Arrogant pea-brain. Did I miss the unequivocal scientific proof for Darwin's theory? Alternative theoretical contructs may not be discussed? In th spirit of open inquiry and broadminded discussion of alternative points of view all should be on the table. it's how one learns to think.

I agree. The school needs to teach my theory of gravity, which holds that the mutual attraction of physical bodies is the result of tiny cowboys with invisible lassos. The theory of phlogiston deserves a fair hearing as well.

I stand on the other side of the fence on this issue, relative to most contributors here, but even I see that this is a terrible development for science and science education in this country. This decision is likely to resonate just as the Scopes trial did, where one side won in the courtroom, but the other side in society at large. And this despite the utterly pathetic showing the ID'ers made during the courtroom proceedings.

You have reason to celebrate. Go have a beer on us Darwinists.

Tom C.: Actually, if you were paying attention, you missed the "unequivocal scientific proof" for every theory. The problem is that ID doesn't rise to the level of a "theoretical construct." Careful about keeping your mind too wide open; you don't know what might crawl in.

M:

The construct is identical, it just posits periodic interventions by an intelligence where Darwinism says Nature. Neither is observed nor testable.

Josh:

No one would argue that our porevailing theory of gravity is based on anything more than faith. We know gravity exists but understand little about it, just like evolution.

"Jones wrote that he wasn't saying the intelligent design concept shouldn't be studied and discussed, saying its advocates "have bona fide and deeply held beliefs which drive their scholarly endeavors.""

The judge has made a massive mistake with this phrasing. It will be trivial to marginalize the entire scientific establishment using this reasoning.

m-You are correct.I should have said falsifiability.

Judge Jones wins
O Judd loses!

Commonsense prevails in Dover, PA. Entire wacky school board dismissed!

We know a great deal about evolution, significantly less about gravity. But concepts like "evidence" and "logic" are tools of the PC scientific establishment who seek to indoctrinate schoolchildren in secular humanism. If a belief is sincerely held and finds support in a religous tradition, it should be taught in school. Nothing more should be required. The reams of empirical evidence supporting evolution are insufficient to distinguish it from ID, my theory of gravity, or phlogiston, where public education is concerned.

Josh: Could you please define & distinguish between "evolution" and "ID"? Just to establish a baseline of your knowledge of this (tiresome) subject...

Sorry, I don't generally go about proving my bona fides to anonymous blog commenters and I'm disinclined to start now.

It's refreshing to see a troll being so open.

Oh dear, some guy who thinks a single quote from a judge will discredit the entire scientific establishment also thinks I don't know from evolution and ID! Worse, he called me a troll! I cry.

Here is a link giving example of Intelligent Designer and here is the apparent proof that he succeeded.

Kinda redefines the notion of low-brow.

I apologize for the snarky condescension in my previous comment. Chalk it up to East Coast elitism. Nonetheless, I would greatly appreciate an explanation from someone who finds ID a meritorious scientific theory of what mechanism the Designer employs when it creates a structure of irreducible complexity. I have reviewed Behe's testimony in the Dover trial and it appears he talked in circles on this point.

The establishment clause is doing just fine, and was applied properly in this case.

Science in the science classroom, religion outside of it. Nobody is banned from exploring and researching ID, or even from presenting a scientific hypothesis based on it. Some day it might even become a scientific theory.

Orrin's weak arguments and increasing tendency to erase opposing arguments make it pretty clear that he too has privately already conceded this issue and is now just pumping it for some kind of absurd entertainment value.

Orrin only needs to get lucky one time, creeper. Now you know how the Brits felt.

Josh:

You go first. How does Natural Selection work? Observation or experiment -- where intelligent intervention can be ruled out -- will be accepted.

creeper:

All the judge did was declare your beliefs to be science and Establish them as therefore incontrovertible. A judge's shared faith doesn't make Darwinism scientific. It's appropriate that Darwinists are welcoming the Miracle on 34th Street standard.

"Orrin only needs to get lucky one time, creeper."

I suppose it would be a matter of luck.

ok:

Bingo! This is just about Judge Jones.

Solution for all the folks that want to pursue creationism.... start your own school!

ID taught here! Come join us! Bring money!
Graduates will not be accredited anywhere; but, by golly we will know all there is to know about intelligent design.

Just so, creeper. Public schools are political institutions, after all, and so no faction's fortunes are guaranteed there. That goes double with extra cheese once the courts get involved. I'd say ID has served its purpose quite well.

OJ: change comments all you like....or don't like; but, your narrow world will stay just that... small!

OK: why should oj start his own school when he can simply hijack yours? That's the risk you assumed when you made the schools public institutions.

ok:

It's not about our religion not being taught there, but about yours being taught there.

You go first. How does Natural Selection work? Observation or experiment -- where intelligent intervention can be ruled out -- will be accepted.

You mean where a negative - "intelligent design is not responsible" - can be proved? An impossible task. Which is part of the reason why ID is theology and not science.

Orrin,

The judge went by the commonly understood definition of science as science, and declared a religious pseudo-science as such. He did not establish the theory of evolution as incontrovertible; he just said it was scientific and that something else was not, and that is of course not the same thing. Anybody is free to object to the theory of evolution, and even to attempt to disprove it.

"A judge's shared faith doesn't make Darwinism scientific."

Since you have several different definitions of 'Darwinism', I'll stick to 'theory of evolution', which of course does not require any judge's faith to be scientific. You get so wrapped up in your strawmen that you start to believe it yourself, and that's where you tend to get tangled up.

This constant baseless overreach into the field of science merely cheapens the idea of God. Displaying the gall to speak for his motives (such as God not using evolution as a means to create us) does not speak well for your respect for the Divine Creator.

Josh/creeper/ok:

So you've got nothing but declarations that Darwinism is science? You're aware that's not ac tually scientific, right?

"It's not about our religion not being taught there, but about yours being taught there."

The theory of evolution is not a religion.

The word is out and the news is great everywhere:

CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/12/20/intelligent.design/index.html

Chicago Tribune
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-evolution-debate,1,7649863.story?coll=chi-news-hed
"...HARRISBURG, Pa. -- In one of the biggest courtroom clashes between faith and evolution since the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial, a federal judge barred a Pennsylvania public school district Tuesday from teaching "intelligent design" in biology class, saying the concept is creationism in disguise.

U.S. District Judge John E. Jones delivered a stinging attack on the Dover Area School Board, saying its first-in-the-nation decision in October 2004 to insert intelligent design into the science curriculum violates the constitutional separation of church and state. .."

Reuters
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051220/pl_nm/life_evolution_dc;_ylt=Akb1Awp._3_82gA79dalGB1Z.3QA;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

yeah all those nasty media folks... must all be lying, huh?

Careful, Josh. Here's your last quote with one phrase (Intelligent Design) replaced, by "God" and "Darwinism" respectively:

You mean where a negative - "God is not responsible" - can be proved? An impossible task. Which is part of the reason why Darwinism is theology and not science.

Frustrating, isn't it?

"So you've goty nothing but declarations that Darwinism is science? You're aware that's not ac tually scientific, right?"

First, Darwinism is your shifting strawman; the theory of evolution is science.

Second, no, there is much more than that, but when you say 'Darwinism is a religion' without backing it up with any coherent argument, then the clear and sufficient retort is: "Darwinism is a strawman; the theory of evolution is science."

Don't wait too long to massage the news reports OJ. The truth never stops!

Joe,

science is neutral on the matter of God. It does not require nor deny Him, doesn't prove or disprove Him. That's where Orrin keeps getting confused.

The religious and the scientific worldviews do not add up to a zero-sum game.

creeper:

Darwinism exists only to deny God--it's a theological answer to a theological problem: why does evil exist in the world if God is good?

Of course they do, creeper, at least in this context. The prize for which the game is being played is control of certain primary-school classrooms, and the other side isn't going to quit anytime soon. You can say science belongs in the classroom, religion outside until you are blue in the face, that's not going to stop Orrin and his theocons. This game will continue until you are weary of it beyond imagining, and then it will continue some more, and then it will keep on keeping on, most likely long after all three of us are farting dust; then it will continue some more, until at some point your grandkids get tired of it and Orrin's grandkids win it. That's the cross science took up 150 years ago or so when it got cocky and decided to take on the church head-on. Enjoy the game, creeper.

ok:

Yes, the truth has won, which is why only 13% of Americans believe in Darwinism even with its establishment. But the insistence of that minority on imposing its faith on the majority is a long term mistake in a democracy, even if it provides some short term visceral satisfaction..

OJ, my claim was about ID, not evolution. The empirical evidence for evolution is relatively well-documented here:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

Joe,

It's not frustrating at all. Because evolutionary biology ("Darwinism" to the ill-informed) makes no claims about God per se, except inasmuch as its limitation to discovering the laws of nature necessarily excludes hypotheses that cannot be explained by naturalistic mechenanisms. Biology doesn't say "God wasn't involved." Biology says "There does not appear to be any evidence that God was involved, therefore we will assume that he was not, unless and until such evidence appears."

creeper:

the theory of evolution isn't at issue.

I urge all those who claim evolutionary biology is a religion to put their money where their mouths are. Don't get vaccinated, don't take antibiotics. Instead, pray to God in the hope that he will intervene and "design" your bronchitis into self-destruction.

Josh:

Yes, but the religious nature of ID is beside the point. The problem is that Darwinism too is religious and this judge says no other religious theory can be permitted to challenge it.

I understand that that is your position. I simply have yet to see any plausible argument defending it.

Josh:

You're confused. It's not the obligation of those who oppose your religion to disprove it, but you to prove it. There is no disagreement about evolution nor any scientific basis for Darwinism, which is just not an important component of modern science, no matter how vital to atheism.

http://www.brothersjudd.com/blog/archives/2005/09/that_ones_gonna.html

You're right that there is no conflict, because there's no such thing as Darwinism. But, unfortunately, some superstitious types persist in their disagreement with evolution.

Of course there's conflict, Josh, and will continue, for just as long as you are bidding for control of somebody else's kids, so that you can indoctrinate a set of ideas that are anathema to their parents. That you're poorly equipped for such a conflict doesn't wish it away from you.

Josh:

No, they don't. Genesis describes evolution. The conflict is between 87% of America and the rump that insists evolution proceeded without direction by God.

Parents who wish their children to adhere to tales from the bronze age, evidence notwithstanding, are free to home-school or place them in a religious school of their choosing. The mere fact that parents really, really, believe something does not imply that a school is therefore obliged to teach it to them.

I suppose one can claim that stories wherein matter --> man --> plants --> animals, or that describe the existence of plants before the existence of the sun, describe "evolution" of a sort. Just as one can claim that 1+1=3 is "math" of a sort.

Again, why should they, if they can simply take back control of the public schools? At which point your descendents will be at the same risk (forced indoctrination in a belief you despise) that theirs face right now. One hopes, when that day comes, that your enemies have less contempt for you than you've shown for them. Indeed, Orrin's been more than generous on that point -- he's willing to suffer you your beliefs, just not the haughtiness that attends them.

Joe,

They appear unable to take back control of their public schools. IIRC, the pro-ID members of the Dover school board lost their re-election bids.

Evolution isn't a "belief," it's a hypothesis well-supported by the available evidence, but of course subject to revision. If tomorrow fossils are discovered indicating that humans and dinosaurs were contemporaries, I would be forced to revise my views. Is there any evidence that would cause you to revise your views?

In my view, the primary function of the public schools is teach students the best available knowledge on a variety of topics. You seem to think that the primary criterion for selection of a curriculam should be concordance with the beliefs of parents (or 87% of the public, in OJ's case).

Josh:

Again you awkwardly skip the evidence stage.

It does in a democracy.

Josh:

And who decides what knowledge is best, if not the majority?

The interseting issue is not the teaching of evolution per se but of materialism.

As I pointed out earlier, evidence for evolution is well-documented here:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

But perhaps "skipping" is defined strangely. Strange nomenclature appears to be the order of the day around here.

And who decides what knowledge is best, if not the majority?

Is your suggestion that truth/knowledge is merely whatever the politically powerful prefer? Foucault would be proud. Conservatives, the new PoMos.

Is your suggestion that truth/knowledge is merely whatever the politically powerful prefer?

No, Josh, that's your suggestion. Evolution by natural selection is the ne plus ultra of scientific progressivism, and scientific progressivism is what the politically powerful do prefer. It's ruled the world for a century and a half now, panic over a few years of theoconservative parity in one country notwithstanding. Whether that continues to be true in the future is uncertain, as the future always is.

Josh:

No, I am suggesting that when you make science the ultimate arbiter of political questions, you have politicized science, rather than scientizing politics.

(Substitute "Islam" for "science" in the above and you have the structrual failure of the Iranian mullocracy.)

Josh:

Is your support for this ruling because:

A)You believe natural evolution has been effectively proven scientifically and ID has not (in which case, what is an unelected, unaccountable non-scientific judge doing making such a call?);

B)you believe like the judge that teaching ID is an unconstitutional imposition of "a particular version of Christianity" (in which case what would you say about teaching Bach's sacred music in music class or medieval art in art class?; or

C)both together (in which case would it be ok if it were just one or the other?).

Orrin,

"the theory of evolution isn't at issue."

Perhaps you should read the judge's decision. The theory of evolution, along with the notion of Intelligent Design, is centrally at issue in this that is the subject of this post. It is about the teaching of the scientific theory of evolution in the science classroom, not about its philosophical or theological implications, which can be discussed at length and ad nauseam elsewhere. That is why I'm careful to use the phrase "theory of evolution" instead of "Darwinism", which you use to mean different things in different posts all the time.

creeper:

No, it's just Darwinism that's at stake, the notion that there is no design whatsoever to evolution, shared by just 13% of Americans.

Peter:

Perhaps you should read the opinion, the primary conclusion of which is that ID has absolutely nothing to do with scientific inquiry, any more than astrology has anything to do with astronomy.

Keep in mind that judge was "unelected" to his position by none other than Pres Bush #43, and he is accountable on appeal.

Which the school board won't do, because somehow that 13% of Americans voted every Creationist school board member out of office. Certainly that must amount to accountability.

Jeff:

Yes, that much of the opinion is right, where he relies on his own faith is in accepting that Darwinism has anything to do with scientific inquiry. It's not that ID should be in biology class but that Darwinism shouldn't.

Peter B,

Both together, with some qualifications.

(1) I wouldn't say evolution has been "proven." I would say that it is the theory best-supported by the evidence at this time, and ID has proferred no evidence in its support, only sophistry. However, that a theory is stupid and utterly meritless is not the fundamental issue, it merely buttresses the inescapable conclusion that:

(2) ID is a stalking horse for creationism, which, under prior SC precedent, is unconstitutional when taught in public schools.

OJ continues to draw a false distinction between "Darwinism" and evolution. To argue that Evolution was "guided" by God (via a mechanism that nobody here has bothered to suggest, presumably I can't) is to reject the fundamental insight of evolution. The answer to difficult sceintific problems is further scientific inquiry, not throwing up one's hands and retreating to the easy answer that "God did it." This remains true no matter what percentage of the populace is comforted by the latter approach.

Mike Earl,

How you can say that the curriculum of a science class is primarily a political question rather than a scientific one completely escapes me.

Josh:

If it's decided by a government, it's political. What kind of bridge to build is a political question; whether it will stand up is a scientific one. They are linked but not identical.

OJ:

You are right, the "Darwinism" straw-man, which lives only in your imagination, has nothing to do with scientific inquiry.

No surprise there.

This First Things article might steer you in correct direction.

Josh: that's a political decision ( decisions about who has authority to decide things are always political decisions ) even for you, though you don't seem to realize it. It's simply that your politics are to defer to the authority of the educational and scientific establishments. Now, that may be a wise politics, and it may be a foolish politics, but it is certainly a politics. By the way, that you believe in a bright-line separation between science and politics shows me that you don't adequately grasp how important politics are to the internal workings of science, which is, after all, a group endeavor concerned with issues of authority. The basic work on that politics to that is, of course, Thomas Kuhn's. There's useful outline here.

Sorry, pasted the wrong link:
Structure of Scientific Revolutions outline

OJ: Secular humanist prevail, again. Get used to it!

ok:

I'll give you France and two touchdowns if you want to bet on that.

Joe:

You raise a very interesting question, and it isn't the least bit obvious how to square that circle, in general.

However, in this particular case, the Dover voters showed they did not prefer the educational establishment, in the quise of the school board, inject ID into the science curriculum.

It remains to be seen what would happen if the current school board decided to simply bounce natural history from the curriculum.

According to OJ, their share of the vote would become 87% at the next election.

Which, if even remotely true, would mean such a move would spread like wildfire across the entire country (possibly excluding the coasts).

Hmmm. Wonder why the politicians' vote detectors have failed them so miserably on this issue.

Perhaps it is because the detectors haven't failed.

Jeff:

No. The Board was costing them money because of the lawsuit, so the taxpayers dumped them. Darwinism is best disposed of an the quiet as it has been in most American classrooms. Teachers aren't willing to face the opprobrium that comes with mentioning Darwinism so they just leave it out of the curriculum.

The fire already consumed Darwinism--NCLB specifically allows for the teaching of alternatives.

"The Board was costing them money because of the lawsuit, so the taxpayers dumped them."

That dog don't hunt, Orrin. By the time of the school board election, the court case was just about over, the fiscal damage done. If the people of Dover were on the side of those who wanted to push their brand of ID into the science classroom, they could easily have stuck to their guns.

creeper:

Folks don't want Darwinism in schools and they don't want to have to pay to get rid of it. They needn't.

I'm not sure why it would need squaring, Jeff.

Joe:

Perhaps it doesn't -- I meant to imply the question is far from easily settled, not that it had to be squared.

Your position is perfectly defendable, and very difficult to argue against.

However, it would be disengenuous to maintain that position while disagreeing with, say, teaching Ebonics in English class.

creeper:

Never mind the money, by the time of the election, the ID school board members had shown themselves ethically challenged on a number of points, and could quite easily have been charged with perjury.

"Folks don't want Darwinism in schools and they don't want to have to pay to get rid of it. They needn't."

They had already paid. The fiscal damage was done, irreversibly. Then, instead of acting like they would according to your claims, they opted against the folks who tried to push their version of ID into the science classroom.

Your spurious 87% claim looks mighty brittle in the face of the Dover school board election, Orrin. Perhaps that's why you delete all mention of it - you have no plausible comeback.

Jeff: I'd argue against teaching Ebonics because it isn't a useful skill to know, but I'd certainly tolerate it if a group of parents or a school board got a wild hair up their butt about it. They'd figure out in the long run that it wasn't a useful skill to know. The political process is a discovery process, not perfect by a long shot but the only one we've got.

"The political process is a discovery process, not perfect by a long shot but the only one we've got."

I think you could say the same about the scientific process.

Testing ID: God said so

Testing evolution: Darwin said so

creeper:

As we've been over repeatedly, the board lost because they made themselves an issue. It had nothing to do with the underlying truth or falsity of Darwinism.

Jeff:

Come clean. The trustees were defeated in a dmocratic election. An appointed judge ruled that, as a matter of law, ID is not science and Darwinism is. Do you see any difference here?

I'm with Jeff on that one. The board members disgraced themselves. We no more need their ID cult controlling biology education than the Darwin cult. Neither ID nor Darwinism belongs in a public school science classroom.

Peter:

An appointed judge ruled that, as a matter of law, ID is not science and Darwinism is. Do you see any difference here?

Well, your previous post said the judge was "unaccountable."

Which isn't true, because of the ever present possibility of being overturned on the appeal that won't happen because those 13% of the voters happy with naturalistic evolution somehow outvoted the 87% who aren't.

Naturalistic evolution is a completely valid example of rational inquiry. It is an internally coherent, overdetermined, falsifiable, bound, description of natural history that is backed up by extensive research.

In comparison, ID is none of these things; what is most glaring is the complete absence of any research whatsoever.

ID disgraced itself. The Thomas Moore Law Center is a pack of fools. Behe is a charlatan and Dembski a coward. And the school board completely inane.

If schools are going to teach biology, then naturalistic evolution belongs in the curriculum.

But I guess I'm kind of with Joe on this. Like sex education, naturalistic evolution can run completely counter to some parents' value systems. Regardless of how true naturalistic evolution might be, those parents should be able to opt out of that part of the curriculum, just like they may with sex-ed.

Joe, I'm quite familiar with Kuhn's work. Perhaps I was unclear - I am making a normative claim, not a descriptive one. While you are correct that deferring to those who actually have spent some time inquiring and thinking about the topic - i.e. scientists - is a politics, "everything is political" is the sort of trivial insight that may be interesting in a college dorm but is utterly useless in addressing the substantive issue. I imagine that if you were able to defend ID on the merits, you wouldn't rely on such banal pieties.

I recommend you read Stanley Fish's article in the most recent edition of Harper's (unfortunately not online), wherein he analyzes precisely the rhetorical tactic you are deploying here, and demonstrates how the ID movement has borrowed the intellectually stilted rhetoric of the multi-culti post-structuralist movement to advance its claims. One example of this is OJ's assertion of a false equivalence between evolution and religion, demonstrated by his insistence on referring to the former as "Darwinism," as if there were no difference between a theory found time and time again to powerfully explain myriad empirical observations, and an ancient text purporting to be revealed truth.

I'd very much prefer that biology departments not begin to mimic the pointlessness of humanities departments.

Jeff:

You can't on the one hand discount ID for a lack of research and accept naturalistic evolution which despite massive research has found no evidence to support the theory.

You're right about the school board in this one town, but all of the evidence on which Darwinism has proceeded has been exposed as hoaxes: Haeckel's embryos, Piltdown Man, peppered moths, Galapagis finches, archaepteryx, etc. The ID cranks are at the margins, Darwinism's at the center.

Josh:

All three theories explain all observations completely, and all observations that will ever be. That's not a scientific test. Indeed, it's one of the ways you know none are scientific. They're historical narratives.

"It had nothing to do with the underlying truth or falsity of Darwinism."

And why should it, since the court case was not about your tired little strawman?

The board lost because they made not themselves, but creationism an issue. In a scientific context, that didn't agree with the voters of Dover, PA.

Mike,

"And who decides what knowledge is best, if not the majority?"

In the field of science, the current state of knowledge is determined by testable hypotheses, and whether they are confirmed or contradicted by the available evidence. It is not determined by a poll of the general public, otherwise we would have been deprived of almost all scientific breakthroughs in history.

Orrin,

"Darwinism exists only to deny God--it's a theological answer to a theological problem: why does evil exist in the world if God is good?"

The theory of evolution exists because it serves as the best possible explanation for what we observe in nature. It has been and continues to be supported by ongoing scientific research all the time. Please point me to the philosopher you have in mind who invented 'Darwinism' as a result of asking why evil exists in the world, and how he or she thinks 'Darwinism' answers that question where Christianity does not.

The theory of evolution does not dictate any one philosophical outlook; see for example http://darwinianconservatism.blogspot.com/. It also does not deny God - in order to come to that conclusion, you have to arrogate yourself above God and decide that He could not have chosen or would not have been capable of creating us and the world around us via what looks to us like "natural processes". If God created nature, then who do you think you are to quibble with his methods?

"You can't on the one hand discount ID for a lack of research and accept naturalistic evolution which despite massive research has found no evidence to support the theory."

With ID, the problem is the lack of testable hypotheses, without which significant research can hardly take place.

Scientific evidence supporting and confirming the theory of evolution does not only exist, but more is unearthed every day. Simply reading up on the subject with an open mind should clarify the matter for you.

OJ:

... despite massive research has found no evidence to support the theory.

That is pure nonsense.

For just one tiny example, do a little bit of googling on the incidence of deletorous mutations in populations with respect to population size.

Population statistics based upon natural selection made a prediction of what it should be.

Prior to the ability economically sequence genomes.

As it turns out, genome sequencing proved the prediction.

There's plenty more evidence where that came from.

creeper:

In science yes, not in Darwinism. It offers no testable hypothesis. Well, actually it does, but still nothing evolves.

Sure it does.

Here's one: all isolated populations diverge over time, and the degree of divergence is proportional to the time of separation.

Find a contradiction, and not only is naturalistic evolution in for a beating, but you are in for a Nobel.

What are you waiting for?

Jeff:

What species are the Inuit? Divergence without speciation is just breeding--we can recreate it easily, but it doesn't lead to evolution.

And your voluminous example of Darwinism is that mutations occur? You're aware that Darwinism claims that has consequences, yet you can offer none?

As always, you mistake the mere fact that evolution has occurred in the past for proof that it happens the way you want it to, raising the question of whether you even understand the issue.

And then you wonder why you need a judge to preserve the monopoly?

creeper:

Yes, yes, and if two people disagree about which hypothesis agrees with the available evidence, which of them is right? (I know, I know, the one who agrees with you is...)

OJ:

I offered one above about isolated populations. Surely you didn't miss it.

All land masses have moved through all climatic zones over geologic time. All lifeforms are climatologically specific. The very fact that there is terrestrial life at all requires natural selection to work.

For even if God is nudging the DNA dice with each generation, only the ones that survive pass those characteristics on to the next generation.

You have noticed that about parenthood, haven't you?

I wonder why you think one of Pres Bush's recent judicial appointees would be in evolution's pocket.

I understand the issue quite well. That you continue pounding that Darwinism strawman confirms you do not.

Mike,

I'm trying to think of a situation such as your hypothetical, but none comes to mind. Could you name an example of a situation in which two testable but contradictory hypotheses both agree with the evidence?

creeper:

I didn't say such a situation could exist; I said that two people could sincerely (or at least publicly!) hold beliefs such that for them to both be right such a situation would have to exist.

My point is that you're handwaving past the problem of deciding which scientific beliefs are determinative of policy by claiming that they can all be resolved by consensus. How many scientists have to agree? And who decides who is a scientist?

Josh: real briefly (I actually have to get some work done today): I'm not defending ID, I'm attacking scientific progressivism (my term ,but I'll try to define it adequately for you, even if it takes more than one post.) By the way, neither is oj. He and I are both in agreement with the judge in this case that ID is "thinly disguised religion". The point we are trying to drive home to you is that evolution is thickly disguised religion, whatever else it might also be. That doesn't exclude it from also being biology. I freely admit that there's science in there (natural selection is quite a pretty idea, aesthetically very pleasing.) There's also a good bit of politics. Big ideas are like that, and big ideas from the last half of the 19th century -- Darwin's Marx's, Freud's -- are all like that. The notion that an idea must belong entirely to science if it belongs at all to science is a curious and rather magical one, and in the case of natural selection it is also an oddly self-negating one. Here's creeper for example:

The theory of evolution exists because it is the best possible explanation for what we observe in nature.

Or to rephrase slightly: it exists because it serves the desire to explain what we observe in nature. That's it, that's all. Period, full stop. But can we think of no other reason why the theory of evolution might still exist? Why people might choose believe and defend it, in other words. No other desire it might satisfy, no other survival advantage it might have as a meme? I can think of at least one: by offering an alternative to the traditional creation myth, it satifisfies the need for a creation myth for people who are uncomfortable with or hostile to Christianity. It serves a religious need for people to whom religion is a prohibited vice (a description that applies somewhat to Darwin, pretty well to Huxley, rabidly to Dawkins, et. al.) In other words natural selection has at least some religious component, even if only as an alternative. By the way, do not underestimate the power of anti-Christianity as a religion in its own right. He no longer posts here, but the late, somewhat-lamented, pro-evolution warrior Harry Eagar was a walking example of that faith, a man in whose mind Death and the Church were so twisted together he phant'sied that by berating the one he could beat the other. Bear in mind also that beating death is what religion is at its core. I'd contend that it's entirely universal for just that reason, that a good progressive like you must needs also have one, unless you are the one freak in all of history who is really unafraid to die. So: what we are trying to tell you is that you champion an idea that has a natural-science component; a religious component; and a political component; and that we observe from your own behavior that you are highly resistant to considering two of those three components (from your last post : " just all politics...trivial insight"), lest you discover that the natural-science component is not the most important of the three. It's almost as though you were given a vector to resolve into x, y, and z; and you told your professor sorry, I only work in x. Y and z are too trivial to bother with. That's essentially what scientific progressivism (my term) or scientism (Peter B's, and others) does for a living. But you don't know y and z are zero until you do the analysis, and with the defenses you've put in place, Josh, you are in no position to. Repression and denial have their comforts, but they render you helpless to analyze the thing you are repressing and denying. And that's not scientific at all. After all, science is an ethical discipline; it has both narrow and broad goals; the narrow goal is the theory in question, the broad goal is that we understand and are as self-conscious as possible about why we believe what we believe. That's what we're after here.

Jeff:

What's the example?

Mike,

"I didn't say such a situation could exist; I said that two people could sincerely (or at least publicly!) hold beliefs such that for them to both be right such a situation would have to exist."

It doesn't seem to me that such a situation could exist. Okay.

It is perfectly fine for two people to hold contradictory beliefs, and to accept their disagreement in a gentlemanly manner. In a scientific context, however, the disagreement can be hashed out via testable hypotheses. The disagreement can be pinpointed, defined, a testable hypothesis constructed. From that point on, the hypothesis can be tested, and it stands or falls on its merits.

The alleged rivals of the theory of revolution (ID, creationism, the various flavors in between) have not successfully formulated a testable hypothesis, which is necessary for them to enter the scientific arena in the first place.

I've said it before, but I'll gladly repeat it: I don't have a problem with the pros and cons of the issues of irreducible complexity and specified complexity being discussed in a science classroom. Granted, it's not what the Dover school board had in mind, but that's pretty much the beginning end the end of the science of ID.

creeper:

Which is why Darwinism must be banned with ID, neither even pretends to offer testable hypotheses. They just aren't science.

Orrin,

Testable hypotheses supporting the theory of evolution have been pointed out to you on more than one occasion. That's how it differs from ID, which has never been able to offer such a hypothesis.

"The theory of evolution exists because it is the best possible explanation for what we observe in nature."

Or to rephrase slightly: it exists because it serves the desire to explain what we observe in nature. That's it, that's all. Period, full stop.

Attaching the reasons that a debate opponent makes a claims, rather than the claims itself, is a fallacy. It's also one of the intellectually bankrupt pomo techniques I mentioned above. To wit, I'm sure you've heard this one: "People who say that capitalism is more efficient than socialism say that because they're rich."

creeper:

No, none, and your refusal to nanme even one is dispositive. As Ernst Mayr said they're inappropriate to what is a historical narrative rather than a physical science.

Josh:

Yet you make the claim for reasons having nothing to do with its purported scientific validity. It's just a philosophy, so the motivationsof proponents are inseparable from the discussion.

Darwinism is useless as science:

http://www.brothersjudd.com/blog/archives/2005/09/that_ones_gonna.html

Particularly when the idea in the dock is natural selection, an idea that says, in effect: any advantage, however slight or seemingly tangential, might in fact be decisive. Robert's Rules of Order don't apply when you're haggling in the souk, Josh.

By the way, what was the statement of creeper's that we both quoted, if not a reason for his own claim? Surely we can question statements our opponents enter into evidence?

Joe:

With regard to your post above asserting naturalistic evolution must somehow be an alternative to religion, this strongly disagrees.

OJ:

Plate tectonics. If not for natural selection, how is it possible there is any terrestrial life at all?

You are living in the experiment. The hypothesis is that, completely absent a deus ex machina, life will adapt to a changing environment.

Which it manifestly has.

Joe:

Regarding Harry Eagar, he stopped posting here because he got tired of having his posts deleted.

OJ,

Your self-link adds nothing new. You can linke to others who say that "Darwinism isn't science" as often as you like. Actual evidence, which I have repeatedly noted and you persist in ignoring, is available at talkorigins.org. But that would require getting into the nitty-gritty of protein redundancies and developmental morphology. Sweeping ipse dixit is much easier on the brain.

Joe,

Is that all you got? Rather than deal with the mountains of evidence that contradict you, you just accuse your opponents of being nasties who want to abolish religion? The circumstantial ad hominem repeatedly asserted by you and OJ remains a fallacy, regardless of whether Robert's rules apply.

Jeff:

Harry stopped specifically after I deleted a comment where he insisted Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Nazi who didn't oppose Hitler. You guys are free to lie elsewhere, not here.

Jeff:

Plate tectonics is your proof of Darwinism? That's inane even for you.

Josh:

So the entirety of your case for Darwinism is the changes we can cause in proteins in the lab? Which is, of course, just an instance of intelligent design....

creeper:

I think you're awfully optimistic. There are serious, well-credential astronomers and biologists who don't believe in The Big Bang, or that HIV causes AIDS, but nobody is interested in testing their theories (which, most likely, are wrong, but it'll be a long time before we know if not).

Josh: since when is the assertion that you share the same needs as the rest of humankind an ad hominem? It's not, I assure you. That you perceive it as such is a reliable indicator as to what your religious preference is, but rest assured you're allowed t have one.

"No, none, and your refusal to nanme even one is dispositive."

Since I have named at least one...[non-responsive]

"Which is, of course, just an instance of intelligent design...."

Every scientific experiment is an instance of intelligent design; that doesn't mean that the subject of the experiment is the same.

Mike,

"There are serious, well-credential astronomers and biologists who don't believe in The Big Bang, or that HIV causes AIDS, but nobody is interested in testing their theories (which, most likely, are wrong, but it'll be a long time before we know if not)."

Perhaps I am being optimistic, but just out of interest, did these scientists you refer to present hypotheses that could be tested?

OJ:

Plate tectonics is [inane] proof ...

Specifics please. Since it is so inane to propose that life has the capacity to adapt to climatic changes, then certainly you can, in detail, demonstrate precisely how that is so wrong.

Jeff:

Plates are geological, not biological.

creeper:

Yes, that's distinct to Darwinism and one of the ways in which it isn't scientific--it's a function of being a tautology.

OJ:

The lifeforms riding on the plates are biological and climate specific, despite the plates not having constant climates.

So, once again, details please.

Jeff:

Details of what?

Plates move. Continents form. Species change. Those are the givens. It's your faith that the changes occur through a gradual natural selection for which you can find no evidence, nor demonstrate the process. We're all agreed that the chanbges within species proceed in the same manner that we intentionally breed things--that observation was the genius of Darwin. Everything after that is just your theology. The lack of details is the disproof.

creeper:

The AIDS fellow at least did; I don't know specifics, but everyone was afraid talk about that would endanger the massive funding they wanted for other AIDS research. The cosmologists I don't know enough about to comment.

And then there's global warming, which is perhaps a better example (like evolution, large-scale tests are impractical).

I think you're still missing my point, or perhaps the frame of reference I'm describing; you are describing a philosophy for an individual to use in deciding what is true - I am saying that what is required is a procedure for group decision-making. Perhaps we disagree about in which cases the former can act as the latter.

OJ:

The lack of details is the disproof

Here you make the same error Behe et al do: they, and you, resolutely refuse to find out whether that assertion is true.

There are plenty of details to be had, but I'll leave it up to you to do the research.

Or you can keep drinking your own bathwater.

After all, it worked so well for Behe when he asserted there was absolutely no research showing how the blood clotting protein could come about other than fully formed.

Well, none except for the 58 research papers that got plopped down in front of him after providing that answer.

OJ, I picked two examples out of hundreds. If you really think there's no evidence, read up on the literature.

Joe, saying "you don't believe this primarily for the reasons you state [that evolution is the best theory available to explain the data], but because of some other reason [here, my purported desire to undermine religion]" is circumstantial ad hominem. An attack on the person or their motives rather than the claim is ad hominem. Even if you accuse the whole world of similar bad faith, this argument remains an unpersuasive attempt to dodge the overwhelming facts against you.

Scientists will continue to use evolutionary theory as a tool to make important advances, and won't even begrudge you the use of the fruits of their labors, even as you persist in disparaging the motives and methods that bring them to you.

Josh:

So you've nothing? I'm familiar with all the ones that armchair Darwinists think germane, none are. Real scientists don't even pretend anymore.

Jeff:

You misunderstand--Behe's problem is yours. You posit a theory in the absence of any proof.

Your notion that plate tectonics cause evolution, while extremely amusing, is unsupported by any scientific evidence and contradicted by existing evidence. To cling to it is to have a mind molded by faith alone, not science. But every man needs a faith and if Guinnism gets you through the day there's no way I'll shake it.

OJ:

The continued existence of climate specific terrestrial life is the evidence.

But never mind that. Throughout this thread it is clear that you are incapable of understanding the difference between faith and religion.

Jeff:

The continued existence of climate specific terrestrial life is the evidence.

That's it? You believe life has to evolved via Darwinism because life has evolved? The tautology is textbook. And you don't see that this is nothing but a faith?

Please, do me a favor and don't try commenting any more in Darwinism threads. There's no point.