June 12, 2008

Darwin Defeated in the Bayou: Louisiana Encourages 'Critical Thinking' About Evolution

The Louisiana House voted overwhelmingly in favor of a bill on Wednesday that would promote “critical thinking” by students on topics such as evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning. The Louisiana Senate already passed a similar bill.

Similar bills have been introduced in several states over the past year and have been supported by opponents of evolution. The Discovery Institute, which promotes a brand of creationism known as intelligent design, hailed the 94-to-3 vote on the bill.

The Louisiana Coalition for Science opposes the bill, which it says “will open the door for creationism in public schools.”

University professors in several states have organized against such bills, many of which are based on a model created by the Discovery Institute. —Richard Monastersky

Comments

1. I would say, and of course time will tell, that there will be no abuse of the new provisions.

   The Discovery Institute, which now states that it is secular in purpose, is backing the bill. A definition of secular is “separate from religion”, but not necessarily opposing it. In taking this position, its motives are to support science, i.e. to allow, and perhaps even mandate, the furtherance of academic freedom with regard to controversial scientific issues. Religious views are kept separate, on a personal level.

   What are some of the objections? It’s been said that not only religious doctrines, but pseudo sciences like astrology might be added to the curriculum. Not so. In the first case, NCSE et al would be on their case in a hot moment, given what has gone on before. In the case of astrology or other pseudo sciences, they would never be allowed in, except perhaps for a negative mention, since there would be no scientific research or empirical testability to support them.

   One of the concerns is that Intelligent Design will likely be presented as an alternative, but more likely, an addition to evolutionary considerations. ID is a forensic study of that aspect of biologic origins where there are design inferences. Although it has been stated by some within the science realm that Intelligent Design offers no scientific underpinnings, that is simply not the case. Statistical improbabilities of random mutational selections support it, as well as new evidences that tweaking genetic codes to alter embryogenetic outcomes is doable. If not, it may be falsified, but to do that, it at least needs to be considered as a valid hypothesis. In any event, science will advance, given the removal of some of its constraints.

   In sum, the line of demarcation between science and religion has not, and will not be crossed with the new guidelines. Science will proceed as before, but with more of an open mind as to allowing studies that may vex existing theories. NeoDarwinian Evolution is perhaps the most popular of these, and if valid in all of its hypothesized mechanisms will weather the challenge.

   — Lee Bowman    Jun 12, 10:49 PM    #

2. Its Louisiana. If they can abuse it, twist it, or turn it upside down from the original intention…they will. Creationism isn’t banned from public schools/colleges. It is banned from being taught as science in the science classroom. It can be, is, and always has been taught in the philosophy and religion departments of public colleges across the entire country. Encouraging critical thinking about evolution is kind of like encouraging good grammar in a composition course. Another idiotic and un-needed piece of legislation passed while more vital issues are ignored by state and federal legislatures. So, how many of those New Orleans folks are still in trailers?????

   — mlm    Jun 12, 11:01 PM    #

3. Intelligent design creationism’s latest code phrase is the “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution. Several other states’ legislators have similarly been scammed into considering the Dishonesty Institute’s retreat into the Dark Ages of ignorance in support of their poorly-hidden religious agenda.

   Among other organizations, the National Center for Science Education (http://www.ncseweb.org) helps concerned citizens who care about the future of science stay informed. And the Panda’s Thumb (http://www.pandasthumb.org) provides almost up-to-the-minute discussions on topics in actual science. Get involved and stay informed – your state may be next!

   — Paul Burnett    Jun 12, 11:03 PM    #

4. raise the kids as stupid as there parents and there parents and what do you get, religion, the wise mans way of controling the poor and uneducated, tax the churchs see how many are left, what has a god ever done for anyone, name one thing, how do people in 2008 belive such stupid crap, it is a mental defect, has to be,

   — cliff c kirtley    Jun 13, 05:09 AM    #

5. I don’t know if it’s anything “a god” did, but the nuns taught me to check my spelling, apply the correct punctuation, and proofread—especially if I am calling out others on their “stupidity” and thus inviting a closer scrutiny of my own written efforts.

   — joe literate    Jun 13, 08:00 AM    #

6. “Darwin Defeated in the Bayou,” huh? Yes, this is a novel concept — critical thinking guns leveled at evolution rather than Christians. Betcha the evolutionists aren’t used to that! Maybe intelligent people will finally realize how flawed this theory really is! Way to go, Bayou!!!

   — Critical Thinker    Jun 13, 08:26 AM    #

7. Cliff – don’t talk about stupid until you learn to spell. Possessive their is not spelled there – their parents

   — Milton Sullivan    Jun 13, 08:26 AM    #

8. Mim, you’re on the money. This bill is perfect for its venue. Colorful raffishness is all well and good, heaven knows, but for sheer disingenuous mendacity, this is unsurpassed. I’d like to know where the proponents of “Intelligent Design,” aka “Creationism in a cheap tuxedo,” got their immunity to Exodus 20:16. It’s odd that they never seem to have that indulgence with them, like a kid at a liquor store who has left his driver’s license “in my other pants.”

   The idea that one can distinguish between ID and astrology is ludicrous. The next thing you know, they’ll build a city below sea level, let it get brutally pasted by a hurricane because the corrupt local government can’t organize an evacuation, then spend three years whining because the feds haven’t solved all their problems yet, and then they’ll wonder why so many people decline to move back.

   Wasn’t Katrina bad enough? At least that was a natural phenomenon, unless of course you believe the late “Rev.” Falwell’s theory of divine retribution. But it’s hard to blame this legislative idiocy on the weather. Sorry, folks: cling to your mumbo-jumbo if you must, but to call it science is simply a lie.

   — Dan    Jun 13, 08:34 AM    #

9. That’s right – we should only be questioning religion. Science must be accepted as taught on our teacher’s knee.

   — Old-fashioned midwesterner    Jun 13, 09:11 AM    #

10. Didn’t God invent astrology? I don’t have proof but I have faith therefore I think astrology should also be taught. And wizardry…Harry Potter was real, I just know it!

    — Deb    Jun 13, 09:22 AM    #

11. Lee Bowman says “there will be no abuse of the new provisions.” Duh. Why would there be? The new provisions ARE the abuse. But helpfully, Bowman adds, “The Discovery Institute … now states that it is secular in purpose …” Yeah, right.

    And then we have CDavidParsons, who, as nearly as I can tell, doesn’t think the Discovery Institute does a good enough job of pretentding to be science because they leave out the “Triune God.” Apparently DI and ID just need to toss out particle physics and substitute a Holy Trinity and, voila! “Teachers and students will rejoice in the simplicity of earthly phenomena when entertained by the new discipline.”

    And these are people who read the Chronicle of Higher ED! God help us.

    — BertW    Jun 13, 09:23 AM    #

12. Hello Bobbi (#9) & OFM (#10): No need to cry foul. ID will perish within moments when exposed to the scrutiny of critical thinking. Evolution, as it has for 150 or so years across a multitude of disciplines, will stand up to it. However, I’m skeptical that actual critical thinking will be applied by the proponents of this legislation. From them I would expect more twisted logic and circular reasoning.

    — Steve Forssell    Jun 13, 09:38 AM    #

13. Lee Bowman wrote that the purpose of the legislation is “to allow … the furtherance of academic freedom with regard to controversial scientific issues.” But of course, the theory of evolution is NOT controversial among working scientists, any more than the claim that the Holocaust really happened is contgroversial among historians, or that HIV causes AIDS is controversial among epidemiologists. That a theory has a few vocal critics does not imply that it is controversial, i.e., that there is widespread disagreement about it. Teachers and students who are genuinely critical thinkers will see that intelligent design theory is a non-starter.

    — Robert Lane    Jun 13, 09:39 AM    #

14. Perhaps the Discovery Institute will soon discover that they are complete idiots.

    — Revelator    Jun 13, 09:48 AM    #

15. The real perversity is the notion that creationism belongs in a science classroom. As pointed out above, no one objects to this being taught in a (history of) religion or philosophy class; that’s where it belongs, and its study is worthwhile, if only to better understand our past.

    Steadfast faith comes down to continuing to believe what one believes, without proof or even evidence to support that belief, regardless of any evidence to the contrary. In effect, the belief is immune from criticism or disproof. This has exactly nothing to do with science.

    The notion that, because there are still details on which there is not total unanimity, Darwinism is “controversial” is, as #15 points out, just bologna. By comparison, there are about ten thousand separate religions on earth today. Which one is right?

    How many different versions of science are there?

    Believe what you believe, of course, Bobbi et al., but at least be honest about it: nobody objects to Darwinism because they think it’s false. Some people object to it because, deep down where it matters, they realize it’s true and that it calls into question their cherished beliefs.

    We should all think far more critically than we do, about everything. Far better beliefs that have survived the test of examination and doubt than those too delicate to expose to skeptical inquiry.

    — Dan    Jun 13, 10:25 AM    #

16. It is good to see how “creatively’ the ID group has been in its relentless attempts to attack the theory of evolution. The word creationism failed to take root. OK…change it to intelligent design. That’s not working, either? Oh, my! Let’s call for ‘critical thinking’ about evolution.

    The ID/DI group is like the groups of 4 year-olds that I used to teach (and I am not denegrating the ID group here). They hit, hit, hit and then hit again, knowing full well that many normal human beings grow weary of the badgering and eventually give in to demands.

    MM’s comment (#2), the last sentence about people still in trailers after Katrina, seemed reasonable to me. ID people could try, just once, to focus on a real problem sitting right in front of them. Their state, like all others, has many issues needing attention. The constant assault on science does not appear to be one of those issues.

    — Ann    Jun 13, 10:44 AM    #

17. Why not teach critical thinking about the Zodiac and Horoscopes? Isn’t there a “science” to palm reading and fortune telling?

    Other countries are surpassing the U.S. in science because they teach science in their schools. We, on the otherhand, allow nonsense under various headings including the rubric of critical thinking. If you allow nonsense in school it will perpetrate itself throughout the school; you will have students believe what they want.

    — George    Jun 13, 10:46 AM    #

18. Dan,
    Thanks for keeping our situation her in New Orleans on people’s minds. I’m sure most will be able to look right past the mean-spirited attitude. However, many of us here refer to the disaster that beset us as “The Federal Levee Failure” because it was the lack of Intelligent Design of our federal levee/canal wall system that caused the flood. With decent levees, we could have bounced right back, even from a nasty storm like Katrina.

    — Patrick Gorman    Jun 13, 10:48 AM    #

19. Here’s a thought: why must evolution and creationism be mutually exclusive?

    Yes, I believe in the Big Bang Theory, and I believe that Darwin was very much on track. But isn’t it also possible that a higher power stirred things up to begin with and that that power also tweaks things as appropriate?

    I dislike the idea of ID being taught as equivalent to hard science, but would find it acceptable in a philosophy, religion, or ethics class.

    Unfortunately, too many people (including those of us who are in higher education) feel they need to take a virulent stance at either one end of the spectrum or the other and can’t allow that maybe there is just a whole lot we don’t know.

    — Tracy G    Jun 13, 11:06 AM    #

20. Read Judge Jones on ID. He is an evangelical, but can spot nonsense: http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/051220_kitzmiller_342.pdf

    — Jim Lyttle    Jun 13, 11:07 AM    #

21. To Lee Bowman, you are talking nonsense when you say that ID is underpinned by science. To which published studies are you referring? To those that argued against partial flagellum motors? To those that argued the cell wall structure and function as evidence of a design? Those ideas have been poleaxed. “Tweaking the genetic codes?” “Statistical improbabilities?” Are you being serious? What has ID shown to be true because of ID? HOW would it show this? The Discovery Institute will change its stripes and Michael Behe will languish in solitary confinement because science already critically thinks; it always and already (to use Derrida’s phrase) thinks about disproving itself, about falsifying itself. When it does, say in the case of the Earth’s age, it changes its assertions to match all of the data mined. ID and Creationism and the like are not capable of doing so. They simply provide no viable alternative because they cannot be tested. To quote 300: “Immortals? We’ll put their name to the test!”

    — Darren Aversa    Jun 13, 11:17 AM    #

22. Patrick, I think I was as affected by New Orleans’s plight as anyone, and for the record, I put my money where my mouth was, more than once. But the problem isn’t the lack of decent levees, which are geologically impossible, from what I’ve read and heard. The problem is sea level. Heaven knows I don’t want to be mean-spirited, but living below sea level does bring with it certain specific problems.

    What is needed—by New Orleans, Louisiana, the United States, and the world in general—is something that actually works. Science provides that, including the realization that increasing the mass of levees simply causes them to sink when the underlying soil isn’t solid enough to support the weight. All the prayer in the world, no matter how heartfelt, will do nothing to make things better.

    — Dan    Jun 13, 11:34 AM    #

23. Patrick (post #21), didn’t local officials know about the weaknesses in the dikes? Why lay this at the door of the Federal government? For that matter, why lay it at the door of any government? Will someone please explain to me why in the name of reason the city and citizens of New Orleans are once again defying Nature by rebuilding below sea level? What do you suppose will happen AGAIN? And who will pay for it again? I am so, so sorry for the loss of lives and property, but I cannot understand the foolhardiness of pouring billions of resources—dollars and human capital—into what seems like a doomed reconstruction.

    But I digress…

    Robert Lane (post #15) and Dan (in his post #18) have expressed perfectly the crux of this situation. Evolution is not a “controversial theory” and “creationism” (or “intelligent design” or “critical thinking” or whatever the current term is) is NOT science. No matter how “logically” Lee Bowman presented it, it’s religion.

    I’m with Tracy (post #22)—I believe in God, and that evolution and creationism are not completely, mutually exclusive. But as Dan pointed out, I accept God on FAITH. I still believe that evolution and global warming are scientifically supported, that the Holocaust DID occur, and that HIV causes AIDS (not God’s wrath against homosexuals). I consider myself no less a Christian because I accept those rational, scientifically supported facts. In fact, I believe that God gave us the capacity to reason and investigate—to discover the natural order of the universe.

    I also persist in believing that mankind has the ability to solve the problems we’ve created, if we just put our MINDS to the practicalities of the situations. But instead, we waste our efforts on pointless, circular arguments about over-personalized definitions of faith, morality, even “goodness.”

    I agree that the Louisiana legislature should have dealt with more pressing problems than whether or not evolution, a widely accepted piece of science needs to be “critically” considered in the classroom by introducing the religious theory of ID. Let’s call a duck, a duck.

    — L Wood    Jun 13, 11:47 AM    #

24. Something I said really bothers you, doesn’t it, Ellie?

    Hey, let’s take a vote: everyone who agrees that I’m “stopping up the commode of discourse,” please say aye, then for heaven’s sake, flush the thing.

    The “commode of discourse”? Sorry my opinions offend so many people. Pardon me for thinking, not to mention expressing my thoughts.

    But nobody’s forcing anybody to read anything, least of all my musings.

    — Dan    Jun 13, 12:17 PM    #

25. Ellie, I don’t believe Dan means to label ID proponents as “off their rocker, religious nuts, or stupid”. Those were your words, not his. I do believe, however, he would say they are wrong on the usefulness (to science, anyway) of creationism/ID or that evolution is vulnerable to critical thought. I would concur.

    — Steve Forssell    Jun 13, 12:23 PM    #

26. Thanks, Robert Lane, for your clarification on what’s a controversial scientific theory and what is not.

    As long as the definition of Intelligent Design is based on a non-sequitor (“IF something falls apart when we take out one tiny piece of it (i.e., it’s irreducibly complex), THEN it must have been the product of an intelligent cause”) there never will be a way to disprove it. Hence, Intelligent Design is not science.

    Can anyone please clarify what the Discovery Institute means when it claims that natural selection is an “undirected process”?

    I don’t mean to start a whole debate about intelligent design here, because this isn’t the place. I just wish to point out what I see are a few holes for why it shouldn’t be considered a valid scientific alternative.

    — Carrie Morjan    Jun 13, 12:43 PM    #

27. I can see where this legislation is going – when students actually do start thinking critically and the Louisiana legislature finds out, they will pass legislation to stop it; a thinking voter is hazardous to their re-election prospects.

    — Alvin T. Adams Jr    Jun 13, 12:54 PM    #

28. Do keep in mind that this legislature also recently passed themselves a 300 percent pay raise. These folks are on the ball.

    — John Laudun    Jun 13, 01:02 PM    #

29. Agree or disagree on the issue, one thing is for certain, the subject elicits lots of comment! This suggests an emotional component which is certainly displayed in the content of many of the comments. I wonder at the true source of these viseral reactions.

    Risking the solicitation of even more such comments, I would like to suggest that if one wishes to prove a thing true or false, the easiest way to discredit the false is to invite inquiry. The truth will eventually win.

    On the other hand, if inquiry is supressed, the false retains the power of mystery, and hence believability. Truth does not fear debate.

    — Dennis    Jun 13, 01:07 PM    #

30. Susan H, there are many people in the intelligent design camp who clearly are idiots, and if this were not the case, so many people would not be responding so vigorously to this forum. And thank you for calling me brilliant (twice!)

    — Revelator    Jun 13, 01:20 PM    #

31. Why stop with evolution? Maybe we need critical thinking about the Earth going around the Sun and we probably should let Witch Doctors and Traveling Medical Shows and any variety of Con Artists practice medicine too. I mean, science is just opinion and who is to say that they are wrong—right?

    — me2    Jun 13, 01:25 PM    #

32. Well considering the fact that historical existence is neither Darwinian or Divine, both sides of this argument are dog-fighting with hamsters.

    — original marci    Jun 13, 01:33 PM    #

33. Five comments:

    (1) The article keeps on mentioning only Intelligent Design, as if it were the only alternative to Darwin. Wikipedia has five major divisions for/of cosmology (defined as (“the quantitative (usually mathematical) study of the Universe in its totality, and by extension, humanity’s place in it. “) : Historical ,Physical, Metaphysical, Religious, and Esoteric. The Historical timeline alone runs from Brahmanda (“The universe is a cosmic egg…….) to the Cyclic model devised in 2002 (“Two parallel orbifold planes or M-branes collide periodically in a higher dimensional space…..) with twenty-nine theories in between. Does Louisiana expect to teach all these in the classrooms’ “open and objective discussion(s)” ?

    (2) What lab experiment will the kids perform to prove or falsify ID?

    (3) (a) Destroying Darwin would, and does, not establish ID, or Creationism. (b) Every one of Demski’s or Behe’s “irreducible” constructs, from the flagellum through the eye to blood clotting, has been shown to be quite reducible. See Kenneth Miller, Richard Dawkins, etc

    (4) At least those who believe in, say, the Atomist, the Stoic, or the Aristarchean, universes read Greek or Latin: I have often wondered how many Christian Fundamentalists, or Evangelicals, have bothered to learn Aramaic – the language God and Jesus spoke – or Greek, the language of the Gospels? At least the Buddhists and the Moslems read their sacred writings in the original languages.

    (5) Scientific Controversy is within, not about, evolution. For example, is evolution (descent with modification) caused by mutation, catastrophe, reproductive rates… ? gradual or punctuated?

    richard

    — richard    Jun 13, 01:35 PM    #

34. Isn’t evolution the product of critical thinking?

    — jd    Jun 13, 02:03 PM    #

35. No, critical thinking is the product of evolution.

    — JAS    Jun 13, 02:29 PM    #

36. It is clear that part of the problem is some people (including legislators) do not clearly understand what science is-and more importantly what is NOT science. Some of the most wonderful subjects of learning are NOT science. People should by all means study them if they wish to, but they should know clearly that these do not constitute science, at least they way our century defines it. Critical Thinking without the clear modern definition of what science is – will lead to many wrong conclusions.

    — Pan Papacosta    Jun 13, 02:40 PM    #

37. Richard (post #37),

    Concerning your comment (4)…a great many Buddhists and Moslems (sic) do not read their writings in the original languages. You are however correct that most Christians do not read the Gospels from the Greek (though surprising numbers do, and do not forget the Greek Orthodox). This may be due to the fact that the Gospels have been translated (faithfully) into nearly 2,400 languages.

    Nevertheless, not reading the holy writings of whatever religion in the original language in no way reduces the faith of its belivers anymore than when an proponent of evolution is unable to read all of the available research in the originally submitted language (e.g. a research paper originally given in German subsequently translated into English).

    By the way, Muslims take great umbrage to the spelling “Moslems.” I am not a Muslim, I just thought that a little critical application might help point out the benefit of intellectual humility.

    — Dennis    Jun 13, 02:53 PM    #

38. Hmmm… “promote critical thinking” ? One would certainly hope so… After all, if this God-fellow they cherish is indeed all seeing and all powerful, and did indeed design and create everything, then rape, torture, disease, hunger – critical thinkers would surely soon grow to despise and disavow such an ill-willed wanton thug…

    — Salmacis    Jun 13, 03:31 PM    #

39. Do me a favor, someone! Clarify “critical thinking.” Especially in this case.

    — not a student of higher learning    Jun 13, 03:43 PM    #

40. Does anyone else see anything wrong with the headline “Darwin Defeated in the Bayou”?

    Just trying out a little critical thinking.

    — Dan    Jun 13, 03:57 PM    #

41. Salmacis,

    You may also wish to considered another aspect of the “rape, torture, disease, hunger” that you note. Human beings rape, torture, spread disease, and create the conditions by which hunger is brought about.

    To quote you…“critical thinkers would surely soon grow to despise and disavow such an ill-willed wanton thug”. Critical thinker might also conclude that ought to despise and disavow “us” sonner than your “God-fellow”..

    — Dennis    Jun 13, 04:05 PM    #

42. Time will tell whether the legistation was appropriate or foolishness as many allegedly intelligent people want to predict. It is interesting to see how much babble is contained herein.

    — Ross    Jun 13, 04:47 PM    #

43. Lee Bowman,
    What are “random mutational selections”? How do “new evidences that tweaking genetic codes to alter embryogenetic outcomes is doable” support ID? I teach evolution and am a Christian who does not see incompatibility between science and religion. I think ID is a sad attempt by some people to hang onto their belief in a literal reading of their Scripture while facing insurmountable scientific evidence of evolution. And I don’t know what the heck you are saying with those statements.

    — Cathy    Jun 13, 05:55 PM    #

44. Almost no contributor to this discussion has remarked on the strange venue of the battle: state legislatures and high school science classrooms. The battles over scientific theories are usually carried out in obscure scientific journals outside the ken of most of us, let alone high school students. Isn’t it absurd to demand ‘critical thinking’ about evolution from high school students? Do we demand such skills from students of geology or chemistry? Why not? Because those studies do not seem raise religious issues (but of course they do if you’re a biblical literalist) as does in-your-face evolution.

    In geology and chemistry we are content if students learn the basic principles of the discipline; interested students can further their skills in college and graduate studies when they will be prepared to make new contributions to science. Having failed to make their case in the scientific journals, IDers turn to the legislators because of their lack of scientific expertise and sympathy to basic Christian beliefs. ID, as the infamous wedge document shows, is not about science. It is about making the schools safe havens to promulgate an attack on materialistic, secular science and replace it with a world view compatible with Christian doctrine. ID is not science; it is public relations and propaganda.

    In Dover a school board member challenged the community to so something for Christ. (He denied saying this at the trial but newspaper reports contradicted him). After the Dover community voted the ID slate from their School Board, a leading Christian apologist told them to pray to Darwin for help in a catastrophe, since they had rejected God. Any number of similar anecdotes could be provided to illustrate that ID vs evolution has little to do with science but everything to do with religion.

    ID friendly board members wanted to make ‘Of Pandas and People’ available to students—the cutting edge text of the movement. Evidence at the Dover trial showed that earlier editions of the book did not use the term Intelligent Design but Creationism. Once the Supreme Court judged that creationism was a religious doctrine, every instance of the term was changed to Intelligent Design with no change in the basic text. Are the ‘educators’ who produced this flagrant lie the kind of people you would entrust to ‘educate’ the nation’s youngsters?

    Now that Judge Jones has ruled that ID is merely another form of Creationism, the watchword has changed to ‘critical thinking’ and the
    Discovery Institute, promulgator of the wedge doctrine in an internal memo which it denied for years as its own, now declares itself a secular organization interested solely in improving science education. At least one commentator takes this revisionism at face value, but common sense demands us to think otherwise. I, for one, mistrust reformed foxes declaring that they will now truly guard the hen house, particularly when their lips are still encrusted with chicken feathers.

    The promulgators of the new legislation are not interested in critical thinking—scientific method comes fully equipped with such thinking, which is why scientific knowledge changes with time and why scientific arguments are conducted in no-holds-barred, refereed journals. Indeed, these promulgators are not interested in improving science but bringing it to a standstill because its underlying message is that the human intelligence can never figure out the answers so it should stop trying. These promulgators are interested only opening up the science class to religion, which will have terrible consequences for science, for religion and for the intellectual health of the nation.

    — arnold asrelsky    Jun 13, 07:35 PM    #

45. poor Charles is rolling over in his grave…in Europa they can’t stop laughing…what is next Komrades??? the Flat Earth Society and the bunch who believe NASA never sent anybody to the Moon teaming up for equal time…deep-down more than likely after a few beverages the anti-Darwin crowd will admit “we never did go to no Moon…it was all staged in a studio..” sad beyond belief that the failing government schools will be required to teach this crap…reason number four why so-many parents are sending their off-spring to private non-governmental schools…

    — deadmonz    Jun 13, 10:34 PM    #

46. The problem isn’t the fact that the legislation calls for critical thinking on evolution. Nor do I feel comforted that real, honest investigation of evolution will show it to be viable and supportable, nor that such an investigation would show that ID or any of its flavors are not. And, to Arnold, no, I do not think it absurd to demand critical thinking of high school students, about anything. Part of what makes my job so much harder than it used to be at the college level is that teachers and schools have stopped asking its students to think critically. I encourage schools to engage their students in exercises in critical thought at the high school level, and even earlier. But that is just the point. The problem with the idea of the legislation isn’t the critical thinking. It is that such an approach is not the likely outcome. Because the law gives no definition of such thought, nor expects one from anywhere else, any investigation, proper or not, can be given the label of an exercise in critical thinking. The problem isn’t the critical thought component of any lesson a teacher should invoke. It is the lack thereof imposed on their students in its guise.

    — Robert    Jun 14, 12:08 AM    #

47. People, isn’t the real problem here that 48% of American adults are essentially Young Earth Creationists, that only a minority fully accept the scientific explanations of modern biology and hence only a minority believe creationism/ID should not be taught in public schools. Using the legal system to block this majority view is no substiture for winning the hearts and minds — a battle that has not been lost, because it was never won in the first place. The underlying cause of this sad situation is not hard to find — the atypical (among developed nations) religiousity of the American public. You don’t have to be Charles Darwin to work out that modern science is incompatible with a recent special creation of humanity.

    So “critical thinking” here means being critical of science, and is backed by a deep public aversion to the scientific method (as distinct from the technologies it spawns) and the presumption of naturalism that underpins it. The fact that 1-in-6 high school biology teachers are also YEC adherents does not give one much cause for optimism. This does not mean America will turn into a nation of scientific illiterates, but rather than the chasm between the educated and the ignorant will continue to grow. The only positive sign on the horizon is that young people are less religious than their elders, but this change has a long way to go before the public embraces a genuinely secular and scientific worldview, as distinct from having one imposed by the courts.

    — johnc    Jun 14, 03:40 AM    #

48. Darwin wasn’t afraid of discussing some weak points of his theory. What are XXI century Darwinians afraid of discussing? That Darwin will be proved wrong in many ways?

    — Enezio E. de Almeida Filho    Jun 14, 10:12 AM    #

49. #3 “Intelligent design creationism’s latest code phrase is the “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution.”

    Conflating ID with Creationism is a misnomer, and a ploy to tie religion to ID. As I stated, ID is a forensic study of origins, including evolution, to first determine the existence of design (using algorithms that need to be further developed), and to verify or falsify hypothesized natural mechanisms (RM+NS). If design inferences are substantiated, that does not of necessity point to a religious explanation.

    #8 “ I’d like to know where the proponents of “Intelligent Design,” aka “Creationism in a cheap tuxedo,” got their immunity to Exodus 20:16”

    Lies can emanate from both sides, usually by those with an agenda. Lies cloud the real issues, but reasoned discussion tends to clear the air in time, if not for those rigid in their views, then for those who can follow the issues objectively. Close mindedness does not win the day.

    #9 “ Dan is right. Critical thinking should only be applied to approved beliefs. For a list of those that have been approved, email Dan-he will be happy to give you the list.”

    Let’s have the list, so we can all know what ‘beliefs’ are acceptable to consider. I’d be careful about using the word ‘belief’ regarding scientific theories.

    #12 “ Lee Bowman says “there will be no abuse of the new provisions.” Duh. Why would there be? The new provisions ARE the abuse. But helpfully, Bowman adds, “The Discovery Institute … now states that it is secular in purpose …”

    But I also defined secular, as it applies to scientific inquiry. ID falls under secular inquiry, since it depends solely on empirical methods. For a statement of DI’s intent, go here:
    http://www.discovery.org/csc/topQuestions.php

    #14 “No need to cry foul. ID will perish within moments when exposed to the scrutiny of critical thinking. Evolution, as it has for 150 or so years across a multitude of disciplines, will stand up to it. However, I’m skeptical that actual critical thinking will be applied by the proponents of this legislation.”

    Most of the early research was paleontological finds, and inferences of morphologic homologies. A homology does not prove a naturalistic process, but could point to a genetic modification by intervention (genetic engineering) to produce an altered or new species in determined steps. I believe that common descent is evident and verifiable. Rather than mutational selection, another hypothetic explanation is a ‘common designer’, or designer(s) using an existent coding sequence to modify a zygote and observe the resultant changes. This is a tentative hypothesis, but viable.

    Evolution appears to have naturalistically driven means, i.e. NS of RM, but as an ‘adaptive to a variable environment’ mechanism, as well, to produce species diversity, so all bioforms are not identical.

    Now I’ll make a prediction: There may well be a pool of variable genes of a certain category (skin color, cephalic index, bone structures and more), to select from, and to facilitate adaptability and diversity, rather than depending solely on mutations. If this prediction is verified, it would further point to design. Evolution may well allow both natural and non-natural input to the process.

    #15 “Lee Bowman wrote that the purpose of the legislation is “to allow … the furtherance of academic freedom with regard to controversial scientific issues.” But of course, the theory of evolution is NOT controversial among working scientists … “

    How do we know that? Most remain silent on the subject, or nod for NDE. An anonymous survey of scientists might give surprising results.

    #18 “ The real perversity is the notion that creationism belongs in a science classroom.”

    If we stop conflating the two, it becomes a non-issue.

    “Steadfast faith comes down to continuing to believe what one believes, without proof or even evidence to support that belief … “

    Beliefs are parked at the classroom door.

    “The notion that, because there are still details on which there is not total unanimity, Darwinism is “controversial” is, as #15 points out, just bologna.”

    Undirected novelty of all bio forms, extant as well as extinct, by a random process, is statistically untenable. I strongly feel that UCAG gene coding, cell structure, and species morphologies and functions would not come about by random chance, nor has that been verified empirically.

    By the way, the process is random, since the available altered genes, while selected by a fitness function, are produced randomly. Randomness trumps selection in determining which is predominant in the process.

    #19 “ It is good to see how “creatively’ the ID group has been in its relentless attempts to attack the theory of evolution. The word creationism failed to take root. OK…change it to intelligent design.”

    I belong to the faction that question tenets (hypotheses) of evolution, NOT evolution in toto.

    #22 “ Here’s a thought: why must evolution and creationism be mutually exclusive?”

    I don’t feel that evolution and design inferences are mutually exclusive.

    “ Unfortunately, too many people (including those of us who are in higher education) feel they need to take a virulent stance at either one end of the spectrum or the other and can’t allow that maybe there is just a whole lot we don’t know.”

    Extreme opposing views tend to be error prone, tending toward dogmatism, resulting in close mindedness, and thus lacking objectivism.

    #23 “Read Judge Jones on ID. He is an evangelical, but can spot nonsense”

    He went with the power base, received accolades and acclaim, plus honorary degrees. As is often the case in court cases, the bench takes the ‘smart’ path.

    #24 “ … you are talking nonsense when you say that ID is underpinned by science. To which published studies are you referring?

    Regarding ‘published’, few at this point.

    “To those that argued against partial flagellum motors?”

    Yes.

    “To those that argued the cell wall structure and function as evidence of a design?”

    Correct.

    “Those ideas have been poleaxed.”

    I disagree. I tend to agree with Wm. Dembski’s assessment, and had come to similar conclusions prior to reading it. Co-option has been over rated. Rather then list the points, read this, then comment:
    http://www.designinference.com/documents/2003.02.Miller_Response.htm

    “Tweaking the genetic codes?” “Statistical improbabilities?” Are you being serious?”

    Absolutely.

    “What has ID shown to be true because of ID? HOW would it show this?”

    There are design inferences + statistical improbabilities. This is not the place to debate those points in detail.

    “The Discovery Institute will change its stripes and Michael Behe will languish in solitary confinement because science already critically thinks; it always and already (to use Derrida’s phrase) thinks about disproving itself, about falsifying itself. When it does, say in the case of the Earth’s age, it changes its assertions to match all of the data mined.”

    DI goes by the evidence, same as science orthodoxy. If its conclusions differ from current mainstream science, you could argue agenda, and you’d be right. I personally have no agenda either way. I look at the evidence, and apply rational thought, nothing more.

    “ID and Creationism and the like are not capable of doing so. They simply provide no viable alternative because they cannot be tested … “

    Try testing mutant = novelty, and even if valid, show a fitness or repro advantage in each incremental alteration to arrive at a radically revised body plan. Remember that each alteration must become fixed in a population. Fruit flys, although of purported different species (mainly repro isolations only) are still drosophila morphologically. Sorry about that.

    #30 “As long as the definition of Intelligent Design is based on a non-sequitor (“IF something falls apart when we take out one tiny piece of it (i.e., it’s irreducibly complex), THEN it must have been the product of an intelligent cause”) there never will be a way to disprove it. Hence, Intelligent Design is not science.”

    The main refutation to IC that’s been offered is exaptation (co-option), for prior alternate functions. Read the Dembski link above for counter arguments.

    #33 “ Agree or disagree on the issue, one thing is for certain, the subject elicits lots of comment! This suggests an emotional component which is certainly displayed in the content of many of the comments. I wonder at the true source of these vis©eral reactions.

    Risking the solicitation of even more such comments, I would like to suggest that if one wishes to prove a thing true or false, the easiest way to discredit the false is to invite inquiry. The truth will eventually win.”

    ID is an alternate, or modifying hypothesis to evolution. Existing research continues on as before, with no impairment. If ID is validated at any level, we then operate at a higher, more informed level, and science proceeds as before. Religion is a non-sequitur to ID, and is precluded in schools by law. So what is the problem? Truth will out.

    #44 “ Does anyone else see anything wrong with the headline “Darwin Defeated in the Bayou”?”

    I do. It may be challenged in a basic tenet, but certainly not defeated. My question is this? Is it logical to continue to embrace all tenets of a theory simply because it is ‘accepted’? Maybe we should add a new proviso for scientific assessment; the ‘Lemming clause”

    Enezio E. de Almeida Filho sums it up well (comment 52):

    “Darwin wasn’t afraid of discussing some weak points of his theory. What are XXI century Darwinians afraid of discussing? That Darwin will be proved wrong in many ways?”

    — Lee Bowman    Jun 14, 11:27 AM    #

50. To revise my comment on comment #24

    “The Discovery Institute will change its stripes and Michael Behe will languish in solitary confinement because science already critically thinks; it always and already (to use Derrida’s phrase) thinks about disproving itself, about falsifying itself. When it does, say in the case of the Earth’s age, it changes its assertions to match all of the data mined.”

    DI goes by the evidence, same as science orthodoxy. If its conclusions differ from current mainstream science, one could argue agenda, and you’d be right to question motive. Both science itself, and special interest groups of various stripes may at times have had biased motives.

    I personally have no agenda either way. I look at the evidence, and apply rational thought to interpret the evidence, nothing more. New evidence, new interpretation.

    — Lee Bowman    Jun 14, 12:04 PM    #

51. I never understand the animosity of the scientific community to intelligent design. I am sure that the vast majority of such people are basically at least somewhat religious people, in many cases quite religious people. All I see in intelligent design is the idea that “God was behind evolution”. Why do people, other than the small number of truly atheistic or anti-religious among us, feel such a strong need to keep God out of it? I don’t personally question Darwinian theory or evolution, but I merely feel that this was in fact simply the good Lord’s tool that He used to make the creatures that inhabit the earth today (and for that matter,yesterdays’ and tomorrow’s creatures). I have never seen anything incompatible between accepting God as the creator of the earth and everything on it, and accepting the evolution process. I merely see God as being behind, and ultimately in control of, that process. I guess I could see the point that science classes should not be turned into religion classes and I understand the oppostion to that happening. But there seems to be an almost mocking attitude on the part of many in the science and teaching community to the very idea of God being behind evoluton, rather than just the attitude that “While that may be true, let’s not turn our science classes into religion classes”. The oppostion seems to go farther than that, to a basic need to totally philosophically reject any presence of God from that process. For the vast majority in the science and teaching community who are religious people to a greater or lesser extent, why this attitude? Some of the comments above show that mocking attitude I refer to, toward those who believe God is behind the evolutionary process. Why?

    — Bruce    Jun 14, 01:52 PM    #

52. Lee writes: “I look at the evidence” and “DI goes by the evidence, same as science orthodoxy”.

    And so does science. But the evidence clearly says that the creation story, even the fancy-tuxedo version of the Dishonesty Institute, fails the evidence test. It failed it about a century and a half ago, and was replaced by a version that fits the evidence a whole lot better.

    Lee, do you think that we should teach other failed theories? How about covering phlogiston in chemistry class? How about mentioning that demons cause diseases in public health class? How about mentioning Zeus as a source of thunderbolts in meteorology class?

    If you don’t think that these should be taught, why do you think that creationism, a failed and evidence-poor explanation, should be taught in high school biology class? The “controversy” about phlogiston in the scientific community is about the same as the controversy re evolution (i.e. zilch, zip, nada, zero). Simply because some of the christian faithful see it as a threat to their faith is NOT a good reason for including failed explanations in a crowded curriculum.

    — Dave    Jun 14, 02:14 PM    #

53. Bruce: (#55)

    1. Most evolutionary biologists are either atheists or agnostics, so I can easily understand why they are against intelligent design. Please notice that I did not say “scientists”.

    2. Beginning with the Darwin, the goal was to explain the diversity of life without the need for invoking a Creator. That is exactly what the theory of evolution posits: that all of the diversity of life is the result of random processes – primarlly genetic changes – culled by natural selection. And because of the way science is defined — only natural explanations are allowed — this is probably the only reasonable explanation available.

    So the question becomes: Can God use random mutations and natural selection to create? Only if the rules of logic don’t apply. The words random and natural are meant to exclude the actions of an intelligence, i.e., God. If God guides which mutations happen, then they are no longer random. If God chooses which organisms survive, then selection is no longer natural; it is intelligent. We are no longer talking about Darwin’s theory; we are talking about some form of intelligent design.

    — Neil    Jun 14, 02:55 PM    #

54. Neil wrote: “1. Most evolutionary biologists are either atheists or agnostics, so I can easily understand why they are against intelligent design.”

    This is simply ad hominem. It is not an argument for or against the science. Surely the ID movement can do better than that.

    Neil then prevaricated: “Beginning with the Darwin, the goal was to explain the diversity of life without the need for invoking a Creator.”

    No, the goal was to explain the diversity of life using the best available evidence. If that evidence points toward a creator, the evidence would be accepted. Unfortunately there is no positive evidence of a scientific variety that points toward a creator. There is a plethora of evidence that is consistent with the theory of evolution.

    It is an insult to scientists in general, and to evolutionary biologists specifically, to imply that their religious beliefs or lack thereof are motivating their interpretation of the evidence. It is, in fact, projection, since it is quite clear that the religious beliefs of the ID crowd certainly let their religious beliefs force them to their conclusions. Finally, and most importantly, it is wrong, as there are many evolutionary biologists (e.g. Francis Collins, Ken Miller) who have no problems reconciling their strong religious beliefs with the reality of evidence.

    If ID is such a powerful theory, surely you can point us toward a scientific prediction, made on the basis of ID theory, that has been successfully demonstrated by experiment, and where the experimental results are at odds with any interpretation made on the basis of evolutionary theory. There are plenty of examples of the contrary sort; I’m just asking for ONE example from the ID side. I’ve been asking for years, and have yet to get a coherent answer. Maybe you can be the first.

    thanks in advance

    — Dave    Jun 14, 03:24 PM    #

55. There is no God get with it!

    — ouramericas    Jun 14, 05:07 PM    #

56. This is simply a ruse to get Intelligent Design into the classroom. I am religious but am able to distinguish between science and wishful thinking. Darwin’s Theory of Evolution and the corresponding fossil record are the closest things we have to cold hard facts concerning this subject and the most reasonable explanation for how man and other species evolved. Why do people have such a hard time with this concept? You can still worship whatever your heart desires but the fossil record does not lie. See what clues God has left behind for you to interpret and see the light!

    — John Dauphinais    Jun 14, 10:24 PM    #

57. Science class should already be teaching students how to critically think. By singling out those particular theories, some of which are incredibly well-established, the backers of this bill have given more reason for the rest of the worldwide scientific community to rightfully laugh at the United States.

    — Emilio    Jun 14, 11:24 PM    #

58. “Unfortunately there is no positive evidence of a scientific variety that points toward a creator. There is a plethora of evidence that is consistent with the theory of evolution.”

    Ludicrous and circular reasoning. How about the existence of the tools of science themselves? There is no type of “scientific variety” that would cause hardcore Darwinists to even begin to soften to the idea that life on Earth didn’t just—essentially—create itself.

    Ha, there may be no solid evidence that Evolutionary Biologists are mostly atheist or agnostic, but I’ll toss another ad hominem to the pile and liken them to denizens of North Korea…and Darwin as the Great Leader. Not a god exactly, but revered in a godlike fashion. Dissent is ridiculed and quashed.

    You zealots that keep equating ID with Creationism don’t know what you’re talking about. I realize the idea of implying the existence of God in any fashion is abhorrent to you rabid secularists, but finding “unrandom” design in nature is light-years away from using the Bible to create or validate science.

    As a lover of science, it warm the cockles of my heart to know that almost 50% of adults in the United States don’t believe in the religion of Darwinian Evolution. And unlike some of you edu-ma-cated folk, many of these people that you love to condescend to realize that aside from Darwinian Evolution being shaky science at best, removing God philosophically destroys the very basis of morality, society, and existence.

    150 years…and still no incontrovertible proof. But keep the faith, guys! Darwin is counting on you to create a godless nihilistic existential utopia!

    — Darwin Hater    Jun 15, 01:10 AM    #

59. Oh, Darwin Hater, if you have to act that way then I’ll simply have to point out what you’ve been doing wrong so far. I’m not sure if you’re trolling this forum, but I’ll take you seriously anyway, as you deserve that much respect at least.

    First of all, the fact that we have tools has nothing to do with the fact that ID is Creationism, and Creationism is a religious agenda that is better left out of school. We are also speaking about the Theory of Evolution, and not the origin of life.

    The origin of life is a completely different sort of matter, you see. God, for all we know, may have poofed the first cell into life and allowed evolution to happen. As of this moment, scientists do not know the specific answer to the origin of life, and to say evolution explains how the first cell or creature got there would be pompous. It simply shows how from that first cell/creature onward we got here.

    However, it is obvious from the fact that you equate the Theory of Evolution through Natural Selection to the origin of life, that you indeed have an agenda in making sure that your religion remains in schools.

    Secondly, Creationism is without a doubt ID, and vice versa. Watch “Intelligent Design on Trial” (google it) to understand that the higher ups in religious groups defending ID are simply trying to muscle their ways into SCIENCE classrooms for their own agenda.

    You would also need to learn more about the Theory of Evolution through Natural Selection AND the Theory of Evolution through Sexual Selection in order to plug in more holes that may have occurred with Darwin’s first theory (his second, involving sexual selection, probably would help you understand all the problems that your Sunday school teacher kept barking about).

    I think it is unfair for you to label yourself a lover of science when you have a disdain for scientific discourse. All ID/Creationists have not shown evidence of any reasonable theory, only a theory that cannot be falsified and stands on shakier ground than a disintegrating trap door.

    Having a good understanding of evolution does not mean that you have to reject God. Darwin was a Christian, after all, and many preachers in his day agreed with him, up until they began to talk about the origin of humans. You may wish to do some more research before insulting us edu-ma-cated folks! I don’t come into your church and hold science classes on evolution, why come into my school and hold theories about clearly religious agendas? If you want ID to come in, let’s go ahead and change the word “intelligent agency” to “several intelligent agencies” and watch people scream bloody murder that there isn’t more than one God. Oh, not Creationism, now, are we?

    Calling us all atheists, nihilists, and other sorts of purposefully hand-selected names (oh, ho ho ho, existential utopia, that’s a good one, I like it) just shows you’re running out of arguments and are resorting to floundering about like a wounded child. Bring us some more scientific evidence and we’ll believe you! Trust me, all good theories begin with research, not pulling a dusty book off a shelf, and declaring IT IS SO!

    — Darwin's Bulldog    Jun 15, 02:41 AM    #

60. Darwin Hater (nice!) wrote: “You zealots that keep equating ID with Creationism don’t know what you’re talking about. I realize the idea of implying the existence of God in any fashion is abhorrent to you rabid secularists, but finding “unrandom” design in nature is light-years away from using the Bible to create or validate science.”

    If you actually want the evidence for the assertion that ID is the direct offspring of creationism, just read Forrest and Gross’ “Creationism’s Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design”. It’s a long and excruciatingly well-documented history of the ID movement, and should be all the proof that a sentient person needs to be convinced of this lineal relationship.

    Plesae educate yourself before spouting unsupported nonsense again.

    — Dave    Jun 15, 08:42 AM    #

61. Hm. False generalizations about all Louisianians, based on the actions of a few? False cause linking post-Katrina levee collapses with this sideshow piece of legislation?

    Now there’s a couple of fine examples of critical thinking.

    How about a little critical thought as it applies to the Louisiana Congressional delegation repeatedly, over years, begging Washington to upgrade the FEDERAL levee system?…How’s the boating in well-educated Iowa?

    It’s time to stop these asinine and hateful “They got what they deserved in Louisiana” attacks, and to apply some critical thought to who’s pulling the strings in DC.

    — Robin Kemp    Jun 15, 03:35 PM    #

62. In response again to Lee Bowman: you didn’t get the tone of my assertions, so please allow me to put everything plainly to you. Science has refuted Behe’s notions of flagellum motors; science has found cases of incomplete eyes; Behe’s newer ideas on cell structure and function have been refuted already. There is no design inference to make, unless of course it is to a poor designer. Have you researched the design of the human eye?…does it pass the test for good design? with a blind spot built into the optic nerve exit??!! Perhaps ID and the DI can explain how the 99% (and growing) of forms of life managed to become extinct on this planet, if they were so well-designed. Perhaps the ID crowd can find an eye designer that values upside-down orientation of retina and blind spots and announce him/her the mad genius behind it all. Lastly, I disagree with you disagreeing about Behe and the like being poleaxed. He admitted in court that he hadn’t even bothered to read the stack of articles to the contrary of his assertions. Had he done that, he would have known (along with ID proponents) that he was making false assertions IN A COURT OF LAW! At the very least, he was making evasive statements. Good thing science is based on rigor, and good thing that I am done agreeing to disagree. Bring me a case: not an opinion linked to a hyperlink, but a scientific case based on evidence and testing and re-testing. I give you “The Flagellum Unspun: The Collapse of Irreducible Complexity” by Dr. Kenneth Miller. Now: give me an article that argues a design as designed by a designer. ID needs to start playing with the big kids: no more questioning; just must now show.

    — Darren Aversa    Jun 15, 05:38 PM    #

63. Just a couple of questions.

    1. Why are there so many fossils?

    2. Are there any uncontroversial transitional forms?

    3. Can you give an example of a mutation showing an increase in information?

    4. Can you explain Dembski’s argument in No Free Lunch, based on the work of D. Axe?

    Please, just a sentence or two with references if you want, for more details.

    — Raymond    Jun 15, 09:16 PM    #

64. Regarding these Louisiana academic freedom bills —

    Something, anything is needed to counteract the intimidating effect of the infamous Kitzmiller v. Dover decision. Judge John E. “Jackass” Jones III showed extreme prejudice against ID and the Dover defendants — regardless of whether or not ID is a religious concept — by saying in a Dickinson College commencement speech that his decision was based on his notion that the Founders based the Constitution’s establishment clause upon a belief that organized religions are not “true” religions. It is surprising that it took 2½ years after the decision to pass bills of this type — maybe a major reason for the big delay was legislators’ fear of a backlash from tightwad taxpayers because of real or imagined litigation costs.

    Also, there is a widespread misconception that ID is the only scientific (or pseudoscientific, to some) criticism of evolution theory. There are also non-ID criticisms of evolution theory.

    — Larry Fafarman    Jun 16, 01:20 AM    #

65. What is really extraordinary is that it is only in America that large numbers or people have any interest in “Intelligent Design”.

    In other parts of the world Intelligent Design rarely rates a mention.

    — Colin Wilson    Jun 16, 06:45 AM    #

66. Just a couple of questions.

    1. Why are there so many fossils?

    (Interesting question – How many is “so many”? The short answer might be because there have been a lot of living things on this planet in the last billion years or so, and some of them get fossilized).

    2. Are there any uncontroversial transitional forms?

    ((Tiktaalik, a transition between fish and amphibian, is the latest high-profile one, but there are plenty in the horse lineage and the whale lineage, just to name two. You can read more here

    http://tiktaalik.uchicago.edu/

    3. Can you give an example of a mutation showing an increase in information?

    (Please define “information” and that might be possible.)

    4. Can you explain Dembski’s argument in No Free Lunch, based on the work of D. Axe?

    (Dembski’s arguments in NFL have been refuted by many and these refutations are summarized here

    http://www.talkorigins.org/design/faqs/nfl/

    Axe’s work has nothing to do with those arguments, nor does it provide any positive evidence for design.)

    You’re welcome..

    — Dave    Jun 16, 08:02 AM    #

67. I am not a proponet of ID, but I decided to do some critical thinking and actually read some of the materials available on the web. The irony of this debate,under the headline ‘Darwin defeated’, is that ID supporters seem to have no problem with Darwin’s view of evolution, at least that which is based on the finches of Galapagos.

    — Allison    Jun 16, 08:07 AM    #

68. The state of Louisana may enact whatever laws it deems appropriate; but my University may no longer be obligated to accept a HS diploma from Louisana…Seems like something worth looking into…

    — perplexed    Jun 16, 11:34 AM    #

69. The main headline to this article should read the following: “Science defeated in the Bayou: Louisiana Discourages ‘Critical Thinking’ About Science”.

    Is it that hard for people to set aside their religious and/or spiritual convictions and beliefs in the name of scientific reasoning? Apparently not! And yet, people of Louisiana, and the people of this country, in general, are willing to tatter, if not overtly destroy, the very fabric of science in order to satisfy their beliefs concerning the origins of the universe.

    Keep this in mind when you think of “intelligent design”: There is not enough evidence available to suggest that the universe, let alone the Earth, was created by an intelligent designer. Even among scientists who support ID, there has not been enough evidence to even submit to peer-reviewed journals.

    There is no conspiracy in science; it is simply that the evidence presented by ID proponents does not offer a viable alternative to the scientifically established set of theories discussed in biological evolution—i.e., genetic drift, gene flow, mutations, and natural selection.

    Indeed, ID proponents may ask complicated, philosophical, “why” questions that may arise concerning existence; however, philosophical or theological arguments do NOT constitute as being physical evidence. As a result, what we teach our children in public schools is that it is OK to take what is called a ‘hypothesis’ and make it into a ‘theory’ without any empirical evidence whatsoever. Essentially, if it sounds acceptable and it fits into our paradigm of understanding, then it should be included in discussions for the sake of ‘critical thinking’. Sorry folks, this is NOT ‘critical thinking’ and it is no way a means by which to teach children ‘science’. As one commenter jokingly stated, ‘why not just include astrology as well?’ I think this is reasonable argument concerning Louisiana’s approach to science has the potential to include other non-scientifically sound ideas into the classroom. It may seem extreme, but the potential is there more so now than ever before.

    But, as history repeats itself, ultimately, it will come down to the federal government having to enter the discussion in order to set the record straight concerning the definition of science. A definition based upon the inclusion of empirical, naturalistic evidence. And, Louisiana will have already taken several steps back in the classroom.

    — Tim    Jun 16, 12:21 PM    #

70. People need to REALIZE that Biology has only very recently become a Hard Core Rigorous science. And it is with biologists finally having to learn hard core mathematics, statistical mechanics, physics, and physical chemistry. Darwin’s theory was not much more than stamp collecting. His papers would not get published in a third rate journal if they were submitted. They were mostly speculation. Molecular genetics, molecular biophysics, and now quantum molecular physical biochemistry have shown us that most, if not all, of the early biological models were mostly wrong. Even not the field of evolutionary biology is in the opinion of a lot of hard core quantum biophysicists a joke. They are no longer looking clearly at the data, but have a preconceived idea of what they are looking, a hidden bias, if not consciously, then subconsciously. They are like the early physicists who resisted quantum mechanics and Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. Matter can exist and be explained as waves and matter. Life can and probably did evolve and also involved some creative design.

    In many top molecular biology labs (out side of the evolutionary biology labs in the UK and the USA, which do not believe in creative design), top scientists are DOING what many biologists (mostly who have not taken and passed hard core maths, quantum mechanics, quantum field theory, and statistical mechanics) do not really understand the hard core sciences. Evolution is so simple that even most biologists can understand it. Simple models for simple minds. It is ok to teach Darwin’s fairy tale to grade schools children, but any A level or high school student would not be happy reading the original works of Darwin (which is what should be taught, and not what people with weak minds and very little maths, physics and chemistry skills have reinterpreted Darwin to say). Alexander van Humbolt was not a believer in Darwin’s weak science.

    Many people do not realize that Darwin’s science, so called survival of the fittest also justified the old colonialism and leadership by the elite, which is still being passed on to some of our political leaders who appear to be elitist.

    Creative design and evolution (random mutations, some of which can be beneficiary and be passed on in the gametes) are like two sides of a coin. Wave nature of particles took many scientists time to accept. The same is happening with creative design. But the fact of the matter the particle theory of matter and the theory of evolution DO NOT and CANNOT explain all of our present observations, and hence the creative design hypothesis (now verified in many molecular biology labs) and the wave nature of matter (also verified and believed by all but the same scientists who also do not yet believe in creative design).

    Evolutionary biologists attack creative design, like the physicists who attacked Heisenberg for his Uncertainty Principle and deBroglie for his wave nature of particles. Both were right of course as are those who now teach and give experiments in creative design in their courses/units. The defenders of evolution are the fanatics who are trying to prevent themselves from having to learn more maths, quantum field theory, statistical mechanics, molecular biology, and quantum nanobiology. Biology is now a hard core mathematical science and hence ALL biology teachers need to upgrade their text books, like all physicists needed to do with the advent of quantum mechanics. Classical mechanics is a special case of quantum field theory. Evolution is a special case of creative design, when things go wrong (high exposure to UV radiation, chemical and nuclear wastes, …). Why else would we be developing gene therapy and other creative design schemes to correct where EVOLUTION got it terribly wrong. Evolution and deevolution (disease and illness cause by mutations) are only one part of nature’s wonderful creation. Thermodynamics teaches us that nature wants to go to simple systems, break down, decompose and not form complex systems, without the input of some form of energy, coherent, and information (intelligence). The design of self assembling monlayers and other complex systems is creative design in practice. So biologists, get over it. You need to go to the next level, just like ALL physicists had to when quantum mechanics was developed. Many still do not understand all the consequences of the quantum, particle, and wave nature of matter. So you are not alone in having to learn more maths, physics, quantum physical biochemistry and statistical mechanics. Time for the debate to end and for all high schools and universities to require their students to take more maths, physics, chemistry, stats and courses/units in quantum molecular biology, creative design, With many genomes being unraveled, creative designers are now designing new life forms. A new species is defined as one of the newly created life forms which can no longer reproduce with its former generation. We all know that that paradigm no longer works!! The quantum molecular creative designers the so called CREATORs of the new life forms. Of course they may even consider themselves now gods. So Louisiana and Kansas appear to be the leading states in the USA in Critical Thinking. In many European countries, Critical Thinking is also being taught, mostly in maths, physics, chemical physics and molecular biophysics institutes. Biology has become a hard core science IN SPITE of Biologists and to a large extent by mathematicians and physicists who now study live processes. Maybe we need to stop calling things biology and go back to Life Sciences. The old ideas, theories and paradigms of biology need to binned and the new quantum molecular biological ideas, concepts and paradigms need to be taught to our young people. Which means Darwin’s works and papers need to be read critically and not TAKEN as God’s gift to Biologists!! It was only one man’s feeble attempt to explain too much. Physicists had the same problem when they thought that classical mechanics could explain everything. So quantum mechanics and creative design the new and more encompassing theories/models and classical mechanics and evolution/
    de -evolution are special cases.

    — Karl    Jun 16, 04:41 PM    #

71. Karl

    What, exactly, has led you to the illusion that biologists are just now learning math and physics? Did you ever hear of Max Delbruck? He was a physicist-turned-biologist who was awarded a Nobel Prize nearly 40 years ago. For his work in biology. He is not an anomaly…

    What, exactly, has led you to the illusion that Darwin’s writings are considered to be gospel by modern biologists? Do you possess a biology textbook that cites Darwin and no publications since his time? Have you read any modern biology textbooks?

    What, exactly, has led you to the illusion that we don’t teach critical thinking in biology classes in this country? I work in Kansas, and we certainly teach it here!

    And finally, what, exactly, has convinced you that quantum mechanistic applications to biology need to be included in high school curricula?

    As a biologist/biophysicist and educator, I’m pretty sure that all of your assertions are unsupported by the facts. In addition, they are more than a tad insulting.

    — Dave    Jun 16, 10:07 PM    #

72. It is perhaps coincidental that 5 different advocates for the ID/creationism perspective have failed to reappear here once they were asked some questions. Perhaps they just missed those messages. So I’ll sum them up here at the end of the thread in the hopes that at least one of the 5 can enlighten us further.

    For Lee Bowman (from comment 56): Lee, do you think that we should teach other failed theories? How about covering phlogiston in chemistry class? How about mentioning that demons cause diseases in public health class? How about mentioning Zeus as a source of thunderbolts in meteorology class? If you don’t think that these should be taught, why do you think that creationism, a failed and evidence-poor explanation, should be taught in high school biology class? The “controversy” about phlogiston in the scientific community is about the same as the controversy re evolution (i.e. zilch, zip, nada, zero).

    For Lee Bowman again (from Darren Aversa’s comment 66): Bring me a case: not an opinion linked to a hyperlink, but a scientific case based on evidence and testing and re-testing. I give you “The Flagellum Unspun: The Collapse of Irreducible Complexity” by Dr. Kenneth Miller. Now: give me an article that argues a design as designed by a designer. ID needs to start playing with the big kids: no more questioning; just must now show.

    For Neil (from comment 58): If ID is such a powerful theory, surely you can point us toward a scientific prediction, made on the basis of ID theory, that has been successfully demonstrated by experiment, and where the experimental results are at odds with any interpretation made on the basis of evolutionary theory. There are plenty of examples of the contrary sort; I’m just asking for ONE example from the ID side. I’ve been asking for years, and have yet to get a coherent answer. Maybe you can be the first.

    For Darwin Hater (from comment 64): Have you read Forrest and Gross’ “Creationism’s Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design”? It’s a long and excruciatingly well-documented history of the ID movement, and should be all the proof that a sentient person needs to be convinced of this lineal relationship.

    For Raymond (from comment 70): Please give me a definition of information, and I might be able to answer your question #3.

    For Karl: See comment 75 above and please let me know the evidence for all of your seemingly unsupported assertions.

    thanks to all

    — Dave    Jun 17, 12:37 PM    #

73. Dave,
    I agree with your statement:
    Max Delbruck? He was a physicist-turned-biologist.

    By the way I have done quantum nanobiology work at the MDC (Max Delbruech Centre) in Berlin Buch, and am quite aware of his work. As you state, he was trained as a physicist. Molecular Biophysics in the natural extension of physical chemistry and chemical physics. It has taken physicists and chemists all of these years to understand phenomena in the gas phase and isolated state. Working at top molecular biophysics institutes both in the States and in Europe I am well aware of the field of molecular biophysics. Also I am well aware of the biases biologists, chemists and physicists have for each other. What humbles even the physicists is the mathematical physicists who blow even most physicists away with their rigor, existence proofs, then and only then go looking for a construction. Being educated in the States and having taken university biology units/courses I was appalled at the lack of logic and mathematical rigor in the biology and even many chemistry units. Dumbing down science is not the way to go for high school or university undergraduates. That is the difference between the science approach in Russia (visit the molecular biophysics institute at Moscow State for example) and in the States and many Western European countries. We allow many students to get away with not learning the fundamental mathematics and physics, and the weaker ones go to chemistry and those who cannot hack physical chemistry go to medicine, pharmacy and biology. I have first hand experience with physical chemistry being the weeder course for many students going to medical school. It would do wonders for our medical schools to require all students to take physical chemistry and biophysical chemistry to get into medical school. The University of Illinois and Urbana Champaign, with Professor Klaus Schulten and others, has a very rigorous program which all biology professors and even high school teachers should take. The fight about introducing creative design in biology courses in high school and molecular biophysics courses is moot. Teach the students to think critically and to do experimental science, to design experiments, … and they will be well prepared to go back and read Darwin original works. Scientists are all trained to be critical of their own and others work. As an undergraduate I found many errors in my first edition Inorganic chemistry text, which showed me that many professors do not really take their science, research and teaching seriously, or they do not know what they are taking about. In graduate school I learned from our National Academy and Royal Society Scientists that a lot of what gets published and through the peer review is still bad, if not wrong. With the large numbers of papers being retracted from both Nature and Science (which are suppose to be the top refereed journals), my faith in the system is lost. And by the way, the way the cheaters get caught is when the young students question the work and try to reproduce the work and/or check the assumptions. Hence the work of Darwin, and also Watson and Crick, has been critically checked. Even some of the work of Watson and Crick was not really what they and others have claimed. Hence the students should be trained to think critically and ALWAYS go to the original literature, and do not take for granted someone interpretation of someone else’s work, be it Darwin’s, Watson and Crick’s, Heisesnberg’s, Schulten’s, …

    That is the reason why the states of Kansas and Louisiana and most Eastern European countries teach and should teach critical thinking. Allow the students to learn to evaluate the data and arguments themselves. In a modern technological society, every citizen needs to be able to understand and assess the arguments both for and against global warming, evolution, creative design, classical mechanics, quantum mechanics, the duality of matter, …

    Science does not yet have all of the answers. Those who claim they do are lost, as the development of our new instruments and experiments have shown. Read the new Cambridge University Press book: Methods in Molecular Biophysics by Serdyck, Zacai and Zacai. It is at a level most gifted high school students and university students can read. They may not understand everything, by reading it they will appreciate their need to take a university maths unit/course every semester as an undergraduate and then take the advanced applied mathematics units/courses during their PhD and postdoctoral work. Mathematics is the language of science and technology and all or our students, professors, academics and staff should be educated up through quantum field theory, statistical mechanics and functional analysis. Mathematics skills must be used to be developed and to be kept. Just like physicists having to learn chemistry, mathematics and biology, biologists need to learn mathematics, chemistry and physics. The old idea of studying only all four in high school and the first year or two of university is gone, especially in the new fields like quantum nanobiology, where one needs to be top in all four fields to make major contributions: chemistry, biology, physics and mathematics. And you can add on top of the computer programming, C, C++ and Fortran 2003/2005. Not to hound on biologists, but many biologists, chemists and physicists are not on top of the maths the way they should be. It is doing a great disservice to their students to dumb down their fields because they have not done their homework (maths).

    The NSF and NIH really need to help our biology, chemistry and physics professors, academics and staff with continuing education courses in applied mathematics. Summer schools at Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore, Fermi Labs, NASA-Ames, NCSA, Cornell, Pittsburg, SDSCC, … Mathematics is the language of science, and hence all scientists, researchers, professors, high school teachers, faculty and staff should have periodic qualifying exams in mathematics. If they do not pass/qualify, they need to take continuing education units/courses at the local/state flagship universities in the summer and/or via the internet. Then the USA will not have such a shortage of highly (maths) educated students, researchers and faculty. The USA is the only country which has to import graduate students, postdocs and even faculty in large numbers from India, China, Russia and Eastern Europe. What does that tell you about the quality, educations, maths skills of the current high school teachers and faculty and staff at most universities, even the so-called flag ship universities like UCLA, Cal Tech, Stanford, UIUC, Cornell, Harvard, …

    It starts with having good high school teachers and university professors and lecturers. In the UK the top private high schools and Oxford and Cambridge all have academics who know their maths and fields and hence they turn out highly educated A level students and BSCs. Hence they do not need to import large numbers of graduate students, TAs, RAs, postdoc, programmers, .. from India, China, Russia and Eastern Europe. The USA has clearly lost its way with respect to the aim/goal of educating the next generation of young people. And it is showing with the economy being totally stuffed up do to the next generation of Bells, Edisons, Hughes, … not being Americans, and hence the large numbers of home foreclosures, company down sizings, …

    So forget fighting to take out critical thinking out of the schools. We need more critical thinking, more entrepreneurship and innovation being taught. The fact is we need the next generation to be the movers and shakers. Too many so-called top people took positions in the universities and have not produced. They have done esoteric research and argued about black holes, evolution, cosmology, … all the while the Indians, Chinese, Russians, and Eastern Europeans have been doing the practical things. Designing new devices, applying the so-called science and technology their young people (Indians, Chinese, Russians, Eastern Europeans, ….) have done in our (the USA’s) research labs.

    The world has many problems which need to be solved. The mess from hurricane Katrina is still not cleaned up, people are being forced out of their homes due to company downsizing, record deficits with India and China, … So university academics and high school teachers, get off your butts and educate, train and motivate the young people. They are your future. I am sorry, but I feel the current generation of university academics and high school teachers have fallen asleep at the wheel. They were handed one, if the not the strongest economies and the best funded research universities and government labs in the world. And what have they to show for it? Big science, super colliders, genomoes of many organisms, … but record numbers of unemployed college graduates, record numbers of imported college graduates, record number of foreign graduate students, post docs and university professors. What does that tell you and the whole world about the quality of the university professors, administrators and high school teachers and administrators?

    — Karl    Jun 17, 12:38 PM    #

74. 1. There are fossils everywhere. There are too many for any evolutionary scenario, and in many places around the world there large fossil beds. Many (most?) of the fossils are in sedimentary rocks, and sedimentary rocks are formed by erosion; soil and water. If you have lots of soil and lots of water, you call it a f***d. Was it one big f***d or several smaller ones over millions of years?

    2. The fossils appear and disappear some millions of years later and they are unchanged from the first appearance to the last appearance. Transitional forms are speculations and to conclude that there are transitional forms because there has to be because we evolved is circular reasoning of a most sophomoric kind. Darwin, Gould and Eldredge acknowledged this problem.

    3. Examples of mutations showing in increase in information/function, defined in any way that you want, Dave, as long as it could lead to something new (a leg from a fin, a fin from a leg, a new active site on a protein) rather than a bigger beak or a different color. This has to have happened billions of times but somehow we just cannot see it.

    4. My apologies to Axe and Dembski if I get some of this wrong. If you consider all possible proteins, say 200 amino acids long, (20^200), you are dealing with a huge number of different possible sequences. And essentially none of them does anything and so finding any that have a function or useful structure by any random method is impossible. Evolutionist claim that this has happened billions of time.

    None of the above claims has anything to do with religion, but I think that there may be an ancient book that bears tangentially on #1. The above points go to the heart of the theory of evolution and if any of them are even partly correct, the theory has a problem. Why you cannot open your minds enough to see this is just strange. Most Christians have questioned the reality of their beliefs (I envy those with so much faith that they need not question, like evolutionists). Most of us have found our faith is Christ is well supported, but we were open-minded enough to question. It is hilarious that it is now evolutionists who are totally close-minded. What are you afraid of?

    In addition to the above:

    5. Phylogenetic trees do not work out very well. This should be a straightforward exercise.

    6. Origin of life research peaked with the Urey-Miller experiments fifty years ago. There is little consensus on how life could have originated, but we know it did somehow, because we are here. Space aliens, cosmic dust? This is pathetic.

    7. Evolutionists continually advance ideas about how evolution could have occurred and then are forced to retract them. See Icons of Evolution by Jonathan Wells and

    8. J. Huxley (?) claimed that a million monkeys with a million typewriters could eventually produce the complete works of Shakespeare. Just wrong.

    Doubtless, many of you could add more but remember, but remember there is no scientific debate about evolution.

    — Raymond    Jun 17, 01:03 PM    #

75. Response to Dave (#58)

    “This is simply ad hominem. It is not an argument for or against the science. Surely the ID movement can do better than that.”

    I took two observations and expressed an opinion. (1) Most evolutionary biologists are atheists. (2) And many have openly expressed hostility to intelligent design. I cannot know for sure what motivates their hostility. I thought that perhaps this hostility did not come from consideration of the evidence. Perhaps these scientists don’t like their world view being questioned. Perhaps there are many other reasons as well. Nothing is gained by either side lobbing ad hominems back and forth. Of course, it is not an argument for or against the science; I did not intend it to be.

    To attribute my response to the ID movement is unwarranted; I was speaking for myself.

    “No, the goal was to explain the diversity of life using the best available evidence. If that evidence points toward a creator, the evidence would be accepted. Unfortunately there is no positive evidence of a scientific variety that points toward a creator. There is a plethora of evidence that is consistent with the theory of evolution.”

    I will agree that the goal WAS to explain the diversity life using the best available evidence. Nevertheless, Darwin was satisfied that his explanation was a true scientific explanation in that it did not invoke God as part of that explanation. And this remains the philosophical foundation of the scientific enterprise today. For an explanation to be scientific, it must not invoke God.

    I will agree there is no evidence that can definitively prove that God exists. We do have methods that can detect when an intelligent agent has acted. The controversy, obviously, is whether these methods can be applied to living things.

    “It is, in fact, projection, since it is quite clear that the religious beliefs of the ID crowd certainly let their religious beliefs force them to their conclusions.”

    Wow. What chutzpah! Only those who affirm the theory of evolution are objective and unbiased! Dave, your bias is showing. Are you saying that it’s absolutely unthinkable for someone to be the least bit suspicious that there was intelligence involved when he observes the following: that at the root of life’s processes there is a digital code that specifies how to build proteins, and that in order to do this there must also be a decoding mechanism?

    “Finally, and most importantly, it is wrong, as there are many evolutionary biologists (e.g. Francis Collins, Ken Miller) who have no problems reconciling their strong religious beliefs with the reality of evidence.”

    Finally, a comment that relates somewhat to the main point of my post. One’s religion is a very personal thing, and whether Collins and Miller can reconcile their religious beliefs with the evidence is too vague a concept to be able to critique.

    The argument I am making is not a religious argument; it is a logical argument. If Darwin’s theory posits unguided, random processes and natural selection to account for the diversity of life, how is it logical to say that God used evolution to create life’s diversity? You are asking God to guide an unguided process.

    “If ID is such a powerful theory, surely you can point us toward a scientific prediction, made on the basis of ID theory…”

    I also have a question that I have not yet seen answered. If the theory of evolution is such a powerful theory, why has it yet been unable to explain the things it purports to explain?

    The mechanisms of the major morphological transitions and the development of new organs have yet to be described. So how do scientists conclude from the available evidence that the proposed evolutionary mechanisms are capable of the claims made for them?

    (Sorry for the slow response. Apparently I was not intelligently designed. I thought comments were closed, until I saw that innocuous pound sign and clicked on it.)

    — Neil    Jun 17, 03:16 PM    #

76. Welcome back, Raymond

    According to Raymond: 1. There are fossils everywhere. There are too many for any evolutionary scenario, and in many places around the world there large fossil beds. Many (most?) of the fossils are in sedimentary rocks, and sedimentary rocks are formed by erosion; soil and water. If you have lots of soil and lots of water, you call it a f***d. Was it one big f***d or several smaller ones over millions of years?

    Too many? That’s a new one. Most creationists complain that we don’t have enough, and demand that every nuance of morphological change be documented with fossil evidence. Furthermore, I don’t know how to point this out to you gently, but a flood is NOT the only explanation for the fossils in sedimentary rocks. If you seriously don’t understand geology at the level that this paragraph implies, I’d suggest that you get yourself to the nearest college or university and enroll in an intro geology course. And try not to let your pre-formed conclusion (goddidit) to influence your listening too much while you are attending that class.

    ———————————
    According to Raymond 2. The fossils appear and disappear some millions of years later and they are unchanged from the first appearance to the last appearance. Transitional forms are speculations and to conclude that there are transitional forms because there has to be because we evolved is circular reasoning of a most sophomoric kind. Darwin, Gould and Eldredge acknowledged this problem.

    Lots of errors and misconceptions in this paragraph too. In the first place, there are lots of plausible reasons for gaps in the fossil record, and that geology course might acquaint you with some of them. Secondly the transitional forms might be “speculations” on their own, but the weioght of evidence from geology and from fossils left in the genomes of living forms all form a coherent and consilient story. Finally, lots of scientists acknowledge that we don’t have all the answers, but that is NOT the same thing as acknowledging that transitional fossils are speculations. that is an outright falsehood. Isn’t there something in your book about bearing false witness?

    ——————————

    according to Raymond 3. Examples of mutations showing in increase in information/function, defined in any way that you want, Dave, as long as it could lead to something new (a leg from a fin, a fin from a leg, a new active site on a protein) rather than a bigger beak or a different color. This has to have happened billions of times but somehow we just cannot see it.

    We see it all the time. Enzymes that digest nylon, a man-made product that did not appear on earth until the 1930’s, have evolved and we know the mechanism. Enzymes that digest PCP – ditto. Mutations that lead to new structures like eye-spots in fruit-fly wings – ditto. Mutations that lead to the co-option of a digestive enzyme to generate an anti-freeze protein in Antarctic fish have been studied and are well-known. Mutations that lead to new binding sites AND new functions for HIV proteins have evolved within the past few decades; this is also well-documented. It is unfortunate that you are ignorant about all those things, but they exist nonetheless.

    ————————-

    according to Raymond 4. My apologies to Axe and Dembski if I get some of this wrong. If you consider all possible proteins, say 200 amino acids long, (20^200), you are dealing with a huge number of different possible sequences. And essentially none of them does anything and so finding any that have a function or useful structure by any random method is impossible. Evolutionist claim that this has happened billions of time.

    This merely shows your fascination with large numbers. What are the odds that all of the grains of sand on Daytona Beach would be aligned like they are? Astronomical! Yet that seems to have happened. What are the odds that we, of all the people on the earth, would be carrying on this discussion. Impossible! So what? Furthermore if you actually read and undersood that link I provided, you would understand that Dembski and Axe fail to account for a reality of biological evolution when they do their calculations. that reality is Darwin’s contribution to the whole story – natural selection. Sure, the odds of a particular protein spontaneously appearing with a particular sequence are quite low. But the odds go way up if selection is acting on those changes as they appear SEQUENTIALLY, with the best-adapted or most functional ones making up the next generation to be selected. It is easy to get the math wrong when you make bad assumptions. Dembski gets it wrong for exactly that reason.

    ———————

    Further pronouncements from Raymond: None of the above claims has anything to do with religion, but I think that there may be an ancient book that bears tangentially on #1. The above points go to the heart of the theory of evolution and if any of them are even partly correct, the theory has a problem. Why you cannot open your minds enough to see this is just strange. Most Christians have questioned the reality of their beliefs (I envy those with so much faith that they need not question, like evolutionists). Most of us have found our faith is Christ is well supported, but we were open-minded enough to question. It is hilarious that it is now evolutionists who are totally close-minded. What are you afraid of?

    Simple answer. I’m afraid of willful ignorance. And as a scientist, I’ve changed my minds on lots of topics that I thought were settled when I was in graduate school. Are you willing to change your mind about your faith? What are you afraid of?

    ———————-

    According to Raymond 5. Phylogenetic trees do not work out very well. This should be a straightforward exercise.

    It may come as a surprise to you, but phylogenetic trees are basically just hypotheses. Hypotheses are tentative They can (and should) change when we get new data. What aspect of your faith has changed in response to new data? Or are you so afraid of change that you cling to the notion that things must be immutable and inerrant?

    ————————

    According to Raymond 6. Origin of life research peaked with the Urey-Miller experiments fifty years ago. There is little consensus on how life could have originated, but we know it did somehow, because we are here. Space aliens, cosmic dust? This is pathetic.

    Another complete falsehood re the peaking of research efforts in abiogenesis; this is a very active field, as you would know if you read scientific articles rather than Answers in Genesis. It’s true that there is no consensus. Are you so afraid of uncertainty that you demand a certain answer to this? Then get to work and do some experiments to test your hypothesis, please. Finally, abiogenesis is NOT evolution; please try to keep that straight.

    ———————

    according to Raymond 7. Evolutionists continually advance ideas about how evolution could have occurred and then are forced to retract them. See Icons of Evolution by Jonathan Wells and

    Again, science is a working enterprise. New data demand new interpretations. Any area of science where the conclusions remain constant for a few decades is dead. I understand that folks like you demand inerrancy and stability. too bad that’s not the way science works. Furthermore, Icons of Evolution is baloney throughout. For refutation of just one of his claims (Haeckel’s misinterpretation of embryonic development appears in many modern biology textbooks), see my spreadsheet here

    http://www.davidrintoul.com/haeckel_textbook_survey.xls

    ——————-

    according to Raymond 8. J. Huxley (?) claimed that a million monkeys with a million typewriters could eventually produce the complete works of Shakespeare. Just wrong.

    What’s wrong is your attribution of this to Huxley. See

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem

    Furthermore this analogy has no application to evolution, because you AGAIN ignore the contribution of natural selection to the process.

    Please educate yourself on these topics, it will enhance your understanding and appreciation of the natural world.

    — Dave    Jun 17, 03:38 PM    #

77. Welcome back, Neil

    According to Neil – I took two observations and expressed an opinion. (1) Most evolutionary biologists are atheists. (2) And many have openly expressed hostility to intelligent design. I cannot know for sure what motivates their hostility. I thought that perhaps this hostility did not come from consideration of the evidence. Perhaps these scientists don’t like their world view being questioned. Perhaps there are many other reasons as well. Nothing is gained by either side lobbing ad hominems back and forth. Of course, it is not an argument for or against the science; I did not intend it to be.

    #
    But the religion of a scientist is irrelevant. I could equally accurately say that most evolutionary biologists are right-handed. So what? Why bring up an irrelevant personal attribute? Why not talk about the science?

    ——————

    According to Neil 2. “No, the goal was to explain the diversity of life using the best available evidence. If that evidence points toward a creator, the evidence would be accepted. Unfortunately there is no positive evidence of a scientific variety that points toward a creator. There is a plethora of evidence that is consistent with the theory of evolution.”

    I will agree that the goal WAS to explain the diversity life using the best available evidence. Nevertheless, Darwin was satisfied that his explanation was a true scientific explanation in that it did not invoke God as part of that explanation. And this remains the philosophical foundation of the scientific enterprise today. For an explanation to be scientific, it must not invoke God.

    #
    But there is NO evidence to support your assertion about Darwin OR the motives of current evolutionary scientists. Furthermore you are confusing philosophical naturalism with methodological naturalism. Current methods (unless you know of some that I am ignorant about) cannot detect the supernatural (God included). Don’t you think that lots of scientists would be incredibly happy if they could develop such methods? Don’t you think that would be worthy of a Nobel Prize? So why do you think that scientists, who are competitive and always looking for new ideas and approaches, are philosophically disinclined to search for it? Tell you what. You give me a method to identify and study the supernatural and I promise to split the Nobel Prize money with you!

    ———————

    According to Neil 3: I will agree there is no evidence that can definitively prove that God exists. We do have methods that can detect when an intelligent agent has acted. The controversy, obviously, is whether these methods can be applied to living things.

    #
    Nope, the controversy is that the lack of specificity about the intelligent agent completely precludes the application of ID methods to the study of living things. As a theory, ID has no explanatory power. So its inclusion in classroom settings is premature. Make some predictions, do some experiments, publish some results. Then we can talk about putting it in the classroom.

    ———————

    According to Neil 4: “It is, in fact, projection, since it is quite clear that the religious beliefs of the ID crowd certainly let their religious beliefs force them to their conclusions.”
    Wow. What chutzpah! Only those who affirm the theory of evolution are objective and unbiased! Dave, your bias is showing. Are you saying that it’s absolutely unthinkable for someone to be the least bit suspicious that there was intelligence involved when he observes the following: that at the root of life’s processes there is a digital code that specifies how to build proteins, and that in order to do this there must also be a decoding mechanism?

    #
    Please quit putting words in my mouth. I did not say that “Only those who affirm the theory of evolution are objective and unbiased.” I said that religious objectors to evolutionary theory exhibit a conclusion-first mentality that is absolutely not scientific. Scientists can be biased. But every decent scientist is prepared to chuck his/her hypothesis if the observations disprove it. Religious objectors do not seem to be willing to abandon their hypothesis (goddidit)even in the face of mountains of contradictory evidence. Again, I’d be happy if the evidence pointed toward a designer. But there is no evidence for it at the present, and the genetic code is most certainly NOT pointing in that direction…

    —————-

    According to Neil 5: “Finally, and most importantly, it is wrong, as there are many evolutionary biologists (e.g. Francis Collins, Ken Miller) who have no problems reconciling their strong religious beliefs with the reality of evidence.”

    Finally, a comment that relates somewhat to the main point of my post. One’s religion is a very personal thing, and whether Collins and Miller can reconcile their religious beliefs with the evidence is too vague a concept to be able to critique.

    The argument I am making is not a religious argument; it is a logical argument. If Darwin’s theory posits unguided, random processes and natural selection to account for the diversity of life, how is it logical to say that God used evolution to create life’s diversity? You are asking God to guide an unguided process.

    #
    Talk about chutzpah. You are asking god to follow your intuition that it needs guidance. One could argue that a god who could set this thing in motion is a better god than one who has to constantly meddle. But arguments about the characteristics of god are, as noted before, unsolvable at this time.

    ——————-

    According to Neil 6: “If ID is such a powerful theory, surely you can point us toward a scientific prediction, made on the basis of ID theory…”

    I also have a question that I have not yet seen answered. If the theory of evolution is such a powerful theory, why has it yet been unable to explain the things it purports to explain?

    The mechanisms of the major morphological transitions and the development of new organs have yet to be described. So how do scientists conclude from the available evidence that the proposed evolutionary mechanisms are capable of the claims made for them?

    #
    Next time I hope you answer the question. But I’ll answer yours, just to show you how it works. Evolution has answered a lot of questions; ID has answered NONE. Like any scientific endeavor, evolutionary biology also generates a lot of questions. There are lots of things that are currently not understood. Unfortunately if ID was the dominant paradigm, lots of things that we now understand would still be mysterious. Remember that Behe compared the study of the evolution of the immune system to the labors of Sisyphus. Its a good thing that thousands of scientists didn’t listen to him at the time; the evolution of the immune system is now failry well understood in broad terms. So unanswered questions are not a hallmark of a failed theory. Hallmarks of a failed theory include the inability to generate even a single predictive hypothesis, perform a single controlled experiment, or publish a single peer-reviewed paper with positive evidence for the theory. In other words, ID is a failed theory at the present time.

    — Dave    Jun 17, 04:08 PM    #

78. Hi Dave,

    Good for you.

    I’ll just take issue with a few points.

    Fossils by means other than a flood. Certainly. I have read the following in book or article by evolutionist. Animals wandering into a lake and getting stuck in the mud, insects flying over a marshy lake where the air had too little oxygen and animals getting caught in a subsurface mud slide. Many fossils are in sediments that have to be laid down rapidly and deep enough to prevent being destroyed. That is a flood. Every nuance of morphology? Land animals to whales? Four or five out of what must have been thousands? Even Gould acknowledge that transitional form are generally missing.

    You clearly did not understand Dembski in No Free Lunch.

    In constructing phylogenetic trees, I understand that you get contradicting results depending on what method and what DNA or protein you use. This is not new data requiring an adjustment to a hypothesis. It means your assumptions are wrong.

    Natural selection might be a good method for something, but it gets garbage to work with.

    Dave, you may enjoy commenting at Uncommon Descent.

    — Raymond    Jun 17, 06:34 PM    #

79. Raymond wrote:

    Fossils by means other than a flood. Certainly. I have read the following in book or article by evolutionist. Animals wandering into a lake and getting stuck in the mud, insects flying over a marshy lake where the air had too little oxygen and animals getting caught in a subsurface mud slide. Many fossils are in sediments that have to be laid down rapidly and deep enough to prevent being destroyed. That is a flood. Every nuance of morphology? Land animals to whales? Four or five out of what must have been thousands? Even Gould acknowledge that transitional form are generally missing.

    —————
    Interesting goal post move. But its good to hear that you understand a bit more about sedimentation (and how long it can take) than you seemed to imply in your previous comment. And I’m sorry, but I must have missed your explanation of how whales came to be. Evolutionary theory may not have all the answers; no active scientific field has all the answers, as previously noted. But it seems to have some answers, which is a lot more satisfying to me than “I don’t know, so goddidit”. Your mileage may (and obviously does) vary.

    Raymond further opined: You clearly did not understand Dembski in No Free Lunch.

    ———————-
    Again, that is not a rebuttal. I gave specific reasons (selection is not included in his analysis, nobody proposes that all protein sequences were simultaneously generated, etc.) I gave a web link to a detailed rebuttal of NFL, and I do understand those words at that site. So your simple wave of the hand is not sufficient. What part of it, specifically, do I misunderstand? More to the point, what part of it, if any, do you understand?

    Raymond further wrote: In constructing phylogenetic trees, I understand that you get contradicting results depending on what method and what DNA or protein you use. This is not new data requiring an adjustment to a hypothesis. It means your assumptions are wrong.

    ————————
    Quit putting words in my mouth; that seems to be a nasty habit that many creationists have picked up. I did not say that you get “contradicting results”. I said that new data require you to generate new trees that might be the same, or might be different. Refining a tree is a process that can take a while, but this process does not mean that assumptions are necessarily “wrong”. Incomplete data are a fact of life that you obviously can’t deal with. Too bad. I presume that you wish that the relationships of the “kinds” of organisms as defined in Genesis 1 are immutable and true. Sorry to report the facts, but that just is not the case. Or perhaps you have some other insight into the relationships of all the organisms on the planet today. I’m sorry, but I missed that scientific explanation too. Can you repeat it, or point me toward your improved version?

    Raymond wrote: Natural selection might be a good method for something, but it gets garbage to work with.

    ——————-
    Again, this ignores reality. I gave you lots of examples for which you have no reply other than to parrot the creationist mantra that mutations are always deleterious and thus are “garbage”. Refute the facts with facts. Your opinions don’t really cut it.

    Raymond finally wrote: Dave, you may enjoy commenting at Uncommon Descent.

    —————
    I’m banned at UD, just like dozens of others, because I dared to question the orthodoxy of Dembski and Scott. In fact, they just banned someone today for pointing out facts. Facts are inconvenient at that site.

    Maybe you can comment at the Panda’s Thumb forum, After The Bar Closes. If you stick to facts, you won’t get banned at all. Indeed, if you stick to facts, you might enjoy these debates a lot more!

    — Dave    Jun 17, 07:05 PM    #

80. Will Louisiana students also be taught critical thinking in abstinence-only sex ed classes?

    — ttch    Jun 18, 05:39 AM    #

81. Dave,

    Thanks for the reference about the monkeys.

    Bad grammar on my part it my comment about the phylogenetic trees. I did not mean you, personally. Should have said “one.” None the less, the results are contradictory to the extent that lateral gene transfer has to be invoked. These are contradictions, not refinements, because any gene or sequence of DNA should give the same results, because they all came from the same population. You may find specifics at creation-evolution headlines, and I am sure at other places.

    Behe describes the limits of what you can do with mutations in The Edge of Evolution and he relates how that limits what is possible due to time and generations of mammals and he writes about the HIV mutation you mention in his Amazon web site. I am glad to hear that there seem to be some that have produced something new. I noticed that you did not mention antibiotic resistance in bacteria. That was popular a few years ago, but I guess they all proved to be loss of function. Before that cycle cell anemia was the only example that could be given. What are the current estimate of the ratio of beneficial, neutral, harmful mutations? For any I have heard there was precious little for natural selection to work with; a silk purse out of a sows ear sort of thing.

    Few of us doubt microevolution, but remember, these mutations that lead to all things are the very essence of evolution. There has to have been hundreds of them leading to new stuff. Difficult to show because they are buried in “deep time”? Yes, but no one said science has to be easy.

    Moving the goal posts on what the fossil record should show? Hardly. You have to get off your one yard line before you can think about kicking a field goal. The fact is that the fossil record contradicts evolution.

    Dembski claims that for a protein of any give length, there are so few sequences that have any function that you cannot get from one function to another by an unguided process. Once mutations take the protein to an non-functioning sequence, natural selection can not help.

    — Raymond    Jun 19, 07:19 AM    #

82. Raymond 1: Bad grammar on my part it my comment about the phylogenetic trees. I did not mean you, personally. Should have said “one.” None the less, the results are contradictory to the extent that lateral gene transfer has to be invoked. These are contradictions, not refinements, because any gene or sequence of DNA should give the same results, because they all came from the same population. You may find specifics at creation-evolution headlines, and I am sure at other places.
    ————-
    Yes, it is likely that refining the hypotheses that we call phylogenetic trees will require us to include lateral gene transfer, at least at the lower levels of the tree. So what? Science works by continually seeking new data, and integrating those data into new understandings. You seem to think that is a bad thing. Why is it a bad thing, in your perspective? Is is because you personally prefer an immutable answer? If that is the case, then you shouldn’t go into a career in science. But your personal preference for stability is not a good reason for others to stop doing science. As noted before, Behe is on record as saying, a few years back, that investigations into the evolution of the immune system are like the labors of Sisyphus, bound to go nowhere. Scientists didn’t listen to him either, and now we have a good understanding of that. Which will change as we learn more…

    Raymond 2: Behe describes the limits of what you can do with mutations in The Edge of Evolution and he relates how that limits what is possible due to time and generations of mammals and he writes about the HIV mutation you mention in his Amazon web site. I am glad to hear that there seem to be some that have produced something new. I noticed that you did not mention antibiotic resistance in bacteria. That was popular a few years ago, but I guess they all proved to be loss of function. Before that cycle cell anemia was the only example that could be given. What are the current estimate of the ratio of beneficial, neutral, harmful mutations? For any I have heard there was precious little for natural selection to work with; a silk purse out of a sows ear sort of thing.
    —————-
    And Behe admits, on that same web site, that he overlooked the data about mutations in HIV. He has a habit of that, as we learned during the Dover trial. His books sound good unless you actually know the literature. Then you understand that he is wrong about a lot of things. Lies by omission are still lies.

    Furthermore it is ridiculous to say that examples of antibiotic resistance have all proved to be “a loss of function”. That is simply not true, as you would know if you paid attention to the literature. The fact that I did not mention it in my list for you merely indicates that there are lots of examples of the very thing that you say do not exist, beneficial mutations. Here’s another, from a paper just published in Genetics in May 2008

    http://www.genetics.org/cgi/content/abstract/179/1/487

    Pay attention to the real literature, rather than creationist websites, and your knowledge will grow enough so that you don’t accept ignorant assertions without a basis in fact.

    Raymond 3: Few of us doubt microevolution, but remember, these mutations that lead to all things are the very essence of evolution. There has to have been hundreds of them leading to new stuff. Difficult to show because they are buried in “deep time”? Yes, but no one said science has to be easy.
    ————-
    If you accept microevolution and deny evolution of life’s diversity by that mechanism over billions of years, it is analogous to saying that you believe in inches, but you don’t think that there are miles. Illogical. And an argument from incredulity; even though you don’t get it, it still could really have happened.

    Raymond 4: Moving the goal posts on what the fossil record should show? Hardly. You have to get off your one yard line before you can think about kicking a field goal. The fact is that the fossil record contradicts evolution.
    ————-
    And yet most folks understand that the fossil record provides us with just one pillar of evidence FOR evolution. Again, just saying things without backing them up with facts is not going to win you any arguments. The facts are that the fossil record, as noted by thousands of scientists and lay writers, is excellent evidence FOR evolution and damning evidence against your flood. Darwin didn’t have much of that record, but he predicted that it would provide support for his theory. Most folks understand that it does exactly that. Deal with it.

    And Raymond 5: Dembski claims that for a protein of any give length, there are so few sequences that have any function that you cannot get from one function to another by an unguided process. Once mutations take the protein to an non-functioning sequence, natural selection can not help.
    —————
    As pointed out previously, Dembski’s math ignores reality. That is documented in the website that I provided for you earlier. Since you clearly didn’t read it, I’ll provide the pithy summary statement at the end. “In short, No Free Lunch is completely worthless, except as a work of pseudoscientific rhetoric aimed at a mathematically unsophisticated audience which may mistake its mathematical mumbo jumbo for genuine erudition. However, since I have been urged to find something positive to write about it, I am pleased to be able to report that the book has an excellent index.”

    Furthermore you apparently misunderstand even what natural selection is, since you say that it “can not help” if a non-functioning sequence is generated. That is exactly what natural selection does, it removes non-functional alleles from the population.

    — Dave    Jun 19, 08:21 AM    #

83. Dave (#81)

    “Talk about chutzpah. You are asking god to follow your intuition that it needs guidance. One could argue that a god who could set this thing in motion is a better god than one who has to constantly meddle. But arguments about the characteristics of god are, as noted before, unsolvable at this time.”

    How did God set things in motion? Some IDers have proposed that the information needed for evolution was front loaded at the beginning. This is a form of guidance as well, and would be contrary to modern evolutionary theory. Is this what you are talking about? It seems to me that anywhere you attempt to sneak God into the theory of evolution, you are no longer talking about the theory of evolution.

    If you are talking about the proposition that God set up the laws of nature, and that those laws facilitated evolution, then I would submit that this is the point at issue. Can the laws of nature operating on their own create the complexity and diversity observed in the living world?

    One could also ask, whom do you admire more: the designer of a player piano that mechanically reproduces music, or the concert pianist, who can supply artistic nuance to the music and is free to play any kind of music he likes?

    “Like any scientific endeavor, evolutionary biology also generates a lot of questions. There are lots of things that are currently not understood.”

    Your answer is very similar to answers I have gotten on other threads when I ask about the epistemology of the Darwinian mechanism. The response is that there are many unanswered questions. There is never an explanation of how the inference to the Darwinian mechanism is made, or how scientists know that the Darwinian mechanism is capable of what is claimed for it.

    I have read many “lectures” about how the lay public misunderstands the definition of theory. A theory is not a guess. It is a unifying explanation that accounts for many observations in nature.

    I grant you that there are many unanswered questions. One of the many unanswered questions is the one I asked above: Can the laws of nature operating on their own create the complexity and diversity observed in the living world? Without an answer to this question, the theory of evolution does not explain what it purports to explain, so it really should be called a hypothesis. But yet we are told that there is overwhelming evidence for evolution, and that it is as much a fact as is the theory of gravity.

    I like what Eugene V. Koonin said in response to one of the reviewer’s concerns about his paper, “The Biological Big Bang Model for the Major Transitions in Evolution”

    “I think we (students of evolution) should openly admit that emergence of new levels of complexity is a complex problem and should try to work out solutions some of which could be distinctly non-orthodox; ID, however, does not happen to be a viable solution to any problem. I think this is my approach here and elsewhere.”

    At least someone admits to the problem that I see with the theory.

    Getting back to the question of testability and doing experiments, what test would you propose to confirm the hypothesis that random processes have the ability to create the complexity observed in nature? If this test shows that random processes cannot do the job, what hypothesis would then be proposed? It seems that if random, undirected processes can’t do the job maybe an intelligence is required.

    — Neil    Jun 19, 03:58 PM    #

84. Neil

    I am not the one trying to insert god into the science. Where did that come from?

    As for the rest of your comment, it all boils down to the fact that, despite your education, you have absolutely no idea about what evolutionary theory REALLY SAYS.

    You wrote: “Getting back to the question of testability and doing experiments, what test would you propose to confirm the hypothesis that random processes have the ability to create the complexity observed in nature? If this test shows that random processes cannot do the job, what hypothesis would then be proposed? It seems that if random, undirected processes can’t do the job maybe an intelligence is required.”

    Strawman. Read this carefully. NO ONE IS CLAIMING THAT RANDOM PROCESSES ALONE CAN GENERATE THE COMPLEXITY FOUND IN NATURE.

    You (and Raymond above) conveniently leave out the non-random part of the theory, natural selection. Selection is not random. By its very name, one should be able to grasp that it makes choices. Selects things from a variable pool. By Dembski’s own definition of intelligence, this choice-making ability would qualify as a hallmark of intelligence.

    Please, if nothing else, educate yourself about the very basics of the process that you seem to think you can criticize. Criticisms based in ignorance are, well, ignorant.

    — Dave    Jun 19, 04:33 PM    #

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