Quake3World

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7874967/

Excerpt:
Stephen Meyer, a senior fellow at the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, which supports intelligent design, said changing the schools' definition of science would avoid freezing out questions about how life arose and developed on Earth.

The current definition is "not innocuous," Meyer said. "It's not neutral. It's actually taking sides."

***********

I copied that because I have debated that guy personally in front of an entire auditorium of college students at a local college.

I asked him why, if the designer was so intelligent, nature itself was riddled with so many examples of 'bad design.' I rattled off a number of examples (this argument is nothing new, but I wanted to hear his response)...one example I gave was the fact that some rabbits have to eat their feces to help digest some b vitamins, or why most mammals make their own vitamin C, but humans don't and hence are at risk for scurvy - but we do have the vestiges of a vitamin c synthesis pathway in our genome...

His response floored me - "That is an area we are currently researching. Our best hypothesis right now is that the archangels had a period of time over which they corrupted the creation, which was intially without flaw."

I kid you not.

That is one of the reasons ID is so dangerous. It appears, at the surface, to somewhat removed from the idiocy of creation science, but, at its heart, it is the same fucking thing dressed up in a different suit.

tnf wrote: Our best hypothesis right now is that the archangels had a period of time over which they corrupted the creation, which was intially without flaw."

he was making a joke...

right?

[xeno]Julios wrote:

tnf wrote: Our best hypothesis right now is that the archangels had a period of time over which they corrupted the creation, which was intially without flaw."

he was making a joke...

right?

No.

Maybe things have changed since then, this was a number of years ago. But the bottom line is that, like many other cults, religions, etc., you don't realize how fucked up they are until you probe beneath the surface that they let the outside world see.

Your response should have been, "Well, why don't you go ahead and just call that your official stance - or were you planning on fact-checking it first?"
lol


Seriously this whole issue pisses me off to no end. How are they gonna try to basically call science worthless, and then turn around and try to have their unproven theories classified as science? It's so overtly subversive it's disgusting.

@tnf
fair play to you for debating with them. i just wouldn't have the patience for that. it's like something out of the bodysnatchers or stepford wives - utterly, incomprehensibly stupid.

Concentrated lunacy, most of these fundamentalists are focusing on school boards where they think they can win (by appeasing the lay parents, and affirming their faith in science class). Not in institutions of higher education.

I just discovered this piece...some of you may want to read it. When I have time, I'll give it a thorough going-over myself....it's entitled "The Scientific Status of Intelligent Design" by Stephen Meyer.

http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB ... ew&id=1780

From tnf's link:

Jonathan Wells, a Discovery Institute senior fellow, said the dispute won't be settled in public hearings like the ones in Kansas.

"I think it will be resolved in the scientific community," he said. "I think (intelligent design), in 10 years, will be a very respectable science program."

Evolution defenders scoff at the notion.

Right....

If it won't be settled by school boards, then why introduce it there? You don't teach young students largely unsupported hypotheses in science class, unless it's in a historical context of some sort.

Hannibal wrote:I just discovered this piece...some of you may want to read it. When I have time, I'll give it a thorough going-over myself....it's entitled "The Scientific Status of Intelligent Design" by Stephen Meyer.

http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB ... ew&id=1780

That guy's name still pisses me off...my old college advisor and I battled that prick (as I mentioned earlier) numerous times. He practices a brand of deceptive idiocy that is veiled under his fairly charismatic demeanor. That is why the debates were a pain...he was basically preaching to the choir (a Christian college, albeit a rather liberal one - which made ID something that the 'intellectuals' could really latch on to..) while we were throwing rocks at a hornet's nest.

Notice how blatantly non-religous the discover institute tries to make their website look?

I'm going to email somebody there...don't know who yet. I'll post the response here when, and if, I get one.

tnf, the Discovery institute attempts to look as non-religious as possible.

Meyer's article seems to only address whether intelligent design is scientific, not it's validity.

I dislike Meyer greatly. His influence and type of thinking had a lot to do with a good friend of mine not getting tenure...

Discovery institute...show me one fucking thing they have 'discovered.' Show me how many things we would have never discovered if we really adhered to their method of 'science.'

When I first heard that the scientific community was boycotting those hearings, I was slightly worried, but I understood the reasoning: they don't want to make it appear that it is a "balanced debate."

However, based on your story about that guy and his archangels, I'm not sure boycotting was the thing to do... We need scientists (like you, for example) who can stand up in front of the audience and force ID proponents to admit that their theories are all magic-based at the core. I'm worried that this will go unnoticed in Kansas with no one to call bullshit on them.

You can't debate them...that is the problem. They will always point to something that hasn't been completely elucidated by science yet (and there will always be things we have yet to explain) and use that as their 'evidence for a designer.' Their favorite is the molecular motor that moves flagella...also Behe likes to use the clotting system. Their irreducible complexity idea is so flawed, but people don't tend to see it that way.

Those people are all stupid.
You can't take something totally based on faith and try and substantiate it that way.
You either believe it or you don't. Everything thay come up with is like another lie to cover up the last.

I fucking hate Behe. His ideas are uninspired. He can't argue a point to save his life. And his creationism is so thinly veiled you'd be an idiot not to see it.

Like my biochem prof, for example. He would daily point out that "Behe doesn't actually say what causes irreducible complexity; he just offers evidence that it exists." Uh...yeah. I'm sure he's not arguing for a creator god at all. He's a real thinker, Behe is. :icon27:

Sorry. When I hear about Behe, I just want to vomit. I can hardly remember any of his arguments, but I know for every one I thought to myself, "That is a terrible argument." Plus, he has forever disparaged Rube Goldberg.

I haven't read much by Behe, but didn't he start off by saying that the entire flagellum+rotor/motor (50 odd proteins) was the irreducible structure?

And then later, it was shown that the flagellum by itself (without motor) actually was used to cling to host cell membranes?

And now ID proponents claim that this newly reduced structure is functionally irreducible or something? (not sure if this is case - bit hazy on this)

In a way, ID folks are just as arrogant as they accuse others of being. In essence, they're saying that they're so smart, that they are absolutely sure that there is no possible reduced function. As if their imagination was perfect and all encompassing...

Yeah, I think you're right about that. It's been a couple of years since I've read his stuff, though.
I don't recall a lot of his exact arguments mainly because I didn't find them credible enough to commit to memory. I do remember that almost all of Darwin's Black Box was just examples of complex mechanisms in nature without any difinitive, inspired, or convincing arguments.

i love my state :hug:

werldhed wrote:Yeah, I think you're right about that. It's been a couple of years since I've read his stuff, though.
I don't recall a lot of his exact arguments mainly because I didn't find them credible enough to commit to memory. I do remember that almost all of Darwin's Black Box was just examples of complex mechanisms in nature without any difinitive, inspired, or convincing arguments.

I was given that book for Christmas last year by a relative who thought I'd like it because it was 'scientific.' The book is flawed on almost every level.

As a scientist, it is very painful to read it.

Jules - a philosphical quesiton. What do you think the intrinsic motivator is for those folks with PhD's in subjects like biology or biochemistry to support things like ID or creation science (for example the young earth variety)? Obviously, the amount of evidence is overwhelming..so I can't help but believe that these people know, deep down inside, they are living a lie. I've always figured that they were motivated by fear. Fear that acceptance of evolutionary theory would upset their delicate worldview and force them to question the very existence of God. There are millions of Christian scientists who have no problem reconciling their faith with evolution. To them, the study of nature represents a deep look into the world that God 'created' (in the loose sense of the word here - not created in the sense of creationism). They have no fear of what they might find in their studies, because it simply brings them closer to understanding means in which that world works.

So, is it fear? Is it arrogance? Both?

It worries me that it's possible for the human mind to engage critically enough to complete a PhD, and yet fail to do the same in other contexts.

Likely, it is an issue of faith. With faith comes the ability to remain sane, yet cling onto notions that may be ultimately arbitrary. The power of their beliefs, which is strengthened by the emotional experience of religion, is enough to overcome just about any assault to the faith, even if it be in the form of scientific evidence.

Thus, there is the notion of compartmentalization, wherein multiple belief structures can be held within the same mind, even if they contradict.

imo compartmentalization is intellectually and spiritually weak. It is essentially a form of systemic dishonesty within the mind.


The mind can go to great lengths to rationalize away cognitive dissonance - i.e. if one is having doubts, one can invoke the idea that their faith is being tested, and they must resist change, or reprogramming, or neural plasticity. This is akin to putting your head in the sand, and applauding yourself for your tenacity and endurance. This exertion of will, and the resulting relief once the assault passes, is interpreted as a battle won, and further reinforces the practice. People take pride in their ability to squeeze their eyes shut and keep their heads in the sand. If only they could understand what they were doing, and realize that if they are on the side of good, they should not fear critically engaging ideas. If a mind is sound, it should have a better chance of processing ideas truthfully, regardless of whether the ideas themselves are true or false.

Honesty within one's own mind is the key to enlightenment, imo.

As you say, truth should not be feared - indeed it sets one free.

Jules is gay. Fact.

Dark Metal wrote:Jules is gay. Fact.

elise begs to differ, in addition to other things.

I didn't finish reading Meyer's paper, but from what I've read (before abandoning it for the time being) he argues for the acknowledgement of intelligent design as a scientific hypothesis. He claims that all attempts as of yet to demarcate science have failed, and that we should follow the evidence where it leads us.

Meyer suggests that it would be possible to find indirect evidence for the existance of an involved intelligent entity influencing the universe.

Read below:

An unobservable designing agent is, similarly, postulated to explain features of life such as its information content and irreducible complexity. Darwinian transitional, neo-Darwinian mutational events, punctuationalism's "rapid branching" events, the past action of a designing agent—none of these are directly observable. With respect to direct observability, each of these theoretical entities is equivalent.

Whether or not intelligent design should be considered scientific, let's treat it as though it were. What can it bring to the table? If intelligent design is built on a god of gaps, what will happen when those gaps are explained away? What if examples of the irreducibly complex are not so irreducible? If ID is scientific, yet fails to explain anything (should that be the case), it will join the failed scientific hypotheses of past.

Although, if ID is considered scientific, what other non-natural hypotheses will spring up claiming to be scientific with supporters begging for scientists' attention?

edit: Hannibal may correct me on any of these points, if I'm mistaken.