap has been
     > made. One has, at that point, moved away from facts of science to a
     > specific speculation with a specific agenda, and that is not, as one
     > might wish to believe, the agenda of science.
     
     God most certainly is not the agenda of science, nor is a designer. Implication of design is then [i]at best[/i] a substitution of one ideology for another, and [i]at worst[/i] deceitful proselytizing*. I see no need for any implied ideology at all*. I see nothing to leap over, except to exceed our own preconceptions (which are best left at home in the first place). I see no agenda other than the march of science towards more complete knowledge.
     
     [on the edit]
     * I should perhaps be more careful of the tone of my comments for I mean no disrespect (most certainly not to Sologos, who has shared some interesting thoughts). There is (IMHO) a proper place for ideology and faith, and these things can coexist with science.
     
     Further, having firmly stated my position, I am reminded of another statistical way of thinking about this which might reconcile the difference between Sologos and myself. Worthy of thought, but it will have to wait for another day.
     
     --
     Edited by EastwoodDC at 06/26/2008 10:33 AM

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612. 612. sephers165 06:56 PM 6/26/08

     Evolution seems to rest on the assumption that random chance can create life, that mere cells can become thinking conscious humans. They have not shown in the fossil record life being a few phylum and then growing towards a lot, like from the point of a cone down, but a lot of phylum and then becoming less like from the base of a cone up. This seems to be the opposite of what Evolution would support.
     
     How can we prove the assumption that random chance can cause cells to turn into humans. Or since we can't prove it what happens if you don't assume that to be true. How does the evidence support this happened?
     
     Q:
     What is wrong with the argument that all species were created at once with the innate ability to adapt to their environment through natural selection? Or in a sense, what evidence says many species couldn't have been created at once and then speciation and adaptation occurred after that so we have radically different versions of the same thing like chihauhas and Wolves. It looks like in the fossil record all species were created at once, (a.k.a to Evolutionist, the Cambrian Explosion), why do we have to assume these species came from a cell, or a group of cells? Is this just speculation from the fact that micro-Evolution can occur that causes this idea, or is there actually evidence that shows these cells becoming species?
     
     A: ?

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613. 613. Rogi1981 07:30 PM 6/26/08

     [b]What is wrong with the argument that all species were created at once with the innate ability to adapt to their environment through natural selection? Or in a sense, what evidence says many species couldn't have been created at once and then speciation and adaptation occurred after that so we have radically different versions of the same thing like chihauhas and Wolves.[/b]
     
     I think we've discussed it before, but the first thing that jumps to mind is the fossil record. If the creatures were all created at once then we would expect to see fossils of at least one of these creatures from the same time period as another. Basically what you would see (depending on your beliefs as to the age of earth) fossils of animals, plants bacteria, prokaryotes, eukaryotes, fish, reptiles, fungi all in the same time period (approx. 3 billion years ago).Instead they appear at intervals.

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614. 614. sephers165 08:52 PM 6/26/08

     > [b]What is wrong with the argument that all species
     > were created at once with the innate ability to adapt
     > to their environment through natural selection? Or in
     > a sense, what evidence says many species couldn't
     > have been created at once and then speciation and
     > adaptation occurred after that so we have radically
     > different versions of the same thing like chihauhas
     > and Wolves.[/b]
     >
     > I think we've discussed it before, but the first
     > thing that jumps to mind is the fossil record. If
     > the creatures were all created at once then we would
     > expect to see fossils of at least one of these
     > creatures from the same time period as another.
     > Basically what you would see (depending on your
     > r beliefs as to the age of earth) fossils of animals,
     > plants bacteria, prokaryotes, eukaryotes, fish,
     > reptiles, fungi all in the same time period (approx.
     > 3 billion years ago).Instead they appear at intervals.
     
     You seem to be stating the case of what you would expect to see if the theory of Evolution (as far as cells into animals) was true. But the reason scientists came up with the Cambrian Explosion idea in the first place is because it wasn't as they thought it would be, which is the seemingly rapid appearance of most major groups of complex animals. This is from wikipedia "Before about 580 million years ago, most organisms were simple, composed of individual cells occasionally organised into colonies. In the following 70 million to 80 million years, the rate of evolution accelerated by an order of magnitude,2 and the diversity of life began to resemble today’s.[4]"
     
     So my question had to do with not why complex species may or may not have evolved, but what evidence of cells becoming complex species exist. Since as it is "The seemingly sudden appearance of skeletonized life has been one of the most perplexing puzzles of the fossil record. How is it that animals as complex as trilobites and brachiopods could spring forth so suddenly, completely formed, without a trace of their ancestors in the underlying strata?" Or what if things were created as complex species, and from there they evolve?. This doesn't seem to contradict Evolution since most of the evidence seems to be about relations from old complex fossil species to the species alive today. What is wrong with someone saying "I believe in Evolutionary Theory except for I think the Cambrian Explosion was really the Cambrian Creation and after that all the species evolved to what they are today" So you could still think cetaceans came from land living mammals, as Evolution states, even though you don't think cetaceans came from cells.

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615. 615. Rogi1981 09:47 PM 6/26/08

     [b] Or in a sense, what evidence says many species couldn't have been created at once and then speciation and adaptation occurred after that so we have radically different versions of the same thing like chihauha and Wolves.[/b]
     
     I thought that was your question, which is what I answered, or is you proposed idea why did god first create single and multicellular organisms and then a few billion years later more complex ones? Either way this is the general timeline as supported by the fossil record:
     
     * 4 billion years of simple cells (prokaryotes),
     * 3 billion years of photosynthesis,
     * 2 billion years of complex cells (eukaryotes),
     * 1 billion years of multicellular life,
     * 600 million years of simple animals,
     * 570 million years of arthropods (ancestors of insects, arachnids and crustaceans)
     * 550 million years of complex animals
     * 500 million years of fish and proto-amphibians,
     * 475 million years of land plants,
     * 400 million years of insects and seeds,
     * 360 million years of amphibians,
     * 300 million years of reptiles,
     * 200 million years of mammals,
     * 150 million years of birds,
     * 130 million years of flowers,
     * 65 million years since the non-avian dinosaurs died out,
     
     With that in mind, notice that it's not like you got mammals running around during Cambrian period, so are you asking how the simpler multicellular lorganisms all of the sudden became more complex fishlike organisms and only 300 million years later mammals? No precise theory, although plenty of plausible natural hypothesis. So you are asking me questions on which I don't have any answers. But that wasn't your original question which asked something completely different.

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616. 616. Rogi1981 10:01 PM 6/26/08

     Of course notice the major trend here: always searching further when it could be easily explained by assumptions. So while there are plausible natural explanations, they are far from becoming part of the theory.

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617. 617. sephers165 10:07 PM 6/26/08

     Thanks that is the kind of thing I was looking for. May I ask where you got this information?
     
     --
     Edited by sephers165 at 06/26/2008 3:12 PM

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618. 618. Rogi1981 10:23 PM 6/26/08

     This is Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_evolution. This chronology is very basic of course and doesn't tell you anything. If you want to understand evolution, forget about starting with the assumption that these organisms evolved, which is only a conclusion in most cases. First just analyze this record as basic observations of these particular organisms appearing over time as supported by fossil record and subsequent dating. Of course even if you adhere to the idea you stated above, you would still be way off with the ID and Creationist crowd who won't even acknowledge God creating something that with the ability to evolve (fish won't become amphibian, reptile, bird, mammal)

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619. 619. EastwoodDC 10:39 PM 6/26/08

     [b]Sephers[/b] wrote:
     > Evolution seems to rest on the assumption that random
     > chance can create life, that mere cells can become
     > thinking conscious humans. They have not shown in the
     > fossil record life being a few phylum and then
     > growing towards a lot, like from the point of a cone
     > down, but a lot of phylum and then becoming less like
     > from the base of a cone up. This seems to be the
     > opposite of what Evolution would support.
     
     Well, you are putting an awful lot of different topics into one pot. (Also, I don't really understand your cone analogy, so I'm going to leave that alone.) [i]Evolution[/i] is about how life changes, [i]abiogenesis[/i] is about how life began. How mere cells develop into multicellular thinking beings is a good question too. You probably aren't asking it to the right people though. It's good that you are asking questions, but if you really want to understand it's going to require more than an internet discussion.
     To borrow a phrase: "Dammit Jim (Sephers), I'm a Statistician, not a evolutionary biologist!". :)
     
     > How can we prove the assumption that random chance
     > can cause cells to turn into humans. Or since we
     > can't prove it what happens if you don't assume that
     > to be true. How does the evidence support this
     
     Again your question isn't completely clear. More to the point, your questions are not specific. Scientific work is not done in huge swathes of grand conclusions, it's done with lots of little pieces of hard work that build on previous little pieces of hard work. If you really want to understand, start with some of these little pieces.
     
     There is more to be said here about the operation of random chance. Much more, and I'll try to get back to that some other time. For the moment, consider that while mutations are random, natural selection is not.
     
     > Q:
     > What is wrong with the argument that all species were
     > created at once with the innate ability to adapt to
     > their environment through natural selection?
     
     That could be, but it is not possible to confirm that through scientific means (it is not [i]falsifiable[/i]). It could be true that all living things suddenly came into existence as you say, but it is not possible to distinguish between the "all at once" origin that looks like evolution and the "evolved over time" origin.
     
     > ... , why do we have to assume
     > these species came from a cell, or a group of cells?
     > Is this just speculation from the fact that
     > micro-Evolution can occur that causes this idea, or
     > is there actually evidence that shows these cells
     > becoming species?
     >
     > A: ?
     
     There is evidence of speciation, both in the laboratory and in the wild, but I'm not sure that was your question. If you are asking again how single cells developed into multicellular animals and plants, then you might want to look into [url http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_developmental_biology]Evo-Devo[/url]. (In fact, it wouldn't hurt me to read that link myself.)
     
     [on the edit]
     I was interrupted and it took me a while to complete this post. Now I see that you (Sephers) and Rogi have already covered some of this. Oh well. :)
     
     --
     Edited by EastwoodDC at 06/26/2008 3:42 PM

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620. 620. sephers165 10:48 PM 6/26/08

     > This is Wikipedia -
     > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_evolution.
     > This chronology is very basic of course and doesn't
     > t tell you anything. If you want to understand
     > evolution, forget about starting with the assumption
     > that these organisms evolved, which is only a
     > conclusion in most cases. First just analyze this
     > record as basic observations of these particular
     > organisms appearing over time as supported by fossil
     > record and subsequent dating. Of course even if you
     > adhere to the idea you stated above, you would still
     > be way off with the ID and Creationist crowd who
     > won't even acknowledge God creating something that
     > with the ability to evolve (fish won't become
     > amphibian, reptile, bird, mammal)
     
     No don't get me wrong [i]I am[/i] one of those crazy crowds, but what I'm trying to get at is where does a necessary split have to occur. Is it necessary to believe that the complex fossils with skeletons came from the cells in order to think Evolution occurred. Or in other words I'm trying to see at what point Evolutionists would allow for belief that God created things to be considered without being considered an idiot. Because even in the Bible it talks of how fish were made first and then birds and then mammals.
     
     You know what I mean by this, because it is like the ideas that have occurred closest to the present are the least debated and the further back they go the harder it is to pin down exactly what happened. For instance the Big Bang is most speculative, while Migration of humans is probably least speculative. So in your opinion at what point is it ok for religious nut jobs (like myself) to differ from what many Evolutionary Biologists believe and still be considered relevant. If you were Dawkins it would be when you become an atheist, but as you guys have said Evolution isn't tied to a religion.
     
     [on the edit as well]
     
     It looks like i was responding to Rogi while you posted. Thanks though I'll look at that info. And yeah I know my posts are confusing, but try to look at it from my position as someone who doesn't understand why you guys believe this at all, and who wants to know/understand why something so complicated is believed rather than the simple "God did it"
     
     --
     Edited by sephers165 at 06/26/2008 3:57 PM

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621. 621. sephers165 11:10 PM 6/26/08

     And by the way I hope these discussions are better than others. My goal is not to come off as I've seen many of my fellow Bible thumpers do, which is arrogant and close minded, and to encourage you guys [Evolutionists] to not instantly consider creationists idiots and that even people who don't believe Evolution still can have intelligent conversations, and contribute to all aspects of science and technology save for Evolutionary Biology. I feel like both sides rely to much on insults and hope to get away from that myself. I like to find the close minded Creationists and play devils advocate to see how well they can defend creationism, it's rather fun.
     
     Have you guys noticed that, If you go on a site for Evolution there is no substantial criticisms of Evolution on it, but there is tons for creation, and then you go on a creation website and there is no substantial criticisms of creation, but tons for Evolution. It makes it difficult because I have to go on one site to see one sides biased view, and then another's for their contradictory but still biased view, then figure out for myself which supports and criticism are objective and which are subjective. Frustrations.
     
     This is why I love engineering, the scientists figure things out, and then I can just make stuff out of it.

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622. 622. Rogi1981 01:14 AM 6/27/08

     I think, there's plenty of criticism of evolutionary theory's subsets. That's the whole point of peer review. What you mean, is that there's no criticism of evolutionary theory on the sites that deal with creationism v. evolution debate because, well I think it's obvious why in a debate you don't try to undermine your own arguments. But if you go to on Wikipedia which is an atytempt to present the point of view without interjecting persuasive bias (as you did today on Cambrian) you will readily see all the points on which explanations are necessary. You can be sure that at any given point thousands of scientists are scrutinizing various aspects of evolutionary theory and if findings are contrary to the sub-theories or the main body thereof, it'll change the theory as we know it today. By bringing something that by definition is immeasurable and unobservable by current scientific method you attempt interject personal views into something that attempts to eliminate personal bias, namely the scientific method, which is why you will see all sorts of religious people fininding evolutionary theory perfectly consistent and separate from their respective religious views, yet only a particular subset of religion finding a problem with it and calling others fake Christians (at least not fake Hindus or Muslims, I guess) And like I said, maybe you're trying to see any way possible god or gods can be linked to evolution, but that all depends on your particular denomination, unless you believe in strict literal interpretation of the Bible (which has its own internal inconsistencies). Personal beliefs are just that, without ability to show something right or wrong other than possessing personal conviction. When you try to apply those beliefs to something that is supposed to be bias free and belief neutral people get upset, and in some instances may call you an idiot when you invade not only on what possibly is their personal belief in god and its relation to evolutionary theory, but also their attempts not to let emotion and bias interfere with their life's work.
     
     So, is there a way for evolutionists to accept GOd's role in evolution? Two possible answers: Yes, through observable measurable evidence compatible with scientific method and/or 2) Some probably already have, just not your particular version, which seems to be in direct conflict with evolutionary theory.
     
     --
     Edited by Rogi1981 at 06/26/2008 6:31 PM

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623. 623. Frank M 03:20 AM 6/27/08

     Tommo, if your best comeback is to make a statement that has nothing to do with ID in an attempt to misinform, this tells me you have no answer to the strengths of the ID case nor for the evidence against Darwinism.
     
     Tommo: "Class...and god said let there be light"
     
     This has nothing to do with ID, which has nothing to do with God, religion or, for that matter, light.
     
     When you can't fight the REAL argument, make something up and fight against that, eh Tommo?

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624. 624. Frank M 04:04 AM 6/27/08

     Guest Guy, I don't let people define my argument. I don't mind a question, but don't tell me that I can't mention something in my response or else you will begin assuming things. If you make assumptions, you are choosing to err by your own fault, not mine. I'll say what I want, thanks.
     
     GuestGuy: > "Note that I don't care about your feelings on Darwinism, as I don't consider myself a "Darwinist," so please spare me the diatribe."
     
     Do you reject Darwinism or not? If you believe that molecules accidentally animate, reproduce and think by lucky collisions of particles, then you are a Darwinist and a complete idiot. Hopefully, this does not describe you.
     
     Do you understand that Darwinism is a hoax of two destructive concepts, neither of which has the power to create? Random accident destroys complex information and de-selection merely means death.
     
     GuestGuy: "Hypotheses must be falsifiable"
     
     This is not correct. Many scientific theories are not falsifiable. BUT if you are interested in falsification, are you equally as concerned about the falsification of Darwinism? Please read my post from last night (June 25th at 11PM) for a taste of falsifications of Darwinism.
     
     My question: Darwinism having been falsified, does the falsification mean that you reject Darwinism? If not, why bother with falsification?
     
     GuestGuy: "Hypothetically, what discovery could falsify your particular brand of ID (this version is completely new to me)? What would it take to prove that intelligence was not involved in the process?"
     
     Discovery? If intelligent animation of matter ended for even a few seconds we would all be dead, but I suppose it would be proof that intelligence has stopped animating matter and energy in order to maintain life.
     
     If only intelligent genetics stopped happening, and yet somehow all other intelligent animation of matter continued, then inherited traits would be a messy, non-functional and usually deadly adventure.
     
     Darwinism and ID are opposites, so proving one falsifies the other and vice versa. In fact, the two theories are so far apart that it is pretty easy to tell whether Darwinism or ID are in play at any given time. Here is the test:
     
     If there are trillions of messy, amorphous, incontinuous, non-functional blobs of tissues formed in the next generation of animals or humans, without any symettrical healthy births, then ID is falsified and Accidentalism reigns.
     
     If the numbers are closer to the opposite, then genetics are intelligently guided in some way.
     
     Couldn't be easier. Now all we have to do is sit back and see which theory proves out.

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625. 625. Rogi1981 04:34 AM 6/27/08

     FrankM: Please define what you think is a difference between "Darwinism" and evolutionary theory.
     
     [b]
     This is not correct. Many scientific theories are not falsifiable. [/b]
     
     Please state which scientific theories are not falsifiable
     
     [b]
     Discovery? If intelligent animation of matter ended for even a few seconds we would all be dead, but I suppose it would be proof that intelligence has stopped animating matter and energy in order to maintain life.[/b]
     
     
     I don't think you understand what falsifiability means. You can't falsify a tautology--> what you propose is that intelligent design is falifiable if things stop being inlelligently designed. It's like me saying evolution is falsifiable if things stop evolving. Tht is no what evolutionary theory's falsifiability means (i previously gave concrete specific realistic examples of what it would mean). Also, what the hell does it mean to animate energy?
     
     [b] intelligent genetics[/b]
     
     What in the sweet baby Jesus' world is intelligent genetics. You're just making up fields as you go along don't you?
     
     [b]Darwinism and ID are opposites, so proving one falsifies the other [/b]
     
     I don't trhink you understand basic logic either. Let me explain. ID and "Darwinism" whatever that is, are inconsistent (of course your version of ID is something else, I don't even think you know anymore). That doesn't mean they are opposite. If I say Sky is black and you say sky is white. Sky is blue. My statement is false, you statement is not true simply because my statement is false.
     
     [b]If there are trillions of messy, amorphous, incontinuous, non-functional blobs of tissues formed in the next generation of animals or humans, without any symettrical healthy births, then ID is falsified and Accidentalism reigns.[/b]
     
     
     There are messy amorphous blobs born/formed today, no need for next generation, just go to your local hospital. Perhaps not trillions, definitely thousands.
     
     
     [b]If the numbers are closer to the opposite, then genetics are intelligently guided in some way.
     [/b]
     
     Genetics, I thought we were talking about evolutionary theory. Do you still know what you're arguing about?
     
     [b]Couldn't be easier. Now all we have to do is sit back and see which theory proves out.[/b]
     
     Yeah, you do that. Maybe you'll hit rupture next year too. The ID version thereof. Where you meet the designer and realize it's Matrix 4. The rest of us wil do something more productive (research, social interactions, whatever)
     
     FrankM, I'm glad you replied, but I hope you are ok because it seems to me you suffered some sort of breakdown. As weird as you arguments were before, this is the first time it's almost completely incomprehensible. No this is not an ad hominem attack, it's partially sarcasm with an off chance that I may help out a fellow human being if they are in fact in trouble. Which one is it/?

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626. 626. Tommo0809 11:45 AM 6/27/08

     > Tommo, if your best comeback is to make a statement
     > that has nothing to do with ID in an attempt to
     > misinform, this tells me you have no answer to the
     > strengths of the ID case nor for the evidence against
     > Darwinism.
     >
     > Tommo: "Class...and god said let there be light"
     >
     > This has nothing to do with ID, which has nothing to
     > do with God, religion or, for that matter, light.
     >
     > When you can't fight the REAL argument, make
     > something up and fight against that, eh Tommo?
     
     Frank, c'mon. That was something us mere Earthlings call tongue in cheek. or a joke. You've made it abundantly clear that YOUR version of ID might not involve religion, but to say that there is no connection between the two relative to the rest of the viewing public is ignoring the realities of the situation a lal the Disco-tute, Kitzmiller and so on.
     
     --
     Edited by Tommo0809 at 06/27/2008 4:46 AM

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627. 627. EastwoodDC 04:37 PM 6/27/08

     Sephers:
     
     If you haven't found them already, there is a contributor in another (very similar) thread that has some really well spoken comments.
     
     Follow the link to his (JohnDoe) profile, then scroll down for links to his posts.
     
     http://science-community.sciam.com/profile/Johndoe/580001650

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628. 628. sephers165 05:45 PM 6/27/08

     Yeah I've read the posts he has put up, but I don't feel like he is answering freethinkers questions properly. He seems to be sidestepping them with arguments that don't directly address the questions asked. I do appreciate that he is not taking on a condescending and insulting tone however.
     
     And of the biggest flaws I'm hearing is about how creation isn't true because it can't be tested via scientific method. Or you can't observe creation happening. This is true but what you can observe is evidence that points to a creator, just as you observe evidence that points to Evolution but can't be proven by observing it as it happens
     
     Anyways I'll step outside what I believe and say Evolution can and does use the scientific method. And I'll assume you guys are right with the fact Creation can't use the scientific method. That being said saying Creation can't use the scientific method doesn't mean it isn't true. Plus just because something could be tested by the scientific method doesn't automatically make it true either and besides Evolution leaves a lot to still be explained. But you will say Creation isn't true because Evolution proves it not to have happened, but that instead things evolved from cells. But if you are to use the argument that Evolution happening disproves Creation then I can rightfully use the counter argument of disproving Evolution and conclude that that means Creation happened.
     The reason I can do this is because as you guys said Evolution is a scientific method and must demonstrate falsifiability. Since creation itself can't be proved via the scientific method, it can be proved indirectly by making a hypothesis that disproves Evolution and then attempting to falsify that. If you are unable to falsify the hypothesis of Evolution not happening then it is reasonable to assume that hypothesis to be true. If it is true then there needs to be an alternate explanation. Which in my mind is Creation.
     I know you will say but Evolution has been proven and hypothesis have been tested but from what I have observed so far the results are speculative due to a confirmation bias often exhibited by Evolutionists (see Peter Wason's 2-4-6 problem).

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629. 629. Rogi1981 07:14 PM 6/27/08

     [b]And of the biggest flaws I'm hearing is about how creation isn't true because it can't be tested via scientific method. [/b]
     
     Sephers, you have to stop arguing against your interpretation of someone's words.Of course it's easier to attack your own version of the argument Creation or ID are not science because they do not comply with scientific method's requirements. No one claims it's not true because of it, simply that there is no way of scientifically showing it to be true or false.
     
     [b]
     But if you are to use the argument that Evolution happening disproves Creation then I can rightfully use the counter argument of disproving Evolution and conclude that that means Creation happened.[/b]
     
     
     Yes, except you are the one making that argument, so you'd be countering the argument you created yourself.
     [b]
     The reason I can do this is because as you guys said Evolution is a scientific method and must demonstrate falsifiability. Since creation itself can't be proved via the scientific method, it can be proved indirectly by making a hypothesis that disproves Evolution and then attempting to falsify that.[/b]
     
     I think you mean that we say that research supporting evolutionary theory is done using the scientific method, which means (among other things) that evolutionary theory must be falsifiable (meaning there is a logical possibility that it can be shown false by an observation or a physical experiment). Since creation, Hindu creation myths, Buddhist creation myths, roman/greek creation myths cannoy be shown true or false using the scientific method, would that mean that they can be shown true or false indirectly by making a hypothesis that disproves evolution? Well first, the many versions of creation all of the sudden being shown true via your method, and they conflict with each other as well.Secondly, you cannot prove a negative (i.e. evolution doesn't happen). But if you must, you don't need a hypothesis disproving evolution that is falsifiable. Evolutionary theory already has a hypothesis that is falsifiable (being able to be shown false) and is tested against daily.

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630. 630. Rogi1981 07:29 PM 6/27/08

     [b] I have observed so far the results are speculative due to a confirmation bias often exhibited by Evolutionists (see Peter Wason's 2-4-6 problem).[/b]
     
     Excpt the whole point of scientific method is to get rid of the confirmation bias. That is to take observable and recordable data and subject it to scrutiny of others as well, who do not necessarily hold the same bias. Or are you saying that every single person researching evolutionary theory has the same confirmation bias?
     
     Of course if you are familiar with the experiment itself, the subjects seemed to test only “positive” examples, sets of numbers they thought would conform to their rule and confirm their hypothesis. What they did not do was attempt to challenge or falsify their hypotheses by testing numbers they believed would not conform to their hypothesis. That's what we mean by falsifiability, scientists test their hypothesis without picking what evidence they will find. Confirmation bias means only noticing the data that supports your belief, that is the point of peer review, that if a scientist is guilty of ignoring the data in their research that doesn't support their conclusions about hypothesis, that is picked on. The whole point of scientific method, double blind studies, control groups, reproducibility, etc, is to eliminate confirmation bias.

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631. 631. Rogi1981 07:30 PM 6/27/08

     At lest you're not claiming intentional bias like many creationists.

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632. 632. EastwoodDC 10:49 PM 6/27/08

     Rogi already replied in detail, so I will not repeat his efforts. I do have a bit to add though.
     
     Sephers wrote:
     > [...] Anyways I'll step outside what I believe and say
     > Evolution can and does use the scientific method. And
     > I'll assume you guys are right with the fact Creation
     > can't use the scientific method. That being said
     > saying Creation can't use the scientific method
     > doesn't mean it isn't true.* Plus just because
     > something could be tested by the scientific method
     > doesn't automatically make it true either** and besides
     > Evolution leaves a lot to still be explained. ***
     
     * Bingo!
     ** Yahtzee!?
     *** Yes it does. Lots of other things in life are like that too.
     
     > But you
     > will say Creation isn't true because Evolution proves
     > it not to have happened, but that instead things
     > evolved from cells.
     
     I would not say that. - Some might, but I won't. Without going too wiggy and philosophical on you, I don't expect or require science to justify my faith, or to deny the faith of others.
     Let me put this another way; It is possible to both understand evolution and have faith in creation. (Or if not creation, then perhaps there is just a little but more to the universe than what we can perceive.) This does not require scientific proof of creation, just the strength to accept (your) faith on its own merits.

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633. 633. EastwoodDC 11:15 PM 6/27/08

     On a different subject - if you have read your email, you know by now that these discussions are going away for a few days (July 1-7). ([url=http://science-community.sciam.com/topic/Everything/Improve-Sciam-Community/300000979?start=15&#msg570007552]Or see post 22 in this thread[/url].) If I understand correctly, this discussion thread will reappear in the new format on the SciAm.com site. I look forward to seeing you all there.
     
     --
     Edited by EastwoodDC at 06/27/2008 4:17 PM

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634. 634. sephers165 11:29 PM 6/27/08

     Aww phooey, you guys are hopeless. :-D
     
     I wish you guys could see all the stuff they tell you knowing what I know, but you guys don't even understand why I question it.
     
     I'm trying to get you guys to admit that maybe Evolution is wrong. Although it is only fair because I won't admit that maybe Creation could be wrong. This is so pointless. The more I learn about Evolution and the more I talk to Evolutionists the less and less likely I find it to be true.
     
     And the argument people make about believing Creation being akin to believing the Earth being flat is ridiculous, a "Poisoning the Well" so to speak. No scientists would believe today the Earth is flat so people should stop using that argument.
     
     Well my hope is that Evolution goes the way of the Earth being flat where people will look back and say "Man what a big waste of time". You guys are indoctrinated, but I know I am the one who is indoctrinated and it is you who use science, yada yada yada. It's like you guys think you are not susceptible to a bias. I am aware of the bias when I read things on conservapedia or something, but I am also aware of it on wikipedia. You guys on the other hand seem to think everything ever put out that supports your view was never biased and was objective in every single way.
     
     You guys help me a lot because just talking with you reminds me that I need to think critically and be aware of the bias in material presented to me even when it supports my own view. I appreciate that.
     
     Please though just for one second, think, what if this is wrong? Sounds like madness I know, but what if it is?
     
     "When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic." Dresden James.
     
     God is not discoverable or demonstrable by purely scientific means, unfortunately for the scientifically minded. But that really proves nothing. It simply means that the wrong instruments are being used for the job. - J.B. Phillips
     
     OK now rip apart everything I just said, I'm used to it. :-D
     
     Bye for a couple of weeks, I'll be gone. Let's see if this article can reach 1000 comments.
     
     (by the way if you want to know what makes me doubt most is others being so sure their way is right, that their way is the truth. What do you guys think when I say that I know the truth and it is God created everything?)

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635. 635. Tommo0809 11:51 PM 6/27/08

     (by the way if you want to know what makes me doubt most is others being so sure their way is right, that their way is the truth. What do you guys think when I say that I know the truth and it is God created everything?)
     
     
     -I don't understand where this persecution complex comes from.

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636. 636. Frank M 01:15 AM 6/28/08

     Sephers, after weeks of beating up on the Darwinists on the blog, it may be time to turn my attention to our Creationist friends. I generally let it slide when I disagree with a Creationist because when it comes down to it, they COULD be right. Darwinists, on the other hand, CAN'T be right. They are so easily shown to be completely falsified, illogical and borderline psychotic. Essentially they are claiming that molecules cooperate, animate and reproduce by accident. Great theory. Gee, why does practically nobody think they got it right?
     
     Oh yeah, back to the Creationists...
     
     Sephers: "Because even in the Bible it talks of how fish were made first and then birds and then mammals"
     
     Does it? I haven't read Genesis in a while. Is the reference in the first book? Well, it got the sequence right, but bear in mind that even if you consider the Bible to be recorded history, you have to admit that the authors were not giving a first hand account of the first or last book of the Bible.
     
     Can you draw a line between your faith (ie, belief in the Bible) and science, which can not use the Bible as a reference? Do you see a place where the evidence stops and belief starts? I don't even understand the concept of faith. What is faith, if not belief in the unproven? And isn't the unproven that which may or may not be true? If so, isn't faith believing something is fact, without factual basis? I don't get it.
     
     Do you believe in common descent? Do you agree that we came from North African apes? Are you a Biblical Literalist? How do you account for the seemingly two versions of Creation in the Bible? (7-Day passages versus Adam and Eve in Eden) Are you a Young Earth theorist? Do you believe that your Biblical beliefs cause you to have a prejudice against that which disagrees with Biblical accounts.
     
     I spoke with a real-life Creationist today (not over the net)and she said that she believed that dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time and that no dinosaurs were meat eaters. She believed that dinosaurs became extinct in Noah's Flood a few thousand years ago and she disputed the validity of carbon dating. She believed that Creationism should be taught in science class. She believes all animals were created at once, then a male human, then a female.
     
     It got a lot deeper than God-did-it, I guess in an attempt to make facts fit the Bible. If I questioned anything, which was often, she referenced "The Word", not evidence. I won't bad-mouth your good book, but I can not accept it as a literal documentation of scientific fact.
     
     Did your God create us? Maybe, maybe not. I wasn't around to see how it all happened, but then, neither were you. What makes you believe YOUR specific account of the creation of life as opposed to any other religion and their deity, or for that matter, a non-religious explanation?
     
     When it comes down to it, Creationists are just as unscientific and biased as the Darwinists. Unlike the Darwinists, there is a possibility that they COULD be right, but even if they are, I don't follow theor logic.

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637. 637. Frank M 01:28 AM 6/28/08

     Tommo, your reply here has nothing to do with the statement you quoted.
     
     unattributed quote from Tommo:
     
     "(by the way if you want to know what makes me doubt most is others being so sure their way is right, that their way is the truth. What do you guys think when I say that I know the truth and it is God created everything?)"
     
     Tommo's odd non-sequitar reply: "I don't understand where this persecution complex comes from."
     
     "Persecution complex"? Where did you see anything about "persecution"? And you don't think you try to "win" through demeaning those who disagree with you. Did you copy-paste the wrong quote or are you just paranoid yourself? He made a very confident statement followed by a question.
     
     My answer to his question would be to ask how he knows his version of reality is the truth.

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638. 638. Tommo0809 02:26 AM 6/28/08

     Aww phooey, you guys are hopeless. :-D
     
     I wish you guys could see all the stuff they tell you knowing what I know, but you guys don't even understand why I question it.
     
     I'm trying to get you guys to admit that maybe Evolution is wrong. Although it is only fair because I won't admit that maybe Creation could be wrong. This is so pointless. The more I learn about Evolution and the more I talk to Evolutionists the less and less likely I find it to be true.
     
     And the argument people make about believing Creation being akin to believing the Earth being flat is ridiculous, a "Poisoning the Well" so to speak. No scientists would believe today the Earth is flat so people should stop using that argument.
     
     Well my hope is that Evolution goes the way of the Earth being flat where people will look back and say "Man what a big waste of time". You guys are indoctrinated, but I know I am the one who is indoctrinated and it is you who use science, yada yada yada. It's like you guys think you are not susceptible to a bias. I am aware of the bias when I read things on conservapedia or something, but I am also aware of it on wikipedia. You guys on the other hand seem to think everything ever put out that supports your view was never biased and was objective in every single way.
     
     You guys help me a lot because just talking with you reminds me that I need to think critically and be aware of the bias in material presented to me even when it supports my own view. I appreciate that.
     
     Please though just for one second, think, what if this is wrong? Sounds like madness I know, but what if it is?
     
     "When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic." Dresden James.
     
     God is not discoverable or demonstrable by purely scientific means, unfortunately for the scientifically minded. But that really proves nothing. It simply means that the wrong instruments are being used for the job. - J.B. Phillips
     
     OK now rip apart everything I just said, I'm used to it. :-D
     
     Bye for a couple of weeks, I'll be gone. Let's see if this article can reach 1000 comments.
     
     (by the way if you want to know what makes me doubt most is others being so sure their way is right, that their way is the truth. What do you guys think when I say that I know the truth and it is God created everything?)
     
     
     -This persecution complex Frank, the same one you display, the same one stein's movie attempts to prey on. He claims that there's no constructive discussion going on because "we are sure we are right" (and continues on to say that because we seem so sure then we must be wrong) and "you guys are indoctrinated" but of course not himself (does this satisfy your citation standards?).
     
     Finding fault with stein's motive behind this movie is not stifling dissent, asking a sephers to educate himself as opposed to just making repeated claims amounting to "I just don't see it" isn't forcing anyone's ideas upon him, and finding your reasoning to be, at the very least, circular and your ideas somewhat outlandish is not a personal attack. Making light of your example of evolution in schools is not a personal attack. A personal attack would be more along the lines of me poking fun at the image of you breaking a sweat whilst using both fists pound out your next enlightening treatise in your mother's basement. But I never said anything like that did I?
     I've actually refrained from addressing any of your comments until late because i've found that most of your conversations on this thread tend to lead towards this type of back and forth( I know I'm not the only one who shares this sentiment). I only jumped back in because you began speaking about the law in an absolutely misinformed manner and I sought only to provide some clarity.
     You can spare us all the diatribe about animating matter or about how we don't have god on our side so we must be wrong (yes you have written this on the thread... )
     
     As to sephers, hopefully we'll see you back in a week or two.
     
     --
     Edited by Tommo0809 at 06/27/2008 7:33 PM

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639. 639. Guestguy 06:44 AM 6/29/08

     > Guest Guy, I don't let people define my argument. I
     > don't mind a question, but don't tell me that I can't
     > mention something in my response or else you will
     > begin assuming things. If you make assumptions, you
     > are choosing to err by your own fault, not mine. I'll
     > say what I want, thanks.
     
     Oh, I see, you don't want me to "define your argument," fair enough.....wait a minute, WHAT!?!?!? Is that what you call my request that you stay on-topic with your response to me, and actually address the very specific question that I asked you? The question that had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH DARWINISM. Apparently, despite my attempt to make this point abundantly clear, it still didn't manage to breach the good 3-4 inches of solid obstinacy which seems to line the inside of your skull, as demonstrated by the following counts:
     
     Number of times Darwinist/Darwinism mentioned: 9
     Number of points made relevant to my actual question: 2
     
     > Do you reject Darwinism or not? If you believe that
     > molecules accidentally animate, reproduce and think
     > by lucky collisions of particles, then you are a
     > Darwinist and a complete idiot. Hopefully, this does
     > not describe you.
     
     I don't believe Darwinism (as you describe it) is correct. However, I don't have the scientific background, nor the arrogance, to conclusively state (against the majority opinion of thousands of highly reputable scientists, which I note that you dismiss as "idiots") that it has already been disproven. My opinion is exactly that... an opinion, which is based on feelings and experiences that have nothing to do with logic or science. I'm not interested in discussing this at all, and most certainly not with you. It has nothing to do with the question that I asked.
     
     > Do you understand that Darwinism is a hoax of two
     > destructive concepts, neither of which has the power
     > to create? Random accident destroys complex
     > information and de-selection merely means death.
     
     Blah blah blah, I don't care about your thoughts on Darwinism.
     
     > This is not correct. Many scientific theories are not
     > falsifiable. BUT if you are interested in
     > falsification, are you equally as concerned about the
     > falsification of Darwinism? Please read my post from
     > last night (June 25th at 11PM) for a taste of
     > falsifications of Darwinism.
     
     No, I don't care about your thoughts on Darwinism (I feel like I might be repeating myself here).
     
     > My question: Darwinism having been falsified, does
     > the falsification mean that you reject Darwinism? If
     > not, why bother with falsification?
     
     I don't believe in Darwinism, but I'm not willing to say it has been scientifically falsified (as stated above, I don't have the scientific background to judge whether what you have represented in previous posts as the ultimate falsification of Darwinism is actually legitimate). Also, did I mention that I don't care about your thoughts on Darwinism?
     
     > Discovery? If intelligent animation of matter ended
     > for even a few seconds we would all be dead, but I
     > suppose it would be proof that intelligence has
     > stopped animating matter and energy in order to
     > maintain life.
     
     Ah, so here we come to relevant point #1 (of 2) as it pertains to my original question of: what could disprove the theory of ID (and thus satisfy the tenet that scientific hypotheses must be falsifiable). My interpretation of Frank's response: if every living thing in existence died, then ID would be falsified...is that the jist of it? I assume, and indeed hope, that you were joking when you wrote this. If so, then it's not really a response to my question. If not, then may you implode under the weight of your own illogic.
     
     > If only intelligent genetics stopped happening, and
     > yet somehow all other intelligent animation of matter
     > continued, then inherited traits would be a messy,
     > non-functional and usually deadly adventure.
     >
     > Darwinism and ID are opposites, so proving one
     > falsifies the other and vice versa. In fact, the two
     > theories are so far apart that it is pretty easy to
     > tell whether Darwinism or ID are in play at any given
     > time. Here is the test:
     >
     > If there are trillions of messy, amorphous,
     > incontinuous, non-functional blobs of tissues formed
     > in the next generation of animals or humans, without
     > any symettrical healthy births, then ID is falsified
     > and Accidentalism reigns.
     >
     > If the numbers are closer to the opposite, then
     > genetics are intelligently guided in some way.
     >
     > Couldn't be easier. Now all we have to do is sit back
     > and see which theory proves out.
     
     Here is the 2nd, and final, somewhat relevant point, as it pertains to my original question of: what could disprove the theory of ID (and thus satisfy the tenet that scientific hypotheses must be falsifiable). My interpretation of Frank's response: if innumerable biological anomalies form in the next one generation of animals or humans, then ID would be falsified. Wow, you must be supremely confident in your theory, indeed, to go out on such a treacherous limb (intended intonation: *sarcasm*). Actually, I don't even think this would falsify your theory. Couldn't you just say that the intelligence is imperfect and happened to make a massive mistake on this particular generation? Your earlier posts implied that the intelligence wasn't perfect, so why couldn't you just chalk this one up to that, like the other many minor imperfections and inefficiencies with the "designs" of all known organisms. Also, it could be suggested that this was merely a stepping stone to some unknown grand future design change beyond our ability to comprehend. Or, perhaps it could be an effort by the intelligence to reduce the population on this increasingly overcrowded planet. I'm out of ideas, but I'm sure if this actually happened, you'd manage to come up with an untold number of explanations of your own to defend this, frankly mysterious, theory against such shallow insinuations of falsification.
     
     Also, Frank, I wanted to mention that it seems a little narrow-minded to assume that this issue only has two possible answers (Darwinism or ID). Off the top of my head, here is a third option: not completely random and not intelligently guided. For an example of such a thing in the Universe, please see Physics (unless of course you believe the laws of Physics to be intelligently guided, in which case I'm afraid this conversation will have slipped totally out of the realm of science and into philosophy).
     
     --
     Edited by Guestguy at 06/29/2008 12:03 AM
     
     --
     Edited by Guestguy at 06/29/2008 12:15 AM

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640. 640. Frank M 03:54 PM 6/29/08

     Tommo, you are making this personal, and my intent is to stay on topic.
     
     Tommo> :"You can spare us all the diatribe about animating matter..."
     
     Sorry, I thought this was a discussion about how life formed. I realize the Darwinists would rather describe the "mechanism" as if they are creating inanimate rocks, but if we don't acknowledge what life IS, how can we explain its origins?
     
     Tommo> :"... or about how we don't have god on our side so we must be wrong (yes you have written this on the thread... )"
     
     No, I have not said anything like this and this false statement does not reflect my beliefs. Now you are putting words in my mouth.
     
     I do not make a religious argument at all.

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641. 641. Frank M 04:44 PM 6/29/08

     GuestGuy, you can request whatever you like, but I am not going to do it if I feel that it dilutes the discussion to a point where others reading it may draw the wrong conclusions.
     
     That said, I'll admit that by the 9th use of the unmentionable term it probably was my obstinance getting in the way. I'll try to more directly address your questions in the future, but I won't be pushed into corners either. Fair enough?
     
     We get a lot of people saying they aren't Darwinists, a term they put in quotes as you did, yet when pressed they are die-hard Darwinists who don't want to admit it. They would prefer the term "evolutionary theory" which they know has strong evidentiary backing (while Darwinism doesn't), but this term confuses the argument because ID is also a theory of evolution. ID opposes Darwinism, Accidentalism, Materialism - whatever you (or I) want to call it, not common descent or evolution.
     
     GuestGuy> :"I don't believe Darwinism (as you describe it) is correct."
     
     In that case, I will do my best to honor your request, but if I feel the need to make my point by violating your restrictions, I will do so.
     
     I admit I have a low regard for anyone believing in Darwinism, because of the sheer stupidity it demands of adherents. I do not believe it is as solidly a majority of scientists as you suggest. If it was, it wouldn't have to be fought so bitterly. Bear in mind also that Darwinism is as much a mathematical theory as it is scientific, and the vast majority of mathematicians reject it outright. So if you are siding with the majority of the experts, you are right not to believe it is correct. What do you mean by "as I describe it"?
     
     Also, what do you mean when you say: "My opinion is exactly that... an opinion, which is based on feelings and experiences that have nothing to do with logic or science."
     
     I'd like to know what you mean here, but you say you aren't interested in discussing it. Well, what YOU write about IS your prerogative, but do you see how stunted the conversation gets by refusing to discuss things?
     
     I also don't particularly believe that verification and falsification are the same thing, and it doesn't help that you intended to restrict the discussion to negatives. Many scientific theories are not falsifiable and yet are nonetheless valid. This "falsification" requirement is one of the new definitions of science intended only to rule out ID and Creationism and I never see it applied to anything else (and certainly never with Darwinism).
     
     I do not accept falsification as a "requirement". If some version of theoretical physics is conceivable and can mathematically answer difficult questions, then it is valid science, if not "proven". Having a way of testing the theory would be best, especially if we could test for falsification, but not having a way to test a theory does not falsify a theory at all. Nor does it render the theory non-scientific.
     
     That said, ID is both testable and falsifiable. Remember, being falsifable and being falsified are two different things.
     
     In any case, since it does seem that you are truly interested in learning about ID, I will address your points in another message. Sorry about the obstinant push-back.

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642. 642. Frank M 07:09 PM 6/29/08

     GuestGuy, it sounds a bit as if you not only want a way of falsifying ID, but also you won't be happy unless it successfully falsifies ID. I certainly can not give you a way of falsifying ID that was successful in doing so. If I could, I wouldn't advocate ID, now would I?
     
     Or are you looking for some NEW method of testing ID that nobody has ever thought of? If so, that would be expecting a bit much for me to pull out of my hat on your demand, don't you think? New methods of testing ID do come along, just not on your timelines. It is mostly positive proof, not falsification, anyway so you "aren't interested".
     
     You also used the word "discovery", as if you expect someone to dig up a bone that proves there is no ID. ID is not a "dirty hands" science, nor should it be. It is largely mathematical and also based on deductive reasoning resulting from both fossil and contemporary observations.
     
     The first point that you acknowledged was somewhat relevent is the intelligent animation of matter that we see every day in living things. Let me explain it further. To me your question is kind of a "what if" scenario, where I am asked to show what if there was no Intelligence behind the evolution of life. If there is no intelligence at work, then things should be as the "what if" proposes.
     
     Note further, that as an IDist, I believe that the properties we see in life today had to have always existed, or life could never have occurred. Darwinists believe that the properties of life gradually came about by accident, which is biologically impossible as well as logically. I do not contend that there had to have been a being who did this, nor do I conjecture any causation that is disputable. I merely note exactly what I see in life today, such as reproduction, animation and the formation of neural and vascular pathways and I say it has always been thus or we couldn't have lived at all.
     
     Can I explain WHY life behaves intelligently? No. But there is no question that it does. I suppose you could question that it ALWAYS has behaved intelligently, but then you have no explanation for even a single reproduction taking place. Inanimate objects don't reproduce.
     
     But "what if" life is as intelligently animated as it is, and reproduction is also intelligent animation of matter, but somehow genetics are NOT intelligent? This would be quite odd and unexplainable, since by far the most outward sign of intelligence is in genetics and the code is vastly beyond mathematical possibility. Also, how to explain why all organic materials are manipulated in intelligent ways with the unexplained exceptions of adenine, guanine, cytosine and thymine?
     
     So it doesn't make any sense to deny that intelligent genetics are a reality, but that is what you are asking me to do in my "what if", so I will try. So I will imagine that nucleotides are moving into place to create a genetic code, but they do so randomly, not by any intelligent causation. If this were the case, we would be a pile of mud in one generation, so we really need to maintain at least the basics of Mendelian laws, but just drop all intelligent explanations for the existence of those laws. Again, this makes no sense, but I'm trying to play your game.
     
     We could dumb down enough to imagine a genetic world of stasis and Medel's first law, ignoring the need to explain why Mendelism works and what moves the nucleotides into position. We could pretend that there aren't many exceptions to Mendel's 1st, such as reverse transcription, paramutation, haploidy, polyploidy or anything beyond a couple of billion years old. But this happy ignorance doesn't help us resolve evolution. Evolution requires upgrades and new information, not to mention added genes.
     
     Darwinism (sorry, I can not avoid it) explains the new direction as a random accident. An error in the otherwise systematic reproduction of a DNA molecule. This does not explain new genes, but theoretically it could explain modified information by swapping out one bit of information for another.
     
     So how do we know whether this changed encoded information is as intelligent as all other matter animation in life? How do we know it wasn't random accident?
     
     Plug your nose because here is where the math comes in. Understand that we are dealing with encoded information. Also understand that a change of just one or two bits of information will not cause a discernable alteration of the phenotype. We need multiple bits of information to alter for any appreciable modification, even something simple like making a digestive enzyme in a single celled critter. To make a physiological formation, like an elongated giraffe's neck from a shorter one, would take multitudes of codines.
     
     To get multiple alterations of encoded information to line up in a singular ordered arrangement that makes any sense is a tall task, to say the least, because there are too many possible wrong answers. The more information that has to change, the more overpowering the odds against it. We are not talking about a coin toss or even a lottery pick. The numbers against ordered arrangement of thousands - or even dozens - of codines, especially those that continue to follow a pattern, are indescribably tiny and only possible in a theoretical sense.
     
     The good news is that the reality of encoded information is mathematical in nature and therefore lends itself to clear mathematical probablistic calculations. We know the odds of functional information as opposed to the odds of non-functional information. It is a little like comparing the universe to an atom, but worse.
     
     So are there decillions of messy, freakish, incontinuous, mixed blobs of purposeless goop for every one magical functional formation? If there are, ID which posits intelligent genetics, is falsified.
     
     If, on the other hand, a bird can grow a functional beak shape WITHOUT decillions of freakish unlucky birds, then ID is strengthened.
     
     GuestGuy> : "My interpretation of Frank's response: if every living thing in existence died, then ID would be falsified...is that the jist of it?"
     
     That is not the jist of it, but it is a reality. Unless of course, you can explain a way that things can live or reproduce without intelligent animation of matter. No, I obviously was NOT joking, and if you can't wrap your mind around the obvious I can't really help you. I realize this is not the answer you were looking for, but if you thought this was a joke, then you really needed an eye-opening.
     
     GuestGuy> : "My interpretation of Frank's response: if innumerable biological anomalies form in the next one generation of animals or humans, then ID would be falsified."
     
     That is an accurate interpretation.
     
     GuestGuy> : " Wow, you must be supremely confident in your theory, indeed, to go out on such a treacherous limb (intended intonation: *sarcasm*)."
     
     The limb is not treacherous and yes I am quite confident. The fact is that ID is reality and the reason it is not falsified is because it isn't false, not because it isn't falsifiable.
     
     The fact that ALL evidence overwhelmingly proves Evolution by Intelligent Design is hardly a rationale for discrediting ID. Sorry, but this is not a close call.
     
     GuestGuy> : "Actually, I don't even think this would falsify your theory. Couldn't you just say that the intelligence is imperfect and happened to make a massive mistake on this particular generation?"
     
     True, we would have to ignore all previous evidence to supposedly falsify ID. So you are right here, yes, but I am trying to follow your quite limiting direction of argument.
     
     I was tempted to just answer you by simply saying that all evidence would have to be 180 degrees different than what it actually is, but I decided to play along and attempt to show what would, in fact, falsify ID.
     
     GuestGuy>: "Your earlier posts implied that the intelligence wasn't perfect, so why couldn't you just chalk this one up to that, like the other many minor imperfections and inefficiencies with the 'designs' of all known organisms."
     
     The designs aren't perfect and no designs ever designed are, although you have to look very hard to find any subjective "imperfections" or "inefficiencies". Such things should not be hard to find. They should be the norm.
     
     I have had it stated to me by Creationists that the seeming limitations of living things (the fact that we die, for example) could be intentional as well, so I am open to that possibility, although it seems counterintuitive.
     
     GuestGuy>: "Also, it could be suggested that this was merely a stepping stone to some unknown grand future design change beyond our ability to comprehend."
     
     Could be.
     
     GuestGuy>: "Or, perhaps it could be an effort by the intelligence to reduce the population on this increasingly overcrowded planet."
     
     Yes. Birth rates among the bottom of the food chain are abundant, yet far slower among the top of the chain. The balance of nature requires a balancing force. Also, some studies suggest birth rates fall in overpopulated areas, so this may be true.
     
     GuestGuy> "I'm out of ideas"
     
     I'm not. Another way to view this is through the lens of radiation experiments. If forced random accident mutation looks the same as standard genetic variation, then ID is falsified, but again, we all know what random accident mutations REALLY do to the physiology of living things. Take the intelligence out and things get ugly and deadly.
     
     But your first point is correct. It is too late to truly falsify ID because the evidence we already have is too clear. Even if everything changes from now on, we would know what has already taken place. However, it COULD have been falsified. Instead it was verified.
     
     In any case, the burden is on IDists to show verification. The burden is on opponents of ID to falsify. That you can not do so is not my problem as long as I have positive evidence of verification, which is far more valuable than a falsification methodology anyway. If something is verified, it need not also be falsified.
     
     You sound as desperate as a Darwinist to find a way to argue illogic against the weight of overwhelming and incontrovertible evidence for ID. "But I can't prove you wrong! Thats not fair!" is hardly a compelling argument, nor is it in itself a falsification. Positive evidence stands on its own merit even if your limited imagination can't see how to disprove it. (Even though it could be easy to disprove it if evidence were not what it is.)
     
     What seems to frustrate you is not that it isn't falsifiable, but that it isn't false.

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643. 643. Frank M 07:42 PM 6/29/08

     GuestGuy, as to your final argument that there are more than two possibilities, let me say that there is either intelligence involved or there isn't.
     
     GuestGuy>: "Also, Frank, I wanted to mention that it seems a little narrow-minded to assume that this issue only has two possible answers (Darwinism or ID). Off the top of my head, here is a third option: not completely random and not intelligently guided."
     
     Of the two options being that there is intelligence involved and that there is not intelligence involved, your example falls under the latter of the two and is not a third option.
     
     Darwinism is not a possibility because it has been proven impossible, but what ID opposes is accidentalism, the idea that life is a result of an incredibly lucky comedy of errors. Darwinism is the most widely pushed accidentalist concept, and I have heard no others, but if you have another one, please enlighten us. If you are re-opening Eastwood's "somebody might think of something someday" argument, I'll give that vague desperation the weight it deserves and move on until you have something substantial.
     
     Even if somebody does someday come up with another concept, and I don't see it coming, they still are up against overall probablistics that bury them as they start.
     
     Life is either accidental or intentional. The two are mutually exclusive terms. All evidence points to the latter, but there are those who put their personal beliefs over scientific evidence and mathematical realities.
     
     GuestGuy>: "For an example of such a thing in the Universe, please see Physics (unless of course you believe the laws of Physics to be intelligently guided, in which case I'm afraid this conversation will have slipped totally out of the realm of science and into philosophy)."
     
     I have studied college level Physics, but my education and expertise is in Biology. Still, many do find that the mathematics of physics do show intelligence, just as life does. As the odds against accidental form and function approach zero, the odds of intelligent guidance approach 100%. If it can't happen by accident, then it didn't.
     
     This is not philosophy, but math. Philosophically, intelligent causation is objectionable, but scientifically and mathematically, intelligence can not be logically denied.

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644. 644. Frank M 02:35 AM 6/30/08

     Governor Jindal of Louisiana this week signed a bill into law allowing dissenting opinions against Darwinism to be taught in science classes.
     
     The bill specifically bans any religious discussions, not that this detail will stop the Darwinists from crying the usual scare tactics.
     
     The wall of ignorance is finally beginning to crumble and fall.

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645. 645. sologos 04:44 AM 6/30/08

     On page 42 of this forum, several posts responded to my entry.
     In order:
     
     Guestguy responded to the following entry from sologos:
     
     >>> You are correct that there is no EXPLICIT statement
     > about God in the class on evolution, but the problem
     > is that there is most definitely an implicit
     > assumption, and therein lies the core of the problem.
     > There is a tacit agreement made that God is not
     > involved. That, in and of itself, may be a reasonable
     > approach to a class on naturalistic methodology, but
     > the text, the teacher, and the discussion take it
     > beyond the facts, and begin to speculate about an
     > ideology. Let me explain.
     >
     > The problem does not arise when you
     > e when you engage in experimentation and derives
     > legitimate data. It arises when you begin to
     > speculate that all aspects of nature can be explained
     > in naturalistic terms there is no need to postulate
     > God.
     
     >>Wrong. The only implicit statement made by evolution about religion is that different species were not poofed into existence without having developed over time. That doesn't speak to the existence of God as a constant influence or prime mover whatsoever. Just because it happens to contradict a literal interpretation of the Bible does not mean it has an atheist agenda. Science is, and should always remain, agnostic.
     
     
     If that were the only implication, that, in itself, would qualify as a religious statement. It would essentially disallow the biblical account. Your point that other theistic concepts might be spared of contradiction, however, ignores the more serious implication of evolution.
     
     The theory essentially give 2 forces all sufficiency, chance and necessity. Chance as a creative force in genomic improvement is evident when one argues for "random" or "accidental" mutation as the source of supply of the fittest. Necessity as a co-creator is evident when one argues that the traits we see selected out are inherently embedded in physical forces. The all sufficiency of these 2 potent forces effectively leaves no room for God as a "constant influence". It works without Him.
     
     I would suggest that it is not science that need be agnostic, but the methodology that has come to dominate the definition of science. We have come to define science by it's methodology. Yes, that methodology IS agnostic, never mind "should remain". Nothing wrong with that.
     
     Guestguy:
     (sologos)
     > One may naively believe that one has somehow
     > ehow achieved religious neutrality when one moves
     > from environmental selectable-ity to random supply of
     > the fittest, but, in fact, an enormous ideological
     > leap has been made. One has, at that point, moved
     > away from facts of science to a specific speculation
     > with a specific agenda, and that is not, as one might
     > wish to believe, the agenda of science.
     >
     
     (guestguy)
     
     >>From my experience, high-school teachers don't touch on the Darwinist "random" aspect of mutations. They simply say that mutations happen, and the most beneficial of these will obviously have a better chance of being propagated because of the advantage to survival that they impart. They don't say whether the mutations occurred reactively to the environment, that they were guided intelligently, or that they are completely independent of any outside influence. The teachers just state that they occur. This is vague enough that it doesn't endorse any particular "theory."
     
     
     I can't tel you how vague or specific it gets. I looked around for a high school bio text and couldn't find one, but if you google "mutation is high school evolution" there re plenty of references to "accidental" and "random". Here is one:
     
     For example, I found this statement from a high school curriculum website
     
     To recap: mutations are accidental changes to an organism’s DNA. They can happen for a number of reasons, but one of the most important is when the cellular machinery makes a mistake as it copies DNA from one cell to the next. The incidence of mutations, then, is affected by how good the machinery of the cell is at copying DNA. High fidelity copying means a low mutation rate; low fidelity means lots of mutations.
     
     or you can go to this as a specific mention of "random" mutation in the curriculum
     http://www.genetics.org/[url http://][/url]cgi/content/full/174/3/10
     
     
     Besides, why would a high school teacher want to keep it "vague"?
     
     On a similar note, Tommo responded:
     
     Now, if the question really does turn on this "implicit" agreement, I really think that the effects of that implicit agreement, in turn, rely upon a persons understanding of the nature of god in (or not in) their every day lives. Some scientists (Ken Miller for example) feel as though there is no conflict between evolution and their faith and their need not be.
     
     I am aware of the statements made by Ken Miller and others but I haven't read how his theology is reconciled to his science. I can only speak in the conditional. If he has not formulated for himself the interaction of the 2, then he may be in for a surprise someday. In my view there is either a God or not. If he exists then He is either responsible for creation, or not. If He is, then He actively interacts(theism) or stands aloof(Deism). Either way, 2 compelling ideologies that give the all sufficient account for what is out there, cannot co-exist, because they are ALL sufficient.. At the risk of over-repeating myself, please note that I distinguish between naturalistic methodology (good)and methodological naturalism(bad).
     
     Tommo also posts:
     
     (sologos)
     > I am happy about the principle of the separation of
     > church and state, as delineated in the establishment
     > clause. I feel protected by it. I don't, however, see
     > that the constitution ever speaks about the
     > separation of God and state. Over 90% of this world
     > believes in God, so who are we serving by refusing to
     > allow the creative power of God into the science
     > class while allowing the creative power of chance, or
     > for that matter,it's co-creator necessity.
     
     (Tommo)
     >>-Firstly, the majoritarian argument is a complete non-starter for me. The mere fact that a lot of people say they believe in a creator does not grant them the right to force that upon those who do not believe.
     
     How about the other way around? Should we let the minoritarian view dictate? I realize that you are not persuaded that science is evolving into an ideology, but can you accept that others do and are trying to resist that ideology(religion?) being taught to their children?
     
     Tommo responds:
     
     >>-As to the more substantive issues:
     
     >>I think the question here, when talking about separation of god and state vs. separation of church and state, becomes: what god do you speak of? Judeo-christian god? Hindu gods? Native American spirit guides?
     
     >>The Dover trial may actually have been a closer question if there was no evidence of the school board's rabid endorsement of Christianity. But even without that endorsement, there still remains the question that science teachers would be forced to discuss in class as to what type of god is the driving force/designer/whatever behind evolution. And when a bio teacher insists that Brahma created all that we see, she immediately precludes the possibility of a judeo-christian form of creation. As much as some people view this as an atheist v. theist debate, one of the more dispositive questions is really (brand x religion) v. (brand y religion).
     
     
     I feel like I'm playing chess with a computer that is learning all my moves even before I play them!
     Actually I have to say that I agree. There is that danger. It happened before and it can happen again. In fact, it is happening now, but the one calling the shots is brand x evolution. But I guess that what this whole forum is about!
     
     But just to answer that valid concern, this is where another treasured freedom(speech) that we have will bring about the balance. I think that, despite the risk, it can be kept generic. Especially when your colleagues at ACLU get a hold of it.
     
     
     Eastwood writes:
     
     >>That in fact seems to be (in part) the very definition of science and the scientific method – not that God does not exist, but that the existence of God is irrelevant to the method of investigation.
     
     You hit on a very important distinction. It is not, in my view, the definition of science, but the definition of the [b]method[/b].
     
     I believe, on the other hand, that the existence of God is absolutely relevant to science, if science purports "to know".
     Now, here is where I think I lost you( a very basic line of disagreement, I think) last time. If God indeed is involved in someway with creation and origins of everything from the cosmos to the species, and out tool cannot detect Him, then is not the error in the tool?
     
     Perhaps the apologist for naturalism would say ,sorry Charlie, there is no other method? I believe that there is . I believe that we have come to a critical point in the history of science, where a major paradigm shift is seeking to be born. Frank M and Sephers "see" it, but the apologists are telling them that it doesn't fit the old order. They are correct, of course, it doesn't, anymore than relativity fits Newtonian linear time.
     
     Eastwood:
     >>This sort of tacit agreement seems implies that science is more than that which it is defined to be (did that make sense?). I think you (Sologos) are applying a double standard with regard to the definition of science.
     
     Science has a lot of definitions. It seems to me to be a composite of all. Most basic in my mind is causation. One thing for sure, it is bigger than its methodology.
     
     If I haven't lost you yet, I will press one more point. The reason that people are "seeing" the need for a more comprehensive definition is that science has come full circle in the last 400 years to be re-defined by its methodology. When that happens, we will have, for all practical purposes, an ideology. People are perceiving this to equate with a loss of meaning and significance. They are perceiving this, not by scientific analysis, but somewhere in their souls. In turn, because of their respect for the gift that science is, they are seeking to reconcile this with science.
     God wrote 2 books. Up to now, except for a few minor squirmishes, they could remain separate. Both sides were content. Now, a perversion of one is threatening the existence of the other, The fight is so intense because both sides see the offender as the other side.
     
     Eastwood:
     
     >>But the scientific method remains the same whether we discuss Boyle’s law or evolution. Why should there be one standard for (example) Boyle’s law, and another for biology?
     
     I think not. One is entirely empirical, the other has elements of empiricism and a whole lot of deductive reasoning to fill in the gaps. If we are going to get deductive, then my conclusion from all the data fits intention rather than accident.

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646. 646. Tommo0809 09:23 PM 7/8/08

     I just wanted to make sure this thing is working

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647. 647. EastwoodDC 07:21 PM 7/10/08

     Tommo,
     Good to see you are still around. I've been lurking about Carl Zimmer's blog (http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/) until his place gets back up to speed. Working on setting up my own blog too, but it's not quite ready yet.
     EastwoodDC

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648. 648. sologos 04:34 PM 7/14/08

     what happenned to the other entries up to July 2nd?

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649. 649. sologos 04:40 PM 7/14/08

     Where did the last comment show up?

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650. 650. bowenp 05:25 PM 7/15/08

     "Thousands of other biologists across the U.S. who all know evolution to be true..." I thought Evolution was a theory, now you are saying it is a truth? There is a great need to understand theories are our understanding and explanation of how things are based on our observations. Theories evolve. Please don't be like the science textbooks and articles than make theories into something carved in stone .

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651. 651. Charles 11:44 AM 7/17/08

     The author of this article states "actually, science avoids design explanations for natural phenomena out of logical necessity. The scientific method involves rigorously observing and experimenting on the material world."
     My question for the author is why does science avoid design explanations for natural phenomena out of LOGICAL NECESSITY? What if natural phenomena pointed logically to design?
     
     I want to summarize some rigorous observing and experimenting on the material world to demonstrate why science NEEDS to include intelligent design when drawing conclusions about the Universe.
     
     The Logical law of Non-contradiction states that "one cannot say that it is and that it is not in the same respect and at the same time. This clearly shows that it is impossible to say that everything (our universe) came from nothing--as evolutionists claim. To do so, would ignore this LAW, and would disregard rigorous scientific observation. I suppose we should disregard the theory of evolution out of logical necessity now, and be done with it...but I'll continue.
     
     The 1st law of thermodynamics states that "energy cannot be created or destroyed." This has been observed in the material world, and yet we have energy. Evolutionists claim that this energy came from nothing. Since this is an illogical claim we should omit this thinking due to logical necessity, but I'll continue...
     
     Scientists have observed living cells for many years, and have found that "All cells come from pre-existing cells by division." By definition of their observations, there must have always been cells. Evolution claims that cells came from non-existing cells, but this has never been observed. I suppose that scientific observation of the material world renders evolution illogical again, and therefore we should avoid the use of evolution as a means to explain natural phenomena.
     
     When questioned about the operational fundamentals of evolutionary mechanisms, for the most part, scientists can explain, with rigorous observational data, their positions quite well. However, when questioned about the origin of these mechanisms, the answers given do not coincide with rigorous observation. In fact, the explanations offered disregard rigorous scientific observation --as I have shown in the few obvious examples given above.
     Evolution fails to provide a logical framework for how the universe started. Ben Stein seeks to open a door to allow Scientists with perspectives other than "evolution'' to seek the answer to this question, and possibly redirect our thinking. Why not?

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652. 652. EastwoodDC 04:06 PM 7/31/08

     This comment is intended to test if new comments are allowed on this thread. Also, a large number of comments (mid April through June) appear to have been lost.

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653. 653. drpuddle 04:50 PM 8/6/08

     What I cannot understand is why the scientific community is so opposed to allowing ID being "taught" as one option for explaining why live and the world is as it is? I don't object to students being "taught" that many scientists hold to evoltionary convictions based on what they believe to be the best of scientific evidence, so why do we think it a problem if some scientists and non-scientists think that a God-designer created this wonderful world? I'm not afraid of the theory of evolution since I still thinnk it is a "theory" not a fact, a theory meant to give the most meaningful interpretation of the facts asI also think ID gives a pretty-good working theory about how the world came to be as it is.
     Dr. Donald M. Lake, Ph.D. August 6, 2008

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654. 654. prufrock5150 in reply to skreezy 04:06 AM 8/8/08

     "Survival of the Fittest" was a phrase coined by Herbert Spencer. Please stop attributing it to Darwin.

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655. 655. sologos 11:41 PM 8/8/08

     what happened to all the rest of the comments?

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656. 656. sologos 11:43 PM 8/8/08

     where are the other comments

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657. 657. leewardside 08:30 PM 8/28/08

     ""Thousands of other biologists across the U.S. who all know evolution to be true are also still religious.""
     
     ?Truth? Please define this concept. If 'evolution' is 'true', how was it thus determined. How does one 'know' it is true?
     Absolute truth requires absolute knowledge, absolutely.
     Sophism, on the other hand, is an attempt to argue a point until submission of the listeners to agreement regardless of verifiable(scientific) facts.
     The promulgation and subsequent modification of untenable theories does not result in truth and cannot be misconstrued as such.
     Government enforcement of ideas, especially those designed to influence the youngest and most impressionable in society need to be considered if we are to consider ourselves 'civil'.

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658. 658. thetruth 07:29 PM 8/29/08

     Thank you for posting these six items. I don't believe, however, that they remove the premise of Stien's primary arguments (I.e. the same funding isn't available to ID's, and scientists and school faculty are asked to cease or resign when teaching that not all scientist accept the evolutionary theory.) And, to my knowledge, there is no Observational Evidence that supports evolution. Lastly, Dawkins last comment is that, "intelligent being(s) could have sent crystals on the back of rocks. Isn't that ID?

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659. 659. Dick S Hunnairy in reply to thetruth 05:19 PM 8/31/08

     No observeable evidence for evolution?! On the shelves of my library, I can pick out a plethora of observeable evidence. Try bones, fossils, dinosaur tracks, cross pollination, and bacterial mutation. These things are obsereable. And like a good detective, the trained eye can discern changes not so easy to sell until you learn the science in question. But it's really not that hard to understand. Keep an open mind and use it after you see the evidence, it tends to fall in place. Your theories are based on what? The Theory of Evolution has been inundated by evidence and we keep finding more.

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660. 660. gord111 11:07 AM 9/15/08

     Posted on CNN this morning:
     LONDON, England (AP) -- The Church of England owes Charles Darwin an apology for misunderstanding the naturalist's theory of evolution, a cleric wrote on an Anglican Web site launched Monday.
     
     
     Charles Darwin's theory that species evolve by natural selection brought him into conflict with the church.
     
     The Rev. Malcolm Brown, who heads the church's public affairs department, issued the statement to mark Darwin's bicentenary and the 150th anniversary of the seminal work "On the Origin of Species," both of which fall next year.
     
     Brown said the Church of England should say it is sorry for misunderstanding him and, "by getting our first reaction wrong, encouraging others to misunderstand (Darwin) still."
     
     The Church of England said Brown's statement reflected its position on Darwin but did not constitute an official apology.
     
     The church's stance sets it apart from fundamentalist Christians, who believe evolutionary theory is incompatible with the Biblical story of the Earth's creation.
     
     Still, a descendant of Darwin's said the Anglicans' latest bout of soul-searching served little purpose.
     
     "Why bother?" the scientist's great-great-grandson Andrew Darwin was quoted as saying by the Daily Mail newspaper. "When an apology is made after 200 years, it's not so much to right a wrong, but to make the person or organization making the apology feel better."
     
     Darwin was born into the Church of England, educated at a church boarding school and trained to become an Anglican priest.
     
     However, his theory that species evolve over generations through a process of natural selection brought him into conflict with the church. Religious leaders of the time were largely hostile to Darwin's ideas and argued against them at public debates.
     
     At an Oxford University debate in 1860, the bishop of Oxford, Samuel Wilberforce, famously asked scientist Thomas Huxley whether it was through his grandfather or his grandmother that he claimed to be descended from a monkey.
     
     Brown said that from a modern perspective, it was hard to avoid the thought that the reaction against Darwin was based on what would now be called the "yuck factor" (an emotional, not an intellectual response) "when he proposed a lineage from apes to humans."
     
     Brown called for a "rapprochement" between Christianity and Darwinism.
     
     The bishop of Swindon, Lee Rayfield, who also is an immunologist, said religion and science were not mutually exclusive.
     
     He said he opposed Christians for whom "evolution is equated with atheism" as well as Darwinists who felt ideas about evolution "completely undermine any kind of credibility for God."
     
     "That's completely wrong," he told British Broadcasting Corp. radio. "It's a false polarization."
     
     This is not the first time a cleric or a church has felt the need to say sorry for its previous positions. In 1992, Pope John Paul II said the Roman Catholic Church was wrong to condemn astronomer Galileo Galilei for maintaining that the Earth is not the center of the universe.
     
     The Church of England said sorry two years ago for its role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade
     

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661. 661. pchobbynut 03:25 PM 9/16/08

     If you want to know the real truth go to this web site!!!!
     www.godandscience.org

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662. 662. student4life 02:16 AM 10/13/08

     In all of the comments I've read, I haven't seen anyone yet respond to the fact that our understanding of the cell's complexity is so much greater than what Darwin knew in the mid-nineteenth century C.E. How can we continue to cling to the idea that primordial ooze produced even one "simple" single-celled organism when scientists have tried to re-create the conditions under which Darwin proposes these cells were birthed with no known successes? Isn't science supposed to accept theories only after they have been supported on a large scale of repeated testing by the scientific community?

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663. 663. Foundation in reply to richardmumolo 08:41 AM 10/14/08

     Yes, I believe their agenda is to present their side of the argument. Would you rather they not inform the public of their side of the story?

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664. 664. inhislikeness 04:51 PM 10/14/08

     Why all the comotion about a THEORY? Darwin himself did not fully believe it.And as far as the big bang theory... Gen 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and BANG there was light.Gen 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.We are the ones with the brains,we are suppposed to take care of the earth. And notice there are still monkeys on earth... I truly believe science and the Bible coincide. No I do not believe the earth is only 6000 years old. God's timing is not our timing. His thoughts are not our thoughts. We cannot fully understand an all-knowing,loving,merciful God.So instead of picking and choosing only what man can understand we should collectivly search God's word and compare it to science which will prove itself. And we do not make up the parts we do not understand. I do believe that the majority of the world want what they want at any cost. There are bad and good in every profession on earth including preachers,scientists,doctors,policeman,teachers etc.. The economy may be bad but heaven is perfect. We need to believe He will protect us on earth and do what we can. When I get to heaven I want to see you there, there will be the biggest party ever! Things there are perfect! www.tbn.org

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665. 665. inhislikeness 04:53 PM 10/14/08

     Why all the comotion about a THEORY? Darwin himself did not fully believe it.And as far as the big bang theory... Gen 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and BANG there was light.Gen 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.We are the ones with the brains,we are suppposed to take care of the earth. And notice there are still monkeys on earth... I truly believe science and the Bible coincide. No I do not believe the earth is only 6000 years old. God's timing is not our timing. His thoughts are not our thoughts. We cannot fully understand an all-knowing,loving,merciful God.So instead of picking and choosing only what man can understand we should collectivly search God's word and compare it to science which will prove itself. And we do not make up the parts we do not understand. I do believe that the majority of the world want what they want at any cost. There are bad and good in every profession on earth including preachers,scientists,doctors,policeman,teachers etc.. The economy may be bad but heaven is perfect. We need to believe He will protect us on earth and do what we can. When I get to heaven I want to see you there, there will be the biggest party ever! Things there are perfect! www.tbn.org

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666. 666. inhislikeness 05:01 PM 10/14/08

     Everyone has an opinion,but only God knows for sure.

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667. 667. inhislikeness in reply to student4life 05:19 PM 10/14/08

     Psa 139:14 I will praise thee; for I am fearfully wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. I believe there are thngs about this world that man may never figure out but that does not mean we throw it out the window. Keep on keeping on searching.

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668. 668. AdamRoder in reply to skreezy 06:02 PM 10/21/08

     Skreezy,
     Darwin's theory requires some interpretation when applied to rational animals. That's why men are to be differentiated from the other beasts; we are not solely physical systems. I suppose you could still debate that, but you'd be in a hard place. What's more is the fact that you can't understand survival of the fittest without some form of context. When applied to wolves, certainly 'survival of the fittest' means the wolf that can best adapt to it's surroundings. However, when you apply 'survival of the fittest' to humanity, you encounter a problem; we don't adapt to our surroundings anymore. We adapt our surroundings. Not only that, but man is a social being; we depend upon, utilize and benefit from other people. If you want to apply survival of the fittest to societies, which type of society will last longer( is more fit): the society that lets those who fall behind(which will include most everyone at one point), or the society that takes care of all its parts?

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669. 669. AdamRoder 06:02 PM 10/21/08

     Skreezy,
     Darwin's theory requires some interpretation when applied to rational animals. That's why men are to be differentiated from the other beasts; we are not solely physical systems. I suppose you could still debate that, but you'd be in a hard place. What's more is the fact that you can't understand survival of the fittest without some form of context. When applied to wolves, certainly 'survival of the fittest' means the wolf that can best adapt to it's surroundings. However, when you apply 'survival of the fittest' to humanity, you encounter a problem; we don't adapt to our surroundings anymore. We adapt our surroundings. Not only that, but man is a social being; we depend upon, utilize and benefit from other people. If you want to apply survival of the fittest to societies, which type of society will last longer( is more fit): the society that lets those who fall behind(which will include most everyone at one point), or the society that takes care of all its parts?

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670. 670. garmzy 11:54 AM 10/22/08

     one of the best lines in the movie- 'Isaac Newton changed physics in the same sort of way that Darwin did for evolution. And for 100 years we had Newtonian Physics. The Einstein came along with general relativity.'
     
     Ben Stein is right about a couple of things for me.
     
     1. The only way that ID supporters will gain any real ground is through evidence-based studies, and if scientists truly commit to this cause they will inevitably either a) make a significant discovery or b) dissipate.
     
     2. There is clearly some room for debate and plenty of room for advancement regarding this issue. Even Richard Dawkins agreed that there are some small "signatures" that may point toward a seeded earth or something extra-terrestrial. All of these avenues must be explored by today's scientists.
     
     This being said, I think it's safe to say he was wrong on quite a few more.....
     
     And that crowd at pepperdine u. being a false one..... one word. LAME!

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671. 671. 45bobbym 10:14 PM 10/22/08

     enquiring "scientific americans'' should consider the inescapable logic of this interview.
     
     http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4609561480192587449

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672. 672. Caroline P 08:58 AM 10/23/08

     I saw the movie last night, and it was one of the best movies I've seen recently. Commenters can say all they want that "evolution is dangerous to the powers that be," but they can't deny that, in the academy today, evolutionists ARE the powers that be. Therefore, they have to fight to perserve THEIR power (to use Jmarbas's term).
     And if you watch the movie, you'll see that it does show (from Hitler's own speeches) that he was influenced by Darwin, and that Eugenics (trying to help natural selection along by choosing which people are "better" and which are "worse" and letting the better ones breed and sterilizing or aborting the "worse" ones) was also influenced by Darwin. However, not even Ben Stein makes the argument that Darwin was a Nazi. The movie points out the Darwin wouldn't have agreed with genocide. But it also points out that, in the hands of irresponsible people who have no desire but to perserve their own power and prestige (i.e. the Secular Academic Establishment), Natural Selection, strictly interpreted and carried to its logical conclusion, is a dangerous excuse to trample on the rights of those who disagree or are deemed "undesirable" for the evolution of the human race.
     
     And I thought it was pretty classic when Stein asked Richard Dawkins how life began, and he said "The first molecule" and Stein said, "Where'd that come from?" and Dawkins said that Aliens came and spermed it onto the earth! So if I'm going to believe in either Aliens or God, what's the difference? Both are unproven and unprovable, but even the most convinced atheists like Dawkins admit that there is no better explanation of life.
     
     So, all the movie is saying is that there should be an open debate! Who's not in favor of open debate about a question that even Dawkins has no acceptable answer to?

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673. 673. jeklund65 in reply to punninglinguist 11:39 PM 10/23/08

     What is altruism... and why is it "good"? If one stronger vampire bat takes care of a weaker vampire bat, why is it "better" than if he ignores it-leaving it to languish and die? That would signify some sort of higher moral order... which logically would HAVE to introduce a higher moral law giver... or is all truth subjective? Some people think it good to love thy neighbor, while other's it is good to eat them.
     
     The above article, while dismissing a moral law giver, falls into a similar baffling moral standard (which again would demand a moral law and law giver) by stating "Darwin explicitly rejected the idea of eliminating the 'weak' as dehumanizing and evil." What the heck is evil, what is good if God is dead?
     From Nietzche's Madman: "Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God?"

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674. 674. John Vylasek 12:29 AM 10/27/08

     I was raised a Catholic and unoficially still belog to that religion. I am not religious to the point of following blindly. I know there is a higher power, a god. If you know this in your soul, which I also believe in, it is not something that is debatable. Faith is real. Also, as yourself a logical question, How could the human brain delelope as it has regardless of the time allowed? It is simply easier and much more logical to believe there is more.

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675. 675. BenStein in reply to girl athee 01:10 AM 10/28/08

     You really need to see the movie before you have any right to comment on it. I wonder how many of the people responding here have actually seen the movie.

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676. 676. Alaskan 07:27 PM 10/30/08

     I have watched the movie and will give it to anyone who has the same questions I have. I did not understand it to mean anything other than Evolution Theory and ID should both work together for the answers. Science is accountable to take in all likely processes. Dont push your evolution on me, cuz it does not provide all the answers. Even Dawkin's says at the end that life on earth probably had some intelligent origins.

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677. 677. Edward Allan St Amant 04:55 PM 11/1/08

     George Bushs favorite philosopher was Jesus Christ. Thats a bit difficult because Jesus wasnt a philosopher he was a mystic. Shame on Ben Stein and Expelled. Thats the trouble with conservatives uniting with religious organizations. It keeps diminishing the fine political philosophy of Economic Conservatism as espoused by Hayek, Misses Rothbard and Milton. Religion has truly poisoned everything on the Right. The Christian literalists have it right: science does contradict the bible and both Darwins Evolution and Einsteins Relativity do conflict with biblical cosmology. As C L Mills, stated, Darwin took biology away from the static mechanics of Newton; thermodynamics moved it far from equilibrium; complexity carries it even farther, to the very edge of chaos. There is no longer one answer, not even a range of close guesses. Instead there are constraints and propensities, and that is what we should expect; that is the way we should now perceive the world. Life is neither predictable nor regular  not perfectly random, nor perfectly designed. As David Depew and Bruce Weber put it in their book Darwinism Evolving, we now recognize that, in spite of what Einstein believed, God not only plays with dice, but the dice are loaded. Expelled was made equally without either principle or science: www.eastamant.com
     

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678. 678. ScienceSilliness 12:28 AM 11/2/08

     I saw the movie. I read your objections. They were hilarious. But #3 is a real piece of work -- "Scientists in the film thought they were being interviewed for a different movie." I had to pick myself up off the floor after laughing at that one. Are you belly-aching because these scientists did not know to whom they were talking or because their answers sounded so stupid to John Q. Public (e.g. "life" jumped off the back of crystals)? Do scientists have a different set of answers for those outside the establishment? Are you saying that had these scientists actually had foreknowledge that this was an ID movie they would have "altered" their answers to sound less ridiculous? Feed a man enough rope and eventually he'll hang himself. You guys are great, keep up the comedy for the rest of us.

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679. 679. Kirk 01:23 AM 11/2/08

     Evolution and creation are both theories. In affect they are both faith based. Question is how hard have you looked at both. The Big Bang Theory has sections that CANNOT be explained and take more faith to believe in than ID. Both evolution and creation should be kept out of schools as neither are SCIENTIFICALLY based. I now see evolutionists as being more dogmatic than the Catholic church was during the dark ages in enforcing their religious dogmatic views - which by the way haven't changed and may reemerge one day when the pendulum swings back the other way.

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680. 680. truthseeker18 12:32 AM 11/11/08

     Concerning the 2nd paragraph in the 6th point: belief in macro-evolution (that all living organisms originated from one common ancestor) does completely go against christian belief. I do not say this to offend anyone, but if you believe that God used macro-evolution to create life on earth, read a direct translation from Greek or Hebrew of the first few chapters of Genesis. The chronological order in which God created the creatures of the earth does not line up with the "evidence" given through the THEORY of evolution. Yes, I capitalized theory. Since when did that theory become scientific law? To Steve Mirsky and John Renny, I hope you weren't stating that evolution is a truth when you said " Thousands of other biologists across the U.S. who all know evolution to be true are also still religious. " (point 6, paragraph 2). If you did, then you are making it into a religion rather than science. If you know your science well enough, you would realize that science cannot really prove or disprove anything. It only provides support for a theory or hypothesis. Even when a theory is tested until it becomes a scientific law, it is always open for debate. Religion is believing in something to be true, with or without proof. Since science cannot prove that evolution is true, then you would have to BELIEVE it is true to state it as truth. Please read over everything you publish, checking for mistakes like that.

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681. 681. truthseeker18 12:38 AM 11/11/08

     I forgot to mention one thing. Because science and religion are backed differently (science with physical fact and religion with belief and trust), they should not and really cannot be compared to one another.

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682. 682. truthseeker18 12:47 AM 11/11/08

     I also think its a bit of circular reasoning that Dawkins introduces with his theory that life was seeded on earth by intelligent life forms (ALIENS). If life on earth was seeded, who/what seeded their life? It all boils down to this: Where did the first bit come from? Science does not have a reasonable answer for that. If it is absurd to believe in spontaneous combustion (something catches on fire suddenly without reason), why is it acceptable to believe that nothingness (the word itself being an oxymoron) exploded and that energy just appeared? I wish I had more time to explain my reasonings, but I have to get some sleep before class tomorrow. Please respond and let me know if anything I have stated is a proven falsity. Thank you.

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683. 683. truescience 01:12 PM 11/13/08

     As a science teacher I challenge my students to the intended purpose of the scientific method. That is not eliminatting a possibility before you even begin. Yet I see over and over again well respected people in the science community say"there is no God or possibility of divine influence" make the research and results match what they believe. That is NOT science. True science is open and willing to ALL possibilities. It is easy to MAKE the results show what you want. I do not understand why people are so scared to teach the two THEORIES side by side. If you are scared or jeolous of someon or something you tend to vilify it, which is what I see the scientific community doing to ID.

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684. 684. athnam in reply to richardmumolo 03:57 PM 11/16/08

     ...and you don't?

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685. 685. athnam in reply to richardmumolo 03:59 PM 11/16/08

     ...and you don't?

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686. 686. Voyager1 09:40 AM 11/17/08

     The first thing people need to have is a correct translation of the Bible from it's original language so we know what the argument is. I know in Genesis from the Hebrew that no one knows how much time elapsed from the earth's original creation to when it was formed for inhabitants. Billions of years obviously. Also, I was told that originally it was an Angelic playground before it was packed in ice and reformed for mankind so maybe the latest version is not that old. Where are all the evolutionary remnants, you know the evolutionary remains that show a bridge to what we are now and to what animals were before they looked like this? The earth should be cluttered with them, in my opinion, where are all the remnants of the genetic mistakes that did not make it. A few deformed bones here and there just does not seem enough to satisfy what I think should be thousands or millions of bits of evidence. Somebody reply because this is strange to me.

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687. 687. rlhbw in reply to jmarbas 03:15 PM 11/17/08

     The same argument can be made about power as the primary motive for the "evolutionist " that you are making against the ID side...
     The real "power play" is that we are so arrogant as humans that we really think we are the ultimate being or intellect.....as we get older and wiser we eventually come to grips with our frailties ...even if some of us won't openly admit it....
     I would contend that easily the most LOGICAL argument is FOR ID.....The ID side simply leaves me with the conclusion that a force or intelligence exists that NONE of us has been able to fully comprehend...but whose signs of activity are all around........as opposed to the ridiculous notion that everything came from nothing .....both leave big gaps for speculation.....but after we examine the "what is it ?" question about the universe ....life...etc......then we ask the "how " question ......IF we ever answered these 2 questions....(which will NEVER happen with man's finite barriers.....) There is still another question .......WHY?
     If we are intellectially honest as opposed to arrogant.....It is not hard to see why ID ...while still full of mysteries... ..is easily the logical deduction.......
     The the next door to go thru is WHO.....or ....WHAT is GOD.,...and can we really ever grasp the enormity of this question? I can see why some would prefer to start with a clean slate ...or "bang" to eliminate the task of explaining a "beginning"....that started from nothing......
     I for one can accept my inability to be able to explain a Being that created time and is not subject to time as I am.....That seems to be a much more sensible argument..........But I do find it laughable that the "intellectuals" that pride themselves on being so open minded yet they get IRATE and RIDICULE anyone that doesn't accept their "theories"
     By the way ....seems to me the "brilliant and unchangeable truths" of science are adlust every few decades ...or even years ...doesn't that FACT alone leave room for all discussion on ID....?

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688. 688. rlhbw in reply to girl athee 03:45 PM 11/17/08

     If you consider the 6 points mentioned in this article as rebuttle you are easily pleased .......I can't see why having an audience of extras to open and close the movie in any way disruptes the excellent questions posed by Mr.Stein ....nor can I understand how you can make such judgements
     about people being mentally challenged .....It sounds like you believe anyone that doesn't agree with you is retarded......
     I must admit , I am tempted to feel the same about you for swallowing the evolution nonsense ....but then I would be as guity as the self proclaimed superior intellects in the science community.....
     Truthfully, I have met some very smart people that are sincerely convinced evolution is FACT not just a theory that something just popped up out of nothing.....AND I have met some EQUALLY intellegent people that are just as convinced about the ID concept....
     I think it is inaccurate to portray either side as incompetent...(eventhough each side certainly has their share of those that are...) I am extremely comfotable with my conclusion that a superior Being exists whose complexities I will never fully grasp.......That my friend IS much more logical that insisting that there is nothing more than my limited perception of things ....thereby concluding that something came from nothing since I can't conceive of an existence of anything that doesn't have a unit of time that measures it......Oh Yes, I believe this Intellegent Designer is outside the barriers of the limitations of time ...and I can not fully grasp that either....THINK about it...........

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689. 689. Jammercan 09:22 AM 11/18/08

     Good article here by SciAm. It helps put Ben Stein and Expelled into perspective and the words populist/populism come to mind. Which is of course what movies are and do. The Darwin contribution to the Holocaust is overblown, probably it is less than Martin Luther's. Beyond that, it appears that Creationists have hijacked the modern Intelligent Design idea, which is quite able to coexist with Evolutionary Phenomena. Michael Behe comes to mind as as one who embraces both. In contrast to moderates like Behe, Creationists are insisting that Intelligent Design means Intelligent Supernatural Intervention, and some of them would say mega-intervention, which of course cuts Science off at its knees. This is a parody. I'm not sure where Ben Stein has positioned himself on this matter.
     
     Francis Collins (Genome Project director until recently, and author of The Language of God) comes to mind. but he is not very high on Intelligent Design as a scientific theory, though he is in awe of the elegance and intelligence in the genetic code--and he should know about that! He postulates that the intelligence of God is manifest at the very beginning of time, and speaks rather mystically of an evolutionary BioLogos, in which the word of God somehow infuses natural processes with unusual creativity. But he insists that the natural processes work by natural law and can be studied by science.
     
     A branch of philosophy known as process philosophy has given rise to process theology. Neither of these is too easy to grasp, but likely in them is some kind of key for people of faith to reconcile Evolution with their sense of God's purpose and design in the Cosmos.
     
     I make this commentary by way of complementing the SciAm article.

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690. 690. monte517 in reply to rooseveltdecosta 02:46 AM 11/21/08

     Ben Stein is Jewish

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691. 691. monte517 in reply to rooseveltdecosta 03:00 AM 11/21/08

     Ben Stein is Jewish. He could care less about Christianity. Someone suggested this site has an agenda and your first response was to point the finger at Christianity. What is your agenda?

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692. 692. Jammercan in reply to student4life 07:37 AM 11/21/08

     Student4Life (10/13/08; 2:16 AM) you have identified one of the scientific bases that ID puts forward for its case. Michael Behe, who is an evolutionist himself, has explored a number of instances of the biochemical complexity you refer to, and concludes as a result that there is an "irreducible complexity" in which a number of elegant processes work together before there can be any survival advantage for the organism in which they're found. He says that the irreducible complexity points to ID.
     
     Though perhaps not in this forum, some challenges to Behe's specific examples of irreducible complexity have been advanced, but they tend to be partial and "perhaps could have" answers to the puzzle of the marvellous complexity in cellular biochemistry. I think Behe is a genuine pioneer in modern ID, yet many ID promoters pretend that ID falsifies the current evolutionary synthesis.
     
     Reasonable people see a complementarity of ID and evolution. It is the hardline atheists and hardline anti-evolutionists who are souring the party.

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693. 693. creativesigns9199 04:52 AM 11/22/08

     well ive seen the movie and i think both parties have good arguments and both parties should be respected and left for viewing. There should always be choices and not dogmatic views weather it be Evolution without hte possiblility of I.D or I.D solely. Our opinions are just that, that facts hold true that both are possiblities and both should be considered

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694. 694. creativesigns9199 04:56 AM 11/22/08

     yo

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695. 695. SuperStarAlpha 09:10 AM 11/29/08

     "Expelled quotes Charles Darwin selectively to connect his ideas to eugenics and the Holocaust."
     
     It was not meant to blame Darwin for the acts of the Holocaust. Only to show that that misuse of his patchy theory lead to extreme actions by some and an attempt to then 'scientifically' justify those horrible acts. This came about by lack of open dialog on the view and lack of counter point argument against it.
     
     Not unlike what is happening to ID now. Will it end in mass murder? No. Will in end with lack of advancement of the main point (better overview of biology) which could use some real progress from fresh angles? It seems so.
     
     The film is about group think mindsets and how even the objective 'science' of our modern day falls prey to this fault. Dawkins himself talking about what is basically ID (not 'God' in the religious sense but ID in its format- some active intelligence making order and input into the end form ) at the films end shows the confusion and double standards at play in this area- made worse by the lack of transparency and attempt to force a 'science vs religion' battle and not to patch the MANY large holes in the theory and get better insight into it over all.
     
     Science is not a goal- its a tool kit. Use the tools to reach a goal of more complete understanding. When that tool kit is restricted (as in no ID allowed in- even in theory) so are the possibilities for real breakthroughs and progress when it comes to gaining a bigger more complete view.
     
     
     
     

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696. 696. SuperStarAlpha 09:11 AM 11/29/08

     "Expelled quotes Charles Darwin selectively to connect his ideas to eugenics and the Holocaust."
     
     It was not meant to blame Darwin for the acts of the Holocaust. Only to show that that misuse of his patchy theory lead to extreme actions by some and an attempt to then 'scientifically' justify those horrible acts. This came about by lack of open dialog on the view and lack of counter point argument against it.
     
     Not unlike what is happening to ID now. Will it end in mass murder? No. Will in end with lack of advancement of the main point (better overview of biology) which could use some real progress from fresh angles? It seems so.
     
     The film is about group think mindsets and how even the objective 'science' of our modern day falls prey to this fault. Dawkins himself talking about what is basically ID (not 'God' in the religious sense but ID in its format- some active intelligence making order and input into the end form ) at the films end shows the confusion and double standards at play in this area- made worse by the lack of transparency and attempt to force a 'science vs religion' battle and not to patch the MANY large holes in the theory and get better insight into it over all.
     
     Science is not a goal- its a tool kit. Use the tools to reach a goal of more complete understanding. When that tool kit is restricted (as in no ID allowed in- even in theory) so are the possibilities for real breakthroughs and progress when it comes to gaining a bigger more complete view.
     
     
     
     

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697. 697. BobC 09:18 AM 11/29/08

     Richard Dawkins says perhaps ALIENS seeded life on earth. Ha ha! He'll put forth an absurd concept like that, say it IS "a possibility", but steadfastly refuse to recognize the possibility of an intelligent designer/creator. The guy is so intellectually dishonest, he should be stripped of his academic credentials. What a fool.

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698. 698. Eddie Barnie 10:12 PM 11/30/08

     I can't quite understand how Ben Stein ever became so popular. I liked him in Ferris Bueller ok, but other than that he seems kind of dim to me. Rich, yes. But dim nonetheless. For a good example of his financial "wisdom", just watch this clip from 2006-2007 (he comes in around 4:30, though the whole video is interesting.
     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8r-nDBx5Jg

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699. 699. Eddie Barnie in reply to richardmumolo 10:29 PM 11/30/08

     richardmumolo: Yes, and the agenda is Science. If you really want non-scientific hyperbole, watch Faux News and Bill-O the Clown's distorted view of reality.

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700. 700. JohnWheeler 02:36 AM 12/1/08

     Did the movie selectively quote Darwin? Yep. Did it pull Darwin out of context? Barely.
     
     However, the problem that I see is that both sides are trying to use science for something that it is incapable of doing - proving or disproving the existence of a Diety.
     
     As the Psalmist says, "You (God) are from everlasting to everlasting." Meaning that God existed in eternity before the beginning of time, and he will exist forever after the end of the universe.
     
     The Judeo-Christian God exists outside space and time, and therefore science is impotent to either conclusively prove or disprove the existence of an infinate and omnipresent God. The scientific method is useless when it comes to answering questions that are outside space and time. However, as the Bible says, God has planted eternity in every man's heart - our brains can understand that there must have been something that existed before the beginning of time.
     
     So that leaves the question of, "does God exist?" as a question purely of faith. Based upon the evidence, one either believes or disbelieves that God exists. And surely we know that because we are finite beings, we are incapable of knowing everything about an infinite God. Because of the limitation of our minds, there will always be an infinite part of God for which we have no knowledge.
     
     I submit to your intelligence that religious truths are infinitely more important than scientific truths, in as much as science is finite and confined to space and time; however religion tries to answer questions that deal with the infinite and eternal truths. It is not logical to use the lessor to prove anything about the greater.
     
     Science can never answer the great questions like the existance of God, moral duty, heaven, hell, and the final judgment.
     
     John
     john@john-wheeler.com
     

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701. 701. zion2008 10:02 AM 12/8/08

     england ,the great colonizer reduced to an island of depressing weather,crap food ,overpriced housing market and whose women can't wait to go to an island with romantic men

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702. 702. zion2008 10:04 AM 12/8/08

     england the great colonizer,reduced to an island of depressing weather,expensive food and overpriced housing,women are great since they enjoy romantic excursions on a warm island

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703. 703. desertace 02:38 PM 12/19/08

     I watched this movie very carefully (DVD), replaying parts to make sure I understood it as clearly as possible. Stein obviously is a proponent of unfettered scientific research no matter what the subject, but he never states whether he himself believes in the concept of an Intelligent Designer. He asks Richard Dawkins several consecutive times whether Dawkins believed in a god or gods, and it was quite evident that Dawkins was aghast that anyone who read The God Delusion would not understand that fact, or that any intelligent person would have to accept six "no's" in a row in order to absorb the answer. Stein misquoted Dawkin's book, and Dawkins had to read what he actually wrote to Stein, which means Stein just maybe did not read what he was criticizing. Maybe Stein never read any of Darwin's works, either.
     
     Nobody ever asked Stein whether he believed in a god or gods, or any other rose by a different name. Stein never said yes or no. Stein is a Jew, but did not say whether he believes in Judaism or any other organized or unorganized religion. I will wager that he does not, or if he does he disregards selective precepts of that religion - the ones he does not agree with. Maybe he should start his own. Maybe he should use some of his wealth to do some scientific research of that religion's core beliefs and enlighten us Atheists as to the factual errors of our ways.
     
     Perhaps this entire movie is the "sound of one hand clapping", as that phrase was explained by one of the film's ID apologists.

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704. 704. desertace in reply to BobC 07:20 PM 12/19/08

     Let me try to understand your comment. Dawkins says an alien could have designed man. You say this is an absurd concept. My Merriam-Webster defines "alien" (the second definition) as "differing in nature or character typically to the point of incompatibility". An Intelligent Designer would be so different in every way from humans as to be incompatible - the Bible more or less quotes God saying exactly that - read Job. So you think Dawkin's alien differs from your alien? In what way? Your alien can beat up his alien?

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705. 705. ROBERTVE 02:34 PM 12/23/08

     Whether anyone chooses to acknowledge it or not,,,All science in every form points toward intelligent design.

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706. 706. firetron 01:09 AM 12/26/08

     Scientific American is a magazine known for lying and the same oppressive tactics shown in Expelled, so for it to pretend to be telling the truth, yet again, IS ABSURD. Furthermore. that misquote of Darwin nonsense is refuted clearly at http://djknight.livejournal.com/4746.html
     
     I think I can safely skip the other five things Ben Stein didn't want me to know you "conspiracy theorists".

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707. 707. firetron in reply to Peter Mc 01:10 AM 12/26/08

     Scientific American is a magazine known for lying and the same oppressive tactics shown in Expelled, so for it to pretend to be telling the truth, yet again, IS ABSURD. Furthermore. that misquote of Darwin nonsense is refuted clearly at http://djknight.livejournal.com/4746.html
     
     I think I can safely skip the other five things Ben Stein didn't want me to know you "conspiracy theorists".

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708. 708. firetron in reply to skreezy 01:16 AM 12/26/08

     Good to know you and others figured that out before I could post my own response about that. Scientific American is a magazine known for lying and the same oppressive tactics shown in Expelled, so for it to pretend to be telling the truth, yet again, IS ABSURD. Furthermore. that misquote of Darwin nonsense is refuted clearly at http://djknight.livejournal.com/4746.html
     
     I think I can safely skip the other five things Ben Stein didn't want me to know you "conspiracy theorists".

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709. 709. KymcoKid 12:13 AM 1/2/09

     I just watchedd the movie. I still have one question in regard to these paragraph's in point 5.
     
     "Actually, science avoids design explanations for natural phenomena out of logical necessity. The scientific method involves rigorously observing and experimenting on the material world. It accepts as evidence only what can be measured or otherwise empirically validated (a requirement called methodological naturalism). That requirement prevents scientific theories from becoming untestable and overcomplicated.
     
     By those standards, design-based explanations rapidly lose their rigor without independent scientific proof that validates and defines the nature of the designer. Without it, design-based explanations rapidly become unhelpful and tautological: "This looks like it was designed, so there must be a designer; we know there is a designer because this looks designed."
     
     How does science explain the beginning of the exsistence of any organism? And isn't the answer to that question beyond the ability of rigorous experimentantion? Is it possible to prove any form of the origin of life through experience, considering that there is no way anyone can experience the origin? Or if we apply models and theories aren't they untestable and overcomplicated?
     

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710. 710. KymcoKid 12:41 AM 1/2/09

     I have a few more questions. Is the Big Bang Theory a fact? If it is a fact why is it not called the "Law of the Big Bang"? Also, if the theory of evolution is a fact, why is it not called the Law of Evolution?
     
     Is it POSSIBLE that there MIGHT be some problems or untestable ideas or missing elements necessary for these theories to move from theory to law? We don't talk about Newton's theories of physics but Laws of Physics, for example the Law of Gravity.

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711. 711. KymcoKid 01:15 AM 1/2/09

     Just a few more thoughts. We now know that a cell is a highly complex organic structure. In the movie it was suggested that there are 250 protiens required for a living cell. What is the probablity (mathemeatically speaking) for 250 necessary items coming together randomly?

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712. 712. human-like 11:32 PM 1/2/09

     Thank you for addressing the flaws in the movie (Hollywood, go figure). I watched the movie twice and what I got out of it is that if "no one" knows how life began then how can one theory (Intelligent Design) be less credible than another (seeding)? Also, why is there so much emotion around this subject? If Darwin is right then it does not matter what people believe...we live, we die...that's it. I personally believe that there is a purpose for life or we would never be disappointed nor have the emotion of shame. Why do we have an ego? Why do we have a sense of purpose if we don't have a purpose? Why do we have hundreds of emotions? The questions are countless and we should be able to ask them especially in a place of "learning". That's the point of the movie from my perspective.
     
     I do hope that this film is inaccurate in the way it portrayed Universities and the science community with addressing Intelligent Design. If portrayed correctly though then these are rational people behaving irrationally which only eludes to motive. I would be curious to find out why there is motive or emotion where these organizations and individuals claim there are only facts.....

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713. 713. Fanfaron 07:04 AM 1/4/09

     Since "Analysis of the assembled sequence unequivocally establishes that the Neandertal mtDNA falls outside the variation of extant human mtDNAs" (http://www.cell.com/abstract/S0092-8674(08)00773-3), shouldn't all references in textbooks now be removed as a false assumption that any nexis between Neandertals and humans? Just wondering.

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714. 714. Fanfaron 07:05 AM 1/4/09

     Since "Analysis of the assembled sequence unequivocally establishes that the Neandertal mtDNA falls outside the variation of extant human mtDNAs" (http://www.cell.com/abstract/S0092-8674(08)00773-3), shouldn't all references in textbooks now be removed as a false assumption that any nexis between Neandertals and humans? Just wondering.

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715. 715. rpalazzo 10:15 PM 1/6/09

     In my brief case, I have a stack of documentation a couple of inches thick, from myriad sources in the scientific community that support the claims of this movie. It is my contention that evolution is really a function of naturalistic philosophy rather than the scientific method. If you want to talk about it, let me know.

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716. 716. rpalazzo 11:16 PM 1/6/09

     I heard an interesting story recently. A man did not believe in wind. He had concluded that it did not exist. As a result, he was forced to conclude as well that leaves sometimes, capriciously, leapt up and danced around for no apparent reason. His philosophical opinions impacted his science.

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717. 717. lisac 06:34 PM 1/15/09

     "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth"

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718. 718. Ciarin in reply to skreezy 06:24 AM 1/21/09

     Because we don't live in packs roaming the forest. It isn't necessary to leave the sick behind to be eaten by predators in order to preserve the tribe. We live in a society that is a bit more complicated that . Persons with disabilities have consistently shown they can be productive members of society. Indeed, some not only overcome their disability, but they can exceed the abilities of the average population. I give you Prof. Stephen Hawking for one.
     
     Eugenics, aside from having artificial definitions on what constitutes "unfit", eliminates genetic diversity. Genetic diversity is necessary for a species to keep going and it's important for preserving the biodiversity among species.
     
     Basically, your "logical conclusion" is erroneous.

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719. 719. Ciarin in reply to richardmumolo 06:25 AM 1/21/09

     richardmumolo at 11:00 PM on 04/16/08 said:
     "Without disputing any of the article content, the simple existence of this article shows that Scientific American has an agenda."
     
     An agenda of science and factual information.

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720. 720. Ciarin in reply to Blake Montie 06:40 AM 1/21/09

     Blake said:
     "Maybe this theory of ID deserves a second look"
     
     If anyone in the ID movement cares to share their thesis for peer review, it can get all the 2nd looks they want. If your "science" can't get past this process, then you need to keep working on it or try a different hypothesis. This is how science works, the scientific method. You can't just posit an idea "well it looks like it was designed, so their must be a designer" and call it science. You have to test it and gather pertinent evidence. And no, the bible isn't evidence of a "designer".
     
     The problem with ID/creationists is that they refuse to go through the scientific method and peer review like every other scientist must go through. Why should ID/creationists bypass this essential method? Why do they get a free pass but other theories/hypotheses don't? If ID/creationists want to be treated fairly in the scientific community then they don't get special treatment, they must utilize the scientific method and peer review process just like everyone else.

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721. 721. Ciarin in reply to bobhunter 06:51 AM 1/21/09

     bobhunter at 02:31 PM on 04/18/08 said:
     
     "None of these 6 reasons had anything to do with scientific reasons intelligent design isn't true!"
     
     Perhaps you didn't read the title: "Six Things in Expelled That Ben Stein Doesn't Want You to Know..." rather than "ID isn't true and here's why".
     

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722. 722. rpalazzo in reply to Ciarin 11:51 AM 1/21/09

     What about my comments?

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723. 723. HammarbyBajen 12:15 AM 1/22/09

     "The scientific method involves rigorously observing and experimenting on the material world. It accepts as evidence only what can be measured or otherwise empirically validated (a requirement called methodological naturalism). That requirement prevents scientific theories from becoming untestable and overcomplicated."
     
     Agreed; however, this also precludes evolution from being viewed, or taught, under the arena of science. Contrary to popular belief evolution is not a proven theory nor can it be examined under the scientific method. Those who believe in evolution are taking it on faith, just as those who support ID. As such, both suppositions do merit further discussion, but neither in the scientific arena.
     
     I'm unsure why those who believe evolution choose to get so angry when another supposition is put forth. I also don't understand why those who support the theory, choose themselves to not acknowledge that it is also faith based. Place evolution under the scientific microscope and it is filled with so many holes that it would not even compare to a slice of swiss cheese.

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724. 724. Simon Guy Packer 03:25 AM 1/27/09

     I go along with the thinking that evolution by natural selection as the underlying process behind how we got here (even if the first cell was an accident), is easily the dumbest theory ever to take widespread hold in what we loosely call 'science'. There is a difference between the scientific method rigorously applied and popular scientific culture. All the difference in the world. Long live free thought and reasonable questioning of previous conclusions.
     Just because the ID hypothesis is not readily provable by our little minds is not sufficient reason to rule it out. Perhaps we need to look, as Berlinski does in Stein's film, at the relative veracity of various things accepted by most of the scientific community. Stein is not attacking science. He is attacking highly questionable and unreliable applications of the scientific method.

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725. 725. mad 03:17 PM 1/30/09

     I think Stein pwned Dawkins...

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726. 726. seekinglight in reply to logica 04:07 PM 2/4/09

     StepUp - Your post shows your limited understanding of the "Designer". The problem with the word "God" is that most people have been conditioned to define God as some "big bearded guy in the sky" as you indicate is your perspective in your post. But our feeble minds are not capable of understanding this "Designer", much like we are not truly capable of understanding most of the physical system in which we live. Does science explain how a caterpillar becomes a butterfly? If our own world is too complex for our feeble minds to understand, how can we expect to understand the creator of this world, and the processes used to develop it. A person who believes in a supreme being has the humility to admit that he/she does not know all there is to know, and that there is a strong possibility that a power greater than themselves exists. I understand that the Theory of Evolution has some validity. But even if we agree that it is true, it still does not explain how it all got started. I find that very interesting, and i also find interesting the responses of atheists who are pressed on this matter.

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727. 727. doug 06:34 PM 2/9/09

     The general dishonesty of the ID Creationists should be taught at the college level. However, teaching grade school children outright lies, NO!
     The Pro-Science folks like Myself have to do a better job in "marketing"
     Evolution. Watching even pro-evolution science anti-ID Creation video's doesn't punch home the point that there isn't any controversy in most cases. We have to take the ID Creationists out point by point and leave not question as to its fraudulant nature. That PBS special about the Dover trial did a wonderful job in showing up the ID Creationists for what they are
     and what ID Creationism is: (Religious people) and what they're not (Scientists).

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728. 728. God Exists 01:39 AM 2/10/09

     Actually, Ben Stein is speaking at my university on February 10. So if you want to hear his argument you should come to Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas.

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729. 729. God Exists 01:43 AM 2/10/09

     Actually, Ben Stein is speaking at my university on February 10. If you want to hear his argument then go to Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas.

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730. 730. God Exists 01:45 AM 2/10/09

     Actually, Ben Stein is speaking at my university on February 10. If you want to hear his argument then go to Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas.

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731. 731. BuckSkinMan in reply to punninglinguist 07:24 PM 2/11/09

     Darwin isn't responsible for "providing morals" any more than "God" is.
     God didn't make man with sympathy and empathy, it's innate now because the trait has survival value. (i.e., When the Australian fire fighter gave that burnt Koala a drink from his water bottle: it was an action which favored the survival of the other species. Man NEEDS other species and (within reason) must recognize that "aid" to Koalas, grizzly bears and rainbow trout benefits Homo sapiens sapiens.) Perhaps Darwin realized this, perhaps not: the fact is we evolved with qualities we now deem "good" or "bad" and have to face both with self-knowledge and self-appreciation.

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732. 732. BuckSkinMan 07:48 PM 2/11/09

     A "conservative- leaning" friend asked me how the theory of Evolution could explain the existence of TWO human species which (he asserts) split off shortly after "the Age of Enlightenment" (apparently referring to Europe 1649 to 1799). One group (of lower mental ability) forms the majority today, and the few "lucky ones" who retained all the "smart genes" from the minority today. (Of course, he generously placed himself and me in the latter group. hee-hee)
     
     After a lengthy explanation, I told him, "So if you still think there's two species of humans (one to rule over the other), you're not going to sell that one!"
     
     His reply: "I AM selling it!"
     
     So if there's any doubt about the "racism" of the Right and its purposeful misuse (or refutations of) Science: we now see their motive. All they want is to gain power and to do that, they must undermine democracy and make use of propaganda to fool people into voting for them, defending them and eventually serving them.
     
     It should be obvious: the reason the Right doesn't want nations trying to mitigate global climate change is they will be able to live comfortably while their servants are kept impoverished, starved and miserable, unable to overthrow their "Conservative" masters and mistresses.

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733. 733. thinkit47 08:37 AM 2/12/09

     It's a funny thing that just about all of the people here that I know and have attempted to engage them on the topic of evolution vs intelligent design run away. I am "clawing" my way through this topic, have been doing so for the last few years ever since I found out that there was such a thing as intelligent design and creationism. I am an ex primary school teacher here in DARWIN Australia, and have not had the privilege of trying to understand the various views of this most intellectually stimulating topic until someone put me onto it a few years ago.
     Much of the general population here, know very little.Their basic answers to my attempts to engage them in discussion are: "Well evolution must have occurred because science is true", or "I don't want to have to think about it", or "I have made a decision on what I see, but I don't want to go into it". What did you see? I ask them. Did you see a fossil in a museum display? Or did you read a book, or the local newspaper? Through my own experience I have found there is an appalling lack of objectivity in what we are given to study, read and discuss during our educational years; and Ben Stein hits the nail on the head when he describes the control measures that are in place so that we only get the 'consensus' view. And THAT causes stunted intellectual development. I am angry that we are not given the various sides of an argument in our supposedly free thinking country where open debate is "encouraged"- if one side is so heavily supported by good sound science and reasoning, then it should not be afraid of being questioned.
     Maybe the debate will not be won by any side, but I can live with shades of gray. Big Brother does not have the right to decide whats best for us to know and hear.
     And by the way, to say that ID is not science because it is not falsifiable; why hasn't this principle been applied to evolution? The beginning of life from chemicals is an idea that is not falsifiable, (even though all experiments so far have failed it is still a viable idea- just look at science books in the schools); and the addition of new genetic information is not observed- necessary for evolutionary biological change- but is still touted as the vehicle for evolution- look at the school books again. Obviously its not falsifiable. So it cant be science- just philosophy.
     So open up the debate, let us simple ones hear all the ideas- even the spaghetti monster ones; well claw our way through and may even become intelligent, critical thinkers in the end.
     
     

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734. 734. thinkit47 in reply to frgough 08:22 PM 2/12/09

     Exactly!

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735. 735. BuckSkinMan in reply to thinkit47 03:11 AM 2/13/09

     What you say is basically true: there's always the claim that we "can't afford" time to debate "during our educational years." My school years were quite different: we were encouraged (particularly in science classes and one particular American History course) to examine, critically analyze and then debate in class. One American history teacher gave us a full tutorial on how to recognize propaganda: and of course it's recognizable every day here now.
     
     What I would say is missing is the kind of training I just described: first business is to start teaching how to think critically.
     
     If one applies critical thinking to the current debates about the sciences of biology, medicine- and economic theory: one eventually sees that all of these debates are just ideological campaigns: initiated by right wing factions in religion and politics. Another way of describing the state of "American discourse" is that it has all been politicized beyond redemption.
     
     Your asking for honest dialogue: that is not to be obtained in this country any longer.
     
     I think you misinterpret part of the article: it's basic premise is that the film "Expelled" purposely omitted facts and avoided contrary evidence - and tried to demonize "the rule of Science." The article went on to present reasons for believing that the film is dishonest - and - to show why / how the promoters of Intelligent Design have used invalid reasoning in their side of this "debate."
     
     You may not know, but Ben Stein has a long history with right wing politics and regularly uses television appearances to sell right wing views - and justify the actions of right wing politicians like G. W. Bush and R. B. Cheney. He can hardly be counted as a valid candidate for the kind of debate you call for.
     
     So forgive the readers of Scientific American if we seem a little hostile and too ready to fend off attacks. That's the danger of politicizing reasoned discourse: it brings down the whole structure of civilized reasoning and reduces it to shouting mobs.

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736. 736. peabody 09:45 AM 2/19/09

     "rigorously observing and experimenting on the material world. It accepts as evidence only what can be measured or otherwise empirically validated" How is the "big bang" or the extinction of dinosaurs, or the evolution of a new species observed and experimented on? Evolution is as much based on a belief system and as little based on the scientific method as ID.

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737. 737. Pennarin in reply to frgough 04:20 PM 2/20/09

     frgough said: "Darwinism. The only supposed theory without direct experimental evidence in existence that cannot be questioned."
     ...
     Yet, no one disputes the formation of a star system and its interaction with stellar matter expelled during supernovas. Has anyone witnessed a stellar system being born? A supernova occuring in any better resolution than a white dot flaring amongst paler white dots on a black background (even with the best telescopes)?
     *Secondary evidence* is what allows us to determine these things to be true, and a whole lot of solid logical thinking. The same applies with evolution: you can't see evolution happening in everyday life, yet you can measure genetic drift and compare genetic and morphological structures, betwen animals/plants and their fossilized counterparts, etc etc.

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738. 738. EveryKneeSB 02:09 AM 2/27/09

     One comment made on the movie suggested that God has went to great lengths to hide himself. This is not true in the spiritual sense. The Bible states " seek and you shall find". God shows himself to those that truly seek him and once you have had prayers and Gods Healing it is pretty hard to deny him. First read and study the Bible, put into action - God's instruction and then see how easy you find it to deny his existence.

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739. 739. xim8xh78fx3p3qj@temporaryinbox.com 01:33 PM 3/10/09

     How dare "Scientific American" publish an article espousing the scientific method in favor of a supernatural belief system. The gall.

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740. 740. xim8xh78fx3p3qj@temporaryinbox.com 01:35 PM 3/10/09

     Very observant. "Scientific American" is publishing an article espousing the scientific method over supernatural belief systems. The gall...

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741. 741. djventures 05:25 AM 3/12/09

     1) Selective Quoting does not negate the message the movie is trying to get across, especially since the logical conclusion of Darwin's idea's, not including modern interpretations of altruism as an evolutionary end, lead to the Eugenics movement. In this regard the selective nature of the editing was used to prevent confusion. There are scientists today in high places that advocate calamities to wipe out humanity as the insignificant pests that we are.
     
     2) The speech he was making in the crowed auditorium was faked? So what, that is just poetic license. The Auditorium full of people could be a symbol for the viewers of the movie, and the speech is the video, of course. Definitely not a real criticism.
     
     3) The questions asked by the atheistic scientists were certainly consistent with a movie that could be called Crossroads. Maybe interviews of different scientists were the motivating factor for the change. However, There simply is not enough information to know what happened.
     
     4) This is the strongest criticism of the movie. Maybe they relied on the interviewee's story and didn't check it out. However, this error is significant and sheds doubt on the way this movie was made. They should have checked their facts.
     
     5) How would we know that a structure on a distant planet, say some building, is the result of the design and efforts of an alien race? Or how can we determine if an archeological artifact was actually shaped and used by someone in the past or simply a natural phenomenon? I think that the point of the movie is that a stringent and dogmatic belief in evolution is like asking people to believe that high explosives were used on a mountain side, and when the dust cleared, there was a fully assembled and functional Toyota Camry siting in the middle of ground zero. This may actually be statistically more plausible than the probability used to calculate the spontaneous development of life. Lastly, those atheist scientists did admit that a designer could have initiated life via the theory of seeding. Thus the question of the possibility of a designer is very relevant to not only biologists but many scientific fields. The fact is we are coming to the crux of the matter by trying to scientifically understand entropy how order (life) can rise when empirical realities show the opposite.
     
     6) Sorry, it is irrelevant that many evolutionary biologists are religious, or vis-versa for the simple fact that their belief is confined to in a way that does not threaten the establishment.
     
     Looks like I have run out of space..

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742. 742. jazzfan in reply to jmarbas 10:51 AM 4/1/09

     Those who want to silence Ben Stein and anyone else who believes in intelligent design are hypocrits. This is especially true in education (e.g. Eugenie Scott). Why are the evolutionists afraid of letting students hear opposition to evolution? It's because evolution is riddled with impossibilities and the hypocrits don't want you to find out.

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743. 743. Mrs. Johns 07:50 PM 4/1/09

     nothing like a healthy debate allowing people to freely voice themselves........... if you really want to keep score regarding 6 things ben stein doesn't want us to know perhaps we should tally the many things evolutionists don't want us to know as exposed by mr. stein's production.

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744. 744. Mrs. Johns 07:54 PM 4/1/09

     if we're wanting to "keep score" regarding 6 things ben stein doesn't want you to know let's tally up the many things evolutionists don't want us to know as exposed by mr. stein's production...........

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745. 745. indydad 02:58 PM 4/4/09

     Please look again to the first paragraph and then again to the paragraph which contains "intentionally neglect the weak and helpless". Darwin only confirms that it is evil to "neglect", such as would be the case for neglecting an unwanted sick animal. Darwin is clearly endorsing euthanizing the weak as the non-evil alternative to neglect - much like euthanizing a sick or unwanted animal.
     Your argument is weak because it focuses on a single line out of context with the rest of what Darwin wrote. You are the one guilty of misreading/misrepresenting the full text.
     

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746. 746. rcole 10:39 PM 4/4/09

     While working as a technician for a rubber company, I often read the "Scientific Ameican" copies that were floating around the workplace. I don't recall articles that tackled issues that were the pervue of the Ben Stein documentary "Expelled". I wonder why this article is so clearly antagonistic toward the issues he raises. I have encountered a great deal of dishonesty in the accademic community on this issue and an unwillingness to allow any open discussion on issues concerning origin. All I ever heard was that evolution is fact, no longer open for debate, as much as I heard Richard Dawkins himself say. His and others feeble attempts to explain the origin of the first single-cell living organism speaks volumes about the need for academic freedom. If science has no answers, why exclude ID?
     
     Roger Cole, Clarksville, TN

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747. 747. Faultline in reply to jazzfan 04:28 AM 4/12/09

     Evolutionary teachers are not opposed to discussing alternatives to evolution, but suggested alternatives should be held to the same scientific standards. These standards involve objective measurements of phenomena as tests of the theory. There are no such objective measurements of phenomena that directly support ID.
     
     When you put The Theory of Intelligent Design up against The Theory of Evolution, you automatically make them out to be equals. You're comparing apples (Evolution) to wax fruit (ID) and discussing them as if they can each nourish equally if you choose to disregard the other.
     
     ID proponents constantly seek to rush their ideas to the classroom, hoping to skip around all the required research, the peer-reviewed papers, the measuring, testing, and documentation of obervable phenomena that has earned Evolution its rank as a scientific theory. Scientists are naturally outraged that such unscientific trash gets rewarded as a theory when none of the required research, peer-reviewed papers, measuring, testing, and documentation of obervable phenomena has been performed.
     
     It is like showing the apple and the wax fruit, declaring that they are both equally nutritious, and perhaps the wax fruit is superior, but never allowing anyone to scientifically test your claims. Evolution has been through the tests, ID has failed, but the classroom looking at the display isn't told that. They are told to consider them both.
     
     Faultline
     

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748. 748. Faultline in reply to rcole 04:46 AM 4/12/09

     To rcole:
     
     Evolution was never intended to explain how life began. It describes the mechanisms by which living species change over time to suit environments that change, also. To my knowledge, there is no scientific theory that can, by the scientific method, explain the origin of life. That fact does not mean that we have to chunk out Evolution and accept ID.
     
     This article is antagonistic because of the methods the producers used while creating the film. I won't make any direct judgements because I've not seen it, but it sounds like rubbish, one-sided propoganda against Darwin and Evolution. If the allegations are true, and they can be checked out with research, the producers got facts wrong, misrepresented themselves to scientists during interviews, and selectively quoted Darwin in order to villify him and liken him to a Nazi forerunner. Attacks against a person's character, (real or false) are irrelevant to the discussion of scientific theories. But the producers know that audiences don't think that way. Audiences will easily liken Darwin to Hitler just because certain excerpts from his writings, when taken out of context, are similar to some Nazi ideas. General audiences are not scientists, and drawing these false parallels makes a fake platform on which to discredit Darwin and Evolution.
     
     Darwin was a man. Evolution is a theory. The theory has grown from the man into an immense body of research that is totally unlike ID in every way.
     
     Faultline

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749. 749. Faultline in reply to indydad 04:53 AM 4/12/09

     indydad said:
     
     "Please look again to the first paragraph and then again to the paragraph which contains "intentionally neglect the weak and helpless". Darwin only confirms that it is evil to "neglect", such as would be the case for neglecting an unwanted sick animal. Darwin is clearly endorsing euthanizing the weak as the non-evil alternative to neglect - much like euthanizing a sick or unwanted animal.
     Your argument is weak because it focuses on a single line out of context with the rest of what Darwin wrote. You are the one guilty of misreading/misrepresenting the full text."
     
     I did read it carefully, and I think you're misinterpreting. There is nothing there that says Darwin condones euthanasia of humans. In fact, "neglect" means to deny things that are required. Killing, even in a soft way, is neglect because you are denying that person's right to live. Darwin states that by doing so, we would inherit a great evil quality in our society. You can't claim that Darwin thinks that actions like withholding medical care and food and aid are actually WORSE than killing, and that killing is preferable and would avoid the evil taint, not from his words quoted in the article.
     
     Faultline
     

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750. 750. CharlestonMom 12:04 AM 4/13/09

     I'm no scientist, but I am a college graduate. I think the idea that an incomprehensibly complex human being could evolve out of inorganic slop is laughable. I can't believe rational, educated people are still trying to prove it. Maybe Ben Stein was deceptive in his "documenatry" but his premise is straightforward: Let's explore the possibility of Intelligent Design!

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751. 751. Mrs. Johns 03:23 AM 4/13/09

     Could someone explain to me how Ben Stein was able to "persuade" the highly intellectual, "scientific," atheistic, evolutionary "pitbull," ("King Richard Dawkins") down the path of admitting that we don't actually know how the first life form came into being and to even entertain the possibility of intelligent design or a creator. The interview at the end of "Expelled" speaks volumes. I really felt sorry for Richard Dawkins. He appeared so uncomfortable and at such a loss for meaningful and reasonable words as he stumbled his way through the interview in attempting to answer Ben's simple and honest questions. Richard was like an evolutionary specimen caught somewhere between water and land not knowing which direction to turn for safety and survival...... just floundering helplessly about; and obviously not surviving. Fortunately for him, his prey had mercy; unlike Richard who cherishes the opportunity to intellectually bully his way out of questions like, "What if you're wrong.........?" (see Youtube if interested).
     
     I know you don't read this kind of internet banter but in case you do, "My heart goes out to you Mr. Dawkins......... truly it does............"

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752. 752. Faultline in reply to CharlestonMom 11:40 PM 4/14/09

     ID is impossible to explore as a scientific theory because it isn't a scientific theory. It is merely the assumption that there has to be an intelligent creator because life is too complex. That's not a theory, it is jumping to conclusion. Calling ID a theory means you just don't understand what a theory is and how much work it takes to build one.
     
     That's why scientists hate the idea that ID should be taught in schools or referred to as an equal contendor to Evolution. ID has no solid scientific backing, only assumptions based on flawed logic. To suddenly proclaim that ID should be considered next to Evolution is like a racehorse taking a shortcut to the finish line and then asking someone who didn't watch the race to pick a winner.
     

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753. 753. Faultline in reply to Mrs. Johns 11:52 PM 4/14/09

     Mrs. Johns, it is because Evolution isn't a theory about the origin of living matter, it is a theory about how living creatures changed into new and diverse species over time. It is still possible to believe that a creator started life on Earth and set up Evolution as the means by which man would eventually evolve from other creatures.
     
     Think about this. We were intelligently designed, according to ID, and so was all life on Earth. How does this reflect the reality that the various thousands of dinosaur species ruled the Earth for well over 200 million years of pre-history, when man kind has only been here as a species only 200,000 years ago? Why did the intelligent creator waste the first 99.9% of history on an extensive program of dinosaurs only to scrap it all in the last 0.1% of time just to pop us into existence?
     
     Think of it this way, if the whole of life on Earth were likened to a single calendar year, dinosaurs were here from January 1st to December 31st at 3 pm, Homo Sapiens arrived in the last eight hours of the year, and we only decided to get civilized about fifteen minutes ago!
     
     I'm off on a tangent. If you want to discuss the merits of Intelligent Design in terms of science, let me know where you want to start and (maybe) we'll go from there.
     

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754. 754. rooseveltdecosta 07:04 PM 4/16/09

     Mrs. Johns,
     
     Well I must say I commend you for defying Mr. Johns' instructions to stay in the kitchen and off the comput...ahem...magic box. However, all the time spent cooped up inside your singlewide has left you conspicuously bereft of any semblance of intelligence. You see, this is a forum for scientific discussion not for an uneducated layperson bent on corrupting the minds of our country's impressionable youth. Now, my child, I do not blame you. The blame rests squarely with Mr. Johns for not directing your energy towards the appropriately named discovery institute. Please do not misinterpret my comments, I am not calling you dumb, stupid, or incapable. In fact, I do believe you are very capable, seeing as you would risk the wrath of the lord in order to post on such a satanic website! I am simply using your grievous lack of formal schooling in order to reveal the systemic, yet lamentable effects of the deterioration of our country's ability to sufficiently educate its God fearing populace. As a man of the word, I must wish you godspeed in your quest to quench your insatiable thirst for knowledge. Onward Christian Soldier... You are marching to find science!
     
     "Open my eyes that I may see" Ps. 119
     
     Mahalo,
     
     R

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755. 755. Lest we forget 02:56 PM 4/18/09

     I just finished watching the movie. It was not perfect, but it did illustrate some valid points, the most important one being (in my opinion) that when people become arrogant, be they religious or scientific, they stop listening AND thinking, and when that happens we all suffer as a society.
     
     For those of you who live to tear down and rip apart, my point will be ignored and lost due to the imperfect, less than eloquent composition of my comment. Let the ripping commence!
     
     

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756. 756. Faultline in reply to Lest we forget 06:29 AM 4/20/09

     I will refrain from commenting on the actual video until I have time to waste watching it. There's no point in criticizing what I haven't seen. But your words are fine, nothing wrong with what you said.
     
     There's no science to Intelligent Design, though. It is based on an assumption with no evidence, which is expressly forbidden by the scientific method. Even if, by some longshot, Evolution was proven wrong, it doesn't mean ID is right by default.
     
     The reason why scientists hate the idea of ID being presented in schools as an alternative to Evolution is because there is no scientific theoretical work supporting ID at all. Showing it to school children is like having a race horse take a shortcut to the finish line, then asking an audience who didn't see the race pick a winner.
     
     Faultline

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757. 757. DesiraeRubio in reply to Lest we forget 06:54 PM 4/23/09

     Haha! Seems to be the spirit here. What I don't understand is the point this article tries to make about scientists who were interviewed for this movie who thought they were being interviewed for a movie with a different title.
     
     What is your point exactly? Are you trying to say that had it another name, scientists would reply differently?
     That maybe they wouldn't be as honest? Perhaps they would answer more media friendly. How do you expect to get honest opinions if people only want to keep up a front?
     
     As for ID, well I believe in it. I believe that Nothing + Nothing could not possibly equal everything and that the idea of such is more fantastical than a creator!
     
     But, because obviously we have some slow ones who are stubborn and hold steadfast to their precious infallable logic, maybe we should take a few steps back.
     
     Perhaps instead of trying to prove I.D. we should present the flaws in Darwin, evolution and the BB theory. Lets allow these scientists to come up with more excuses for a man who would turn in his grave if he discovered what his theory has become:
     
     an undebatable fact that has been presented to school children without any alternatives without any furthered research that could possibly dispute it and without evidence. Lets instead, allow pictures of Neantherthals to be placed next to other fantastical creatures such as the Pegusus and Manticores.
     
     Darwin mean't us to further research. Not to accept as is and not for it to accquire such a foundation that it is virtually unshakable. That any atttempt to refute is considered a product of religious zealotism, and that those people lack intelligence and are more akin to yokels.
     
     Or perhaps we haven't made much headway since the propaganda in Scopes v State.

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758. 758. Faultline in reply to DesiraeRubio 11:02 PM 4/23/09

     In response to DesiraeRubio:
     
     Poking holes in other theories does not prove the existance of an intelligent designer. Even if Evolution was totally disproven, it does not fall to ID to be the default winner. So don't think of science as "Evolution vs. ID" because that's not how it works. This isn't a boxing match. If one loses, the other does not automatically win.
     
     So discussing holes in Evolution is a totally different game than trying to provide evidence for an intelligent designer. Science takes a simple and effective approach to debate. Suggest a hypothesis, support it with evidence, build the evidence until it becomes a theory, and continue to search for evidence that would disprove it. Until that has been done for ID, it should not be given a status as an alternative to Evolution.
     
     Like I said before, asking school children to consider ID alongside Evolution is like asking an audience to pick which horse won the race without having seen them run.
     
     I'm all for discussion of either one. But pick the topic and state your position clearly and I'll be glad to talk it over in this forum or any other. If you're pro-ID then bring some evidence supporting the existence of an intelligent designer. Don't waste time trying to dismantle Evolution. If you knock someone else down, have you grown any taller? No.
     
     Faultline

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759. 759. DesiraeRubio in reply to Faultline 01:58 PM 4/24/09

     Haha. Who says I.D. believers want to win by default?
     
     I'm not saying that I.D. needs to be presented in a science class room as the alternative to the theory of Evolution and B.B. theory. As a matter of fact, I'm opposed to it only because, like you say, there isn't much scientific basis. There needs to be far more research in the theory before I would say its got merit for people like you, to consider it.
     
     There is alot of evidence that verify the events described in the bible have happened. Still, the basis for the bible and the dead sea scrolls might be more akin to history and world religions. Sociology even.
     
     I feel, along with many I.D. supporters (some of which who happen to be science teachers might I add) that Evolution is the corner stone of biology and it needs to be taught in schools.
     
     What we don't agree with is how it is taught. It does not present any holes in the theory, it is presented as though it actually has evidence that has been verified. Which it doesn't.
     
     I had to do further research to find out that Archaeoptrix was proven to be false, not a missing link at all! So why then do you still see it in text books?
     
     So, you ask me to present to you evidence of an I.D., well, why don't you present evidence of Evolution? ( not adaptation) Why don't you present evidence of a primordial soup, so to speak that compiles the Big Bang? And even so, where did the ingredients for the primordial soup come from? The atoms? Did they just appear as well?
     
     Knocking people down who have gotten on a high horse is necessary to make progress. If people really hold so tight to this theory, do not question it, how are we going to further our knowledge? How are we to move forward if we are focused on a theory that hasn't been proven after decades of debate?
     
     What are you so afraid of? In the spirit of science, of Darwin, of exploration, Why not "dismantle" evolution, if it will help not prove a God exists, but instead, further our knowledge? Scientists made bigger jumps by questioning the norm, why have we cowarded away just to sit comfortably in "the way things are"?
     
     As Dr. Robert Jastrow once said, "For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."
     
     
     

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760. 760. Faultline in reply to DesiraeRubio 02:00 AM 4/25/09

     >>>DesiraeRubio said: "So, you ask me to present to you evidence of an I.D., well, why don't you present evidence of Evolution? ( not adaptation) Why don't you present evidence of a primordial soup, so to speak that compiles the Big Bang? And even so, where did the ingredients for the primordial soup come from? The atoms? Did they just appear as well?"
     
     Faultline replies: These questions are only loosely related. It would take far more than this forum to tackle them all.
     
     >>>DesiraeRubio said: "I'm not saying that I.D. needs to be presented in a science class room as the alternative to the theory of Evolution and B.B. theory. As a matter of fact, I'm opposed to it only because, like you say, there isn't much scientific basis. There needs to be far more research in the theory before I would say its got merit for people like you, to consider it."
     
     Faultline replies: It seems you don't agree with ID because it hasn't been scientifically researched, am I right? Well then, we see eye to eye on that. Good. No need to go there anymore.
     
     Bringing forth evidence of Evolution means pointing at the fact that the entire fossil record actually shows how these species are all related and evolved from one another over millions of years. That's the biggest evidence, the fact that you can see these creatures changing from one species to another -- a trait or two at a time -- by examining their fossil remains for related biological features, the changing environments in which they lived which gave rise to the need for new traits, and the chronological order in which they arose and diminished.
     
     It seems that you have a problem with Evolutionary Theory being taught in schools because no one is teaching about the holes in the theory. Honestly, I'm not aware of any significant holes in Evolutionary Theory.
     
     The finding of Archaeopteryx does not count as a hole in the theory, even if it were a hoax (which it isn't). If Jesus Christ walked into Times Square and was proven to be an out of work actor, would it therefore be true, since the guy in Times Square was a hoax, that Christ never existed? No, that's false logic. It's called the "Division Fallacy of Distribution" because you assume that because one is false, all must have been false as well.
     
     With no sarcasm intended, enlighten me.
     
     Faultline

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761. 761. m005k 08:55 PM 4/27/09

     God is someone you experience. Science is composed of facts you draw a theory from then believe in. In my reading I have found that scientist have the more closed minds. The are quick to dismiss the other side of an argument as frivolous. They will not look at their basic beliefs. To believe that an ordered universe came by chance out of disorder can not be shown. It isn't about evolution. It comes way before that. Sub-atomic particles formed in very specific patterns to form a whole miraculous universe. Scientist need to dare to look at the foundations of their beliefs and they will see many of them are as unproven as those of the ones they ridicule.

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762. 762. Faultline in reply to m005k 09:20 PM 4/27/09

     I don't see why science and faith are exclusive against one another. Sure, the concept that order can come from chaos is strange, and yet it has happened. We scientists have discovered that there are fundamental laws governing the motion and behavior of particles. When we understand these laws, we can predict how particles will behave.
     
     Can we not believe that God made the laws of physics and we're just here to figure them out? Thereby, we can believe in God and in science without getting carted off to Hell. Scientists don't have to be closed minded atheists. Some are, but understand that before you call a scientist closed minded, the only thing science can do is discover the physical laws that God put in place to build a universe that we are capable of understanding.
     
     Faultline

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763. 763. DesiraeRubio in reply to Faultline 04:44 PM 4/29/09

     Oh my friend, there were so many things that I said that went over your poor logic driven head.
     
     I will state once again, Yes, I do believe in the idea of an intelligent creator, I do believe that our bodies are too complex & well fitted to its task that it could not possibly be the product, even over time, of random assortment.
     
     I believe it is human nature to think we understand the way everything works, have the audacity to believe we could grasp the information if we did know & that we are ignorant enough to assume our eyes will deliver the only significant information we need to know something.
     
     I said I don't agree with I.D. being taught in Science class as an alternative to Evolution because it doesn't have much scientific basis. Not because I don't believe it could be a possible explanation to our origins & not because it has no scientific basis at all.
     
     Whether you choose to acknowledge it or not, there has been research on what some have dubbed mitochondrial adam and eve that would have existed long before your hoax, the Piltdown Man. At first, the discovery appeared to be fruitless because the time in which they existed would be too far from one another, in laymans terms. However, further research has brought their time periods MUCH closer.
     
     If you see no holes in the theory clearly you haven't done enough research. Heaven forbid a scientist settles for what he is taught in school and for reading books on the matter written by like-minded individuals.
     
     Archaeopteryx was just one my friend. Just one. In fact there is no evidence except what someone like you wants to observe as evidence. So sorry if I no longer fit into your "Division Fallacy of Distribution". Because I don't claim only one discrepancie but MANY. People deserve to know them.
     
     I began my research believing in this theory, and the Big Bang theory I am ashamed to say. I wrote a 30 page thesis paper on the subject, I've bumped elbows with people like you. I've sat in Anthropology & biology classes, heard all you had to say on the matter. I was not impressed.
     I thought to myself, this record has been played a million times over, lets try something new. The theory hasn't gone anywhere since the man who proposed it walked the earth. I thought a scientist would be good at recognizing something when its dead.
     So as m005k said why not look at your own foundations before ridiculing others. I'll ask you again:
     
     What are you so afraid of? Why not "dismantle" evolution, if it will help further our knowledge?
     

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764. 764. Faultline in reply to DesiraeRubio 11:48 PM 4/29/09

     Okay, let me sum up what you said and let me know if I'm close so we can continue on the same page in the hymn book.
     
     You said "Archaeopteryx was just one." Just one what? One piece of evidence for biological evolution or a hoax? I assume you mean that Archaeopteryx is a fake, one clever enough to fool all the paleontologists who have studied it. I disagree, but that's not my point. You see, if it IS a hoax, it means that it never existed. So that's one less piece of evidence for Evolutionary Theory. One less piece of evidence IS NOT THE SAME as a piece of evidence that disproves Evolution. That's negative evidence, or the absence of evidence, which proves nothing. So describe to me the point you want to make about Archaeopteryx and how it relates to your disproving Evolution.
     
     I also don't want to make it seem as though I am hung up on this one point. You mentioned there are many others. Did you mention the Piltdown Man? What does the Piltdown Man tell you about the Theory of Evolution, since you brought it up. There are many others? How many can you bring up here. Pick a few and we'll get started. I can do this all year.
     
     So, to retierate, here are my questions to you.
     
     1. In what way does (the discovery of) Archaeopteryx and the Piltdown Man give cause to discard the Theory of (Biological) Evolution?
     
     2. What are the most significant discrepancies you see in the Theory of (Biological) Evolution?
     
     I use the parenthetical (Biological) because I want to make it clear that while the term "evolution" has many definitions and uses, I am using it here to describe the theory about the process of how organisms changed into new species over time.
     
     Faultline

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765. 765. DesiraeRubio in reply to Faultline 01:50 PM 4/30/09

     Hello! I am glad you are intrigued about what I have to say and appreciate your quick and rather witty responses.
     
     What I mean't about Archaeopteryx was that it is one hole in the theory because it was proven to not be a missing link at all. There were older fossils found of birds for the most part, as we know them today.
     
     Piltdown Man, was found to be a hoax as well. Hell, you can look up the Piltdown Man hoax on Wikipedia! Yet you still see it in public school text books as though it were facticiuos. Which for lack of a better term is bullshit.
     
     What I mean't by 'just one' and 'many others' was there are more discrepencies in the Theory of Evolution and the Big Bang Theory than there are evidences that support. This theory has no evidence at all. Not one does it have over any other origin theory. Cleary you believe it does because of the attention it receives and the way it has been propagated over the years.
     
     I'm am a strong advocate aganist people being lied to especially within the public school system. I whole heartedly believe that continuing in the way we are will only lead to poorly educated, misleaded youth who will some day make up the leaders of our country.
     
     I am not commited to argue with you. Only to enlighten you to challenge your beliefs and the foundations of those beliefs as I have done.
     
     If you want to know more about these supposed holes, research them yourself.
     
     I could not possibly divulge 30 pages of research and more within a forum, nor am I willing to for the sake of stuborn mind that can only change with personal growth.
     
     Research it yourself.
     
     Chances are, you will either change your unreasonable faith in the Theory of Evolution, or strenghten it. Its up to you. I can't get somthing out of it for you, that experience is yours.
     
     I challenge you to keep an open mind. Only you can ultimately decide, but you and others deserve to hear ALL sides of this theory, not just the ones putting it in a good light. You cannot possibly understand until you experience it yourself, so there you have it.
     
     I'll get your started. Look up Piltdown Man, Java Man, Neantherthal Man, Lucy and the Scopes Monkey trial. Verify that these things actually exist or that they are merely speculation. And as a bonus, look up the mathematical probablity of a Big Bang. Be ruthless though, those holes won't be easy to find, because of all the propaganda.
     
     You will be surprised. I promise. Good Luck, and happy hunting.

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766. 766. Faultline in reply to DesiraeRubio 11:33 PM 5/2/09

     I found a 1985 article by astronomer Fred Hoyle and physicist Lee Spetner declaring Archaeopteryx a forgery. Their studies were based on photographs they took of two fossilized remains of the species using a handheld 35mm camera.
     
     Their claim of forgery is complete hogwash. I found this article from <i>Science</i>.
     <i>Science</i> 232.(May 2, 1986): pp622
     "Archaeopteryx is not a Forgery" (Alan J. Charig, et. al.)
     
     Charig used X-Ray spectroscopy and a traveling microscope to examine Hoyle and Spetner's claim that it was a forgery and found no evidence to support the forgery claim. Four other scientists aided Charig in the examination, using FAR better tools than a handheld 35mm camera, and proclaim the fossils (both samples of them) are genuine.
     
     In fact, Charig's article mentions SIX total fossil samples of Archaeopteryx known at that time. We're not dealing with one single fossil here. So the evidence of forgery is really slim. Why trust an astronomer's examination with a 35mm camera when you've got a team of paleontologists with advanced equipment and specialized training in fossils? Do you go to a dentist when you have a need for eyeglasses?
     
     I'll discuss the other issues in my next post, when I have the time to research them. I believe you brought up the Piltdown man (a forgery), Lucy (Australopithecus), Java Man (Homo Erectus), Neanderthal Man, and the Scopes Monkey Trial (not a fossil, but a court case in Dayton, Tennessee in 1925).
     
     Oh, and you also mentioned the Big Bang Theory, but I wish we could keep this to one theory at a time. No need to complicate the issue any futher. While I look up more information, why don't you tell me what it is about the topics you brought up that make you think Evolution is false? Don't just tell me to search it out. I want to know what you think and why you think it. One issue at a time is fine.

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767. 767. DesiraeRubio in reply to DesiraeRubio 04:17 PM 5/3/09

     Okay, how old is your article?
     
     Again. No. As I said,
     
     I could not possibly divulge 30 pages of research and more within a forum, nor am I willing to for the sake of stubborn mind that can only change with personal growth.
     
     I've dealt with people like you for a long long time and don't have the time or patience to argue with everyone of you because as I said, you will get more out investigating for yourself, rather than arguing with me.
     
     Also, as a tip, try not to look at websites that will only agree or perpetuate your beliefs. It is far more nourishing to find out what the opposition says. Otherwise, you are not learning at all, just becoming more stranded within your personal prejudice.
     
     This is a challenge to you, and you are defensive because I and other scientists, teachers and researchers like myself are challenging what you have thought to be true since you were a grade student. I am asking you to come out of your comfort zone that society has unfairly made for you.
     
     So once again, in the name of science, happy hunting.
     
     -Desirae
     
     P.S. I never said Scopes was a fossil but it does provoke some interesting thoughts about the whole Evolution vs. Creationism debate.
     
     

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768. 768. Faultline in reply to DesiraeRubio 09:31 PM 5/3/09

     Hoyles's article claiming the Archaeopteryx fossils as frauds was published in 1985 and debunked by Charig in 1986. The age of the articles does not matter unless there is something more recent that discovers new data.
     
     I was looking at an article that opposed my beliefs. That's why I read Hoyle's article. I still found it lacking in merit because of the methods used to investigate the claim. Hoyle's methods (a 35mm handheld camera) are clearly inferior to those of Charig, who is a trained paleontologist with specialized tools for the specific research involved.
     
     Do you have anything newer to present that involves actual research and observation that can dispute Charig's findings? Probably not, but if you have 30 pages of research to present, put it on the internet somewhere and share the link with me. I'd be glad to look it over and examine the merits of your work. However, I'm not going on a hunt for rubbish. There's an awful lot of it on the internet. You've already found something, or so you claim.
     
     I'm a skeptic. Show me.
     

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769. 769. Faultline in reply to DesiraeRubio 09:32 PM 5/3/09

     Hoyles's article claiming the Archaeopteryx fossils as frauds was published in 1985 and debunked by Charig in 1986. The age of the articles does not matter unless there is something more recent that discovers new data.
     
     I was looking at an article that opposed my beliefs. That's why I read Hoyle's article. I still found it lacking in merit because of the methods used to investigate the claim. Hoyle's methods (a 35mm handheld camera) are clearly inferior to those of Charig, who is a trained paleontologist with specialized tools for the specific research involved.
     
     Do you have anything newer to present that involves actual research and observation that can dispute Charig's findings? Probably not, but if you have 30 pages of research to present, put it on the internet somewhere and share the link with me. I'd be glad to look it over and examine the merits of your work. However, I'm not going on a hunt for rubbish. There's an awful lot of it on the internet. You've already found something, or so you claim.
     
     I'm a skeptic. Show me.
     

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770. 770. dlederhos 03:31 AM 5/9/09

     From what I have just read, you should rename yourself "Unscientific American"

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771. 771. dlederhos 03:34 AM 5/9/09

     I agree with Richardamulo, good call!

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772. 772. GBTWC in reply to rooseveltdecosta 11:10 AM 5/9/09

     So then what is scientific about about a theory that cannot be tested such as derwinism?

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773. 773. Faultline in reply to GBTWC 06:54 PM 5/10/09

     The Theory of Evolution is testable, and is tested every time a new species is discovered in the fossil record. Paleontologists examine the age of the fossil through carbon dating to place it in history. If its age fits the predicted period, then it is a successful test of Evolution. If not--- for instance, finding a human fossil dated to the Jurrasic Period (144 million years ago), it would be a failed test of Evolution.
     
     So far, Evolution has failed no such tests.
     
     In addition, there are many documented tests of evolution involving cells, microorganisms, plants, and fruit flies. Some species produce offspring so rapidly that profound changes in the gene pool can occur over a relatively short period of time.
     
     The Theory of Evolution predicts that changes occur in the gene pool of a population of one species, and over time the environmental hazards eliminate the undesirable traits, leaving the new traits. These changes stack onto one another until a new species is developed. The laboratory experiments with fruit flies, and the examining of the finches at Galapagos island confirm that these processes are occuring as predicted by the Theory of Evolution.
     
     So in fact, it has been tested again and again.
     
     I'm very scientific, and American.
     
     Faultline
     

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774. 774. Faultline in reply to GBTWC 10:02 PM 5/10/09

     In addition, the theory isn't called Darwinism. That's a loose term that has no firm definition, scientific or otherwise. Its meaning is based on who uses it and for what purpose and in what context.
     
     It's called "The Theory of Evolution," and not "Darwinism."
     
     Faultline

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775. 775. HughEMC 03:32 PM 5/14/09

     I DO BELEIVE WHEN THE MAINSTREAM SCIENCE COMMUNITY HEAR "ITELLIGENT DESIGN" THEY HEAR CREATIONISM. I AM A BELIVER IN A UNIVERSAL CONSCIOUSNESS OR IF YO WILL A SUPREME ENTITY. I FEEL SCIENTIST CAN TAKE THEIR IMEPRICAL APPROACH AND STILL UNDERSTAND THAT OUR WORLD IS THE RESULT OF A DESIGNER. SCIENCE IS THE PERSUIT TOARDS UNDERSTANDING HOW THE DESIGN WAS IMPLEMENTED. THE IDEA OF INTELLEGENT DESIGN HAD BEEN HI-JACKED BY CREATIONIST WHO TRY TO FIT THE BIBLE INTO A SCIENTIFIC CONTEXT. I SCREAM ON THIS AS WELL META-PHYSICS(BIBLE,SCRIPTURE) AND PHYSICS ARE THE STUDIES OF TWO DIFFERNT ASPECTS OF THE WORLD. THE BIBLE IS THOROUGHLY SYMBOLIC AND UNFORTUNATELY MANY PEOPLE TAKE IT LITERALY. HISTORIANS KNOW THAT ANCIENT EGYPT OUT SHINED ANY OF IT'S CONTEMPORARY CIVILIZATIONS AND IN EGYPT SCIENCE AND RELIGION WERE ONE. WITH THIS MIND SET THEY ERE ABLE TO ACHIVE INSIGHTS CENTURIES AHEAD OF THEIR TIME.

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776. 776. HughEMC 04:02 PM 5/14/09

     I DO NOT SEE WHY EVOLUTION AND THE CONCEPT OF A "INTELLIGENT DESIGNER" ARE INCOMPATABLE. AS A FORMER ATHEIST THAT CAME TO UNDERSTAND THE DEEPER ASPECTS OF SPIRITUALITY I SEE EVOLUTION AS THE PROCESS IN WHICH AN INTELLIGENT DESIGNER IMPLEMENTED HIS/HER/IT'S DESIGN. I STRAY FROM THE WORD CREATION DUE TO THE FACT THE CONCEPT OF AN INTELLIGENT DESIGNER HAS BEEN HI-JACKED BY THOSE WHO TRY TO FORCE BIBLICAL SCRIPTURE INTO A SCIENTIFIC ARENA. THIS IS NOT MY GOAL NOR IS IT OF THE MANY BRILLIANT SCIENTIST WHO BELIEVE IN AN INTELLIGENT DESIGNER. I DO AGREE THAT THIS MATTER IS HIGHLY CONVOLUTED AND MISSUNDERSTOOD. I ALSO AGREE AND UNDERSTAND WITH MAINSTREAM SCIENCE ANXIETY ABOUT THE CONCEPT OF AN I.D. I DO NOT WISH TO SEE GENISIS BEING TAUGHT IN A SCIENCE CLASS(PHILOSOPHY,SOCIOLOGY OR METAPHYSICS YES). I NOTICED IN EXPELLED THAT EVERY SCIENTIST WHO WAS AN ATHEIST ATTACKED THE SYMBOLIC CONCEPTS OF THE BIBLE (OR RELIGION IN GENERAL) THESE ARE SYMBOLIC CONCEPTS AND SADLY MOST PEOPLE WHO ARE RELIGIOUS TAKE MANY OF THESE CONCEPTS LITERALY. I THINK THIS IS THE MAJOR STUMBLING BLOCK WHEN DEALING WITH THE CONCEPT OF AN INTELLIENT DESIGNER. SPEAKING FOR MYSELF,I AM NOT REFERING TO AN ANTHROPOMORPHIC DEITY WHEN I ALLUDE TO A "DESIGNER" WHAT I CALL THE UNIVERSAL CONSCIOUSNESSS IS SO FAR BEYOND OUR COMPREHENSION IT IS INDESCRIBABLE IN ITS TOTALITY, THUS THE ANCIENTS USED SYMBOLISM TO ILLUSTRATE THIS METAPHYSICAL CONCEPT. IN TRUTH THE CURRENT DISCOVERIES SCIENCE HAS MADE MAY CAUSE US TO REDIFINE OUR UNDERSTANDING OF GOD. AETHIST CALL TO THROW AWAY THE CONCEPT OF A SUPREME BEING. RIGHT OUR WRONG IT SEEMS WE WILL HAVE TO COME INTO A NEW UNDERSTANDING OF THE CONCEPT OF INTELLIGENT DESIGN

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777. 777. Laughing gravy 09:26 AM 5/16/09

     DesiraeRubio
     
     
     You say you wrote a "30 page thesis paper"
     
     What happened to it ?

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778. 778. Laughing gravy 09:36 AM 5/16/09

     HughEMC
     
     "I also agree and understand with mainstream science anxiety about the concept of id"
     
     I dont think science is "anxious" about the concept, just that it would like to see some evidence supporting it.
     
     
     "The idea of intelligent design had been hi-jacked by creationist who try to fit the bible into a scientific context"
     
     I think you got this the wrong way round. Creationism has been "hi-jacked" by "intelligent design"

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779. 779. Laughing gravy 10:07 AM 5/16/09

     DesiraeRubio
     
     Several times you have referred to Pildown man (among others) as a hoax
     
     Course it was, It was questioned 2 years after "discovery" and proved BY SCIENCE to be a hoax over 50 years ago
     IF it is still in the texbooks claiming it as FACT (ie.not at some point pointed out as a hoax) then this is not the fault of science or the theory of evolution (perhaps the inability of the schools system to buy up to date books, due to the unwillingess of the public to provide funding perhaps)
     
     "What I mean't by 'just one' and 'many others' was there are more discrepencies in the Theory of Evolution and the Big Bang Theory than there are evidences that support"
     
     Totally illogical statement-
     NONE of the hoaxes you identify show discrepancies in the theory since NONE are fundamental to the theory, and NONE show any part of the theory to be false.
     The BEST you could say is that they cannot be considered as evidence.
     
     "Not one does it have over any other origin theory"
     Again an illogical statement
     There are hundreds of pieces of evidence supporting the theory of evolution
     There are NO pieces of evidence that contradict it
     There are NO other SCIENTIFIC theories.
     There is NO evidence supporting ANY other explanation of evolution
     IF you assert there is evidence then please present ANY.
     Personally I have NO intension of searching for ANY unless you identify some.
     Otherwise the easy response would be - "you did not search enough"
     
     As for the big bang theory
     There are several pieces of evidence FOR the theory.
     There is NONE contrary to the theory.
     IF you wish to examine this evidence then I suggest YOU search for it - it is easily found
     

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780. 780. Laughing gravy 10:14 AM 5/16/09

     
     DesiraeRubio
     
     "What I mean't about Archaeopteryx was that it is one hole in the theory because it was proven to not be a missing link at all".
     
     May I ask - WHO did the "proving" ?
     
     Was it the "institute of creation science" by any chance ?

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781. 781. Faultline 11:48 AM 5/16/09

     I've been around this one with Rubio for a short time. I think Desirae gave up 'cause I've not heard anything for about two weeks. I tried to get across the idea that hoaxes are NOT evidence against a theory, nor are they evidence for Intelligent Design. They're just hoaxes and they don't count as evidence for anything except the fact that hoaxes exist.
     
     Oh, and I asked to see the 30 page thesis, also.
     
     Faultline

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782. 782. Laughing gravy 12:05 PM 5/16/09

     DesiraeRubio
     
     
     "I'll get your started. Look up Piltdown Man, Java Man, Neantherthal Man, Lucy and the Scopes Monkey trial. Verify that these things actually exist or that they are merely speculation. And as a bonus, look up the mathematical probablity of a Big Bang. Be ruthless though, those holes won't be easy to find, because of all the propaganda."
     
     Interesting that you identify,( and tell people to look up) , only the obvious and known frauds that anyone can find, but no others. (So the second sentence is redundant.)
     
     What would have been more interesting would have been if you had identified a currently unrecognised fraud (just one) that you have uncovered. Wonder why you didn't - That you dont know any perhaps ?
     
     Also interesting that you advise anyone to "look up the probability of the big bang."
     
     Wonder what you meant by his?
     The probability of the occurance of a big bang?
     Dont know how you would do this ? - You would have to consider factors/conditions existing BEFORE the big bang. I think a NOBEL prize awaits anyone who could do this, or could even predict what these factors/conditions would be
     
     The probability of the big bang giving rise to the universe (i.e. immediately after the big bang) ?
     However this would assume a big bang.
     As far as I know quantum mechanics+cosmology+ relativity give a pretty good prediction as to the universe (AND the areas of uncertainty are being researched as we write.) immediately after the big bang, and long after that.
     
     So I have no idea what you mean by the "probability of a big bang."
     

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783. 783. Laughing gravy 12:17 PM 5/16/09

     Hi Faultline
     
     Methinks the alleged "thesis" of DesiraeRubio is just b-s
     
     "thesis" being just their own notes, not a "thesis" as in academic thesis.
     
     I have seen many posts on many sites claiming various academic credentials (qualifications and so on )
     
     I would say that ALL the claims I have seen have been made by creationsists/id believers
     
     (I wonder why they make such claims. ?)
     
     VERY often their claims are accompanied by the dis-inclination to provide evidence . You get the "look it up for yourself" line , or the "I cant possible reveal the results of my investigation" type of evasion.
     
     Methinks they are b-s(ers)

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784. 784. Laughing gravy 01:17 PM 5/16/09

     Hi Faultline
     
     I think DesiraeRubio's true colours were revealed in earlier posts
     
     In one posts he said
     "so many things that I said that went over your poor logic driven head."
     
     In a second
     
     "But, because obviously we have some slow ones who are stubborn and hold steadfast to their precious infallable logic, maybe we should take a few steps back. "
     
     So in both he employs bigotry.
     But more importantly in the first he says " went over your poor logic driven head"
     In the second
     " we have some slow ones who are stubborn and hold steadfast to their precious infallable logic, maybe we should take a few steps back,"
     
     From these I think it very reasonable to conclude that he is not interested in a logical (scientific) approach
     
     Taking this together with a later statement in the second post.
     
     "Perhaps instead of trying to prove I.D. we should present the flaws in Darwin, evolution and the BB theory. "
     
     We can conclude that he cannot prove ID by a logical (i.e. scientific) approach, and intends to attack the "flaws" in evolution (and big bang) theory.
     
     As you say he also does not grasp (or does not care ?) that "flaws" (or frauds) do not disprove a theory, only contrary evidence can do that.
     
     But the intent is to present non-scientific dis-information (as with the film the article is about).
     (personally I would say to do so is to lie, as it is presenting mis/dis-information with the intent to deceive)
     
     
     
     

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785. 785. Laughing gravy 02:36 PM 5/17/09

     Hughemc
     
     "I DO NOT SEE WHY EVOLUTION AND THE CONCEPT OF A "INTELLIGENT DESIGNER" ARE INCOMPATABLE. "
     
     There are not inherently incompatible.
     
     Except that the former has scientific evidence to support it, and no evidence that contradicts it.
     The latter has NO scientific evidence to support it.

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786. 786. Laughing gravy 02:56 PM 5/17/09

     Hughemc
     
     "I NOTICED IN EXPELLED THAT EVERY SCIENTIST WHO WAS AN ATHEIST ATTACKED THE SYMBOLIC CONCEPTS OF THE BIBLE (OR RELIGION IN GENERAL)"
     
     The first thing to realise is that Expelled was EXTREMELY economical with the truth.
     In fact many times it lied, in that it presented several things and situations as fact that were demonstrably untrue.
     
     So the lesson is to treat ANYTHING said in Expelled with EXTREME scepticism and check it yourself.
     
     For example "EVERY SCIENTIST WHO WAS AN ATHEIST"
     How do you KNOW they were atheist, because Expelled said so ?
     Even if they were, how do YOU know this action was representative of the scientists or atheists in general? Perhaps Expelled specifically picked these scientists on the basis of their likely actions.
     
     How do you KNOW they reacted in this way.
     Did they do it by words or deeds?
     How do you KNOW the ACTUAL interview/reactions were presented correctly in the film (interviews have been edited)
     
     I dont know the answers to these questions, but you can see the problems if you DONT assume the film to be truthful.
     

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787. 787. Laughing gravy 03:11 PM 5/17/09

     Hughemc
     
     Sorry, forgot, there is an incompatibility between evolution and ID
     
     Evolution says that life evolves via natural selection , id says that each species of life is specifically designed.
     
     
     

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788. 788. Laughing gravy 06:30 PM 5/19/09

     DesiraeRubio
     
     "Because I don't claim only one discrepancie but MANY."
     
     'Course you have , just as I claim there are little green intelligent turnips with legs
     
     Go look for them, Try hard because they are very rare and extremely difficult to find.
     But I am sure you will find them if you look long enough.
     
     "People deserve to know them".
     Course they do.
     You say there are MANY, Why dont you enlighten us with just 1
     No point just repeating the obvious ones - we all know them
     Sorry - Are you talking about hoaxes or descrepancies?
     You haven't identified any discrepancy yet.- just 1 would be nice.
     Oh - I assume you know an hoax is NOT the same as a discrepancy.
     
     "I began my research believing in this theory, and the Big Bang theory I am ashamed to say. I wrote a 30 page thesis paper on the subject,"
     What happened to it? - love to read it if it's available.
     I bet you decided not to publish - too much secret info in it I'll bet?
     Best way to keep a secret only you know - Dont tell ANYONE.
     
     " I've bumped elbows with people like you. I've sat in Anthropology & biology classes, heard all you had to say on the matter. I was not impressed."
     Bet you did - expert on anthroplogy AND biology ?
     Bet you are an expert on quantum mechanics and relativity too
     Have to be to understand them all in order to reject them.
     Remarkable hearing ALL anyone had to say in classes -
     How many classes would that be and to what level.?
     
     "The theory hasn't gone anywhere since the man who proposed it walked the earth"
     Sorry I dont see how this is relevent?.
     Newtons Laws of gravity did not "go anywhere" for 250 years, but they were perfectly acceptable throughout this time, and still are (subject to certain limitations) - 350 years later.
     
     "Why not "dismantle" evolution, if it will help further our knowledge?"
     Again I dont follow any logic.
     Surely the best way to further knowledge is to present better evidence?

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789. 789. Neal T 04:10 PM 5/22/09

     Your rebuttal on point #1 was weak and Darwins other "savages" remarks clearly doesn't bring him out of the gutter on this one. More scientifically correct is the Bible which teaches that all men are of one blood. Score: God 1 Darwin 0. Darwin's serve.

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790. 790. Laughing gravy 04:50 PM 5/22/09

     Whose rebuttal of what ?

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791. 791. Neal T 05:38 PM 5/22/09

     Pardon. SciAm's #1 point of the 6 points in their article, although "points" is used lightly.

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792. 792. Laughing gravy 07:11 PM 5/22/09

     The contention of point 1 was that "Expelled quotes Charles Darwin selectively to connect his ideas to eugenics and the Holocaust"
     
     While I tend to agree that the missing text missing from the quote in para 1 does not substantially change the essence of quote. The totally completely missing text in para 2 completely changes the emphasis of para 1.
     As point 1 says para 2 shows that
     "Darwin explicitly rejected the idea of eliminating the "weak" as dehumanizing and evil. Those words falsify Expelled's argument."
     
     Aslo as the point says
     "The filmmakers had to be aware of the full Darwin passage, but they chose to quote only the sections that suited their purposes."
     
     So I doint see point 1 as being "week" at all , quite the contrary
     
     I also dont see the relevence of what the bible teaches.- "that all men are of one blood", How is this relevent to eugenics, or what Darwin said ?
     
     I think the point was well made, in that Expelled purposely did not continue the quote.
     Why? - because the remainder showed that Darwin rejected eugenics and hence the holocaust.
     
     I would say Darwin 1 Expelled 0 (whatever the bible says, it is not relevent to point 1)
     

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793. 793. Faultline in reply to Laughing gravy 10:58 AM 5/23/09

     Certainly right, LG. Selectively quoting a person is considered unethical if by doing so you create a change in the perception of the person's position on the issue. But even if Darwin never wrote the next passage that Expelled's writers omitted, it doesn't change the fact that he discovered a theory that is the cornerstone of modern biology.
     
     Linking Darwin to the Nazis and the Holocaust with imagery and coincidence is equally unethical. There's no cause-effect relationship whatsoever, but the producers of Expelled wanted to leave the viewer with just the impression that Darwin is somehow responsible for what Hitler did.
     
     On another point, it seems to me that every serious challenge brought against Evolution by Creationists is based on a loose understanding of the principles of Darwin's theory. In other words, they've read or been taught a layman's explanation of a theory that really requires some specific college biology courses (well beyond BIOLOGY 101) to truly understand. If your education on the subject of Evolution extends no farther than a high school diploma or the core requirements for a Bachelor's Degree, then you hear a preacher drum up some pseudoscience about how radiocarbon dating is all lies because it can't be used to tell the age of a snail's shell, and the Earth is only 10,000 years old because the Grand Canyon formed by an earthquake, and that cells are far too complex to form by pure random chance so they must have an intelligent designer, then you're going to have to question what was taught to you.
     
     The Creationists are there with more pseudoscience, ready to replace real science in the heads of children. That's why they want to pass all of these "Academic Freedom" bills in high schools at the state level. If a science teacher believes that Evolution is Godless lies, that science teacher will have the legal right to bring up Intelligent Design and Young-Earth Creationism.
     
     To a child who has not been taught these subjects, the opposing side will seem equal. At the grade school level, everything is taught in layman's terms. How are our children going to know that one is real science and the other is tripe by people who feel their religion is threatened?
     
     Faultline - END OF RANT

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794. 794. Neal T 10:01 AM 5/26/09

     Darwin was scientifically wrong in calling some humans "savages" and viewing them as being less evolved. This myth has been debunked and is not a small mistake on the part of Darwin. It is a huge observational blunder. He was not just a little wrong or slightly mistaken, it was a gross error in observation that did that stand up to the evidence.
     
     On the other hand, the Bible makes no such error as Darwin has, but states the scientifically accurate view that all nations and tribes equal.

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795. 795. Laughing gravy 01:38 PM 5/26/09

     Neal T
     
     "Darwin was scientifically wrong in calling some humans "savages" and viewing them as being less evolved. "
     "savages" and "civilised men" is a social not an evolutionary distinction, so the term has nothing to do with evolution or science.
     
     (After all, were not the native americans refered to as "savages" by early settlers.)
     
     The remainder of your post is irrelevent as it is based on your error, not Darwin's
     
     Except for this gem
     "On the other hand, the Bible makes no such error as Darwin has, but states the scientifically accurate view that all nations and tribes equal"
     
     Wrong again
     "nations" are political, "tribes" social, divisions
     The bible does not state that either are equal.
     Neither were/are relevent to Darwin or evolution.
     
     "scientifically accurate view that all nations and tribes equal"
     You really must learn something about science if you think science says this.
     
     

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796. 796. Neal T in reply to Laughing gravy 03:59 PM 5/26/09

     LG, let me be clear. Here is a quote from Darwin's book , The Descent of Man, chapter VI...
     
     "At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break will then be rendered wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as at present between the negro or Australian and the gorilla."
     
     Darwin is scientically inaccurate in his view of the negro and Austrailian Aborigines, whom he places somewhere between the Caucasian and the gorilla rather than equal to the Caucasian. It is convenient for Darwin that he is, of course, a Caucasian.
     
     Darwin could get away with such statements in his day, because racism was popular. If a professor said something like this today, he probably would be forced to resign. What was said, was said, and on this point, Darwin is stuck in the gutter and can't be resusitated.
     
     The Bible doesn't make a biological distinction of higher and lower "races" within mankind. We are all descended from one man according to the Bible. This has been genetically proven and is scientifically accurate.
     
     The bottom line is that Darwin got it wrong about the Negroes and Austrialian Aborigines and the Bible got it right.

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797. 797. Laughing gravy 06:44 PM 5/26/09

     Neal T
     
     "Darwin could get away with such statements in his day, because racism was popular."
     
     Darwin did not "get away with such statements". Also racism was not "popular" as you say
     
     It was the the common belief in his day, that races WERE different.
     
     It was HIS theories that started the questioning of this belief.
     
     After all, even though the declaration of independence states that all men were created equal, no-one believed it, (otherwise whyt did slavery continue unquestioned), (president Lincoln only brought in emancipation 1/2 way through the civil war, and that was only for southern slaves.)
     Even after all this it took decades up to the 60s civil rights movement and later to obtain equality for all.
     So for all this time the caucasion white majority did not believe that all men were created equal.
     
     Darwin was no more "in the gutter" than the rest of "civilised" races. especially not the USA at that time.
     
     We are all descended from one man according to the Bible.This has been genetically proven and is scientifically accurate.
     You are making a false conclusion.
     Whether or not we descended for one man does not mean that one man was the origin of man
     At the time when the man lived there could have been millions of men alive. However that one man may have had some particular characteristic that gave his descendents a survival advantage. Over time his descedents tended to survive, descendents of other men tended to die (or have fewer children?). Eventually only his descendents survived. This could have taken many generations, but eventually all humans could be traced back to this one man (or woman).
     It is perfectly possible that
     a) Generations of man could have man lived before this one man
     b) There could have been millions of men living at the same time as this man
     Therefore it is a false conclusion that this was the first man. (ie.as in the bible)
     
     The bottom line is that Darwin got it wrong ................... and the Bible got it right.
     
     Sorry - Wrong again - You made a false conclusion.

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798. 798. Laughing gravy 07:25 PM 5/26/09

     Neal T
     
     Sorry I forgot to add this bit
     
     It was the the common belief in his day, that races WERE different.
     
     NO-ONE in Darwin's time (except perhaps Mendel) was aware that people with such differences as between say caucasian and negro, or negro and oriental, could be "equal" genetically.
     

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799. 799. Neal T in reply to Laughing gravy 10:16 PM 5/26/09

     LG .... You say, "It was the the common belief in his day, that races WERE different....Darwin was no more "in the gutter" than the rest of "civilised" races. especially not the USA at that time" .
     
     I agree with you on that point, but there were some people even then that fought against racism. Darwin was not one of them.
     
     Opposite Darwin's and society's racist concepts stands the Bible, saying that all men are of one blood. Darwin saw the "races" in different stages of evolution. This has been proven wrong.
     
     You give alternate reasons of how man could be descended from one man, but there is still nothing to discount the Biblical account that mankind could have began with one man and one woman. So the Bible's account still stands, and Darwin's concept of races with various stages of evolution has been disproved scientifically.
     
     Yes, much of society was in the gutter with Darwin on this, but that doesn't change the clear teaching of the Bible that all men are of one blood.
     
     

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800. 800. Faultline in reply to Neal T 11:28 PM 5/26/09

     There is nothing to SUPPORT the idea that the entire population of Homo Sapiens originated from one man and one woman, so why do you reach that conclusion? Do you conclude it simply because there is no evidence against it? That's perhaps the biggest logical fallacy.
     
     I can't prove that rouge clowns stole my car battery, so therefore they must have done it because my car won't start.
     
     I call this "Total Logic Disconnect."
     
     The lack of negative evidence does not equate to supporting evidence.
     
     And yes, since no one could test DNA 150 years ago like forensic scientists can today, no one knew that skin color and ethnicity were literally miniscule points of difference in the genetic code of human beings. This error does not invalidate Darwin's theory. The theory has grown to enormous depth and scope since he started it.
     
     No one claims Darwin was perfect and right on everything he ever said, but he still did all the work that led to the Theory of Evolution. Trust me, there are more errors and direct contradictions in the Bible than in Darwin's writings.
     
     And how could one man and one woman (with no other humans around) populate the entire planet? I know that you believe the Bible holds the answers, but the Holy Book is lacking in a description of where everyone else came from following Exodus and this is a scientific discussion.
     
     If you take all your answers from faith, then anything is possible and there is no need for science at all.

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801. 801. Neal T in reply to Faultline 12:43 AM 5/27/09

     Faultline, it is true that genetics does point mankind back to one common ancester of man. Darwin was wrong.
     
     You say that "no one claims Darwin was perfect or right on everything he said". That's being very kind to a man that relegated a significant population of mankind to a sub level. H
     
     No one knew that skin color was miniscule? The Bible does not make it a point of consideration or importance.
     
     You want me to "trust you" that there are more errors in the Bible than in Darwin's writings? Show me specifically where in the Bible? I want to talk about one point at a time and see whether Darwin or the Bible comes out ahead.
     
     As far as how one man and one woman could cause the human population to fill the planet is a matter of basic reproduction.
     
     
     

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802. 802. Faultline in reply to Neal T 11:23 AM 5/27/09

     NealT
     
     Genetics is the study of genes. Evolution is the study of Evolution of species. Darwin did say that all humans had a common ancestor species, not a single pair of humans that existed alone with no other humans around. Genetics does not show this to be true that there were only two members of the human species that existed alone with no other humans around that gave rise to the entire species of Homo Sapiens.
     
     Anyway, it seems that you're trying to say that the Bible is superior to the teaching of Darwin's theory by pointing out where the Bible is right on the origin of humans and where Darwin is wrong. Is this what you are trying to state?
     
     

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803. 803. Neal T in reply to Faultline 12:21 PM 5/27/09

     Faultline, I wanted to stress that Darwin was in error about rating "negroes" and aborigines into a subpar category alongside gorillas. Fortunately science has brought forth so much evidence against such nonsense that if Darwin were to say that today he would have his buttons ripped off and be kick out of academia.
     
     When a scientist goes so far as to teach the inequality of another man, he has crossed the line into the perverse. Darwin crossed this line and he certainly does not merit a pass on this one.
     
     Genetics has proven that all of mankind shares a common homo sapien ancestor. I did not say that it proves the Biblical account of Adam and Eve, but neither does genetics rule out that possibility either. What it does definitely rule out is Darwin's concept of rating "negroes" and aborigines into a subpar category alongside gorillas.
     
     Yes, I believe the Bible is correct about human origins and Darwin is wrong. Please tell me, after 150 years of fossil searching, what is the direct ancestor of homo sapians according to evolutionists?

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804. 804. Laughing gravy 03:18 PM 5/27/09

     Neal T
     
     "I wanted to stress that Darwin was in error about rating "negroes" and aborigines into a subpar category alongside gorillas. "
     Since he did not do this then he wasn't in error.
     
     He identified that at some future time the gap ("break") between species would widen as between man "in a more advanced conditions (he hoped) than caucasian and "some ape as low as a baboon"
     instead of as today between negro/aboriginal and gorilla
     
     Nowhere does he identify a sub category, or rate negro/aborigines alongside gorillas, or compare caucasian, negro or aborigines.
     
     So I would say several of your following points are based on false assumptions.
     
     " Fortunately science has brought forth so much evidence against such nonsense that if Darwin were to say that today he would have his buttons ripped off and be kick out of academia. "
     Even if your premise were true (which it isnt) it wouldn't invalidate his theory. In fact that would be quite a problem as the evidence would originate from his theory. Invalidate his theory - the evidence evaporates.
     
     "I did not say that it proves the Biblical account of Adam and Eve, but neither does genetics rule out that possibility either. "
     If you wish to present the bible as an alternative theory as to the origins of man, the universe, whatever, then sorry- the starting point is to present evidence of the origins
     If you wish to use genetics then by all means present genetic evidence from adam and eve.
     
     "Please tell me, after 150 years of fossil searching, what is the direct ancestor of homo sapians according to evolutionists?"
     What are you asking - the fossil or the ancestor reference
     (Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.)
     
     " it is true that genetics does point mankind back to one common ancester of man.
     Darwin was wrong."
     How so ?
     
     "Darwin was not one of them."
     I think Darwin contributed more than most as his theory of evolution removed the foundations of racism.
     
     " Darwin saw the "races" in different stages of evolution. "
     Evolution does not have "stages" ie. implying a later species is more advanced that its predecessor.
     At any point in time a species may exist in many many "variants" each with different genetic differences (attributes)
     In the theory it is perfectly possible that a "variant" with a "higher" attributes may die out but one with "lesser" attributes survive.
     (e.g. one may have substantially better eyesight compared to another but have poorer hearing/sense of smell, However in a jungle it is hearing/sense of smell that is important not eyesight)
     It is the one with the best attributes for the specific environment that will tend to survive.
     So there is no such thing as "higher" or "lesser" attributes. The only important attributes are those which enable a particular "species" to survive preferentially to another.
     
     As it was Darwin who had formulated this theory I would assume he knew something about it.
     I would also assume he would know that even though there are several "races" on earth each "race" MIGHT have different attributes ( I dont think he would have been aware that there MIGHT be genetic differences).
     He would have no reason to suppose any "race" were "higher" or "lesser" than another, as HIS theory does not have a "higher" or "lesser" species. The only relevence in HIS theory is which one tends to survive, and the only factor in this is the suitability of each "race's" attribute in the environment..
     
     He would have NO reason to suppose which would tend to survive if left to purely environmental changes. However caucasion man as he said is perceived as more "civilised" and as a consequence can develop more resources to exterminate the "savage" races. This is a political/social factor not an environmental factor.
     
     "So the Bible's account still stands,
     Stands as what ?
     neither the bible nor you have given any evidence
     
     "and Darwin's concept of races with various stages of evolution has been disproved scientifically.
     I dont think Darwin had any concept of "stages" as this is contrary to his own theory."
     All science can show are genetic difference.
     Only time will tell the significance of these differences.
     The problem is that at present the "civilised" caucasion society is having a far greater impact on the environment and far quicker than would happen naturally. Again only time will tell what impact this will have on species survival.

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805. 805. Laughing gravy 04:22 PM 5/27/09

     Neal T
     
     "Yes, I believe the Bible is correct about human origins and Darwin is wrong. "
     Please tell me what evidence do you have after 150 years of fossil searching,that adam or eve actually existed

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806. 806. Laughing gravy 05:01 PM 5/27/09

     Neal T
     
     In an earlier post you quoted a passage from Darwin's "Descent of Man"
     However this was exactly what the authors of the article accused Expelled of doing - i.e selective quoting.
     
     In his summary Darwin said
     "Through the means just specified, aided perhaps by others as yet undiscovered, man has been raised to his present state. But since he attained to the rank of manhood, he has diverged into distinct races, or as they may be more appropriately called sub-species. Some of these, for instance the Negro and European, are so distinct that, if specimens had been brought to a naturalist without any further information, they would undoubtedly have been considered by him as good and true species. Nevertheless all the races agree in so many unimportant details of structure and in so many mental peculiarities, that these can be accounted for only through inheritance from a common progenitor; and a progenitor thus characterised would probably have deserved to rank as man."
     
     Here he consistently refers to "man" i.e. he does not distinguish "races", and does not state or imply any race to be "higher" or "lower" than any other.
     In fact quite the contrary.
     
     So I would say you have done as the authors accused Expelled in point 1
     

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807. 807. Faultline in reply to Neal T 10:10 PM 5/27/09

     NealT
     
     First, even if Darwin was a Nazi, a Cannibal, a Serial Killer, or anything else along the lines of vile and perverse, the Theory of Evolution stands apart from him and cannot be invalidated by any behavior or attitudes he had. His position as a sinner or a saint is irrelevant to the study of Evolution.
     
     Second, let's assume you are right in saying that "Genetics has proven that all of mankind shares a common homo sapien ancestor."
     
     What does this mean to you? I need to know what point you are trying to make. Is this in some way intended to disprove Evolution?
     

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808. 808. Neal T in reply to Laughing gravy 12:14 AM 5/28/09

     There is as much fossil evidence of Adam and Eve as there is for the supposed direct evolutionary ancestor of homo sapiens. Fossils do not come with birth certificates.
     
     Mitochondrial and Y-chromosomal DNA markers trace homo sapiens back to one man and one woman.

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809. 809. Neal T in reply to Faultline 12:33 AM 5/28/09

     Faultline,
     
     Darwin could have avoided his inept comments about blacks, aborigines, women and the handicapped if he had remembered the teachings of his Bible from his youth.
     
     Do I believe that random mutation, HGT, natural selection, and common descent explain the origin of life and man? ...no.
     
     

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810. 810. Faultline in reply to Neal T 04:22 AM 5/28/09

     Darwin's stance on race is irrelevant. Forget Darwin. You're too hung up on him anyway. Just what science do you use to support your version of how species originated?
     
     Oh, and you can't get DNA from fossils, so the study of genetics has little to do with the study of paleontology. Rocks have no DNA.

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811. 811. Laughing gravy 01:13 PM 5/28/09

     Neal T
     There is as much fossil evidence of Adam and Eve as there is for the supposed direct evolutionary ancestor of homo sapiens.
     
     There is ZERO evidence for adam and eve (fossil or any other evidence)
     There is fossil evidence for the evolution of man.
     So I would say you are somewhat in error.
     
     Mitochondrial and Y-chromosomal DNA markers trace homo sapiens back to one man and one woman.
     
     I assume by this you are trying to imply that this one man and one woman were adam and eve
     
     Firstly there is ZERO evidence that the man or woman lived at the same time. NO DNA can prove WHEN a creature lived.
     
     Secondly so far NO DNA has yet been recovered from a fossil- therefore the man and woman could ONLY only have lived millions of years AFTER dinosaurs died out, (if they were adam and eve it would blow somewhat of a hole in the biblical account). (I think it reasonable to assume that if they had lived at the same time then they too would have been fossilised, (or do you claim something unique about them)).
     
     Thirdly.
     Whether or not we are descended from 1 man or 1 woman PROVES NOTHING.
     I have already demonstrated how other men/women could have lived before, at the same time, or after the man or woman, but the descendents of these gradually died out,(by natural selection or natural disasters), leaving only descedents of this man and woman.
     So men and women could have lived before and at the same time as the man+woman of the dna trail.
     
     The DNA trail proves nothing as regards the man or woman being the first man+woman , i.e. adam+eve
     
     You are also straying from the points made in the article as regards the lies+misinformation+misrepresentation in the film Expelled

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812. 812. Neal T in reply to Laughing gravy 04:27 PM 5/28/09

     LG
     
     Before moving forward with your more recent comments, I need to give reply to an older comment regarding a summary of Darwin from the Descent of Man....
     
     from your quote of Darwin he almost seems to rise from the gutter... 50% was nonsense instead of 100%, so he does better here. He mentions sub-species and "probably haved deserved to rank as a man".... he's pretty sure, but can't decide for sure.
     
     It's as if you can glimpse Darwins hands grasping for the rim of the gutter to pull himself out, only to fall back into it with a flourish of boloney as he ends the Descent of Man in Chapter 21...
     
     "Both sexes ought to refrain from marriage if they are in
     any marked degree inferior in body or mind; but such hopes are Utopian and will never be even partially realised until the laws of inheritance are thoroughly known. Everyone does good service, who aids towards this end. When the principles of breeding and inheritance are better understood, we shall not hear ignorant members of our legislature rejecting with scorn a plan for ascertaining whether or not consanguineous marriages are injurious to man."
     
     He continues...
     
     "On the other hand, as Mr. Galton has remarked, if the
     prudent avoid marriage, whilst the reckless marry, the inferior members tend to supplant the better members of society. Man, like every other animal, has no doubt advanced to his present high condition through a struggle for existence consequent on his rapid multiplication; and if he is to advance still higher, it is to be feared that he must remain subject to a severe struggle. Otherwise he would sink into indolence, and the more gifted men would not be more successful in the battle of life than the less gifted. Hence
     our natural rate of increase, though leading to many and obvious evils, must not be greatly diminished by any means. There should be open competition for all men; and the most able should not be prevented by laws or customs from succeeding best and rearing the largest number of offspring."
     
     Can someone say eugenics?
     
     Regardless of what ones opinion of evolution, Darwin's words do indeed give a nod to eugenics.
     
     Shall I continue on with what he thought of women?
     

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813. 813. Laughing gravy 04:54 PM 5/28/09

     Dis you not read it
     
     "probably haved deserved to rank as a man".
     
     This referred to the progenitor of man , not a a sub-species
     
     
     ... he's pretty sure, but can't decide for sure.
     
     Course he couldnt -At the time of writing he would have no idea what actual characteristic the progenitor would have had
     

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814. 814. Laughing gravy 05:37 PM 5/28/09

     Neal T
     
     "It's as if you can glimpse Darwins hands grasping for the rim of the gutter to pull himself out, only to fall back into it with a flourish of boloney as he ends the Descent of Man in Chapter 21.".
     
     So you start with a quote attempting to show Darwin as racist.
     I show that your claim is false
     Now to change to another tack to try to link him to eugenics.
     
     I would say its as if you are grasping at straws
     
     Both paragraphs are the results implied by his theory of evolution whether Darwin liked it or not.
     (But you cant reject a theory because you dont like its implications.)
     
     I think it is clear Darwin rejected eugenics in the omitted quote referred to in point 1 of the article
     AND whether you or like it or not eugenics is social/political intervention in evolution (i.e UN-NATURAL SELECTION), It has NOTHING to do with evolution BY NATURAL SELECTION)
     
     In the last sentence of the second paragraph you quote he said
     "There should be open competition for all men; and the most able should not be prevented by laws or customs from succeeding best and rearing the largest number of offspring."
     I would say this implies he believed the complete opposite of eugenics, and that evolution BY NATURAL SELECTION should be allowed to continue unfettered "by laws or custom".
     
     "Shall I continue on with what he thought of women?"
     Continue where you will.
     Do you now wish to say he was sexist?
     
     You dont grasp it do you ?
     IT IS IRRELEVANT WHAT BELIEFS DARWIN HAD
     NONE HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH HIS THEORY OF EVOLUTION
     HIS THEORY STANDS OR FALLS BY EVIDENCE ALONE - NOT BY WHAT HE BELIEVED.

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815. 815. Laughing gravy 05:52 PM 5/28/09

     Neal T
     
     "if he had remembered the teachings of his Bible from his youth"
     Somewhat presumptious.
     You are presuming that he did not read the bible - perhaps he read it many times but didn't believe it.
     You are also implying that if he had read the bible he would not have pursued his observations concluding in his theory. Perhaps he did read it, but his disbelief triggered him to investigate further and he came up with his theory.
     

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816. 816. Neal T in reply to Laughing gravy 06:29 PM 5/28/09

     "But since he attained to the rank of manhood, he has diverged into distinct races, or as they may be more appropriately called sub-species"
     
     Easy English paraphrase: Man has evolved into different sub-species.
     
     From my previous quotes of Darwin at the end of the Descent of Man....
     
     "Both sexes ought to refrain from marriage if they are in
     any marked degree inferior in body or mind;"
     
     Easy English paraphrase of Darwin... If I(Darwin) think you are unfit mentally or physically, do us all a favor and don't have any babies.
     
     Darwin again...
     "...if he is to advance still higher, it is to be feared that he must remain subject to a severe struggle. Otherwise he would sink into indolence, and the more gifted men would not be more successful in the battle of life than the less gifted. Hence
     our natural rate of increase, though leading to many and obvious evils, must not be greatly diminished by any means. There should be open competition for all men; and the most able should not be prevented by laws or customs from succeeding best and rearing the largest number of offspring."
     
     
     His meaning becomes shockingly clear when one reads slowly and thinks about what he is really saying here. Within the last chapter of the descent of man are the seeds of eugenics. His friends and followers were more overt in their excitement to help the "most able" to, shall we say, succeed.

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817. 817. Laughing gravy 08:34 PM 5/28/09

     You still on the same subject ?
     
     Again you have ignored the "missing" paragraph quoted in point 1 of the article
     This clearly shows that Darwin rejected eugenics.
     
     Read it as slowly as you need to. You can read into his writings whatever you want, but what you think he "really" said is not the same as what he ACTUALLY said.
     
     Firstly
     In the sentence I referred to he wrote says that the "most able" should not be PREVENTED from succeeding, by law or custom.
     
     Suddenly this becomes "His friends and followers were more overt in their excitement to HELP the "most able" to, shall we say, succeed."
     I must say you have a creative imagination to get from "preventing" to "helping"
     
     "If I(Darwin) think you are unfit mentally or physically, do us all a favor and don't have any babies."
     So you think this is a paraphrase.
     I think not - Nowhere does Darwin say who should judge.
     You also imply 2 other conditions which Darwin doesn't
     So you are not even close to a paraphrase.
     
     one more thing -
     I dont think Darwin's theory became mainstream thinking until well after the Descent of man was published. So I dont think at the time of this book was written he had many followers, friends maybe, but not followers.
     
     Lastly
     You can rant on as much as you like about Darwin's beliefs/morals, whatever you like
     You can claim he was a million times worse that hitler+stalin+pol pot put together if you want.
     ALL OF IT IS IRRELEVENT TO HIS THEORY.
     NONE OF IT HAS HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH HIS THEORY OF EVOLUTION
     HIS THEORY STANDS OR FALLS BY EVIDENCE ALONE - NOT BY WHAT HE BELIEVED,DID, OR HIS MORALS.
     DOES ANY OF IT DETRACT FROM HIS EVIDENCE+OBSERVATIONS+CONCLUSIONS - NO
     DOES ANY OF IT DETRACT FROM EVIDENCE PRODUCED SINCE - NO
     
     

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818. 818. Neal T in reply to Laughing gravy 09:27 PM 5/28/09

     LG
     
     You missed my meaning of Darwin remembering his Bible. I meant it literally, because he did study for the ministry for awhile. He did read the Bible! Had he remembered what it said and believed it, he would not have made such inept statements about his fellow human beings. It was his loss.
     
     Here's Darwin on women...
     . . . a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up, than can women—whether requiring deep thought, reason, or imagination, or merely the use of the senses and hands. If two lists were made of the most eminent men and women in poetry, painting, sculpture, music (inclusive of both composition and performance), history, science, and philosophy, with half-a-dozen names under each subject, the two lists would not bear comparison. We may also infer, from the law of the deviation from averages, so well illustrated by Mr. Galton, in his work on "Hereditary Genius" that . . . the average of mental power in man must be above that of women (Darwin, 1896:564).
     
     Darwin did not separate his male superiority complex from his theory, but rather he incorporated it into his natural anti-sexual selection teachings of his theory and it influenced other scientists until years past and his philosphy was debunked by scientific evidence. Darwin rejected the teaching of the Bible that both men and women were created in the image of God. No where in the Bible are women said to be mentally inferior.
     
     God 2, Darwin 0. Darwin's serve.
     
     

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819. 819. Neal T in reply to Laughing gravy 09:35 PM 5/28/09

     "Both sexes ought to refrain from marriage if they are in any marked degree inferior in body or mind" - Descent of Man Chapter 21.
     
     LG ---- you agree with this?

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820. 820. Faultline in reply to Laughing gravy 09:42 PM 5/28/09

     Laughing gravy said: "Lastly
     You can rant on as much as you like about Darwin's beliefs/morals, whatever you like
     You can claim he was a million times worse that hitler+stalin+pol pot put together if you want.
     ALL OF IT IS IRRELEVENT TO HIS THEORY.
     NONE OF IT HAS HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH HIS THEORY OF EVOLUTION
     HIS THEORY STANDS OR FALLS BY EVIDENCE ALONE - NOT BY WHAT HE BELIEVED,DID, OR HIS MORALS.
     DOES ANY OF IT DETRACT FROM HIS EVIDENCE+OBSERVATIONS+CONCLUSIONS - NO
     DOES ANY OF IT DETRACT FROM EVIDENCE PRODUCED SINCE - NO"
     
     I'm agreeing with flags waving in the air. Let's get off the subject of Darwin's character and social beliefs. It has no bearing on Evolution whatsoever. Attacking Darwin's character in order to call his ideas wrong is called the "Ad Hominem" logical fallacy. A personal attack on Darwin's character, even if successful, does not mean Evolution is wrong.
     
     Get off Darwin. It's pointless.
     

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821. 821. Neal T in reply to Faultline 10:52 PM 5/28/09

     LG and Faultline,
     
     I'm agreeable to change the subject, but keep in mind that we have been discussing Darwin mostly in the context of his book,the Descent of Man, and he's the one that weaved his theory into talking about the inferior not marrying. Today, some want to separate the theory of evolution from some of Darwins' obviously wacky ideas.
     
     From what I have read of Darwin, I don't believe he would have approved of what Hitler did, but his cousin Sir Francis Galton who formulated the term eugenics, drawed upon the work of Darwin (whom Darwin quotes in one of my previous comments). Eugenics was supported by many prominent politians in America and England, until it's most extreme follower, Adolf Hitler, gave it a reputation that no one wanted to touch anymore.
     
     Thomas Huxley one of the first and most prominent promoter of Darwinian Evolution said, "No rational man, cognizant of the facts, believes that the average Negro (sic) is the equal, still less the superior, of the white man. " (Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews, 1871)
     
     

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822. 822. Neal T 11:17 PM 5/28/09

     
     
     To me it appears that many evolutionists ridicule the Bible. My remarks are meant to turn the table and show that in regard to understanding the unity of genetic unity of mankind and of men and women, the Bible got it right and early Darwinists were proved wrong. A good theory is supposed to make accurate predictions and in this regard alone Darwinists missed the mark. Calling women and blacks inferior, encouraging "inferior" people to not marry is hardly a little wrong, it's a whopper, and it was done in the name of evolution!

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823. 823. Faultline in reply to Neal T 08:56 AM 5/29/09

     Do we really want to start comparing? Do you really not know what has been done in the name of Christianity? Because of the Spanish Inquisition, should we throw out all of Catholicism? Hitler wasn't the only one that persecuted Jews.
     
     Of course there have been some nutballs that have done strange things in the name of science. This, like any opinion you have of Darwin's character or his so-called 'whacky' ideas, have nothing to do with Evolution. The theory is still scientifically sound.
     
     Faultline

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824. 824. Neal T in reply to Faultline 09:52 AM 5/29/09

     The July 23, 1904, Scientific American reported concerning "pygmies":
     
     They are small, ape-like, elfish creatures . . . they live in absolute savagery, and while they exhibit many ape-like features in their bodies, they possess a certain alertness which appears to make them more intelligent than other Negroes . . . the existence of the pygmies is of the rudest; they do not practice agriculture, and keep no domestic animals. They live by means of hunting and snaring, eking this out by means of thieving from the big Negroes, on the outskirts of whose tribes they usually establish their little colonies, though they are as unstable as water, and range far and wide through the forests. They have seemingly become acquainted with metal only through contact with superior beings.
     
     
     The theory of evolution lead Darwinists to reach wrong conclusions regarding the superiority and inferiority of the races of men. A good theory is supposed to lead to accurate prodictions. The tragedy of Ota Benga and what was done to him is directly linked to early evolutionary scientists based on their false assumptions.
     
     Sure, abuses happened in the Catholic church, but Jesus and his disciples and their disciples for generations after him did not advocate and teach that Christians should kill or torture. The Catholic church, in fact, forsook Biblical teaching and this is what lead to the Spanish Inquistion, etc and eventually to the Protestant Reformation which desired to return to the roots of Christianity and the Bible.
     
     The tragedy of the African "Pygmies" is directly linked to the early writings of Darwinists and the conclusions they drew from their theory. If Darwinist's were wrong in their assessment of living people, what credibility do they have when making assumptions about the fossil record?

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825. 825. Faultline in reply to Neal T 02:05 PM 5/29/09

     The Theory of Evolution is still the best theory for explaining the diversity of life on Earth. In fact, it is the only theory for explaining the diversity of life on Earth. Just because some people took the name of science wrongly and filtered into it their own prejudices doesn't mean the theory is wrong.
     
     The Bible is the best guide for spirituality among Christians. In fact, it is the only guide for spirituality among Christians. Just because some people did horrifying things in the name of religion doesn't mean the Bible is wrong.
     
     Now can we get off this subject? I'm tired of explaining it to you and I can't put it any more clear.
     

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826. 826. Neal T in reply to Faultline 03:26 PM 5/29/09

     Faultline,
     
     I wonder if Scientific American ever apologized for their slanderous publication about the "pygmies". Perhaps they have more at stake in keeping the lid on Ben Stein than an innocent bystandard, or maybe they feel like they have to overcompensate for the sins of their SCI AM forebearers by putting a happy face on early Darwinists. It would make for interesting research. But we must move on...
     
     Anyway, I will continue forward, but since the word "evolution" encompasses many concepts small and large, I will attempt to be more specific and use terms such as common descent, natural selection, random mutation, and HGT.
     
     Asking if someone believes in evolution is like asking them if they believe in money. Yes, money can do many things, but it can't do everything that people think it can sometimes. Money can buy a house, but it can't make a happy home. Money can delight someone with a present, but it can't buy genuine love.
     
     May I ask where you stand on evolution? Are you totally materialistic all the way back to the "big bang", or do you believe that God played a role at some point and if so explain.

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827. 827. Matthew B. in reply to richardmumolo 06:56 PM 5/31/09

     Thanks for pointing out this simple and obvious fact.

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828. 828. Matthew B. in reply to Dr. Cosmic 07:02 PM 5/31/09

     ID proponents don't throw out the baby with the bath water so to speak . Micro-evolution is not being denied, and in some cases neither is Macro-evolution. Rather ID is arguing for the possibility that design is guiding much of natural selection and change within species. It is seeking to improve, and add to the theory of evolution just as Einstein did with Newtonian physics.

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829. 829. Matthew B. in reply to rooseveltdecosta 07:05 PM 5/31/09

     Rooseveltdecosta, be careful before you fling names and labels around that are not accurate. Ben Stein is a Jew, others her interviewed who were ID proponents were also Jews, some non-practicing, and others were agnostics. I think you are painting things black and white, when they are not.

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830. 830. Faultline in reply to Matthew B. 10:10 AM 6/7/09

     Matthew, the trouble is that ID has no baby, no bathwater, and not even a bathtub! There is nothing to support it scientifically. If you know of some positive evidence (and evidence against Evolution does not count as evidence FOR Intelligent Design) then tell me where I can find it.
     
     Faultline

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831. 831. Laughing gravy 11:32 AM 6/14/09

     Neal T
     
     "Are you totally materialistic all the way back to the "big bang",
     No - are you?
     
     "or do you believe that God played a role at some point and if so explain"
     No - do you?

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832. 832. Laughing gravy 11:39 AM 6/14/09

     matthew b
     
     "It is seeking to improve, and add to the theory of evolution just as Einstein did with Newtonian physics."
     
     No it isn't - There is a complete dichotomy between id and the theory of evolution by natural selection.
     
     Id is a religion that is seeking to create pseudo scientific credentials for itself in order that it can be taught in schools preferentially to other religions.
     
     

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833. 833. Laughing gravy 07:43 PM 6/15/09

     Matthew B
     
     ".. ID is arguing for the possibility that design is guiding much of natural selection and change within species"
     
     ID does a lot of arguing but it does not present any evidence as to ANY of the following :-
     1) that anything was in fact designed (not that it "appears as if" or that "it looks as though")
     2) HOW it was designed
     3)WHO designed it.
     4) WHEN it was designed.
     
     Michael Behe's position is (from the Dover trial)
     It looks as if it was designed
     From this he infers that there was a designer.
     From this he infers that the designer must have had the ability to carry out the design
     This is the TOTAL basis of ID according to M Behe.

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834. 834. eyecoin 02:29 PM 7/3/09

     Scientific American itself is guilty of the conveniently leaving out another important paragraph after Ben Stein's quote.
     At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla. The Descent of Man (1871) p.201

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835. 835. eyecoin in reply to girl athee 02:31 PM 7/3/09

     I am quite impressed that you "havent seen this "movie" and not planning to." But somehow you KNOW that: "This "Expelled" movie really is a very lousy attempt to monetary gains..." You can write movie reviews before movies even come out and save us all time and money.

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836. 836. eyecoin 02:38 PM 7/3/09

     In reference to a Scientific American article called “The Samaritan Paradox”, Dr Carl Percival stated: “They point out that there is no reason for someone like Mother Theresa to exist. She is not very reproductively fit, she left no offspring, and she takes care of people who do not have anything in common with her DNA.” He points out that from an evolutionary point of view, Altruism should not be true, but we have people like Mother Theresa."
     

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837. 837. yvonne9903 11:35 PM 7/3/09

     Some very evil men did God-awful things to other human beings, because they believed the Jews and Gypsies to be genetically inferior. But, just because evil people did evil things, that DOES NOT mean that evolution doesn't exist! The two have nothing in common except for the Nazi's twisted reasoning, and it appears that Ben Stein is following that twisted reasoning as well. Are we to take from this that if anyone, ever, does something evil because of something they read or heard, that thing does not exist?

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838. 838. Faultline in reply to eyecoin 08:50 AM 7/7/09

     Altruism does not equate to celibacy. What makes you think that the two go hand in hand?
     
     Altruism is a social survival trait. It grows from the same pack mentality that wolves have through instinct. It is better to hunt in groups because it improves the survival of the species. As humans evolved more complex social structures such as families, tribes, settlements, and governments, more advanced versions of the pack instinct began to evolve.
     
     Mother Theresa exhibits an extreme version of a social trait that helps the species survive. When pointing out examples for a massive group like Homo Sapiens, it does little good to highlight an extreme case because she is, by definition of the word extreme, not typical. Many other normal examples of altruism exist in people for whom offspring ARE produced and are never famous like Mother Theresa.
     
     Any population will exhibit a range of traits from one member to the next. Mother Theresa is NOT a typical member of the species, otherwise birthrates would plummet.
     
     Faultline
     
     

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839. 839. reasonwins in reply to jmarbas 11:50 AM 7/23/09

     jmarbas great post! It's all about controlling the masses which means controlling the information available to the masses. I thank God every day for the scientists, doctors, engineers, the U.S. Founding Fathers, and others who have helped us build and organize the human race and keep us on the path of curiosity and continous improvement in the development of knowledge. I understand why some religions resent this and want to stop it, much like the Taliban want to stop the spread of education and free speech, but, I will stand for freedom, free speech (for all), and curiosity until my dying breath.

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840. 840. tetrapig 02:27 PM 8/8/09

     Ben Stein has long been a tireless self-promoter who never misses an opportunity to profit while pushing an extreme conservative agenda. If he were as brilliant and well-educated as he would have you believe, he would not be so ignorant of basic science, or so willing to fly in its face for a generous pay-off from people like the Discovery Institute. Now that he's been fired by the New York Times, we can expect endless tirades about his freedom of expression being trampled by the liberal elites, etc etc. He should stick to appearing in films that appeal to teen-age males. He was actually pretty good at that.

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841. 841. tetrapig 02:29 PM 8/8/09

     Ben Stein has long been a tireless self-promoter who never misses an opportunity to profit while pushing an extreme conservative agenda. If he were as brilliant and well-educated as he would have you believe, he would not be so ignorant of basic science, or so willing to fly in its face for a generous pay-off from people like the Discovery Institute. Now that he's been fired by the New York Times, we can expect endless tirades about his freedom of expression being trampled by the liberal elites, etc etc. He should stick to appearing in films that appeal to teen-age males. He was actually pretty good at that.

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842. 842. shaman 05:28 PM 8/9/09

     It is true that scientists have often been dogmatic and elitist. It is true that we have often allowed the white-coated, advertising image to represent us"Scientists say that Brand X cures bunions ten times faster than&" We have not fought it adequately because we derive benefits from appearing as a new priesthood. It is also true that faceless and bureaucratic state power intrudes more and more into our lives and removes choices that should belong to individuals and communities&
     But most of all I am saddened by a trend I am just beginning to discern among my colleagues. I sense that some now wish to mute the healthy debate about theory that has brought new life to evolutionary biology. It provides grist for creationist mills, they say, even if only by distortion. Perhaps we should lie low and rally around the flag of strict Darwinism, at least for the momenta kind of old-time religion on our part.
     But we should borrow another metaphor and recognize that we too have to tread a straight and narrow path, surrounded by roads to perdition. For if we ever begin to suppress our search to understand nature, to quench our own intellectual excitement in a misguided effort to present a united front where it does not and should not exist, then we are truly lost.---Stephen J. Gould
     

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843. 843. shaman in reply to shaman 05:38 PM 8/9/09

     there are masses of people who are completely ignorant of evolutionary biology and physical science and accept by nothing other than pure faith that life began in a singular event when a lightening bolt struck a mud puddle, or at the bottom of the sea near an ocean vent. Such people are no more sophisticated than a Christian who never questions the existence of God and doesn’t read the scriptures. The enlightened man knows that all of physics is reliant upon meta-physics, and reason alone does not lead to wisdom.
     
     Evolutionary biologists do not know how life began. We don't understand how an electron behaves the way it does with so little mass. On a macroscopic level, there is not enough mass in the universe to account for how the celestial bodies behave. So, we invent fictional substances like 'dark matter' and fantastical things like the Higg's Boson to balance our faulty equations. The math doesn't add up, brothers and sisters. That's why Einstein believed in a benevolent creator god.

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844. 844. Laughing gravy 11:55 AM 8/24/09

     "The enlightened man knows that all of physics is reliant upon meta-physics, "
     
     Meta-physics deals with that which physics cannot.
     To say that either "relies" on the other is a contradiction.
     
     They are complementary and independent.
     
     
     
     
     
     "That's why Einstein believed in a benevolent creator god"
     
     No he didn't
     
     Get your facts straight

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845. 845. Laughing gravy 12:16 PM 8/24/09

     "So, we invent fictional substances like 'dark matter' "
     
     "dark matter" is neither "invented" nor "fictional" - it is just matter that cannot be seen
     (Who knows how many stars exist that we cannot see or detect, not to mention planets.)
     
     However its existence can be deduced by its effect on visible matter.
     Just like some planets/planetary moons in the solar system were deduced from their effect on neighbouring planets/moons, long before they were "seen",
     
     "and fantastical things like the Higg's Boson to balance our faulty equations."
     
     The Higgs boson is a prediction from the maths, not an invention.
     
     Should it be proved NOT not to exist (which would be extremely difficult, as you cant prove a negative) then this would show that our concept of matter is wrong
     

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846. 846. shaman 01:04 PM 8/24/09

     "The most beautiful and most profound experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms - this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness."
     ( Albert Einstein - The Merging of Spirit and Science)
     
     okay, maybe the 'benevolent creator God' statement was a little overdone. However, I stand by my other comments. The claim for the existence of the Higg's Boson is a statement of faith. So is the claim for the existence of dark matter. You could just as easily say that the math predicts the existence of the Supernatural. That was the final conclusion of Blaise Pascal, who developed probability theory, discovered the vacuum, and mastered Euclidian geometry by the age of 12.

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847. 847. shaman 01:04 PM 8/24/09

     "The most beautiful and most profound experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms - this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness."
     ( Albert Einstein - The Merging of Spirit and Science)
     
     okay, maybe the 'benevolent creator God' statement was a little overdone. However, I stand by my other comments. The claim for the existence of the Higg's Boson is a statement of faith. So is the claim for the existence of dark matter. You could just as easily say that the math predicts the existence of the Supernatural. That was the final conclusion of Blaise Pascal, who developed probability theory, discovered the vacuum, and mastered Euclidian geometry by the age of 12.

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848. 848. shaman 01:10 PM 8/24/09

     Self-ordered criticality (discovered by researchers in 1987) describes a sort of spontaneity in nature. This has been adopted as a way of explaining how complexity arises in nature. Species need neither an environmental carrot stick, nor a whip in order to break from allopatric homogenization of the gene pool. A species can 'spontaneously' enter a rapid phase transition into an entirely new species, without environmental cause.
     But, the theologian has always known about self-ordered criticality. He has chosen to describe it as miracle, and a wheel within a larger wheel of God-ordered criticality.

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849. 849. Laughing gravy 11:06 AM 8/25/09

     SOC was not "discovered", it is a concept which was "invented"
     
     And DOES NOT describe any "sort of spontaneity" (implying instantaneous changes)- so you are spreading misinformation
     
     
     "But, the theologian has always known about self-ordered criticality. He has chosen to describe it as miracle"
     Theologians claim many things but NO-ONE has ACTUAL evidence of any miracles.
     You are also following the footsteps of many before. Make vague references to unsubstantiated events. Along comes a scientific theory that has vague connections to your reference and low and behold "we knew of it long ago",
     
     "The claim for the existence of the Higg's Boson is a statement of faith."
     
     Misinformation again
     
     Don't you get it - The Higgs Boson is a prediction
     
     If it is found then it exists and the theories are correct,
     Not finding it does not prove anything, but will continue to be a question mark against the theory
     If it is PROVED NOT TO EXIST then the theories are incorrect.
     NO-ONE claims or states that it exists as a fact.
     
     "So is the claim for the existence of dark matter. "
     This is stupid.
     I see a distant star "wobble" about a point.
     Conclusion - there is another unobserved planet/star nearby exerting a gravitational pull on the visible star
     Not faith but maths and observation.
     
     
     "You could just as easily say that the math predicts the existence of the Supernatural"
     I could "say" maths predicts many things - Proving it is another matter.
     
     "That was the final conclusion of Blaise Pascal"
     So what ?
     Again - saying it is one thing - proving it is another.
     
     
     Ps.
     Very good quote - I would say this proves Einstein believed in science above all else.

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850. 850. shaman 12:07 PM 8/25/09

     “In 1987, Per Bak, Chao Tang and Kurt Wiesenfeld published a paper in Physical Review Letters[30] describing for the first time self-organized criticality (SOC), considered to be one of the mechanisms by which complexity arises in nature. Although not always welcomed (at least initially) by specialists in the subjects examined, SOC has nevertheless become established as a strong candidate for explaining a number of natural phenomena, including: earthquakes (which, long before SOC was discovered, were known as a source of scale-invariant behaviour such as the Gutenberg–Richter law describing the statistical distribution of earthquake sizes, and the Omori law[31] describing the frequency of aftershocks); solar flares; fluctuations in economic systems such as financial markets (references to SOC are common in econophysics); landscape formation; forest fires; landslides; epidemics; and biological evolution (where SOC has been invoked, for example, as the dynamical mechanism behind the theory of "punctuated equilibria" put forward by Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould).”---Wikipedia

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851. 851. shaman 12:19 PM 8/25/09

     here is Gould making a general point which is communicated in the Ben Stein movie:
     
     “It is true that scientists have often been dogmatic and elitist. It is true that we have often allowed the white-coated, advertising image to represent us—"Scientists say that Brand X cures bunions ten times faster than…"
     We have not fought it adequately because we derive benefits from appearing as a new priesthood. It is also true that faceless and bureaucratic state power intrudes more and more into our lives and removes choices that should belong to individuals and communities…
     But most of all I am saddened by a trend I am just beginning to discern among my colleagues. I sense that some now wish to mute the healthy debate about theory that has brought new life to evolutionary biology. It provides grist for creationist mills, they say, even if only by distortion. Perhaps we should lie low and rally around the flag of strict Darwinism, at least for the moment—a kind of old-time religion on our part.
     But we should borrow another metaphor and recognize that we too have to tread a straight and narrow path, surrounded by roads to perdition. For if we ever begin to suppress our search to understand nature, to quench our own intellectual excitement in a misguided effort to present a united front where it does not and should not exist, then we are truly lost.”---Stephen J. Gould
     
     Last week scientists found that the human appendix is not a vestige of evolution, as Darwinian scholars have long claimed. The further down the road we go, the more Darwinian assumptions are disproved. The Stanley Miller experiment has been discredited, long held assumptions about natural selection are challenged, our understanding of cellular biology has completely changed from the simplistic model of Darwin to the confounding discoveries of 2009, etc.., the closer theology and science come together. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God". Now we know that living instructions are delivered in words using the 4 letter alphabet of G, A, T and C.

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852. 852. shaman 12:37 PM 8/25/09

     I guess I'd already posted that Gould quote, oops.
     
     Anyway, Gould agrees with me ( and Ben Stein)that science is becoming increasingly institutionalized (much like the Church of the Middle Ages), and tends to perpetuate an old time kind of religion, with tenured, published professors as the new priesthood.
     
     Here is the latest old time religious apologetic from AOL News (August 24);
     "We're not saying that Darwin's idea of evolution is wrong — that would be absurd, as we're using his ideas on evolution to do this work," Parker told LiveScience. "It's just that Darwin simply didn't have the information we have now."
     He added, "If Darwin had been aware of the species that have an appendix attached to a large cecum, and if he had known about the widespread nature of the appendix, he probably would not have thought of the appendix as a vestige of evolution."
     
     Gravy, would you say that 150+ years of erroneous linking of the human appendix with Darwinian assumptions has been a case of spreading disinformation?
     

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853. 853. shaman 06:37 PM 8/25/09

     I don't pretend to be a scientist. Like I said, I'm a theologian. But, I can tell you with certainty that the Hegelian model has been dead for a long time (reason alone will bring about human progress). That's the whole point of the Ben Stein movie.
     
     Mathematics is a somewhat abstract way of describing living systems. You could say that I'm 5'11" tall and weigh 175 lbs.. You could describe me further by measuring my blood pressure, and so forth, but you'll never come to a very complete understanding of who I am through mathematics. And then, from a standpoint of pure physics, you realize that the separation of myself from the rest of the universe is an arbitrary choice made by the observer.
     
     So, from my perspective, science is an attempt to explain a piece of an indivisible whole. Reason and imagination are important, but so is faith. And, the fact of the matter is that there are gaping holes in our physics equations, which is why we 'predict' such things as Higg's Bosons (30 years of looking with no evidence so far) and Dark Matter. And, we now try to explain things using the very narrow discipline of chaos theory. If you think I am 'stupid' for attempting to integrate multiple perspectives, then I say you are somewhat unscientific and overly emotional in clinging to your narrow view of life on earth.

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854. 854. Laughing gravy 09:15 AM 8/26/09

     "And, the fact of the matter is that there are gaping holes in our physics equations, "
     
     If you mean unanswered questions then yes there are "holes" in science, but so what?
     This is the essense of science - for every question answered 2+ new questions arise.
     
     The ancient greeks believed that matter consisted of 5 elements.
     Scientists disproved them by finding new elements.
     Mendeleeve "invented" the periodic table and "discovered" similarities between adjacent elements in the table.
     From this he identified "holes" in the table which implied as yet unknown elements, and from the position of the "holes", "predicted" the characteristics of the missing elements.
     Low and behold over time the "missing" elements were found and the "holes" plugged.
     AND the characteristics of the elements matched his "predictions"
     
     19th century scientists believed the atom was the smallest particle, until other scientists showed this was not the case.
     So a new question arose.What did the atom consist of ?
     This was a "hole" in science until the electron etc were found.
     So science progressed
     SCIENCE PROGRESSES BY ATTEMPTING TO ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS and PLUGGING THE HOLES..
     
     "which is why we 'predict' such things as Higg's Bosons (30 years of looking with no evidence so far)
     
     30 years of looking (for the Higgs boson I assume)?
     The particle is impossible to find by just "looking" for it, you have to try to create it under controlled circumstances , hence the LHC.
     According to the "science", the energy required to create and techniques to detect the particle have only been available to science over the past 10 years., AND it takes several years to build suitable equipment for research.
     So I dont know where you get the "30 years of looking" from.
     
     Dark matter is more than a prediction
     
     Effects gravitational effects have been seen which, under current scientific understanding, can only be explained by substantal amounts of additional matter,
     This has been termed Dark matter.
     IF you wish to explain the phenomena by alternative scientific theories, which do not require additional matter, then go ahead, and I wish you well.
     
     "And, we now try to explain things using the very narrow discipline of chaos theory."
     The explanation of things via theories is the essence of science.
     Theories which give better explanations than previously is the progress of science.
     
     "then I say you are somewhat unscientific and overly emotional in clinging to your narrow view of life on earth. "
     
     Now you are being somewhat presumptuous
     I have no particular view of life on earth, except that the current theories of science give the best explanations.
     IF you believe you have better ones then by all means submit them like all other theories.
     So far you certainly have not presented an alternative scientific view of anything, including life.
     A view - yes,
     a scientific view - no
     
     The further down the road we go, the more Darwinian assumptions are disproved. The Stanley Miller experiment has been discredited"
     NOW I call you stupid
     
     1) The Stanley Miller experiment HAS NOT BEEN discredited. In fact similar experiments have been carried out with improved results.
     
     - So this is a lie
     
     2) The assumptions made by Darwin are IRRELEVENT. -
     
     You are presenting the classic creationist ploy - discredit the scientist = discredit his theory
     THIS IS STUPID - Acceptance of a theory is based on the evidence and consideration of assumptions - once accepted then the originator is IRRELEVENT.
     THousands of scientists have carried out research since Darwin.
     NONE have found evidence that contradicts his theory.
     
     
     You earlier stated that you were "attempting to integrate multiple perspectives"
     NO YOU ARE NOT.
     You are presenting science and scientific theories as static, non-evolving, entities. THEY ARE NOT.
     
     So your statment was a lie.
     
     "Gravy, would you say that 150+ years of erroneous linking of the human appendix with Darwinian assumptions has been a case of spreading disinformation?"
     
     You dont get science do you ?
     All through time scientists make assumptions. At the time they may seem perfectly reasonable. Up to mid 17th century many believed the sun revolved around the earth.
     Their assumptions fromed part of their theories.
     The question at the time was - did ANY observations, at ANY TIME disagree with their theory ?
     IF yes and new theories explained the observations better then the old theory was rejected
     To date, over the past 150 years NO observation has contradicted Darwins theory.
     
     The origin of the appendix is, and always was, IRRELENT to the theory.
     
     P.S.
     Why do you assume the latest finding re the appendix to be absolute, when you question previous evidence.
     Perhaps in a few years time new evidence will emerge that shows the appendix IS an evolutionary organ.
     THIS IS THE ESSENCE OF SCIENCE - IT EVOLVES
     

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855. 855. shaman 11:43 AM 8/26/09

     Hegels believed that scientific reason would slowly and methodically bring about a unified theory of everything. At the time, Newtonian physics and Darwin's assumptions about biology were very simplistic and easily explained as everything fit together neatly and the universe seemed very well behaved. So, the view that every answered question in science brings about 2 new questions is a new one, brought about by the revelation of so many unexpected answers.
     
     As to the Higg's boson, I don't see any math pointing to anything, but maybe you can help me out. I understand how the observation of a wobbling celestial body can 'point' to an unseen cause, predicting something that we can't see. But, the electron doesn't behave as expected or predicted according to our assumptions. With so little mass, the electron shouldn't be held in orbit and should fly away and all of matter should disintegrate, based on our understanding of physics. So, its seems logical to me that our understanding of physics is bogus. Maybe that's what is predicted, rather than the Higg's boson.
     
     The Stanley Miller Experiment has been discredited;
     Two competing theories have emerged instead. The discovery of microbes and other small organisms living in and around hydrothermal vents - underwater hot springs boiling from the ocean floor - has led to the idea that life may have started at the bottom of the sea. Sharp differences in temperature and oxygen concentration at the boundaries around these vents make good catalysts for chemical reactions, Kasting said. "The problem with this theory is that the complex organic compounds likely to form life cannot remain stable for long at such high temperatures." Amino acids, instead of joining up, would tend to break down.
     
     The other scenario has life first coalescing in the frigid climes of outer space - specifically, within the cold dark hearts of interstellar dust clouds. "Long, complex organic molecules can be made when ionizing radiation leads to ion-molecule reactions," Kasting explained. "The intense cold prevents them from breaking down." In this so-called "seeding from space" model, these complex molecules are brought to Earth by incoming meteorites and comets. The weak link here is that most of a meteor is vaporized on impact with our atmosphere. "The survival potential for organisms is low. They get pyrolized: Burned to a crisp."--- (Astrobiology Magazine)
     
     

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856. 856. shaman 12:00 PM 8/26/09

     The Ben Stein movie was flawed, and I agree with many of the criticisms listed here on Scientific American. But, I thought it was hilarious when Richard Dawkins (author of the God Delusion and a leading evolutionary theorist) proposed that the most likely genesis of life on earth was a seeding from a super-intelligent race of aliens. Kooky.
     
     Science and Religion are both evolving. I believe science is evolving more slowly, as scientific research is more reliant on sanction and funding.
     
     My point about the Stanley Miller Experiment and the new revelations about the human appendix are to point out that these false assumptions have been promoted in our education system. After the Stanley Miller Experiment, the headlines read, "Life in a test tube". And, I learned in biology class that the appendix was a vestigial organ, thereby supporting a certain false understanding of evolution. I call that misinformation. I won't go as far as you, Gravy, and throw around the word, "Lie". But, I'd like to hear from you, in this very impractical forum for discussion, how you believe that the Stanley Miller Experiment is not discredited.
     

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857. 857. Laughing gravy 02:51 PM 8/26/09

     Sorry
     you are putting the cart before the horse
     
     You said the Miller experiment has been discredited.
     Presenting alternate ideas does not discredit anything
     So in what way was it discredited.
     
     You are also misrepresenting scientific knowledge
     
     You said
     "Newtonian physics and Darwin's assumptions about biology were very simplistic and easily explained as everything fit together neatly and the universe seemed very well behaved. "
     
     Yes we regard them as such NOW. (hindsite is a wonderful thing)
     BUT Newton physics and Darwin gave the best explanations at the time.
     
     Newton physics still gives accurate predictions of gravitation and motion at sub light speeds.
     It is only an near light speed that Einsteins theory becomes more applicable.
     Einsteins theories also become less applicable at the sub-atomic level where quantum mechanics takes over.
     Now string theory takes over at the "sub-particle" level
     
     It is only as more accurate measurements,techniques, and engineering have become available has the shortcoming of each theory become apparent and new theories evolved.
     At any point in time the aim of science is to produce the best theory it can.
     
     Will any theory hold for all time ? Almost certainly not.
     
     At the time when you were taught biology it was believed that the appendix WAS a vestigial organ, so it was not mis-information, it was the best information available.
     
     It is ONLY now that this has been questioned.
     
     Science can only give you the best knowledge available at the time.
     This is true for ALL science.
     As I have said perhaps in the future it may be proved that the appendix IS a vestigial organ
     Who knows
     
     Many things have been refuted by science but are still in school text books. This is a problem, but it is a problem of funding science books where the science changes more rapidly that say history or geography.
     
     You mentioned the electron
     (Are you aware of the particle/wave duality of the electron. I may be wrong but as far as I know no-one has explained this duality)
     You say the electron "doesn't behave as expected or predicted according to our assumptions. With so little mass, the electron shouldn't be held in orbit and should fly away and all of matter should disintegrate "
     1) I dont see the relevence of its mass on its orbit (technically it is not an orbit, as the electron only exists as a probability function)
     2) Why should matter disintegrate if an atom were to lose its electrons. (Loss of electrons would allow nuclei to become denser - eg neutron stars.)
     3) In what way does it not behave as predicted or expected
     

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858. 858. Laughing gravy 07:37 PM 8/26/09

     "After the Stanley Miller Experiment, the headlines read, "Life in a test tube"."
     
     Such statements are a problem of the press and the ignorance of the public.
     
     The sad fact is that the general public has an attention span which has been decreasing over many years.
     In response the press (or media) present easily "understood" headlines to grab their attention.
     I personally have been present at several interviews (not mine) where the reports have borne very little relation to the original. (I read one report and was not aware that I had actually been present at the interview until advised later, the report was so different from my recollection).
     
     They then follow with easily "understood" stories which the public can understand.
     Unfortunately the true science behind the story is lost in the process.
     (Who in the public knows more of Einsteins theory than e=mc^2, and I would bet a large proportion do not even know what this means and certainly not its implications. Quantum and string theories - no chance)
     
     I am sometimes astounded by the level of ignorance of even basic science.

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859. 859. shaman 03:50 AM 8/27/09

     horse before cart:
     "Shortly after the Miller-Urey experiment was published, however, geologists came up with new findings on Earth's volcanic emissions - and threw the old reasoning for a loop. "What comes out of volcanoes is not methane and ammonia," Kasting said, "but about 80 percent water vapor, 15 to 20 percent carbon dioxide, and traces of carbon monoxide and molecular hydrogen." James C. G. Walker, one of Kasting's graduate advisers at the University of Michigan during the 1970s, took these emissions data and balanced them against the rate at which hydrogen would be expected to escape from a planet with Earth's gravity. ("He did all this stuff on the back of an envelope," Kasting said.) What Walker came up with was a much different picture of Earth's early atmosphere: an oxygen-rich mix of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and water vapor.
     
     The catch is that oxygen, although an absolute necessity for multicellular, advanced life, is poison to pre-biotic synthesis. Do a Miller-Urey experiment in an oxygen-rich atmosphere, Kasting said, and "you don't form things like amino acids. There are too many oxygen atoms in there." So, over the years, "enthusiasm for the warm little pond theory has waned.""--Reflections from a warm little pond (Astrobiology magazine)
     
     The Miller-Urey experiment gave rise to the warm little pond theory, which has fallen out of favor (a nice way of saying discredited), though there still remain some hangers on. The new alternative theories have their own fatal flaws, as previously mentioned. And then, even if the problems with these theories were resolved, there are still the astronomical odds stacked against an accidental assemblage of life's basic building blocks, hence the Star Trek alien seeding theory.
     
     Forgive me if I choose none of the above as the best theory going.

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860. 860. shaman 04:31 AM 8/27/09

     Gravy, you point out the unworthiness of my hasty layman's description of the Higg's issue. But, it still seems to me that theorists are plugging up the holes of a flawed theoretical model, rather than there been any trustworthy math equation pointing to the existence of a Higg's field, or a Higg's boson. Those who have spent billions on particle accelerator facilities will bristle at my skepticism. But, until you can identify what is pointing to what, or why the Higg's field is 'predicted' by math, I'll chalk up your claims to statements of faith.
     
     I don't think the problem here is with the limitations of the laboratory/facility. Scientists often claim that the answers will come with an upgrade in technical apparatus. Theologians claim that the answers will come when the person himself is properly oriented.
     
     "Does the Higgs particle exist? What are the implications if it does not?"--Unresolved problems in physics, Wiki

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861. 861. Laughing gravy 01:41 PM 8/27/09

     The miller experiment was carried out in 1952 assuming a specific atmosphere
     
     After completion 5 amino acids were found
     
     (All this is in Wikipedia)
     However the original solution produced by the experiment was re-examined in 2008 and 22 amino acids were found.
     
     Further evidence indicates that the earlier atmosphere was more condusive to the production of amino acids. (so the early atmospeher is likely to have produced even more amino acids)
     
     I would say the experiment succesfully showed that it is very likely the early earth atmosphere would have produced the first building blocks of lfe.
     
     The experiment was aimed at investigating if these building blocks could have been produced in the atmosphere.
     So I would say that the experiment showed this to be true.
     
     Creationists try to discredit the results of the experiment by claiming that because the experiment produced a mixture of L and D type acids where L type ppredominates in nature then the experiment is invalid.
     
     This is at least misinformation (personally I call it a lie)
     
     Creationists are requiring the first life to have the same requirements (as regards amino acids) to current life, They are completely ignoring that, starting again, it may evolve completely differently from what we see now. The fact that NOW L type amino acids predominate is not particularly relevent. Perhaps the early "soup" produced a mixture of creatures with either L or D type acids., but the D type died off as a result of evolution.,. Who knows?
     
     Wikipedia also says
     "later experiments have confirmed disproportionate amounts of L or D oriented enantiomers are possible"
     
     I call it a lie as creationist have no excuse for demanding that the experiment MUST produce a "soup" containing only L type acids and that life MUST start with L type acids. The fact that TODAY the L type predominates is IRRELEVENT.
     
     (They are also ignoring the fact that is it possible that L type acids did predominate the early "soup" - this verified experimentaly)
     
     The conclusion is that the miller experiment veried that the first building blocks of life COULD have been (in fact probably were) produced on early earth, and these could have been predominantly L type acids.
     
     Does this prove the start of life on earth - No , but it is the first stepping stone.
     
     Also according to Wikipedia
     "The Murchison meteorite that fell near Murchison, Victoria, Australia in 1969 was found to contain over 90 different amino acids, nineteen of which are found in Earth life"
     
     So I would say that it would be incorrect to say that life could not have been introduced to the earth via meteors, and perhaps Richard Dawkins is correct.
     
     Hydrogen
     "The escape of hydrogen from Earth's atmosphere into space may have occurred at only one percent of the rate previously believed based on revised estimates of the upper atmosphere's temperature"
     - research 2005
     
     Oxygen
     Presence of oxygen could be taken as evidence of photosynthesis - i.e life had begun
     i.e. Life started before appearance of oxygen
     
     "The catch is that oxygen, although an absolute necessity for multicellular, advanced life, is poison to pre-biotic synthesis"
     You are doing the same as creationists - You are presuming that life MUST have had oxygen to start.
     Can plants live without oxygen - I am not sure?
     
     You follow the creationist argument again
     " And then, even if the problems with these theories were resolved, there are still the astronomical odds stacked against an accidental assemblage of life's basic building blocks"
     
     You presume first life was complex, and then calculate odds against the complex life.
     Who says original life was complex ? Creationists
     Who says simple life evolved to complex life - Evolutionists.
     
     
     P.s I dont think anyone has yet defined exactly WHAT constitutes life., but creationists ASSUME it must have been complex
     
     P.S - There must always be a best theory, whether you believe it or not is up to you
     

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862. 862. Laughing gravy 03:34 PM 8/27/09

     
     For the higgs boson
     
     Sorry I am not an expert on particle physics/quantum mechanics etc
     The maths is far beyond me
     
     However my understanding is that there is a question in physics
     
     Where does the mass of fundamental particles come from?
     
     A theory was proposed that answered the question.
     
     The theory assumed the existence of a particle (the higgs boson)
     
     From this assumption there is loads of maths that prove (- Assuming the particle exists, with the characteristics assigned to it ) - where the mass comes from.
     
     So we have what you might call a reverse prediction.
     
     Particles have mass - If the theory and the maths are correct then this implies (predicts?) the existence of the assumed particle
     
     (Personally I assume the maths is correct as this has been examined by experts.)
     
     Now going forward - Finding the particle would lock the theory+ maths together as correct, and would answer the question - Where does mass come from ?
     
     If the particle is not found then the theory remains in limbo
     
     (According to the scientists evidence for the particle should have been found within say 2-3 years. If it is not found within this time it will be presumed not to exist)
     
     IF the particle is shown not to exist (i.e if not found with say 3 years) then this will show the theory to be incorrect, and the question will remain unanswered.
     
     However if you read wiki you will see that finding just a single Higgs particle will raise more questions as it would lead to further problem.
     There are, lets say "enhanced" theories which suggest 5 Higgs particles, each with different weights which would resolve these problems better.
     
     There is a simialr problem with Einsteins theory - His theory says the velocity of light is constant. However there are some paradoxes observed in the universe (I cant remember what they are) . However I have read an hypothesis which suggests that the velocity of light in the early universe was not constant. This hypothesis would resolve these paradoxes.
     (At temperatures VERY close to absolute zero the velocity of light can become VERY slow c.20mph, Also at this temperature liquids can flow uphill?)

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863. 863. Laughing gravy 04:04 PM 8/27/09

     You raised the probability of life arising due to evolution
     
     Have you ever examined the probability of life arising from an act of creation?
     
     The following is just to give some idea as to the probability, and the blatant misdirection of creationists
     
     Since we have no evidence of the existence of a creator, no evidence as to how the creator created life., then what would be the probability factors for these?- Personally I have no idea
     
     Now lets examine the probability of life arising
     
     According to creationists life was complex
     
     So the first question is
     
     Was the first creature created instantaneously or did it take a period of time.?
     
     (if instantaneously then this violated the 1st+2nd laws of thermodynamics + Einsteins theory of relativity+ Heisenbergs uncertainty principle (I think))
     
     In this case I would say the probability is zero.
     
     If over a period of time -
     That means the creature was "assembled"
     When did life actually begin, at the beginning of the process, at the end, or some time in between.
     If life started at the beginning, what kept the creature alive - after all it must have been missing some parts as it was not fully "assembled"
     If it started at the end, What actually started life in the creature.
     In all cases what held the organs of the creature together until it was fully "assembled"
     
     The second question
     
     Where did the material for the creature come from?
     ie. was it assembled from scratch (i.e atoms) or from biochemcal compounds.
     If biochemical compounds - where did these come from?
     
     This is the first life (by definition) so the material must have been non-life.
     According to creationists life cannot come from non- life.
     So how do we answer this paradox.?
     
     Creationists answer all these questions by saying that the creator (notice the assumption of the existence of a creator) had the ability to do whatever it wanted when creating life.
     
     Since creationists have presented ANY evidence as to any of their claims then scientifically we must assume zero probability for any of their assertions
     
     Therefore I would have to conclude there is ZERO probability of life starting as a result of creation.
     

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864. 864. Laughing gravy 05:52 PM 8/27/09

     re Higgs boson
     
     A quote from Richard Higgs
     
     "The fascinating thing is that the theory mentioned above together with the Higgs mechanism (the mechanism as to how the particle acquires "mass" from the higgs boson) is incredibly successful. It has been tested against experiments at extreme conditions for the last 30 years in particle physics experiments and it describes reality with an almost unbelievable precision. However, we have never seen a Higgs boson"
     
     Just a note - No-one will "see" the higgs boson itself (according to the theory it will decay after c.10^-22s) .What will be seen (if it is found) will be the decay products
     
     (You may believe him to be truthful or not in his comments)

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865. 865. shaman 12:34 AM 8/28/09

     "The catch is that oxygen, although an absolute necessity for multicellular, advanced life, is poison to pre-biotic synthesis. Do a Miller-Urey experiment in an oxygen-rich atmosphere, Kasting said, and "you don't form things like amino acids. There are too many oxygen atoms in there." So, over the years, "enthusiasm for the warm little pond theory has waned.""--Jim Kastings
     Kastings is not a Creationist.
     "Although many scientists have been doggedly pursuing the various attributes necessary for a habitable planet...one name stands out in the scientific literature: James Kasting"--Rare Earth
     
     Here is another non-Creationist naysayer about the warm little pond theory;
     "Scientists have learned, from studying the Moon, that Earth's surface was far too hostile to support "warm little ponds" stable enough for life to form unless life began frequently—and very rapidly—between impacts, or was delivered to another world for safe keeping. It appears as if sterilizing impacts forced life's origin to sites deep underground or underwater."--John Armstrong (Earth Science)
     
     I'm siding with Kastings and Armstrong. But, we can have a scientific difference of opinion of the warm little pond theory. Personally, I think it is antiquated.
     
     Creationists believe in God, and they refute the assumption that life began by accident. But, I don't believe that life was complex in its beginnings. Of course, recognizable life began with virus and bacteria. The center stage featured the trilobites, and so on to flowering plants and eventually man.
     
     Here is an interesting stat..
     42 percent of scientists ages 18-34 say that they believe in God.
     28 percent of scientists 65 and older who say this.
     ---Pew research center
     
     I happen to be a Catholic. This year, Archbishop Ravasi said, “Maybe we should abandon the idea of issuing apologies as if history was a court eternally in session,” he said, adding that Darwin’s theories were “never condemned by the Catholic Church nor was his book ever banned”. "the Church accepts that theistic evolution is compatible with her teachings on Creation. The Church has no official teaching on evolution."
     
     Copernicus was a priest. Gregor Mendel was a monk, and pioneered genetics. Darwin himself believed in God, though not as enthusiastically as his wife.
     
     

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866. 866. shaman 12:48 AM 8/28/09

     "There must always be a best theory..."
     
     Currently, I'm excited about a theory written up by Elisabeth Sahtouris in an article called Living Systems in Evolution. You can google it if you want to read the whole thing. I'm sure you'll hate it, Gravy, since you believe that Self-Organized Criticality is invented by the mobs of raving Creationists who are out to get you and spread lies. But, in case anyone else is interested, here is an excerpt;
     
     "western science is changing very rapidly now, toward an understanding of nature as alive, self-organizing, intelligent, conscious or sentient and participatory at all levels from subatomic particles and molecules to entire living planets, galaxies and the whole Cosmos, from local human consciousness to Cosmic Consciousness.
     
     Evolution from the perspective of linear time displays cycles that ever move upward, reflecting the complex spiraling paths of planets and stars and galaxies. Each cycle begins with some form of unity dividing into diversity, leading it to conflict, which then moves into negotiations and resolution in a higher level of co-operative unity.
     
     and;
     "This growing body of evidence suggests that evolution may proceed much faster under stress than was thought possible. It also reveals how the worldwide web of DNA information exchange invented by ancient bacteria still functions today, not only among bacteria as always, but also within multicelled creatures and among species. As Lynn Margulis puts it: “Evolution is no linear family tree, but change in the single multidimensional being that has grown to cover the entire surface of Earth.”
     
     My co-author Willis Harman once said, “If consciousness is anywhere in the universe, it must be everywhere.” The easiest way to understand this is to see that consciousness is a fundamental property of the source of all being, as more and more physicists believe it to be. This consciousness is a vital dimension of being, more fundamental than energy or matter."

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867. 867. shaman 01:08 AM 8/28/09

     So What?
     
     Yesterday I heard something on the radio about some researchers in Oregon who have been inserting mitochondrial DNA into monkey eggs. It takes 5 years or so to implant the egg and wait for gestation, birth and development of the genetically altered monkey before getting valuable data for medical research. So, becoming impatient, they want to try this on humans, which would permanently introduce new DNA into the human gene pool (if the altered humans are not infertile).
     
     We're headed for eugenics again, which is the main caution of Expelled, the Ben Stein movie. Science has no mechanism for developing any system of ethics. We are one choice away from nuclear holocaust, another concern.
     
     One thing that the ancient Greeks believed, which still holds true today, is that hubris leads to disaster. So, I really have to wonder about people who say something to the effect of "Science is the best way to understand life on earth". No, science is a way of explaining empirical data and in its application, to develop technology. But, if that's all you've got, then you're lost. Science can lead us back to the stone age just as easily as it can aid in human progress.

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868. 868. Laughing gravy 09:30 AM 8/28/09

     I think you are missing the point
     
     The question science it attempting to answer is
     
     How did life (assuming evolution is correct) originate ?
     
     The miller experiment showed that , given a suitable atmosphere, then the very first basic requirements for life (as we know it) could come about naturally
     
     Does the experiment show that life originated this way --- NO
     This does not answer the question, but was the first very small step towards an answer
     BUT it is the first step to showing that life COULD have started this way.
     
     NO-ONE will ever know with 100% certainty what the atmosphere was on early earth
     I am 100% certain that scientists will argue for a very long time as the the probable atmosphere. BUT IT WILL NEVER BE CERTAIN
     
     If science ever shows all the steps as to how life could have originated on earth (by whatever scenario) , does this PROVE life originated this way ?--- NO
     
     To a very large agree with your last post.
     As at present I believe science gives the best explanation of the universe as we see it., then as a consequence I think that tampering with DNA (in both animals and plants) is an extremely dangerous thing to do. You mentioned experimenting with DNA with an attempt at control. This is bad enough. But an even more worrying scenario is that manipulating dna is open to criminals/terrorists. Even if they do not have the technology now, I have no doubt that if they desire then it will be bought - Money talks
     
     You say
     "So, I really have to wonder about people who say something to the effect of "Science is the best way to understand life on earth". No, science is a way of explaining empirical data and in its application, to develop technology. But, if that's all you've got, then you're lost. Science can lead us back to the stone age just as easily as it can aid in human progress. "
     
     I think you are missing the point again.
     Science is a methodology. (I would say that this is all it is)
     The problem is that, once the power of the methodology was established (centuries ago), the cat was out of the bag. It was open to everyone to explore whatever they chose, following the methodology. Once it was known by everyone then it could not be put back in the bag.
     Following the methodology new knowledge became available, and the availability of books allowed the knowledge to be spread worldwide.
     The problem is - When the knowledge is acquired no-one knows where it will lead, whether it be beneficial or detrimental to man.
     (The Chinese invented gunpowder to make better fireworks for displays. They did not conceive at the time that it could be used for weapons)
     
     However I disagree that Science can lead us back to the stone age, or forward.
     Man will lead us back to the stone age, or forward. Science will be his tool.

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869. 869. Laughing gravy 10:15 AM 8/28/09

     "since you believe that Self-Organized Criticality is invented by the mobs of raving Creationists who are out to get you and spread lies. "
     
     Very presumptuous - did I touch a nerve?
     
     On what basis do you think I believe SOC was invented by creationists ?
     Creationists are certainly not out to get me, but they do spread lies
     (by lies I mean to spread misinformation knowing it to be untrue/incorrect/wrong.)
     
     Read your quotes - re Elisabeth Sahtouris (I may read further when I want to sleep)
     Very verbose arent they , but they say very little
     Very nice , but so what?
     
     You also say you are catholic and quote from archbishop Ravasi
     Why should I be interested in your belief ? believe what you like
     Why the quote? In what way is it relevent?
     
     What relevence have the beliefs of the scientists you identify?
     
     You quote some "interesting stats" - In what way are they interesting ?
     
     You quote from Kasting on earth's early atmosphere.
     I ask - So what,?
     Perhaps he is correct, perhaps not.
     The fact it is only his(+associates) opinion(s) , good though it may be.
     You then state he is not a creationists. Why? (I never said he was.)
     
     And a quote from John Armstrong
     His quote starts with an assumption. - that impacts on the moon = impacts on earth
     A reasonable assumption , but an assumption none the less.
     Again it is an opinion , perhaps he is correct, perhaps not.
     
     Also
     
     I never said that I believe the "warm pools" scenario to be a definitive scenario for the begining of life.
     I said that the miller experiment has not been discredited.
     You may conclude that life did not(could not) start this way but that is drawing YOUR conclusions from the experiment, by adding subsequent data.
     The experiment showed that the very basic building blocks of life could come about naturally in a given atmosphere. This is a fact and remains unchanged.
     
     You may conclude that the actual atmosphere of the earth was different from that in the experiment, and so these building blocks did not come about this way.
     But
     1) the atmosphere is in dispute (the fact that you believe Kasting and Armstrong does not make what they say correct),
     2) Changing the conditions subsequently does not invalidate the experiment.
     

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870. 870. Laughing gravy 02:38 PM 8/28/09

     Just a bit of further info re quote from John Armstrong
     
     I said earlier that his quote assumed moon impacts = earth impacts
     
     A little problem
     
     It is not certain when or where the moon came from.
     At present the predominant theory is that it came from somewhere else and was captured by the earths gravitation (possibly impacting earth)
     
     So the question arises - When did the impacts on the moon occur ?
     
     I would say assuming that impacts on the moon occured after it came to orbit earth is quite a large assumption, and therefore any estimate of the rate of impact on moon, and hence relating this to earth impacts is distinctly questionable. (I am not saying he is wrong, just that the basis for his argument is questionable)
     

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871. 871. Laughing gravy 05:15 PM 8/28/09

     re your statistics
     
     A more interesting statistic
     81% of scientists believe life came about by natural causes
     (presumably they dont believe in genesis)
     Believe it or not belief in a god does not mean belief in genesis
     
     Also this is American scientists only.
     (I notice you did not mention this in your statistics)
     
     Wonder what the %age is for the rest of the world (by country might be interesting)?
     
     
     

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872. 872. Laughing gravy 07:22 PM 8/28/09

     re appendix
     
     "Last week scientists found that the human appendix is not a vestige of evolution, as Darwinian scholars have long claimed. The further down the road we go, the more Darwinian assumptions are disproved."
     
     I dont know where you got your information from but the best I could find is that a use for the appendix has been PROPOSED , however the use has NOT been proved.
     
     There have been many proposed uses for the appendix over many uses. ALL to date have be dismissed as unfounded.
     
     As before - no matter. If it is proved to have a use it is not actually relevent.
     
     Lets assume the appendix does have a purpose and is not an evolutionary relic.
     
     I propose a theory on evolution (like Darwin) .
     As an example of the theory in action(so make it more understandable the general public ?) I present the appendix (which to the best of my knowledge is a good example, as its believed to have no known use and most people are aware of it).
     
     150 years later someone refutes it as an evolutionary relic.
     
     Does this invalidate my theory ? - Course it doesn't - it was just a bad example.

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873. 873. Laughing gravy 11:28 AM 8/29/09

     P.S
     
     We are both straying a very long way from the subject of the forum i.e the misinformation (I call a lot of them lies) in the film "expelled"

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874. 874. Laughing gravy 01:21 PM 8/30/09

     One last thing as regards atmospheric oxygen
     
     
     With no oxygen source I dont see how you could have had free oxygen in the atmosphere
     
     Lots of metals + hydrogen + free oxygen + volcanic action ---> metal oxides + water + no free oxygen = low atmospheric oxygen
     
     Free oxygen -- > implies oxygen source --> implies life

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875. 875. planeswalker321 in reply to Laughing gravy 10:52 AM 9/14/09

     I think the predominant moon theory at the moment is large impact. Earth got hit by something, and the moon condensed from the bits and pieces. That would explain why the moon is tidally locked with the earth, why the moon has such a small core, and why its mineral content is somewhat similar to our own.
     
     By the way, even though we can't be certain of the atmospheric composition on early earth, we can be fairly sure that it was reducing, given the lack of red bed iron oxide deposits from the time.

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876. 876. gary e 04:19 AM 9/17/09

     I could go on and on and on for hours with examples of bias in academia. When i was considering applying to grad school in the late 1980's my university advisor had this to say. "You would make an excellent candidate, I would definitely recommend you, just don't let anyone know you are a creationist" That was Dr. Wu one of the first virologists ever. He was a professor for 40 years As far as this article goes pleeeease give me a break with your METHODOLOGICAL NATURALISM eliminating ideas that cannot be tested. How much of this CRAP can anyone stomach. You know that both sides of this argument are guilty of speculation. How does the big bang hold up to this idea? What does 20 billion light years look like anyways. I wish I was as intellectually honest as all of you evolutionists. We know that your worldview doesn't impact the way you interpret the data. Just the facts don't confuse me with anything but the facts that fit my views. I have spent my life arguing with INTOLERANT BIGGOTED NARROW MINDED SCIENTISTS ETC. They tell what a fool I am ????? They usually have lame canned answers and have the listening skills of a rock. All mouth and no ears they know that I'm an idiot and they are of course brilliant. Professors are the worse with over 240 semester units under my belt I can count the profs on one hand that were willing to entertain an opposing view. Most just resort to ad-hominem attacks.

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877. 877. Laughing gravy 08:58 AM 9/17/09

     I could go on and on and on for days with examples of the stupidity,ignorance, and lies of creationists.
     
     You consulted an advisor, did you consult any others?
     
     So what if that was his opinion. ?
     Just because he was a virologist you accept it without question ?

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878. 878. Laughing gravy 09:58 AM 9/17/09

     Why is it I wonder that creationists frequently refer to some PhD or professor in order to support their assertions.
     gary e did this - Why ?
     
     Are we supposed to bow to the opinion of the reference, just because they are a Dr. or professor of whatever subject ? (Even worse - their qualification is frequently nothing to do with the subject they are expressing opinion about.)
     So they are a Dr or a professor, My question is - So what?
     
     Being a Dr or professor only means that you have followed a specific path in obtaining the qualification, and that qualification relates ONLY to specific research topic in a specific subject.
     
     The qualification DOES NOT in itself imply ANYTHING as to the holders knowledge of ANY OTHER FIELD, or even knowledge outside the research topic, or general knowledge.
     (I personally know a number of Ph D's who are unbelieveably stupid outside their own subject, Inside - brilliant, outside - stupid)
     
     The holder may or may not have such knowledge, but the fact they have PhD or professorship is irrelevent.
     
     
     
     

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879. 879. Laughing gravy 11:14 AM 9/17/09

     
     gary e
     
     "What does 20 billion light years look like anyways."
     
     It looks like 117313920000000000000000 miles
     
     
     give or take a few inches.

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880. 880. gary e 12:08 PM 9/17/09

     #1 Uuuuuuuh the point of Ben Stein and the point you so obviously missed of my comments was that academia is extremely biased and unable to even entertain "alternative" Ideas.
     # 2 Dr. Wu was the department head of a UNIVERSITY ???????
     
     # 3 in regards to the statement of did I consult anyone else yes I did and I stated I earned 2 bachelors and a masters degree in Hard sciences from TOTALLY BIASED professors or at least 90% of them. They virtually never answered my questions they just blew it off. When I saw the movie expelled my blood boiled because of the fact that I had experienced so much of this crap. By the way i saw a quote somewhere on this site that says 80% of all scientists are atheists ?? I seriously doubt this I have worked around scientists for decades. Also even if that were true so what It's pointless skewed data. 95 % of all educational institutions are secular from kindergarten to grad schools. The teachers/professors teach 1 and only one viewpoint. In light of that I find it remarkable that there are so many scientists who have abandoned evolutionary dogma I wonder what political science doctorates would think like if every single prof was of the ultra liberal viewpoint and opposing views were not tolerated. Oh yeah i guess we have an example of that too HARVARD YALE etc. Lets be open to different views in the name of academic excellence NOT !!!!!!! Last but not least of my responses. I am again honest enough to admit that there are plenty of goofy creationists that are dumb as a rock and some are deceptive . It goes both ways. There are also hundreds of brilliant modern day creationists. They are Doctors ie. C. Everett Coop former surgeon general of the United states. Werner Von Braun the guy who ran Nasa. They are CEOs of biotech and pharmaceutical companies University professors Some of them Work at the C.D.C.etc.etc. Check some of them out you might learn something. Read some of Dr. A.E. Wilder smith's stuff or read Darwin's black box or read Dinesh DeSouza's stuff. Contrary to the opinions or portrayal of many they /we are not a bunch of toothless hillbillies that went to Oral Roberts University or some bible college in the back woods of West Virginia. If you think you've got all the answers to life's great mysteries I would like to meet you. You must be quite extraordinary or an arrogant delusional fool or maybe you are God ???
     

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881. 881. Laughing gravy 07:10 PM 9/17/09

     #1 Uuuuuuuh the point of Ben Stein and the point you so obviously missed of my comments was that academia is extremely biased and unable to even entertain "alternative" Ideas.
     
     I hear what you say, but your opinion is worthless. If you explicitly believe Ben stein then your critical facilities are somewhat lacking. Most of his claims in the movie are easily verifiable as misinformation, distortion and downright lies.
     
     "Dr. Wu was the department head of a UNIVERSITY ???????"
     
     As I said - so what?
     
     "in regards to the statement of did I consult anyone else yes I did and I stated I earned 2 bachelors and a masters degree in Hard sciences from TOTALLY BIASED professors or at least 90% of them. "
     
     so you claim, maybe its true, maybe not, but whichever, its irrelevent
     
     "When I saw the movie expelled my blood boiled because of the fact that I had experienced so much of this crap. "
     
     Since most of what the movie claims was in fact misinformation,distortion,lies, (and easily verifiable as such) then it doesn't say much for your critical analysis.
     
     "By the way i saw a quote somewhere on this site that says 80% of all scientists are atheists??"
     
     According to surveys 80% of US scientists believe evolution
     Perhaps this is the 80%,
     (but wait - this is only US scientists, (not ALL scientists) , and belief in evolution does not = atheist)
     Or perhaps you are a creation scientist (now theres an oxymoron)
     80% of US scientists becomes 80% of ALL scientists
     Belief in evolution = atheist.
     
     "In light of that I find it remarkable that there are so many scientists who have abandoned evolutionary dogma"
     You got that the wrong way round.
     The %age of scientists abandoning creation is increasing.
     
     Claim degrees in hard sciences? and claim that Von Bruan ran NASA and was a creationist
     Not very good at research are you?.
     

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882. 882. rooseveltdecosta 08:46 PM 9/17/09

     Laughing Gravy,
     
     I must admit that I admire your patience and tenacity in your dealings with others on this forum in re: “gary e” among others. However, many years spent as an educator and as a man of the book have convinced me that one cannot teach those who simply do not have the capacity to learn. You see, you can detail your argument as meticulously as you have, yet if the audience that you strive to reach cannot read, your efforts will almost always prove futile. You must not fret, my friend, because those who matter notice your passion for pure unadulterated science, and we applaud your fervor. This forum, and, in relation the point of this post, that I may ever so slowly creep towards, has to do with a much larger systemic loss for appreciation of critical thinking skills in today’s population. We must treat the simpleton creationists very gently, they mean no harm, they are simply the victims of a total lack of exposure to the real world, in general, and science, in particular. In their self-constructed bubble of absolute ignorance, they harbor an unnatural fear of things that take more than a fitful wave of the magic wand to explain. They harbor no malice, except towards homosexuals, minorities, and other non-christians; they, quite frankly, just do not posses the mental acuity required to grasp the intricacies and beauty of multitudes of scientific theories. Consequently, we should not treat them with indignity. We need to develop and create an alternative education system that will fully prepare them for the occupations that will challenge them and help them achieve their full intellectual potential. You see, our great country always needs competent burger flippers, day laborers, reality show contestants, hypocrites, child molesters, and Sunday school teachers. I recognize the political ramifications of a system such as this and realize that the young republicans already exist, however, that is neither here nor there. I proudly display my registered independent voter card, and understand that this forum has no space for political discussion, and I shall leave it at that. Excuse me, I must apologize seeing as how I have strayed quite far off topic, Laughing, keep up the good work, many others appreciate it and laud you for your efforts. Do not fret over the ignorance of God’s creationist red-headed stepchildren. They simply do not have the means to contribute in a positive way to society. Sort of a cruel joke between HIM, and some learned Jesuits such as myself. I enjoy your posts and look forward to learning from each successive one.
     
     
     P.S. I am fully aware that I did not capitalize the “c” on christian! Ho ho.
     
     Mahalo,
     
     R
     

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883. 883. Ramblin_Hobo 01:09 AM 9/21/09

     1) Just because Darwin rejected the idea of eliminating the weak does not mean that the people who follow Darwinian evolution do not take it the wrong way, i.e. Hitler and the Soviets. I believe Ben Stein only quoted what they felt was relevant to the discussion. The Nazis relied on Darwin, enough said there.
     2) Who cares that the auditorium scene was staged or not? How do you judge whether or not the ovation was real, and who are your sources and how do you know they were being honest?
     3) Again, I dont care, if the title had been different, would the scientists have been as honest in their positions? By the way, who says your facts are facts and not twists. Reporters are no more objective than scientists and both should be to a point.
     4) Your article says the story went a certain way, but that doesnt mean the report you publish is the truth, and a blog does not evidence make. Unless you live in a closet you know that different sides of an argument are always put forth as truth, but not necessarily the true picture of what happened. I have more faith in Ben Steins integrity then I do in some bloggers or some reporter who is backing the establishment. Simply speaking, all things considered, people as a rule cover their ass.
     5) You assume the objectivity that should be present in Science, yet it is not. Someone who was being truly objective would look at the complexity of life and say it comes about randomly. Grade school science teaches against the early theory of Spontaneous Generation. Entropy teaches against things becoming more complex, the exact opposite of Darwinian evolution.
     6) First, you misquote the film, probably to your own ends, that all evolutionary biologists reject God is not a premise, let alone a major premise, of the film. Second, all religion is not equal, all beliefs are not equal, they have differences. Because one believes in evolution and has religious beliefs does not mean that their two beliefs are incompatible. Science does not have the ability to travel back in time and observe phenomena that took place in history, if you cant duplicate it, you cant prove it. The Theory of Evolution stands as just that, a theory, yet from every turn you teach it as fact. Shame on you.
     
     Frankly the establishments clinging to the theory of evolution smacks of the persecution of anyone who claimed the world was not the center of the universe or the world was not flat.
     

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884. 884. Ramblin_Hobo in reply to rooseveltdecosta 01:22 AM 9/21/09

     the fact that you open your discusion claiming someone who disagrees with you and your side as "not having the capacity to learn" invalidates anything else you have to say.

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885. 885. Ramblin_Hobo in reply to Laughing gravy 01:24 AM 9/21/09

     again, you invalidate your own arguments with your own statements.

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886. 886. rooseveltdecosta in reply to Ramblin_Hobo 06:14 PM 9/21/09

     Rambling Hobo,
     
     Ah, my passionate, yet grossly misguided friend, whose only shortcoming stems from the observation that a teacher or parent must have never warned you to, “think before you speak.” If you had happened to actually read my comment, you would have seen that I made no statement of any sort pertaining to my views or, ahem, “my side” or to those who I may or may not have viewed to disagree with me. I was simply providing Mr. Gravy with encouragement to keep slogging along with his efforts, tempered with some advice. The advice simply suggesting that his efforts may have more fruitful results if he used them in a forum with opponents who have a better grasp on reality and can better appreciate his endeavors. However, your impetuous and embarrassing response actually validates my claim that no matter the depth of skills an educator may have, they will never enjoy success trying to reach those who cannot learn. You see, simply by exposing to this forum your gross inability to critically think about and understand a simple statement, you have revealed a much larger truth about yourself. I shall pose it as a question, that you may attempt, albeit I will not hold my breath, to answer. How can we, a collective we, take anything you say seriously? Especially when it comes interpreting various studies, data, rhetoric, et cetera et cetera. Regardless of one’s political, religious, or scientific convictions, you have, quite clearly, displayed that you have only a most tenuous grasp of reading skills, and consequently, I, among others, have no confidence in your ability to adequately comprehend anything you claim to have studied. Before you post again, I most urgently recommend that you enroll in your local elementary school’s reading program. In the future, I sincerely hope, during the commercial breaks in NASCAR, or any other fox news program, you quell that little impulse to log on to your mother’s computer, and leave this discussion to the adults. I already thank you in advance for your consideration, and I wish you only the best of luck in your new attempts at education!
     
     Cazart,
     Roosevelt.
     

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887. 887. Ramblin_Hobo in reply to rooseveltdecosta 07:41 PM 9/21/09

     you fail so miserably

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888. 888. vlad voloshin in reply to Ramblin_Hobo 11:49 PM 9/21/09

     "you fail so miserably" read *tail covering genitalia and slinking into the alley way to harass smaller animal*
     
     Far be it from Roosevelt or "Darwinists" to expect a little rationality.

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889. 889. rooseveltdecosta 12:28 AM 9/22/09

     Mr. Hobo,
     
     Ho ho. Such a vitriolic response to some healthy, albeit much needed, friendly advice! You see, I must thank you for dutifully providing me with ever more evidence that reaffirms the assumptions that I set out to confirm in my previous posts. I cannot imagine the pride that you must be feeling right now. You have unequivocally ended the discussion on this forum, and we all owe you a deep sense of gratitude. With your final comment you have single handedly reaffirmed the power of the scientific method. A quick recap for you: I developed some assumptions about a particular topic, i.e.: your complete lack of competence in any type of academia, and set out to collect evidence to either support or dispute said assumptions. You helped provide much of the evidence affirming the aforementioned particular topic, see comment 887, for which I most humbly thank you. I feel quite strongly that most others on the forum would agree with me that the evidence provided strongly supports the assumptions, which warrants no further discussion. This was accomplished solely with reference to hard facts, not sloppy conjecture, empty rhetoric, backwards logic, fear mongering, and unreviewed pseudo-research. In order to gain entry into the scientific discussion regarding almost anything, creationists should resort to this powerful method of scientific inquiry, instead of their usual hilarious tactics. Thank you again for your contribution to the onward march of Science! For inquiries regarding my pertinent qualifications you may review my previous posts over the past year, along with those of my colleague and close friend Tommo0809. Mr. Voloshin, I always appreciate a good bit of wit, and yours did not let me down! I miss the biting sarcasm of the cosmopolit, ruskie medved niet?
     
     Ok for now,
     
     R
     

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890. 890. Laughing gravy 12:06 PM 9/22/09

     Ramblin_Hobo
     
     1) "The Nazi's relied on Darwin, enough said there."
     The Nazi's did not "rely" on anything.
     The intended to do something so did it. They "reason" they gave was aimed at convincing the gullible public of their benevolence. Enough said.
     
     2) "Who cares that the auditorium scene was staged or not? How do you judge whether or not the ovation was real, and who are your sources and how do you know they were being honest?"
     Ben Stein cared -
     He wanted the gullible to believe he was supported by a knowlegeable public that was why he put a supposed audience of students in the film.
     You must stop believing all see in films.
     They are there to make a profit for the makers, thats all.
     
     3) "By the way, who says your facts are facts and not twists. Reporters are no more objective than scientists and both should be to a point."
     Be careful - your prejudices+ignorance are showing.
     
     4)" I have more faith in Ben Stein's integrity then I do in some blogger's or some reporter who is backing the establishment.
     WHY ON EARTH SHOULD YOU HAVE FAITH IN EITHER?
     WHY DONT YOU FIND OUT YOURSELF FROM AS MANY SOURCES AS YOU CAN?
     
     5) "Grade school science teaches against the early theory of Spontaneous Generation".
     Course it doesn't teach it,there is no scientific evidence for spontaneous generation.
     
     "Entropy teaches against things becoming more complex, the exact opposite of Darwinian "evolution.
     Now your ignorance is showing. Entropy has NOTHING to do with complexity, Darwin, or evolution.
     
     6) "if you can't duplicate it, you can't prove it."
     Wrong, you do not have to duplicate something to prove it happened
     "The Theory of Evolution stands as just that, a theory, yet from every turn you teach it as fact. "
     Wrong again - it is taught as just that, a "theory"
     

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891. 891. gary e in reply to Laughing gravy 05:43 AM 9/29/09

     Hey laughing genius please provide references for the statement you made Von Braun( which you couldn't spell) was not a creationist and the statement that ID or creationists are on the decline.

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892. 892. Travesty in reply to punninglinguist 01:07 PM 10/14/09

     exactly. although i do agree that Darwin failed to justify his thoughts on morality, any good sociologist will tell you that we can no longer explain an individuals make up entirely with biology and genetics. the individual is largely influenced by society which as an actor evolves in its own right. a strong society will survive longer than a weak one, a strong societies members look out for one another, even the weak.
     
     The Socratic argument against the sophists remains true. the sophists argued that the strong individuals were oppressed by morality and it was better for the strong to dominate the weak. Socrates argued cleverly that 'the many' was stronger than the individual, and by the sophists own reasoning society should remain moral.

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893. 893. ICHOOSEGOD 05:01 AM 10/15/09

     Darwin made many interesting discoveries some true some maybe not. Ben Stein brings out some interesting thoughts some true some maybe not.
     
     I have a test to consider ID as plausable theory. Take a dog , a monkey , a child, a young woman, a brilliant mathmetician. and a senior Engineer from MIT
     Give then 4 tasks
     
     1. Build a small bird house using plans
     2. Build a tv set using an old heath kit
     3. Build a home built small airplane RV4
     4. Build Hummingbird that reproduces after its kind
     
     Someone or something smarted than any of these people listed must have designed and built the hummingbird.
     
     I side with the Almighty. I am free to make this conclusion as much as the the atheist says time and chance.
     
     
     
     

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894. 894. gary e 11:46 AM 10/15/09

     Hey has anybody noticed that every time someone rips on me and calls me a moron bla bla bla then I politely ask for sources references or an invitation to debate they dissapear. hmm?

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895. 895. terryp 02:29 AM 10/28/09

     Cliche's reign as the liberal agenda attempts to suppress opposing viewpoints. Not all conservatives can be put in the "box" of aborton clinic shooters, Right-wing wackos, and fairy tale believers. Ben Stein simply presented an opposing intellectual argument to a " conventional wisdom". I've enjoyed many of SI's articles over the years and find it extremely unsavory that the weak six complaints reek of a concerted suppression of provocative alternate arguments. Painting "Expelled" as a cheap shot Borat documentary catching intellectuals with their pants down simply doesn't play well and gives even more support for the movie's perspective. Shame on SI. Scientists should behave like scientists not politicians.

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896. 896. angeenw79 11:42 AM 11/2/09

     I think you guys are morons. I have seen it for myself as with continuing my education. There have been numerous attempts to explain science as a result of something bigger then the big bang theory that started this evolution process. Mr. Stein did not argue that he didnt believe in evolution. He argued that something bigger and more powerful started the evolution process. You can even explain how your "big bang theory" started.
     
     As far as the extras and misconceived notions about extras and not being told extra information, its A MOVIE. You act as if Mr.Stein was THE ONLY ONE who had a say on how the movie was made. Plus so what if there were extras in the movie? If you see a doctor on a movie treating a patient, they arent a doctor in real life. They are extras, they are sometimes needed.
     
     Please quit bashing Mr. Stein to further your own agenda. He hasn't been that way to you. Follow his example. A little bit of the golden rule..goes a long way..
     
     Idiots

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897. 897. angeenw79 11:42 AM 11/2/09

     I think you guys are morons. I have seen it for myself as with continuing my education. There have been numerous attempts to explain science as a result of something bigger then the big bang theory that started this evolution process. Mr. Stein did not argue that he didnt believe in evolution. He argued that something bigger and more powerful started the evolution process. You can even explain how your "big bang theory" started.
     
     As far as the extras and misconceived notions about extras and not being told extra information, its A MOVIE. You act as if Mr.Stein was THE ONLY ONE who had a say on how the movie was made. Plus so what if there were extras in the movie? If you see a doctor on a movie treating a patient, they arent a doctor in real life. They are extras, they are sometimes needed.
     
     Please quit bashing Mr. Stein to further your own agenda. He hasn't been that way to you. Follow his example. A little bit of the golden rule..goes a long way..
     
     Idiots

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898. 898. angeenw79 11:42 AM 11/2/09

     I think you guys are morons. I have seen it for myself as with continuing my education. There have been numerous attempts to explain science as a result of something bigger then the big bang theory that started this evolution process. Mr. Stein did not argue that he didnt believe in evolution. He argued that something bigger and more powerful started the evolution process. You can even explain how your "big bang theory" started.
     
     As far as the extras and misconceived notions about extras and not being told extra information, its A MOVIE. You act as if Mr.Stein was THE ONLY ONE who had a say on how the movie was made. Plus so what if there were extras in the movie? If you see a doctor on a movie treating a patient, they arent a doctor in real life. They are extras, they are sometimes needed.
     
     Please quit bashing Mr. Stein to further your own agenda. He hasn't been that way to you. Follow his example. A little bit of the golden rule..goes a long way..
     
     Idiots

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899. 899. mmiller 11:07 AM 11/7/09

     Stein was never saying that Darwin wanted these things to happen, simply that some of his theories were used by others to back up their eugenics and purification acts. Also, this article does nothing to address the scientific arguments shown in the movie or the fact that scientists are being fired and blackballed in the scientific community for posing questions that have not been answered and for ideas which are not so different from what Richard Dawkins himself seemed to have as a theory for the origin of life. Please take a look serious look what the documentary has to say - what are you afraid of?

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900. 900. wherestheobjectiveevidence in reply to rooseveltdecosta 09:41 AM 11/10/09

     Ben Stein is neither Christian nor a propagandist, anymore than Richard Dawkins is a catholic or planted here by aliens (his words). Evolutionists are incapable of intelligent and civil argument. You resort to slanderous insults against the messenger and labeling all argument contrary to your opinion as "psuedoscience" or "intolerant right wing Christian propaganda". Really now, who's being intolerant & ignorant?

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901. 901. wherestheobjectiveevidence in reply to MrTasses 09:48 AM 11/10/09

     Hmmm. Do you aford the same latitude to Ben Stein or anyone else that suggests the evidence leads to the conclustion of design or creation rather than evolution?
     
     "The resistance to new theories is one of necessity. " That is scientific investigation? Sounds like religious dogma to me. Are to suppose the new mideval church is back, only this time their god is chance/natural selection rather than the pope...

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902. 902. Me1 in reply to Glen Davidson 04:36 PM 11/20/09

     @Glen Davidson Um, HELLO, that is the whole point of this movie... Darwin didn't help things at all, but hurt a ton of things... but since the theory is out there, give people an equal choice, opportunity of what they want to believe.
     
     Personally I found almost all of this article useless to change the whole purpose and grounding for this movie. A lot of docu's have things that aren't quite as they seem, but overall the movie was well presented. And if those scientists didn't know what movie they were doing this for, I say, their answers were probably MORE truthful, than if they did know (they probably wouldn't have done it) but aren't we all glad they did.

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903. 903. Me1 04:39 PM 11/20/09

     This article doesn't change the whole point of the movie. Most docu's have some things that aren't quite right or truthful. Not that he did a good job but the purpose isn't changed. Why can't there be equal views, teaching in schools and museums? It is a Theory after all...

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904. 904. crickets 11:24 PM 12/10/09

     The concept of ID is based on the fact that everything is too complex not to have been designed by a creator. It completely ignores the fact that a creator which had created everything would itself be infinitely more complex than anything it had created. Therefore, the explanation of a complex creator would necessairly require an explanation for it's existence just as surely as anything else in existence. Keep ID out of our classrooms!

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905. 905. shamgar50 01:45 AM 12/11/09

     Showtime is airing the Ben Stein lie fest "Expelled" all this month. I would advise everyone to express their displeasure to Showtime, and maybe they'll pull it, before too many idiots are infected by its misinformation.

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906. 906. ColleenHarper in reply to skreezy 04:10 AM 12/13/09

     Darwin may not have known the answer. BUT he saw the direction from which the answer would come. Modern developments in the evolution of morality show that he was in fact on the right path.
     
     Humans have the capacity for love, care, compassion, ALTRUISM. There has been strong debate on the evolutionary benefit of altruism, and the evidence is coming forth that there IS an evolutionary basis AND that it has benefit to the species.
     
     Therefore Darwin was on the right track that neglecting the poor and weak IS in fact evil. Darwin is being vindicated once again, and through natural selection of moral behavior encoded in DNA by way of the brain structures humans possess in common with our mammalian siblings. In fact, he actually ought to have extended his insight to include other mammalian species. He did miss that mark.

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907. 907. philkarr 04:49 PM 12/13/09

     When you can't answer the question, sling mud, or assassinate the character of the one asking. Which still leaves the question unanswered. This is a movie after all and we know many of the scenes are set up. To tell me it was set up is not a revelation. The fact does remain that evolution is being railroaded on us as if it were fact and that science proves it when that is not the case. If it were the only obvious conclusion, then why suppress and castigate scientists that draw a different conclusion from the FACTS. Why are the questions not answered with facts and not with theories put forth as if they were facts. It seems that the community surrounding this "belief system" of evolution (religion of evolution) protects itself from having to prove its fundamental beliefs (theories) by means of science, which it professes to adhere to, but in fact does not. If evolution were to be subjected to the same scrutiny that it demands of others it would utterly and totally fail the test of the scientific method.

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908. 908. King Joey 11:38 AM 12/14/09

     Your attempted discrediting only solidifies the point of the movie. The passage quoted on the movie is Darwin commenting solely on the science of his research, upon which people like the Nazis did rely for justification. The subsequent passage you quoted was Darwin commenting on the religious notions that dictate against such applications, notions that were ignored by eugenics further demonstrating the hazards of science pursued without the counsel of religion.
     
     Unless, of course, you contend that Darwin was referring to the scientific principle of "evil".

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909. 909. philkarr in reply to crickets 04:56 PM 12/17/09

     Did you notice that the arguments presented in support of evolution are devoid of scientific fact but rather express the vehemence of their "high priest" Richard Dawkins against anyone who draws a different conclusion from the "Facts" than they do? Isn't that what Hitler did to gain power? I'm sure Dawkins would put into prison camps anyone who dares criticize his assertions if he had the power to do so, which proves the statement Stein makes in his movie, that your beliefs affect your moral outlook. From the scathing but unscientific critcisms of I.D. leads you to the conclusion that their theory does not have any basis in fact, otherwise they would simply bring forth the evidence and invite open discussion. I have not seen a community so intolerant of honest debate . Were they not listening to the foolishness being spewed by their "high priest"? He was making statements as if they were facts when they had no basis in reality. What is he afraid of ? Someone will discover that " the emperor is naked?" (as in the emperor's new clothes) Everyone believes it (evolution) because you dare not question it lest you be "Expelled", not because it has been proven but if you question it then we have to admit that after more than a hundred years and hundreds of billions of dollars we are no closer to proving evolution than at the start. In fact the more we discover the more we "PROVE" that evolution cannot be true.

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910. 910. Trevorl314 09:16 AM 12/18/09

     I found Stein's arguments to be more like pleading, almost trying to prove there is a god. In the end, no one knows if there is a god. I would also have to agree with Dawkin's concerning the Hebrew god of the OT; if that is god, we're up in trouble.
     
     What I would have like to have seen in the film was someone ask Stein why it is that god ordered his own creatures murdered in the OT? Why did god allegedly flood the entire planet to get rid of his own creation, rather than attempting to help those poor souls with their issues? Essentially, the god of the OT solves problems by murder and torture.
     
     Another question for the 'believers': You have a god in the OT who allows his most faithful follower's family to be killed, loses all earthly assets, and suffers great physical illness all in the name of a 'test' to prove god's love. This is the story of Job. But, god replaces Job's family and all earthly treasures, so I guess that makes it okay. This is bs!
     

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911. 911. Trevorl314 09:22 AM 12/18/09

     I think we also need to clarify something about evolution that Stein does not mention in the movie. Evolution is not out to prove or disprove god. Evolution is an explanation of how life on this planet evolved. It's that simple!
     
     If the religious folks want to believe in Santa Claus, then by all means do so, but don't try to stop progression of scientific inquiry because you're afraid science will kill your ideas of god. Having grown up in a church I understand very well why the church is against evolution. It challenges people to think and they don't want people to think for themselves.
     
     

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912. 912. King Joey in reply to Trevorl314 03:59 PM 12/18/09

     "but don't try to stop progression of scientific inquiry because you're afraid science will kill your ideas of god"
     
     An interesting plea from the only side currently stopping any academic inquiry, discourse or debate, scientific or otherwise. Why would the true pursuit of scientific inquiry ever insist that any line of research or consideration be verboten?
     
     The answer of course is because your first supposition is flatly wrong. This is not about the theory of evolution, or the genesis of life on Earth (or anywhere else). Hawkins himself freely admits that intelligent design could very well be the process by life arrived at its current state on this planet. The "debate" -- and more specifically the shutting down of the free exchange of ideas -- is only about god and religion. The so-called "evolutionists" who are actually fighting this fight, as opposed to simply those who believe in evolution, are distinctly after the destruction of religion and belief in god. They are persecuting those who do believe and using any means at their disposal to silence all expression of opinions that differ from their own. And this is the side so often mis-characterized as "science".

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913. 913. prosco50 07:26 AM 12/21/09

     So SciAm concludes that the Stein film is in fact delusional conspiracy.
     Reading through the comments I note however that SciAm states that evolution is a fact and that creationism fails to meet the specific test of science that for a theory to become a fact, it has to demonstrated and replicated. Yet, evolution itself fails at the basic starting point.
     To hear eminent scientists try to explain the "spark" that changes inanimate matter into a living thing is simply laughable.
     Have you ever watched the reverse process. When a person dies, what actually happens to that 'spark"? One moment a living, breathing person, then not. We well know that elements of the living tissue continue "living" after the person has effectively died, but in reality, he or she as a person is now dead.
     At conception, when does the foetus begin to live? We know in medical terms it doesn't even become a foetus until some period after conception, but it has life already.
     To simply say, as some correspondents have, that creationists have come to the conclusion that "because something looks like it had to be designed, then it must have a designer.." seems to me to be a little more logical than the evolutionists who in the many many "nature or Scientific" programmes shown on television who espouse the idea that because something looks like something else, it must have evolved from it.
     With the intelligence that humans have, surely it is not beyond the capability of such people to see that with the degeneration of society into a survival of the fittest is the greatest con trick the world has ever known. Tragically, with the accelerated decline in respect for fellow beings, we head ever downward in a spiral of hatred and intolerance.
     Is it any wonder that the failure to teach respect for God, the respect for our neighbour has been and continues to be the greatest threat to our survival as a human society on earth.
     Evolutionists, you need to be careful what you wish for.
     A Godless society or a God led society. Take your pick

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914. 914. ashnickdeb 08:18 PM 12/23/09

     Sounds like Scientific American is afraid to me. I believe that each of your six points is taken out of context. For example, your first point makes it sound like the movie makes a case that Darwin promotes aethist beliefs and the Holocaust. You need to watch the movie again. The point in the movie is that certain people in past history (Hitler and communists) have used Darwinism as a crutch to promote aethism and genocide.

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915. 915. BuddhistScientist 03:16 AM 12/30/09

     What I find interesting is that Ben Stein tries to make a connection between the belief in Darwinism and Nazism in Germany under Hitler. Adolf Hitler also contended that he was a Christian, and promoted a very religious pro Christian ideal. Why wasn't a similar connection made between his warping of this theological ideal and Nazism? It seems to me that all of the Abrahamic traditions have much more violent scriptures that allow its followers to justify their crimes in the name of their respective religion than the writings of Darwin. It seems silly to single Darwinism as a leading cause or even supplemental cause to the Holocaust. Perhaps we should also blame oxygen and water. Bad parenting would hold much more argument than blaming Darwin. In the end, it was warped world views stemming from a religious nature, albeit an extreme one. However, religious writing almost always lends itself to extreme world views because that is simply the core of religion. (Just read a random page from the Old Testament. Yes, there's a couple of pleasant lines now and then, but most of it is based in mythic imagination that is quite violent and fundamentally rooted in a "us vs. them" mentality.)

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916. 916. madam 04:13 PM 12/31/09

     There is only ONE truth.

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917. 917. mtroth@lensgrinder.com 12:20 AM 1/1/10

     Not sure, but i thought there was a pretty good indication in Kant's first critique that the Teleological argument for the existence of god was antinomy. I.e., a contradiction could be derived regardless of whether the first cause was asserted or rejected. And the conclusion was that talk of first causes was impossible as a matter of rigorous science.
     
     Has someone provided something to overturn that? can i get a reference?
     
     Having said that, my reading of Aristotle's Metaphysics (7-10) suggested to me that no less than the inventor of "causality" itself couldn't make heads or tails out of the concept of a first cause.
     
     is it too much to ask that someone who asserts (against Aristotle and Kant -yikes) that there is in fact a knowable and coherent first cause of existence, make some kind of explanation as to what that actually means?

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918. 918. BuddhistScientist in reply to prosco50 04:58 PM 1/1/10

     To the gentleman who asked for "A God-less society, or a God-led society, take your pick." I think I will go for the God-less society. We've been having the so called "God Led" society and frankly I'm not impressed. I've seen more genocide and destruction of human and non human life in the name of God, then I've seen from the so called "God-less" society. Even if someone should try to make the connection between Hitler's Holocaust regime and "Darwinian" ideas, I think it's important to note that Hitler was operating from a very strong religious paradigm. He thought he was the best Christian, doing the best Christian acts for the world. It's a position many in power feel they are doing. Have there been any atheist terrorists that have destroyed huge biological species that can compare with the religious minded ones? I doubt it. I'm not saying atheists are perfect of course, but if there was a group I'd be less afraid of, I would definitely go with the atheists.

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919. 919. sainlyreligious 05:18 PM 1/3/10

     Instead of attacking Christians for their beliefs, why not use your science to prove them wrong. After reading these comments, all I get is "your God is bad, you are oppressing others, and you don't want people to learn." In your science, does it not say you have to have an action to get a reaction? Who then "in your scientific theory" started the first action? Well if you read the Bible it tells me that My God was that "spark, lightning bolt, whatever you want to call it." Prove me wrong with your science, tell me who started it and how. This is all you have to do to legitimize your claims. Why is it so hard to do? Don't bash me for my questions, just answer them and I will respect it, but use talking points and nonsense answers and you will only be hurting your cause and helping mine.

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920. 920. gregdavid 11:56 AM 1/5/10

     Holy Crap Batman!

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921. 921. gregdavid 12:01 PM 1/5/10

     I've been trying to write my own verson of #5 (the tautalogical nature of faith and relgion in sciecne) for years and I could not seem to nail it as clearly as you guys did. Thanks, because now I can use your nice short version (or my version thereof) in the future.

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922. 922. highfly in reply to jmarbas 03:29 PM 1/7/10

     Hey Guys,
     As was so eloquently stated, it IS all about power. Today, as always, those who have the gold make the rules. In the middle ages it was the church. Todays church is the scientific elite. This is the religion of the day. Of course there is much truth in science. But where it gets dicy is where speculation occurs into the metaphysical realm and science should keep its distance. A simple "We don't know yet or it hasn't been scientifically proven yet" would go a long way to keeping science pure.
     Equal funding for those with ID views coming from those with control on the purse strings would allow for free debate on these issues as opposed to suppression as experienced in the dark and middle ages through similar ostracism.
     The theme of the movie is idea suppression vs open debate and dialog without negative repercussions. Can Sci Am defend against this? It would be nice if it were the case....

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923. 923. gml27 10:42 AM 1/9/10

     Its not often that a basic perception can be changed in a single moment. Before watching "Expelled" I considered anyone questioning "Origin of the Species" a kook. As a scientist myself I now understand why "Intelligent Design" has to be allowed in the discussion. I read this article and comments hoping to find some information to support the basic premise that the jump from inorganic to organic can be scientifically supported at mankind's current level of understanding - but find only comments sniping at the irrelevant margins . Ben could produce a sequel just changing the words "Intelligent Design" to "Global Warming."

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924. 924. gml27 10:53 AM 1/9/10

     Its not often that a basic perception can be changed in a single moment. Before watching "Expelled" I considered anyone questioning "Origin of the Species" a kook. As a scientist myself I now understand why "Intelligent Design" has to be allowed in the discussion. I read this reply and comments hoping to find some evidence to support the basic concept that the change from inorganic to organic could be supported scientifically at our current level of understanding - but instead only find snipping at the irrelevant margins. Ben could produce a sequel just changing the words "Intelligent Design" to "Global Warming."

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925. 925. ddeiley in reply to gml27 01:10 AM 1/16/10

     I wonder if Messrs Rennie and Mirsky would be as critical of Gore's silly movie.

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926. 926. johngalt821 10:00 AM 1/20/10

     What is most abhorent to me, personally, is Mr. Stein's pompousity regarding the freedom of "ideas" inasmuch as when those "ideas" stray from the accepted norm. As far as I know, there is no law in any place on Earth that forbids arguments counter to that of Darwin. There is, however, several European nations that have laws expressly forbidding any discussion whatsoever regarding the so-called "Holocaust" As I write this, there are individuals who are referred to as "Holocaust revisionists" or "Holocaust deniers" who are currently incarcerated for expressing their opinion on the subject. In one instance, the attorney for one of these "Holocaust revisionists" was incarcerated for attempting to present sound, scientific evidence as a basis for their clients' views and innocence.
     
     Perhaps Mr. Stein should use his position and influence to champion the right of individuals to challenge the accepted doctrine of the Holocaust - the only historical event about which any investigation or discussion of its validity is against the law, bar none.

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927. 927. the_second_man 02:38 PM 1/22/10

     I have two things to add regarding what Darwin's ideas of evolution have contributed to the body of knowledge about man's origins:
     
     1) the evidence from research on the origin of species (particularly the Homo sapien) is still far from conclusive. It may be very suggestive, and merit a significant challenge to the Judeochristian notion of creation. Yet too many pieces to the puzzle remain unplaced, and may never be placed regarding fossil and molecular evidence. Hundreds of genetic mutations and dozens of speciation events occured in the record over a brief 200,000 year period prior to the emergence of the Homo sapien from its Hominid precursor, suggesting a rare and severe watershed of descent with modification over many varying environmental selective pressures. If this really happened, then why aren't we like the Xmen movie series by now? mutants running amok with far advanced development in our form and functions?
     
     2) will we ever find evidence of life outside Earth's atmosphere?
     
     3) Since the RNA world pre-dated DNA, then RNA evolved to be more efficient and rapid, then why did not RNA out-compete DNA to be the sole reproductive Blueprint mechanism? Why is RNA still around?
     
     4) The ability to adapt to the environment does not exclude the possiblity of a divine, higher power, a designer, creator, and ruler over all of creation.

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928. 928. MAP 07:15 PM 1/24/10

     I have seen Stein's documentary several times. Firstly, terms need to be defined. No one is disputing that micro-evolution is happening. The theory of macro-evolution is lacking evidence for the following reasons: irreducible complexity as detailed in "Darwin's Black Box" by Dr. Bube, the lack of transitional fossil evidence, radioactive carbon dating inaccuracies, geological evidence, astronomical proof of fine tuning, the Radioisotopes and Age of the Earth study, COSMOS and GENE projects. It is as the President of the French Academy said, "it's a fairy tale for adults."

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929. 929. MAP in reply to gml27 07:20 PM 1/24/10

     These are ad homenins instead of attacking the arguments or providing evidence for Gore's contention of global warming and Darwinism.

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930. 930. MAP in reply to johngalt821 07:22 PM 1/24/10

     How about presenting some proof that the Holocaust didn't take place historically?

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931. 931. neomorpheus 06:37 PM 1/28/10

     my issue is that Darwinians generally ignore the work of the 3 frenchmen of the same era.. Darwin was thoroughly refuted by Lamarck, Cuvier, and Geoffroy,
     
     There are better theories of evolution that don't have huge holes (cephalization) in them like the but Huxley used his power to promote Darwin, not because he agreed with the science (he said he didn't) but because it helped justify British Imperialism.
     
     Google: The Hideous Revolution, click the first link and prepare to blow your mind.

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932. 932. neomorpheus 06:38 PM 1/28/10

     my issue is that Darwinians generally ignore the work of the 3 frenchmen of the same era.. Darwin was thoroughly refuted by Lamarck, Cuvier, and Geoffroy,
     
     There are better theories of evolution that don't have huge holes (cephalization) in them like the but Huxley used his power to promote Darwin, not because he agreed with the science (he said he didn't) but because it helped justify British Imperialism.
     
     Google: The Hideous Revolution, click the first link and prepare to blow your mind.

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933. 933. jimboo 04:38 PM 1/29/10

     Is this the best refutes they could come up with?? How about how we went from non-organic to organic & the evolutionary process' involved? How about proving that cells actually gain information along the way to counter the living proof that they actually are loosing information all the time.. What about Dawkins' admition to ID & that 'he nor anyone else had an explination as to how we got here..' All you can counter is a couple of quotes from Darwin's book.. What about the racism of Evolution.. Darwin stating the white man is more evolved than the black man & thus is superior.. Explain that one! (my personal opinion is that God created all men equally & in his image..)

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934. 934. jimboo 04:40 PM 1/29/10

     Is this the best refutes they could come up with?? How about how we went from non-organic to organic & the evolutionary process' involved? How about proving that cells actually gain information along the way to counter the living proof that they actually are loosing information all the time.. What about Dawkins' admition to ID & that 'he nor anyone else had an explination as to how we got here..' All you can counter is a couple of quotes from Darwin's book.. What about the racism of Evolution.. Darwin stating the white man is more evolved than the black man & thus is superior.. Explain that one! (my personal opinion is that God created all men equally & in his image..)

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935. 935. jimboo in reply to Trevorl314 05:06 PM 1/29/10

     Well in that case, why don't Evolution scientists have an open debate with creationists so the people of the world can see a balanced debate and then enable people to think for themselves? Because Evolution scientists don't want people to think for themselves.. They are scared because their 'science' is mortally flawed and they don't want anyone to know it.. by this they try to shoot down any people with more sound, provable ideas opposeing evolution so they can stay dominant, just like Stalin, Hitler, Nero, Caligula and many MANY more people over history have done to enable them to enforce their agenda on the world, a new world order and a new religion of evolution, which by definition, can only be regarded as a faith as supported by the complete lack of credible evidence..

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936. 936. Carl 08:24 PM 2/4/10

     Intelligent Design?
     I don't think so. If life was the result of intelligent design
     then "intelligent" scientists and bio engineers could produce
     some tiny living cell, don't you think?
     Let us be intellectually honest and admit that the great
     variety of living things was designed by a Super Intelligence.
     I have no problem with flies in Liverpool turning black
     in color from white because of environmental changes.
     I will take notice however if a fly turns into a bee.
     Carl

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937. 937. jimboo in reply to Carl 09:04 AM 2/7/10

     Well yes, you would think that all these 'intelligent scientists' etc would be able to create life from nothing, or atleast from mixing various proteins and such together to create a self-replicating cell from 'nothing', with all their 'smarts' and technology around, but guess what... THEY CAN'T, because it is far too complex.. If the chances of pseudo-scientists doing this in the lab is totally impossible, then how, under infinitely more life-unfriendly circumstances, did it happen by chance.. The fact is that Darwin tried to explain, very poorly, the origins of life on earth some 150trs ago, and we today are further away from proving that theory because of the evidence and technology we have today than he was in his day.. Doesn't that tell you something?? That the theory of evolution has actually gotten further away from a logical & so-called scientific explination/proof of our origins than when it all began with Darwin.. What a waste of money and time.. About time that these 'scientists' actlually got into a useful field and found a cure for cancer and ways of growing food quickly for the worlds hungry rather than wasting it on something which they are constantly going backwards and constantly DIS-proving Evolution! "How did we get here Prf Dawkins? -I don't know.." And this man has made it his lifes work to find an answer to this not to mention the countless millions of pounds of public monies going into it and he STILL doesn't know.. About time they all tried another way at explaining it methinks..

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938. 938. dniemeye 03:09 PM 2/9/10

     In college I was told by my zoology teacher, who was also a nationally reknown genetics scietist, to "not question Evolution. Just accept it. Evolution is fact. You must not question it." That is a direct quote and not prompted by any student's statements or questions, just a part of his lecture. That was about the most unscientific statement I heard in all my years in college. I have seen first-hand the repression of ID or of any questioning of the "science" of evolution.

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939. 939. AlexDietrich 10:32 PM 2/25/10

     Although "Expelled" is clearly biased, it does make some very good arguments against evolution. I cannot understand how one may argue that a wolf-like creature liked the water and therefore it's ancestors evolved into whales. I think both evolution and creationism are far fetched. Can't we just admit that we don't know? The fossil records are just guesses. Because things look similar they must be related? That's simply bad logic. Perhaps I'm simply ignorant, but if that is so, why doesn't the scientific community provide the common joe with the deep stuff. I want to know on a cellular level, how does evolution happen the way they taught it in biology? How did we come from a single celled organism? No one can really give me a straight answer, so I say we didn't.

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940. 940. AlexDietrich 10:48 PM 2/25/10

     LOGICA:
     I think most of the debating is done between angry or biased people on either end. Creationists or ID proponents are often ignorant of 'science jargon' and therefore end up saying things like "evolution is just a theory. Evolutionists who are too defensive make it seem like there is more being discussed than just the science.
     Evolutionists set up creationists for failure and the creationists do the same. It's not fair because creationists will always call evolutionists 'atheists' and evolutionists will always call creationists ignorant. It's the scientific eqivalent of racism.
     People in these debates always have an agenda. I am trying to write a paper about the flaws in evolution and those debates are some of the most useless sources around. I'm always expecting the next comment out of the evolutionists to be "Oh yeah, well you're retarded". This certainly doesn't do much for the furtherance of anything.

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941. 941. yruafraid? in reply to gomper 12:57 PM 3/2/10

     In 2005, Stein said in the American Spectator:
     
      Can anyone even remember now what Nixon did that was so terrible? He ended the war in Vietnam, brought home the POWs, ended the war in the Mideast, opened relations with China, started the first nuclear weapons reduction treaty, saved Eretz Israel's life, started the Environmental Protection Administration. Does anyone remember what he did that was bad?
     Oh, now I remember. He lied. He was a politician who lied. How remarkable. He lied to protect his subordinates who were covering up a ridiculous burglary that no one to this date has any clue about its purpose. He lied so he could stay in office and keep his agenda of peace going. That was his crime. He was a peacemaker and he wanted to make a world where there was a generation of peace. And he succeeded.
     
     That is his legacy. He was a peacemaker. He was a lying, conniving, covering up peacemaker. He was not a lying, conniving drug addict like JFK, a lying, conniving war starter like LBJ, a lying, conniving seducer like Clintona lying, conniving peacemaker.[14]
     
     

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942. 942. yruafraid? in reply to gomper 12:58 PM 3/2/10

     In 2005, Stein said in the American Spectator:
     
     “ Can anyone even remember now what Nixon did that was so terrible? He ended the war in Vietnam, brought home the POWs, ended the war in the Mideast, opened relations with China, started the first nuclear weapons reduction treaty, saved Eretz Israel's life, started the Environmental Protection Administration. Does anyone remember what he did that was bad?
     Oh, now I remember. He lied. He was a politician who lied. How remarkable. He lied to protect his subordinates who were covering up a ridiculous burglary that no one to this date has any clue about its purpose. He lied so he could stay in office and keep his agenda of peace going. That was his crime. He was a peacemaker and he wanted to make a world where there was a generation of peace. And he succeeded.
     
     That is his legacy. He was a peacemaker. He was a lying, conniving, covering up peacemaker. He was not a lying, conniving drug addict like JFK, a lying, conniving war starter like LBJ, a lying, conniving seducer like Clinton—a lying, conniving peacemaker.[14]
     
     

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943. 943. yruafraid? in reply to AlexDietrich 01:52 PM 3/2/10

     To AlexDietrich: You missed the point of the film as did many. It was not to argure "for" I.D. or "against" evolutionism. It was to say that if this is TRUELY a free democracy, why then, in a public classroom setting, can't the I.D. theory be spoken about without persecution? Teachers who, not even arguing FOR I.D., but merely saying "isn't it posible that there MAY be another therory OTHER than evolutionism?", are being repremanded and even FIRED. If this is a country of FREEE SPEACH, why is just presenting another THEORY-not even arguring for it, just PRESENTING it- not allowed in the classroom!? WHAT are the evoulutionist so AFRAID of?

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944. 944. yruafraid? in reply to AlexDietrich 02:10 PM 3/2/10

     To AlexDietrich: You missed the point of the film as did many. It was not to argure "for" I.D. or "against" evolutionism. It was to say that if this is TRUELY a free democracy, why then, in a public classroom setting, can't the I.D. theory be spoken about without persecution? Teachers who, not even arguing FOR I.D., but merely saying "isn't it posible that there MAY be another therory OTHER than evolutionism?", are being repremanded and even FIRED. If this is a country of FREEE SPEACH, why is just presenting another THEORY-not even arguring for it, just PRESENTING it- not allowed in the classroom!? WHAT are the evoulutionist so AFRAID of?

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945. 945. yruafraid? in reply to girl athee 02:29 PM 3/2/10

     To girl athee (if that's supposed to be short for "atheist" you spelled it wrong. It's not "ee" it's e"i", as in INTELLIGENCE!). And if you haven't even seen the movie your opinion is IGGNORANT (it's not like you had to read a book or anything- you just have to have SOME intelligence to watch a very UNBIASED movie, process it, and THEN come to a conclusion. The movie was not even promoting I.D., it was merely defending pursecution of anyone suggesting that there MAY be another therory to how life began BESIDES the full of holes evolutionist's theory. What are the evolutionists & atheists so afraid of anyway... hmmm, don't have to think long about THAT one!

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946. 946. yruafraid? in reply to dniemeye 03:00 PM 3/2/10

     To: dniemeye That's EXACTLY it! You hit the nail on the head! Your REAL LIFE unfortunate experience is exactly the point of Ben Stein's movie. It was NOT to argure for or against evolutionism or I.D. but to say that people are being suppressed in NOT being allowed to even QUESTION the fact that there might be another theory. If they do, they are being FIRED (hense the name of the film- "Expelled") Ben was just trying to expose the fact that you, and many, many people all over America (and world, for that matter) are being told, "this is fact, and not to question it". Don't we have a RIGHT to question it without being afraid of persecution and/or losing our jobs ? AND, if evolutionists are so "scientific", they wouldn't be saying such UNSCIENTIFIC things like "not question Evolution. Just accept it. Evolution is fact. You must not question it." as your so-called science teacher (and science teachers like them) are saying.

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947. 947. rgoode 05:52 PM 3/5/10

     wow , you went to a whole lot of work in this artical. Great job at throwing a bunch of bullshit dut in the air. Sorry though, you didnt distract the me from the main point of the movie. Scientist have motives that make them poor scientist.... How bout instead...... no motive, just truth for a change?

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948. 948. pprlb 09:50 PM 3/14/10

     I would like to thank Scientific American for making Ben Stein's point so well. If you had actually seen the movie, you would know what I mean. I have seen evolution's so called "evidence" and you should be questioned and scrutinized. The evidence is bunk. Bone fragments, silly assumptions, and even worse, artist renditions. Then attack anyone who dares stand up against it. You should have all your federal funding stripped, and evolution should never be taught in school. What purpose does it serve to teach it, other to devalue life and demoralize society. Yeah, I believe in God, and I know my enemy! You can reply if you want, I won't be back to your web site...

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949. 949. Fahtoo 11:58 PM 3/18/10

     Why is this movie such a burr under Scientific America's saddle. It is after all just a movie, you would think the sky was falling. It's a slam dunk, evolution vs intelligent design, right. It's time to go to the mattresses, bring it all out into the open for the world to see. Finish it once and for all, have a face off, put up the best scientists on the side of evolution against the best on the side of id. It's time to put up or shut up!

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950. 950. Fahtoo 12:04 AM 3/19/10

     I'm a little confused as to why Scientific America has it's feathers ruffled over a movie. What is the scientific community afraid of ? This all sounds a bit to much like a gaggle of Jr High girls in a tiff. Both sides should come to the table and lay your cards down. If the proof is in the science, what are you afraid of?

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951. 951. Jefferyth 10:22 PM 3/21/10

     At one time, I felt that Ben Stein had value in life. That was before watching his cramumentary: cramming a coined term "Intelligent Design" & the staged meetings, down our throats for 90 minutes.
     
     Mr. Stein has now dispelled any myth, to me, of his value : ) Other than what a sell-out he is for this and all the hokie commercials he is lending his constipated look too. This was such a one handed clap: Ben, with one hand on, you know what, and he wasn't clapping!
     
     As history shows, man has used a belief in god to explain the unknown. As our knowledge grows, the gods have become further from mans reach. In this case, scientists have been using God in their studies.
     
     I have to give the Church(s) credit for this multi-decade plan of laying the ground work for this new term "Intelligent Design" And how they are using it to try to bring creation into the question of how the world became the world. It's there answer to losing ground in this battle.
     
     This is nothing less than great marketing, and as history shows us, the church bulling us around with any thought other than theirs. There just get away with molisting kids and now craming new terms down our throat.
     
     To listen to any of these people I would have to get a gun and handicap my self with about 4 shots to my central cortex and maybe a couple to the hippo-campus, entorhinal cortex, and perirhinal cortex, just for good measures.
     
     I didn't hear the answer to the question: If there is a god, who created god" The only answer I have heard is that god has always been there. Hence, the understanding that "God" is the unknown, to me!
     
     Do you have to be bad, if you don't believe in a god, NO! I know way more bad, very bad, people that believe in a god, than bad people that don't believe in a God.
     
     Again, if there is a god, or ?...Who created Him or Her : )
     
     Can't we all just get along and instead of the debate of if or if not, can we take care of the kids that are dyeing from starvation. Wow, what kind of all powerful GOD would let this happen, or for that matter, let his son be nailed to a steak, is God is all powerful!
     
     I know that I can't know for sure if there is or is no "God" but I do know either way, we all need to live our lives in a great way and have fun in this beautiful world and give back to the less fortunate.
     
     I'm glad I'm on gods side and born in America and not in a third world, whew, dodged that bullet, or did god have a lottery? I've never thought I was luck in lotteries, but being born in America was pretty lucky. Thanks god : )

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952. 952. Jefferyth 10:23 PM 3/21/10

     At one time, I felt that Ben Stein had value in life. That was before watching his cramumentary: cramming a coined term "Intelligent Design" & the staged meetings, down our throats for 90 minutes.
     
     Mr. Stein has now dispelled any myth, to me, of his value : ) Other than what a sell-out he is for this and all the hokie commercials he is lending his constipated look too. This was such a one handed clap: Ben, with one hand on, you know what, and he wasn't clapping!
     
     As history shows, man has used a belief in god to explain the unknown. As our knowledge grows, the gods have become further from mans reach. In this case, scientists have been using God in their studies.
     
     I have to give the Church(s) credit for this multi-decade plan of laying the ground work for this new term "Intelligent Design" And how they are using it to try to bring creation into the question of how the world became the world. It's there answer to losing ground in this battle.
     
     This is nothing less than great marketing, and as history shows us, the church bulling us around with any thought other than theirs. There just get away with molisting kids and now craming new terms down our throat.
     
     To listen to any of these people I would have to get a gun and handicap my self with about 4 shots to my central cortex and maybe a couple to the hippo-campus, entorhinal cortex, and perirhinal cortex, just for good measures.
     
     I didn't hear the answer to the question: If there is a god, who created god" The only answer I have heard is that god has always been there. Hence, the understanding that "God" is the unknown, to me!
     
     Do you have to be bad, if you don't believe in a god, NO! I know way more bad, very bad, people that believe in a god, than bad people that don't believe in a God.
     
     Again, if there is a god, or ?...Who created Him or Her : )
     
     Can't we all just get along and instead of the debate of if or if not, can we take care of the kids that are dyeing from starvation. Wow, what kind of all powerful GOD would let this happen, or for that matter, let his son be nailed to a steak, is God is all powerful!
     
     I know that I can't know for sure if there is or is no "God" but I do know either way, we all need to live our lives in a great way and have fun in this beautiful world and give back to the less fortunate.
     
     I'm glad I'm on gods side and born in America and not in a third world, whew, dodged that bullet, or did god have a lottery? I've never thought I was luck in lotteries, but being born in America was pretty lucky. Thanks god : )

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953. 953. Jefferyth 10:28 PM 3/21/10

     A nice CRAMumentary of a coined term "Intelligent Design". I have lost all faith in Mr. Stein.
     
     If there is a god, who created him or her : )
     
     God is the way to explain the unknown, and has become a way to control masses: a mini government.

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954. 954. Jefferyth in reply to jmarbas 10:43 PM 3/21/10

     Yes. But where would these _____ _____ people go if they didn't have Church on sunday : )
     
     This is not a Movie: it is a "CRAMumentary" I am deciding whether to take this DVD back and getting my money back or destroying it so no one else can see it? Tough choice.
     
     I have lost any value in Mr. Ben Stein for his poor choice to cram a new term, with the Church, down our throats for 90 minutes: "Intelligent Design". I wonder how much market research they did before they decided on this term? And how many billions they will spend on branding it. Couldn't this money be better spent to help kids, animals, create a better life?
     
     I truly feel like the world is a little worse off for this DVD and God should punish Mr. Ben Stein : ) ONLY IF!
     
     I would like to make a note that the secular based use against anyone that dose not believe in a god is bad, I know many more bad people, that use God, as their way to justify their improper actions, than don't.
     
     Life Bless You!

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955. 955. follylikepolly 03:01 PM 3/24/10

     I laughed aloud when I read that "science avoids design explanations for natural phenomena out of logical necessity."
     How is it logically more sound that the world was formed from nothingness to something with an energy that was non-existent, and all these events just happened to fall into exact place to form the Earth we live in?
     It seems as if it would take a god of its own to make all of those events fall exactly into place.
     (I wouldn't put my money on an evolutionary luck bet)

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956. 956. LifeLover 03:24 PM 4/4/10

     Ladies and Gentlemen, I have spent much time following your lines of thought. I and any other mildly intelligent person would have to conclude that no one side of this debate has "The Answer that will convince all" There are many many unanswered questions.
     I have had to laugh and shake my head at some of your conclusions as they sound as if they are reactionary or at times sarcastic.
     I am not a proclaimed scientist so it hard for me to sort out all the jargon that is thrown around but I tend to follow most of it. I see that there are some of you that are set in your "belief" whatever it is and some of you are truly open minded.
     It is apparent that the SA is an organization that is diametrically opposed to a "God" or creation concept to be sure. I appreciate the fact they have providided an open discussion here on the subjects.
     I am a fact and truth seeker myself and the questions for thought I have are several that I believe have not been answered are as follows.
     1. Do any of you claim to know when, how, matter came into existence? can you prove it?
     2. Do any of you know how life started? Can you prove it?
     3. Has evidence EVER been skewed or manipulated by credible scientists or creationists?
     4. If there is a God and he/she/they they is intelligent beyond our imaginations could conceive could he/she/they not have orchestrated all the evidence so as to test humans to be fit for an eternal existence with him/her/them?
     5. Could faith be the main test?
     6. If you are one that does NOT believe in a "God" what is your evidence for his/her/their non existence?
     7. What exactly is the strong nuclear force? Can you prove it?
     8. Has not science pushed itself into the classroom of America and other countries by political power, position, money, and judgments? Is that a scientific method? Do not the scientists use non scientific methods to promote and push what they believe upon others? So would that not mean that scientists are willing to separate themselves away from their darling facts and tables long enough to have their agenda pushed upon others?
     
     9. Do not many of the creationist bent do the same thing?
     
     10. Why can we not re create life in the laboratory?
     
     11. If we are the result of evolutionary theories, then would that not make religion a result of evolution? By the evolutionary definition there is no god/gods right? Then it is evolutionary that we have belief in god right? Why then would you call people that are part of the evolutionary process, "stupid" "dull" well just go through the list of Dawkins comments.

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957. 957. LifeLover 03:30 PM 4/4/10

     girl athee
     How can you say it is a lousy attempt if you never have seen it? That is like me saying evolutionary science is a lousy attempt to show the origins of life w/o ever looking at the evidence.

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958. 958. LifeLover 03:35 PM 4/4/10

     Ladies and Gentlemen, I have spent much time following your lines of thought. I and any other mildly intelligent person would have to conclude that no one side of this debate has "The Answer that will convince all" There are many many unanswered questions.
     I have had to laugh and shake my head at some of your conclusions as they sound as if they are reactionary or at times sarcastic.
     I am not a proclaimed scientist so it hard for me to sort out all the jargon that is thrown around but I tend to follow most of it. I see that there are some of you that are set in your "belief" whatever it is and some of you are truly open minded.
     It is apparent that the SA is an organization that is diametrically opposed to a "God" or creation concept to be sure. I appreciate the fact they have providided an open discussion here on the subjects.
     I am a fact and truth seeker myself and the questions for thought I have are several that I believe have not been answered are as follows.
     1. Do any of you claim to know when, how, matter came into existence? can you prove it?
     2. Do any of you know how life started? Can you prove it?
     3. Has evidence EVER been skewed or manipulated by credible scientists or creationists?
     4. If there is a God and he/she/they they is intelligent beyond our imaginations could conceive could he/she/they not have orchestrated all the evidence so as to test humans to be fit for an eternal existence with him/her/them?
     5. Could faith be the main test?
     6. If you are one that does NOT believe in a "God" what is your evidence for his/her/their non existence?
     7. What exactly is the strong nuclear force? Can you prove it?
     8. Has not science pushed itself into the classroom of America and other countries by political power, position, money, and judgments? Is that a scientific method? Do not the scientists use non scientific methods to promote and push what they believe upon others? So would that not mean that scientists are willing to separate themselves away from their darling facts and tables long enough to have their agenda pushed upon others?
     
     9. Do not many of the creationist bent do the same thing?
     
     10. Why can we not re create life in the laboratory?
     
     11. If we are the result of evolutionary theories, then would that not make religion a result of evolution? By the evolutionary definition there is no god/gods right? Then it is evolutionary that we have belief in god right? Why then would you call people that are part of the evolutionary process, "stupid" "dull" well just go through the list of Dawkins comments.

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959. 959. LifeLover 03:42 PM 4/4/10

     If you are so convinced you are right why do you find it necessary to hurl epitaphs and insults at those who according to you are stupid, less educated, blind, intolerant, ignorant etc..? If you are so much more informed than they should you not by friendship, love, concern, mercy, tolerance, humbleness, casuistry, patience, and concern point out your views to them? Who taught us that being kind is just not the way to approach our fellow human beings?

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960. 960. LifeLover 03:59 PM 4/4/10

     Why are Christians forced to take their chidren out of the public school system in order to give them a Christian education?
     Do not Christians pay taxes for the schools? Why can't the "ignorant" have their own brand of teaching in the schools? Are they hurting any one, even if they are self deluded and have non verifiable faith?
     How is it fair that the scientists get to use public money to promote their views (fact or not) and the Christians do not?
     Even if the Christian viewpoint is a "fairytale" "fable" or whatever you want to call it. So is not high math the same? What about acting out fiction in plays? Literature that is fiction? Philosophy? Pictures of evolutionary chains, animals, etc that are artists conceptions? Libraries that we know are full of lies and half truths. Fantasy animals that we give names to make our kids read them? why are evolutionists so up in arms about God in society. After all if evolution is true them we are and all of our actions are part of the process. Should we not embrace the one who has evolved into a believer of god/gods out of sheer respect for evolutionary process?
     How is it that the evolutionists think that this is fair? How is it that the creationist think that the only thing that should be taught in the classroom is creation?

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961. 961. LifeLover 04:03 PM 4/4/10

     How could the emotion and feeling of love come from a mass of unintelligent molecules?

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962. 962. LifeLover 04:04 PM 4/4/10

     how can molecules become self aware?

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963. 963. LifeLover 04:10 PM 4/4/10

     Have any evolutionists here ever been a "born again christian"? If not how is it that you could condemn their viewpoint? Do you not want them to stand on science and see things the way you perceive them? If their viewpoint is wrong then prove it by their own methodology. Join the wolf pack to learn how the wolf thinks.
     We do that with "ignorant tribes" of the amazons etc.. and call it science and advancement.
     
     

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964. 964. LifeLover 04:14 PM 4/4/10

     There are many religions in the world and they all believe something a little or a lot different.
     There are many scientists inn the world that all believe something a little or a lot different.
     There can only be one truth. Since none of us believe the same thing then it must be either God or evolution that intended it to be this way.

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965. 965. jimmythesaint 07:20 PM 5/11/10

     Saw the movie. I see that others have their own opinion as do I. Good to see. My opinion - intelligent design began a universe which has evolved. Oh - and none of us really has a clue what we're talking about in the whole scheme of things. A human who percieves themselves grasping all of this has one heck of an ego. Perhaps that is why Ben Stein is the movie's host? God bless you good people. Best wishes.

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966. 966. TheScriptureMan 04:15 PM 5/12/10

     In regards to number four, if this is truly Richards site as it says then he believes he did work there. View http://www.rsternberg.net/.

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967. 967. dns 12:04 PM 5/31/10

     I found the movie to be really informative & Ben Stein did not glorify ID or seem to overly attack Evoloution. It is no secret that the Evolution THEORY is taught mainly as a fact in classrooms around the US with out even mentioning the possibility of ID. Even bringing up questions in a classroom gets a student in trouble in many cases [as was the case in my school]. The way I see it, both views (and any view of how the world and things began) is somewhat faith-based because there is no absolute proof for any theory or idea presented because none of us were present when it all began. It is ridiculous to say that one is allowed to be mentioned and another not- I'm not asking for them to add Genesis into a text book; but at least make it clear that evolution is a theory that there are other possible, plausible and for some more sensible possibilities for how things came to be. I was shocked at how openly hateful and self-righteous some of the evolutionary scientists were about any that believe in ID.
     
     p.s.
     @girl athee
     you have not seen the film and already have the opinion that
     "This "Expelled" movie really is a very lousy attempt to monetary gains but not to be shrugged off and dismissed as this will really affect those who are "mentally challenged" in the evolution part at least. "
     ?
     How very scientifically open-minded of you.

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968. 968. sonnetsmith in reply to jmarbas 03:06 PM 6/2/10

     Folks in the Evolutionary model Me exploiting others for pleasure or gain. is Fine! Right and wrong are religious concepts to be abandoned. It is about me propagating my superior genes to bless the race after me. I am always amazed at how weak evolutionists are, always trying to prop up good and evil, no such thing! Might is Right.
     P.S.
     What a weak attempt to discredit "Expelled" . The time has come to realize That believing in evolution is like believing the earth is flat.

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969. 969. kafka 07:26 PM 7/8/10

     Ben Stein seemed to be taking a Michael Moore approach to documentary making, but with less success. He used methods common to many true believers such as ridicule (the old film clips which ran during and in between interviews) and a form of character assassination (associating Darwinism with Nazism). His pro-ID scientists claimed that evolutionary theory was deeply flawed but failed to give any examples. As I understand it, ID evolved (!) from Creationism, dropping references to a specific god in the hope of making it more acceptable as a science subject. Stein cannot help himself, however, and God enters the film in its later stages.

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970. 970. Polaris77 02:55 PM 7/13/10

     I am certainly open to Darwin and have no desire to see any
     suppression of his ideas and writings. But the time has come to
     move forward in the evolutionary sense. Western scientists seem to believe that they have all the answers concerning human evolution and look no further afield. But it can be scientifically proved that the human brain is still in a state of organic evolution. Moreover, it can be demonstrated by science that this evolution has a specific target. In other words, the future evolution of the human brain is stamped with the blueprint of this evolution. The target of human evolution is called perennial samadhi or Turiya, which means in Sanskrit, roughly, Cosmic Consciousness. In recent times, the Kashmiri sage, Pandit Gopi Krishna, awakened the "evolutionary mechanism," namely Kundalini, and underwent the predictable physiological changes precisely stated in the esoteric texts of Ancient India, emerging in a state of higher consciousness that he demonstrated time after time. These demonstrations are available to scientists and the public in the form of his many books, detailing the biological changes that occurred in his nervous system and brain. If Scientific American were to investigate the case of Gopi Krishna and report its findings the door would be thrown wide open to a global discussion, or debate, surpassing that which occurred shortly after Darwin published his "Origin of Species." These discussions and debates would literally transform the world of science. However, it is very doubtful that the Establishment would ever permit open debate or discussion on this particular line
     of scientific research. Read The Secret of Yoga, New York, Harper & Row, 1972, for starters. Gopi Krishna wrote more than a dozen books along the same lines, and yet he was born into a rural family in Kashmir and attended only a rural school. His literary ability was minimal, his I.Q. was average, and his education stopped at the 12th grade. And yet his biological transformation beginning at the age of 34, in 1937,
     and continuing until about 1950 is historical. His account of the transformation process has been published in more than ten languages in as many countries and is known by millions.
     Yet aside from a few Op-Ed Page articles in The New York Times (see Oct. 6, 1973 NYTimes Op-Ed page), the media has refused to review any of his books or essays. In other words, he has been ostracized by the Academic and scientific world as well as the media. This is a crime against humanity.

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971. 971. myexodus 04:00 PM 7/26/10

     I've saw the movie and found the arguments interesting and the credentials of those interviewed impressive. It is true, by just reading these responses, that there are some really passionate positions. I've known for some time that the claims of evolution have some gaps, for example, the fossil evidence. The fossil evidence shows simple and complex species, but no transitional specimens. The movie clearly states that science is based on empirical evidence, therefore each hypothesis has to be proven, for which the movie aptly presents its position.

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972. 972. Polaris77@cshore.com 09:43 AM 7/27/10

     After forty (40) years of knocking at the door of science
     to request just one moment of its time (and attention), I
     have come to the conclusion that science has tunnel vision
     and is closed to any new ideas that threaten the status
     quo when it comes to the investigation of human evolution.
     There are a number of well educated individuals who have
     published numerous books on how science can demonstrate
     that the human brain is still in a state of organic evolution
     and that its evolution is leading toward a specific target.
     This was first made known in two books, published simultaneously by Harper & Row, New York, in 1972. Review
     copies were sent out to about 400 publications by the
     publisher (Harper & Row), but neither received a single
     review. This, despite the fact that one of the books carried
     a 46-page Introduction by the world-renowned German
     scientist, Carl Friedrich von Weizsacker, director of the
     Max Planck Institute for Life Sciences in Starnburg.
     The titles of these two books was "The Biological Basis of
     Religion and Genius," and "The Secret of Yoga." To this day
     scientists do not want this information made known to the
     public. If it safe to say that even Scientific American would
     not deign to peruse either of these history-making books. Why? Because they would upset the current notions of
     human evolution.

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973. 973. mrcyclist 01:46 PM 8/13/10

     Has anyone ever considered that ID may be a component of evolution? Ever hear of genetic engineering?

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974. 974. wizardmitch 10:12 PM 8/14/10

     There is much reason to suspect a monetary motive concerning Expelled. Whether the motive was direct or indirect the product exploited were several undeniable circumstances:
     1st, nothing exists to conclusively confirm evolution or intelligent design. 2nd, the more our technological capabilities advance the more complex a cells structure is revealed to be. 3rd, using these same said capabilities and the same scientific methods used to support evolution, one is left with the inconsistency that the probabilities of DNA (life) self generation are dwarfed by other theories that contend extraterrestrial intervention, using these same said capabilities and methods.
     One does not have to be entrenched in a religion to see that there is an apparent agenda by many evolution theorists. TheExpelled claim that efforts to keep the extraterrestrial point of view both divided and discredited by the same tactics used against the early evolutionists do seem to have merit.
     Theology based extraterrestrial intervention is discredited by its supposed lack of conclusive explanation to reconcile existing apparent features and formations with apparently conflicting written accounts. The fact is that when one considers all materials available, makes no assumptions based on earth bound physics and looks at pure probabilities, a convoluted timeline of physics that fits into the confines of the written story has no less probability than evolution. Yet it is labeled non-scientific nonsense.
     The real tell tale in all of this seems the way that non theological theories are discredited via the fact that the intelligent design approach does not address the ultimate life creation point. The main flaw being that some how the rest of the laws of science will be nullified by the admission that man is not the end all when it comes to lifes origins. Yet again, our capabilities and methods dictate similar or greater probabilities for this explanation as well.
     (continued)

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975. 975. Badoo2 01:14 PM 8/30/10

     I noticed you have alot of Advertisement from all of those Evolutionist groups so You look pretty biused your selfves. Also you forgot to mention all of those who opposed the ID that they are the ones who started calling those who came up with conclusions of ID . All kinds of bad names but very little in science proof of what Darin even himself said that the Cambreian period does not and at his time cannot be evolution based. So you do have a delima and sicence has proven ID is the truth . And who's Propaganda are you preaching? You have been shown the turth and yes some here will ask the rocks to fall on them and hid them from his face in the end. But don't believe the bible and don't believe God. You still will be heild acountable! No you can't plead you didn't know so prove your hatred and enjoy while you can. Time is short but don't believe that either .

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976. 976. Badoo2 01:32 PM 8/30/10

     Who is Progagandiseing the issue you have lot of support from Evoltuion Bias here on your site.. Scientfic America it self has not looked at the truth it self about ID. Evolution is thier God ! and you can start calling bad names to all those who don't beleive in Evolution , Show them your Hatred so you think it makes you right. Stop avoiding the issue is ID incorrect Scientficly or not. they showed you by science several different ways and Darin himself had Delima with Cambreian period that has proven He was wrong. And Evolution is not correect. Start stating the facts not your Religion Evolution . Yes Hitler did study Darin's book . It is Fact . Yes he did do what suvival of the fittist would do. It is Fact . Stop lieing about the truth and face the facts. Call me all the names you want it sitll does not make you right.

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977. 977. Polaris77@cshore.com 03:40 PM 8/30/10

     My belief is that Ben Stein and Scientific American know
     everything already and would not consider even thinking
     about something they do not already know. In that
     respect, they are no different than any other self-appointed
     expert on everything. What Ben Stein and Scientific
     American do not know is that the human brain is still in
     a state of organic evolution and that this can be emporically
     demonstrated. Moreover, it can also be demonstrated that this evolution has a definite (specific) target.

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978. 978. johnhei 08:12 PM 9/12/10

     The cosmological and biological evolutionary paradigm is based on philosophical naturalism. Namely, that we live in a godless universe where everything is merely matter in motion. A naturalistic universe that is functions on purely natural laws and processes that are unfeeling, uncaring, and amoral. Together with the purely naturalistic evolutionary process of chance mutations and natural selection, which is likewise unfeeling, uncaring and amoral. All of which means that we have absolutely no philosophical or naturalistic basis for caring, feeling, love, or altruism, and absolutely no basis for declaring anything good or evil, God included. In short, Darwinian evolution is the perfect justification for the conduct of Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and the elimination of millions of children every year, particularly in America. It's called abortion.

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979. 979. johnhei 04:55 AM 9/13/10

     Physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, Director of the Manhattan Project; Alfred North Whitehead, mathematician and philosopher; Robert Jastrow, American astronomer, physicist and cosmologist; Stanley Jaki, professor of Physics, and leading thinker in the philosophy of science and theology; Rodney Stark American Sociologist, and many others have all stressed that the Scientific Method was founded on the Christian worldview. Namely that we live in a universe that can best be explained by an intelligent cause, together with the insistence on the rationality of God. A self-evident reality that is represented in the perspectives of Intelligent Design movement, and Creationist scientists. As stated by Wikipedia, Intelligent design is the proposition that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. It is a contemporary version of the traditional teleological argument for the existence of God.”
     
     All scientists have a fundamental faith - and it is faith - that there is a real world out there that has rules that can be understood by rational means. That's what science is all about, and all scientists must believe that. Scientists can apply intelligence, reason, logic and mathematics to the universe only because we live in a universe that clearly manifests intelligence, order, mathematical regularity and predictability. Indeed, there is no other basis on which one can do science. The alternative is to conduct science in the current crack pot “NON-INTELLIGENT” design universe. A “non-intelligent” universe which would naturally be devoid of order, design, mathematical regularity and predictability. In the words of Ben Stein, it would be a universe where there would be “No Intelligence Allowed”.
     
     The fact that the scientific establishment ( SA included) have actively sided with the ANTI-INTELLIGENT Design movement shows the full extent to which the scientific establishment itself has been seduced by Philosophical Naturalism and materialism: We now have scientists seemingly living in denial and ignoring the foundational realities on which the Scientific Method and all of science is founded. Of course readers will cry foul and scream and shout about how misinformed I am. But their commitment to naturalism and opposition the principles underlying Intelligent design well demonstrate how right I am.
     
     As stated by the Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, Naturalism is the “metaphysical” position that “nature is all there is, and all basic truths are truths about nature. Such an assertion has no sustainable or verifiable basis, and is nothing more than scientism, which is the unsustainable precept that science is the foundation of ALL knowledge, and that all truth can be arrived at by the empirical method. However, rather than affirm this dogmatic assertion, the Empirical & Scientific Method says the exact opposite, because everything in science is “tentative” and “not necessarily the final word. Thus, naturalism and scientism violate the Scientific Method and turns science on its head its head. And this is exactly where the scientific establishment now largely pledges its allegiance, SA included.
     
     This reality is blatantly evident than in the current assertions of Stephen J Hawking. We now have the bazaar situation where the world’s most prominent and celebrated physicist, Stephen W Hawking, is promoting naturalism and scientism. In his latest book titled, The Grand Design, Hawking dogmatically asserts that that there is no place for God in theories relating to the creation of the universe. Hawking, with his “finite” and “limited” knowledge, thus makes assertions about the “infinite” & “ultimate” nature of reality. Thus, attributing to himself the ultimate and infinite perspective of deity. As stated by the French existential philosopher, Jean Paul Sarte, “A finite point without an infinite reference point is meaningless and absurd.”, which makes Hawking’s limited “finite” insights into reality meaningless and absurd.
     
     So I again remind Hawking (and SA) that the Scientific Method is founded on the principle that everything in science is “tentative” and “not necessarily the final word”, which makes Hawking’s assertions about the non-existent God “tentative” and “not necessarily the final word”. The Scientific Method also makes the dogmatic assertions of philosophical naturalism and materialism “tentative’ and “not necessarily the final word.” The Scientific Method insures that the scientific establishment will never be in a position to make ultimate statements about ultimate reality. One would need to be God make such dogmatic statements, and any scientist that makes that claim would be placed in a white coat, and marched out of the laboratory, rather than in.
     
     However, the fact that such statements are repeatedly made by scientists fully reveals the extent to which the scientific establishment has immersed itself in the dogma of naturalism and scientism. . And reveals the extent to which scientists are living in a state of denial and self-delusion. I repeat, the fact that the Scientific Method functions on the reality that human knowledge, understanding and insights will always be forever “finite” and “limited”, makes the dogmatic assertions of philosophical naturalism and materialism unsustainable.
     

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980. 980. johnhei 11:49 AM 9/14/10

     I was rather amused by this statement re 5: "Actually, science avoids design explanations for natural phenomena out of logical necessity. The scientific method involves rigorously observing and experimenting on the material world. It accepts as evidence only what can be measured or otherwise empirically validated (a requirement called methodological naturalism). That requirement prevents scientific theories from becoming untestable and overcomplicated."
     
     
     I wonder what universe these guys live in. This statement is unsustainable nonsense. This would, of necessity, mean denying to entire structure of the universe, and all the foundational principles on which science functions. All of science is based on the reality that we live in universe that is highly structured at every level. Which is precisely why science looks for order, structure, regularity, mathematical continuity, and cause-effect relationships. That is precisely why science has discovered finely tuned cosmological constants, and recognized them as such. And why they recognize finely balanced sub atomic relationships, superbly coordinate biological systems, amazingly complex DNA coding. And precisely why scientists fully scrutinize stellar signal and planets looking for “design” characteristics that indicate intelligence. Does this mean that when science discovers something in outer space that appears “designed” that we must totally ignore this discovery because it is “designed”, because John Rennie and Steve Mirsky’s version of science cannot accept that it is designed, as this is not allowed.
     
     We should also discontinue using the scientific method itself because all of science is founded on realities that are untestable and overcomplicated. For example, how do we test how the universe itself came into existence, particularly when the answer seems so overcomplicated. Maybe, we should just reject the fact that both we and the universe actually exists. While we’re at it we should totally reject the use of all the measuring devices, computers and technological equipment in science, as they too are clearly designed, and anything designed has no place in science. And what of natural law itself, the gatekeeper as to what is science and what is not. Shall we also reject natural law, on the basis that there is absolutely no answer as to how natural law came into existence “naturally”. How can the origin of natural law be testable, and maybe the answer is vastly complicated. Of course we would also need to reject the “finely tuned” (God forbid) cosmological constants, the origin of which we have absolutely no naturalistic answer, as that too is untestable and likely very complicated . Then we might move on to the mathematical nature of the universe. We should throw mathematics out the scientific window, because it is used for “design” related purposes, and that is not acceptable.
     
     It’s about time John Rennie and Steve Mirsky and the scientific establishment stopped stopped living in denial and joined the real world. In the real world people instinctively identify design, and instinctively associate that with a designer. The vast majority of humanity regard it as self-evident that scientists can only apply intelligence, reason and logic in science because we live in a highly structured finely tuned universe that clearly manifests intelligence, order, mathematical regularity. Why in the world would the Intelligent Design people need to provide scientific evidence for Intelligent Design, when the fact that we live in an intelligent universe to the foundational principle on which ALL OF SCIENCE FUNCTIONS. As already stated, how could science ever be conducted in an UNINTELLIGENT universe. Which it would appear is the universe John Rennie and Steve Mirsky live in, a universe totally devoid of design, or a designed universe that cannot be scientifically recognized for what it is. Has science gone mad!
     

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981. 981. VRWil 01:01 AM 9/25/10

     Whether one believes in I.D. or evolution, is irrelevant. The most important issue is that science isn't used to devalue life to fulfill some elitist group's insidious plans to eliminate the underprivileged, the mentally ill, and/or the handicapped, Hitler tried it. One could argue that the ID people has shoe horned their science into a comfortable package that attempts to justify itself. However, I think that what they have so far, even if it is hypothetical, is compelling. The nanotechnology that's exhibited in a cell is nothing short of intriguing. Personally, I find it very hard to believe that these elements came about through an undirected process. Its irreducible complexity smacks of an intelligence that is undeniable. Life itself, is so complex, that it can't be explained by any man. How do we go from protein (matter) to life? How do we go from dirt to protein, for that matter? Intelligent Design deserves its chance under the sun, because it is far too intriguing to ignore. Oh, and the DNA molecule reeks of an intelligence that has a purpose. These issues could not have appeared out of some chaotic randomness, in my opinion.
     The Big Bang (After all, God spoke this into existence)off by a(infinitesimally)fraction of a second, either way, would have resulted in us not being here at all. This too, reeks of an ultimate (creator) designer. I know (and have witnessed) too much to deny the existence of a Judeo-Christian God. So, I have been willing to do my own research on ID, and continue to do so. I just hope it works out for the non-believer, I truly mean that. Though, my beliefs tell me otherwise. BTW, Jesus came to deliver us from religion, the evil one, and man (ourselves).
     

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982. 982. FigaroMoon 04:15 PM 11/3/10

     The whole point of “Expelled” isn’t to espouse or repulse any scientific theory for another or even to try and replace it. Stein made a very valid point and that is to remind us all to keep scientific research and discovery open to all possible venues no matter where they lead. At the very least, scientists should be allowed to participate in a dialogue among peers and not be excluded or treated unfairly for having a differing idea. Unfortunately, the Evolution theory (and let’s not forget it’s a “theory”) has become just another closed-minded dogma not unlike the Creationism they have dethroned. Perhaps Stein was reminding us all that maybe the truth lies somewhere in between.

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983. 983. sunixx 07:32 PM 12/5/10

     This movie was recommended to me recently and was described as Ben Stein and Richard Dawkins debate each other. Unfortunately there was nothing like a debate presented, just a bunch of clips woven together and quotes taken out of context. I don't have a problem with someone's choice to believe in ID, but if you want it accepted in the scientific community, back it up in a way that conforms to the protocol.
     
     Also, did anyone notice the music that played in the background throughout the entire movie? I hoped the "Jaws-oh-no-we-are-all-going-to-die" subliminal music would fade out after the opening scene, but it continued playing and about drove me nuts. It added nothing to the movie.
     
     If this was mentioned in an earlier post, my apologies, I didn't have time to read nearly 1,000 comments.

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984. 984. colafran 08:53 PM 1/6/11

     This article does point out errors in the film, which is should rightly do. However, there are two things that bothered me.
     
     1. If you are going to evaluate the scientific value of any film or material, you MUST be objective and recognize both MERIT and INCONSISTENCY. Unfortunately this was just a bash article, making the article skewed and uni-directional.
     
     2. Regardless of whatever opinion is, the FACT remains that both Evolution and ID are theories. To say otherwise is to prove your scientific unworthiness, for we do not have conclusive evidence to claim either view as fact, therefore by definition both are THEORY and neither provable fact. Unless someone invents time travel, we cannot prove what our history truly was.
     
     Unfortunately as to point 2 above, Scientific American does show it's bias which further makes this article non-objective.
     
     I quote from Point 6, Paragraph 2, Sentence 3: "Thousands of other biologists across the U.S. who all know evolution to be true are also still religious."
     
     This is stating that certain people "know evolution to be true", which is not a valid statement. To say that anyone can know a theory to be true is a misnomer, by definition a theory can never be "known to be true" because it would then be a fact, so this statement they make here is showing a plain bias.
     
     It is unfortunate that this articles was not well constructed, I would have loved to have seen an honest and ubiased review of the film, both the bad and the good.

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985. 985. beckergretchen 08:16 PM 1/16/11

     I definitely think it should have included more opposing viewpoints, and I don’t agree that intelligent design (one form being creationism, but not the only form; there are also theories of aliens seeding earth and other forms of intelligence) should be taught in science classrooms, because although they are alternative theories on evolution, evolution has overwhelming evidence to support it and is the prevailing scientific understanding of life’s change over time. The video does raise important points about science in society and I do agree that any question can be posed and experiments can and should be done exploring possible theories, however I think resources shouldn’t be spent on theories of religion, like the existence of a diety— instead only testable scientific questions. The situation is different with the origin of life because there aren’t any good theories yet. With this, I think I agree most with Richard Dawkins and I think a god wasn’t involved but that doesn’t completely remove the possibility of ID in the creation of life. I think that science can be “demarcated” from religion and other forms of knowledge through falsification and the reliance of evidence instead of faith. Overall, I take my agnostic atheist perspective.
     
     I think these six things are a really good outline of some of the issues I had with the interviews, and it seemed like that enthusiastic clapping was fabricated anyway.
     
     Gretchen

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986. 986. colafran 11:29 PM 1/16/11

     I do agree with most points on Gretchen's post. One point of contention would be with the statement that the theory of evolution has overwhelming evidence. From a purely agnostic standpoint, when taking all the available data the theory of evolution does not have overwhelming evidence, indeed there are so many critical points of failures in genetics and geology which have no adequate explanation that the theory cannot be considered any more valid than other leading theories, including but not limited to ID.
     I think that any educational or academic body would be in error to purport an unproven theory as fact or to promote such a theory as an only viable explanation to a question.
     As far as public educational systems and their teaching of such theories, the current state is to teach students detailed points that support the theory of Evolution, but they do teach any of the critical errors. This type of teaching is in error, and quite biased. What I think would be a much method would be for education systems to teach that there are several leading theories, but not to teach deeply on any particular theory, relying instead on institutions of higher learning to broach such complex subjects where the mind being educated is less impressionable and able to think critically and decide for themselves on such a sensitive subject.
     Because the theory of Evolution has critical errors when examined, it does not mean that ID is a valid solution, neither does errors in ID mean the opposite. I hope that at some point people will be willing to have an open mind on all theories and be objective about evidence, whether supporting or detracting from one's personal view.

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987. 987. joegrey 03:33 PM 2/4/11

     Well, guys... Ben Stein's movie is popular, say what you want... many people are changing their views about these critical issues.
     
     He interviewed some respected scientists and authors there and I don't think one should just brush it under the carpet.
     
     You should be more concerned with those matters addressed in the movie that is in fact true, rather than what is untrue!! That's being scientific, don't you think??
     
     Take the plunge now and watch "Unlocking the mysteries of Life" next. Soon you'll be challenged to re-evaluate what the universities are teaching us.
     

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988. 988. caw mentor in reply to richardmumolo 05:21 PM 2/13/11

     I'm going to go way out on a limb here. But I think that agenda of SCIENTIFIC American is towards SCIENCE, and I know that sometimes all y'all be a little slow in the ID community, but the rest of us can tell by the title of the publication

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989. 989. Valdare in reply to caw mentor 01:23 AM 2/26/11

     Caw Mentor you are correct look at the name of this religious web site. If you go to a web site named "godsaves.com" what would a person expect from such a web site. All religions are the same... and they will lie and cheat themselves, and others, to justify their beliefs. Scientists are no different. This holds true regardless of standards that a hierarchy establishes for their minions.
     
     One's mind can be a terrible deceiver.
     

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990. 990. ckill3 01:23 AM 3/29/11

     Although Mr. Stein may have some flaws he points out a more serious flaw in modern society. Too many people are strictly opposed to opening their minds up to what ideas are out there. Being a closed minded extremist will only hurt you and cut off opportunities to learn. We have an obligation to tear down the walls that are built. I'm not even necessarily talking about Stein's "wall" between Evolution and ID. Walls are built in just about every debatable facet of human ideology. That is dangerous.

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991. 991. garys 07:09 PM 8/21/11

     I understand, ladies and gentlemen, that all could debate evolution or creation while we are alive. But, let me assure you all that within seconds of our death, each one of us will have the knowledge that Darwin now possesses and that is that God created everything. All of this trivial disputing will be shown to be foolishness for those who do not know Christ as Savior of their souls. I would encourage all who might read this to study the Bible and learn the Truth. God has assured us that all who genuinely seek Him will find Him. So if you don't find Him then you have chosen not to seek Him and that will be a very tradgic decision that you will regret for all of eternity. I pray that all who might read this will weigh their decision to either heed or ignore my advise very carefully. It may be the ONLY opportunity that you may get to find the real answers about your life. God stands waiting but, He gives YOU the choice. I would strongly encourage you to seek Him. You have little to lose, but eternity to gain. John 3:16-17.

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992. 992. Kealnt 01:15 AM 9/10/11

     Okay So this is an old post no doubt, but here is my beef I have seen the movie and it is not perfect and yes it has an agenda. Everybody has an agenda, so get over it. Now if scientists have so much confidence in evolution as a Theory,(although many want to call it a fact),... why are you afraid of I.D.? In fact, you should all be wanting to put it in the classroom to demonstrate its insuffeciency, but what do you do, you call it out of bounds and act like a police state, I don't get it. So many posts on here about power this and power that,... who wants to stay in control of the science classroom hmm,.. the evolutionists. A true scientist would go where the facts lead regardless of worldview. But you cant do that can you? You have to label it religious as your get out of jail free card and its a shame. As a Christian, I am not afraid of science, I dont pretend to know how old the world is or how everything came about, but what I do know is that when you fail to let people choose you loose. Calling it names like creationism, and saying it has no science behind it just because ID hasnt been around as long as Darwinism is pathetic. Can you say transitional? How long has Darwin had? Remember it was faith that said that the world was not flat, and science new it must be. My how we forget in our arrogance. Science is fantastic, but we are not its master.

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993. 993. Kealnt in reply to Frank M 01:39 AM 9/10/11

     Frank,
     Hello,.. been reading some of these posts. I am not entirely sure what you believe,not even sure if we would agree,.. but I can say I respect you from what I have seen here and you are soooo much smarter than I am. Thank you for having the integrity to go where the evidence has led you.

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994. 994. Kealnt in reply to Frank M 01:39 AM 9/10/11

     Frank,
     Hello,.. been reading some of these posts. I am not entirely sure what you believe,not even sure if we would agree,.. but I can say I respect you from what I have seen here and you are soooo much smarter than I am. Thank you for having the integrity to go where the evidence has led you.

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995. 995. Thin-ice in reply to Kealnt 04:37 PM 1/18/12

     Kealnt said:
     <blockquote>"I am not afraid of science, I dont pretend to know how old the world is or how everything came about, but what I do know is that when you fail to let people choose you loose."</blockquote>
     You cannot choose if you don't have sufficient information, and you just admitted that you don't have it. If you are TRULY not afraid of science, then NOW is the time to start reading about how 98% of peer-reviewed Ph.D. scientists believe the earth is 4.6 billion years old, and how this earth came into being. You simply cannot "choose" between creationism and genuine science, unless you know both sides thoroughly, what science says, not some caricature of the scientific view put forth by the Discovery Institute. Read some real books on science, not published by creationists, but written by scientists. As the article said, most religious scientists believe in evolution and that the earth is 4.6 billion years old. It's a mystery why the makers of Expelled refused to include them in the movie, unless they were truly on a witch-hunt against evolution as being atheistic and anti-religion; their testimony would have ruined the whole premise of the movie.

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996. 996. mrhodes4 in reply to punninglinguist 06:45 AM 3/15/12

     punninglinguist,
     
     I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that skreezy isn't the originator of the "survival of the fittest" theory as being true in the animal kingdom. I don't know if you're aware of it, but it was actually Darwin that come up with that one. So your comment is actually an attack on Darwin's theory. Skreezy was just making a logical dispute against one of the articles arguments.

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997. 997. Avalonmoon22 10:22 AM 3/18/12

     Complete integrity is paramount, for certain. If the above points regarding 'Expelled' are true, the integrity of the entire message is automatically assumed to be questionable; which is unfortunate as that's probably not the case at all.
     
     Important to note (and which has been introduced in the above article as well) that the integrity of science relies on strict adherence to The Scientific Method.
     
     Much of what we are fed as true science, with regard to the Neo Evolutionary Movement, are merely assumptions which are not upheld by conclusive data. This is also unfortunate as most laymen do not question the integrity of science and simply assume that all that is reported is 'fact' not hypotheses.
     
     The Scientific Method adheres to the following protocols:
     - Proposing an assumption/hypotheses as explanations of phenomena
     - Collection of evidence or data to test these hypotheses via experimental studies
     - These studies must be repeatable by different experimenters
     - Findings must be published
     - Peer Review; careful scrutiny of findings by other scientists, giving them the opportunity to verify results by attempting to reproduce them
     - Falsifiability; allowing for observation or experiments which will produce a reproducible result that is in conflict with the initial assumption
     - Reliability; statistical measures of the reliability of the data needs to be established.
     
     Many laymen accept assumptions as proven explanations for phenomena; the scientific community should ensure that correct layman's terminology be used in the disclosure of their findings/assumptions to the general in order to remain in the integrity of science.
     
     To date, no findings conclusively support the foundational evolutionary precept that man arose from bacteria or the universe from a bang. Until said scientific findings are found, across the board and in strict adherence to the Scientific Method, advocates of the theory would do well to honorably disclose the limits of the evidentiary support within the wider arc of their theory until conclusive and undisputed evidence has been found.
     
     The science of unsupported assumptions is about as ethereal and intangible as the famed gods of the gaps.

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998. 998. dcall1714 02:51 PM 4/29/12

     Of all the intellectually postured responses so far, I have yet to hear anybody adress a very important, underlying theme of the movie. I'm not claiming to have read even a 10th, though. A theme that this website doesn't address in its "murder" of the case of Ben Stein. This most pungent theme, to me, was captured in this quote, "...even the most rockribbed fundementalist will agree that things change over time. But, Darwin uses these patterns to suggest a process of how everything came into being. And, the evidence for this, in my oppinion, is entirely lacking." No comment or point in this article addresses this. It uses a headline to infer some cogent argument then, bickers about details of Smithsonian employee/employer relationships. There's two sides to every story, we know. Darwin's theories may explain the forces that influence the path-the-water-carves, so to speak, but it does not, admittedly, attempt to explain the forces that brought the water to the face of the mountain; metaphorically speaking. The heart and soul of the debate between religion and science is how did life begin! how did the primordial sludge turn into a functioning[living] organism. No science has explained this. None. The most eloquent stab-in-the-dark was the dude who put methane, nitrogen, oxygen and carbon in a beaker and shocked it. Also, as David Berlinski explains, what we now know of the functions from within the cell darwin could not have fathomed. DNA is not a sufficent codex to instruct all of these nano-factory procedures. Just as religous leaders must take responsibility for the affect their policies have on the population of this planet, so must the Scientists! The fact that this movie entertains is that most people, hear about evolution and use it to explain away creation. Then, I hear the science community and the church defend themselves as being scientists and priests. GROW UP. You people are just as bad as the phsycologists who developed "world-view" propegand in NAZI germany. TAKE OWNERSHIP for the implication of your work! A process of naturally occuring, complicated chemistry responsible for the existance of everything is antithetical to the truth of our being. The last quote of the movie I will invoke, "The probability of the required components of amino acids requisite for the simplest form of life occuring naturally would be 1 out of a trillion to the trillionth power. The number to express the possibility is essentially zero. There has to be something there skewing the odds. Some force there to make it work." Evolution can't

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999. 999. pjintexas in reply to jmarbas 05:20 PM 7/28/12

     Your argument makes no sense. You've argued persuasively that one power group (scientists) has wrested control from another power group (people of faith) and that this is good. However your conclusion is that the "objective scientists" are right because they are now in power. This is both circuitous reasoning and utterly not objective. But you are absolutely correct that there is a power struggle, which is the only point Stein wanted to make.

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