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February 25, 2009

Intelligent Design (part 3)

Note: Quotes from my original post are in italics, theregoestheneighborhood’s is in bold. The second post in this entry is my follow up.

Thanks for taking the time to respond to my post! I’ve edited portions out of the thread for sake of brevity. I have taken a long time to respond because I wanted to read up on several things before I posted.

To ID believers, what would convince you? What fossil proof would change your mind? … So what would alter that perception?

I think you should review those experiments again. The conditions were very artificial, in a way designed to strongly favor the probability of forming amino acids. That’s a reasonable enough approach if you’re just investigating whether a thing is conceivable.

That is your opinion; I tend to disagree. My understanding was Miller’s original experiment was to test what effect repeated electrical discharge would have on the earth’s early atmosphere, and the amino acids in the ‘mimicked’ ocean appeared. He wasn’t trying to stack the deck; your argument on what specifically was the problem is vague to me. He did prove that amino acids could form in a condition believed to be akin to those present on early Earth.

This reminds me of a problem I have with a lot of ID proponents; they wave so much stuff away and try to exclude it without much of a basis, but tend to have the opposite reaction when they’re under the gun. Take everyone’s deconstruction of Darwin’s racism and using that as an excuse to defenestrate anything he proposed; when someone, however, points out that apacalyp’s link goes to a You Tube video and remarks that the person in it is a convicted felon, the ‘you’re attacking the man!’ type of posts were plentiful. Don’t you think that’s a bit hypocritical?

But it is so far removed from proving that life could have evolved from non-life, that it’s absolutely foolish to ignore the established science that says spontaneous generation doesn’t happen based on this experiment.

The point of evolution isn’t how did life begin millions of years ago but given life, how did it come about as it is today? The early earth was violent, with asteroids hitting it, the atmosphere forming; it was very active. Unless any of us were there and can attest, we don’t exactly know everything that happened, but we can certainly work things backwards by taking the Earth now, examining other heavenly bodies in our solar system, observing extra-solar events and making sense of it. Miller took data, devised a mock up of what the early Earth would have probably looked like as a result of his observations, and found amino acids form and they are key to life.

Look, we are only really getting the computing power now to process all the weather data we get and attempt to make fairly reasonable models, but even then they are sometimes incorrect. That doesn’t stop us from trying to predict the weather and hone the process, does it? Newtonian mechanics wasn’t demolished by Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, he extended our understanding.

Science has undergone many such refinements, but when something is proven to be false as the old scientific theory of spontaneous generation was (organisms miraculously developing in a closed environment; the discovery of bacteria showed them this was wrong), it is put in the dustbin. Adaptation hasn’t proven to be wrong, and that is a key component of evolution, isn’t it? Viruses responding to medicines, the giraffe, orchids with scents that attract specific pollinators (like the carrion fly), bugs that use camouflage, native inhabitants of equatorial regions having more melanin; there are lots of things in our environment that continue to support adaptation. I feel this argument by the ID group is a bit disingenuous; to my knowledge Darwin never said (and I admit, I have not read every scrap of text Darwin composed), that 3.2 billion years ago, during a rather violent and raging storm, a lightning strike in the area we now call Fiji resulted in the first amino acids being formed.

Evolution explains why seemingly similar creatures, separated by distance, seemed to have slightly different characteristics that appear particularly in tune with their environment. It explains why there is such a variety in seemingly shared traits, why most life on this planet shares a huge portion of their DNA. I know IDers say that an SUV and VW bug both have tyres, radios, doors, etc. but they look different; however, this is a completely invalid comparison. Try to find a car with 3 billion parts (base pairs), or 120,000 features (genes), with a majority of them currently not being used and then refine your comparison.

Which is indeed the evolutionist’s dilemma. For all the talk about ID not being a “true science,” evolution is full of things that are believed to be true not because science indicates it’s true, but because the theory of evolution requires it.

Such as…? What specifically does evolution require you to believe that is proven, scientifically, demonstrably, through experimentation, to be absolutely false? There are lots of things in science taken on ‘faith’; we haven’t found a graviton, yet we believe in gravity because of observation. Newton’s original theory has been expanded now to include the movements of planets, not just an apple falling from a tree, and the math works, there is nothing to directly contradict any of its assumptions, so we accept it. But since the universe is a big sandbox that no one can ever hope to replicate and therefore beyond a shadow of a doubt prove gravity’s effects, should we take your argument one step further and say we shouldn’t believe gravity affects planets? Since we can’t ever ‘mock it up’, should we throw that educated assumption away too?

We don’t know everything about ANYTHING in our world, and we certainly don’t avoid using the knowledge we have, hoping that it will further our understanding. Why are you trying to hold evolution to a standard of completion and thoroughness we don’t have anywhere, especially NOT ID. We don’t wait for the picture to be perfect and complete before we move or devise hypotheses. We don’t know everything about the human body, but that doesn’t stop us from making educated assumptions about it and using experimental treatments and each time we try something, we move ahead, incrementally.

Even today we still take an observation, form a conclusion and test it out. Hypothermia is an interesting thing. Physicians realised that someone whose core body temperature had been significantly lowered appeared to survive longer than normally expected in certain environments or situations. Why? Observation and research made us realise that lower temperature slows metabolism, which means that biologic activity slows - less oxygen requirements, etc – which means the subject was able to survive. Lowering a patients body temperature is now used as a technique during very delicate procedures like brain surgery, where there may be a need to restrict or reduce the flow of blood to a vital area and therefore limit the oxygen available.

This is the perfect example. There is absolutely no proof that life arose that way, yet we have all kinds of evolutionists deriding creationism as pseudo-science, and ID as closet creationism, because they tell us that evolution is a proven fact. How can it be a proven fact if no one can prove life arose from non-life spontaneously?

See above. Evolution doesn’t claim to explain the moment life began on the Earth.

I take umbrage …Why is suddenly the Bible now not only religion, but science, physics, paleontology…?

The reason evolution gets so tied to atheism? One reason you allude to: basically all atheists are evolutionists. But also, many of the most vehement supporters of evolution are atheists, so it’s inevitable that atheism gets associated with evolution.

Your point that this is not necessarily so is quite true, but please bear in mind that the association in people’s minds comes from an association that very much exists in the real world. Don’t just blame opponents of evolution for the association.

I don’t, but I can certainly blame people on this thread for casting aspersions on others because they’re atheists, rather than dealing with the issue. Many of us on this thread have said we believe in God, and just as you don’t want to be thought of as religious nutjobs, so all evolutionists don’t want to be lumped in as part of some super-secret cabal to dethrone God.

Good point about the dogs, by the way. I know people bring them up because they are familiar, and a good example of the kind of variation possible in a species. They’re not the best analogy for evolution, though, since the variations were specifically bred into them rather than having occurred randomly.

True, and I did mention they were bred for certain characterisics. It does speak, however, to the adaptability of the species of the planet and how easily, over a short period of time, you can ‘customise’ a species.

Speaking of no evidence:
There is no evidence fossils could be made in 4000 years.

Many IDers claim that the flood could have caused immediate fossilisation of all the remains of creatures at one time. I’d like to see the experimentation that backs this up. Saying ‘probably’ and ‘I’ll bet’ is NOT scientific observation.

Saying an eye is complex ergo it couldn’t have evolved isn’t experimental evidence. Just as many on this thread say evolution isn’t reproducible, how are you going to test this? Also, you can’t prove a negative; you can’t prove God doesn’t exist, for example, so how are you going to prove an eye couldn’t be the result of evolution?

I’m told that evolution is the scientific theory, so I’m sure you wouldn’t be raising this question unless evolution producing eyes had been proven in a valid scientific experiment: say, a double-blind test in a laboratory. Otherwise, I could just turn the question around and ask, “Can you prove the eye evolved?”

Since you’re questioning accepted science, the burden of proof is on you. There is a lot of ‘could’ in ID; nothing concrete. As I’ve said many times, there are gaps in understanding in various parts of science and portions of the theory of evolution is one of them and that is why it’s not a LAW. So you need to prove that something that evolution claims is wrong, or your argument isn’t valid.

Evolution doesn’t need to have every single question everyone will ever pose answered in order for it to be a theory, but if you want to have it thrown out, because there is a great deal of supporting science in other disciplines and observations, YOU need to prove that something it says isn’t true. That is how a theory is ‘disproven’ not by saying ‘could’. I could sit here all day and say ‘this could be true’ or ‘that could be true’ but that doesn’t MAKE them true.

Of course, we know it’s never been observed or reproduced. But since believing all life developed from simpler organisms, evolutionists believe the eye evolved because they have to in order to believe in … evolution.
I’m afraid the reasoning is just that circular.

Why is there such variety in eyes across species? Fish in the deepest oceans can’t see because there is no sunlight that reaches those depths, but other senses are more developed. Why all the variety? I know a woman, who can only see in black and white and is highly light sensitive; her problem is genetic. However, she managed to go to school, has a child and is a successful massage therapist, yet her eyes are defective and incomplete.

In order to truly believe ID, it seems we have to completely give up on dating techniques …. What will you guys let science keep, or is it all dustbin material?

… all dating methods produce their age estimates based on a beginning substance that decays into an ending substance at a certain rate. However, the implicit assumptions in these processes are a) that there is none of the ending substance in the item being dated to begin with, b) that the decay rate has remained constant over time, and c) that there has been no other process that also produced that ending substance. Only if all these assumptions hold true, and if the rate was measured accurately or not, will the radiographic dating be valid.

Right. So prove one of those assumptions is false. This is specious; of course things have to be true in order for them to not be false.

If high amounts of carbon (for example) are regularly introduced into specimens, then statistically, you should see large numbers of results that make no sense, and huge irregularities in dating items you know were from a similar time period. Also, there are several methods used for testing artefacts and if your above posit was true and dating was so unreliable, there would be scores of conflicts in date range from technique to technique.

This means that either a.) periodically a substance used for dating is introduced, but not in significant enough quantities to alter the results b.) the substance is introduced in a significant amount but the occurrence is not regular enough to significantly alter findings or c.) said used substance isn’t introduced at all, and datings are generally correct.

Can you show me specific examples where we know a piece of pottery or a tool appears significantly older or younger than we are CERTAIN it is? Then find me enough examples so that it becomes statistically important that we need to throw all dating down the drain.

Evolution depends on too many things that have not been proven, but must be accepted in order to accept evolution over all. Two of the most egregious examples are the requirement to believe in spontaneous generation of life in spite of NO evidence it has ever happened, and questionable evidence that it might even have been possible.

You seem to contradict yourself in the above statement; you’re saying there have been experiments that show its possible, but you don’t like them, but prior to that you say there’s no evidence.

The summary of the ID argument seems to be this; that there are some topics related to evolution that haven’t been proven to your satisfaction and you’re not content that life could have begun in a primordial soup and developed over billions of years to a highly specialised form of life.

ID has the bigger problem; as I’ve mentioned in my previous post, not only do IDers require that we throw out evolution, and all dating mechanisms, but a huge corpus of other scientific knowledge in order to believe it. So we have to ignore botany, because researchers using tree ring sampling and painstaking reconstruction techniques of living and dead bristlecone pines, scientists have built up a tree ring sequence that goes back 6400 years. We have to toss out paleontology and anthropology, because they claim that the earth and fossils are older than the 6000 year Biblical cut off. We have to toss out cosmology and astronomy, even though there is a huge amount of mathematical evidence that explains how galaxies are formed, how stars can be long lived or short lived depending on their composition. We have to throw out physics because how can we see the Andromeda galaxy, which is 2 million light years away if the universe isn’t that old? The speed of light must be incorrect.

Teach ID in religion class…. ID is a recent product, why should it be on the same plane as evolution?

The study of genetics is more of a complication for evolution than a support, since it makes clear that no adaptations to the environment are inherited by younger generations unless the genes are modified to support it. Which means evolution can only proceed by genetic mutation. However, genetic mutations are both rare, and overwhelmingly harmful.
Tack that on to the fact that some body parts or organs are irreducibly complex, and it’s clear that those things can only evolve when all required genetic mutations come together.

That’s not true; a virus that adapts and is able to survive a treatment meant to kill it would beg to differ. Viruses regularly co-op host cells and use it’s genetic material to replicate more copies of said virus. You can modify or insert genetic code; it’s not set in stone. The fact that there is ‘legacy’ DNA and that the amount of DNA doesn’t correspond to an organism’s complexity, (the so called ‘C-value paradox’), should give IDers pause. There is an enormous amount of DNA that is not used in every organism and unbelievable as it may seem, tulips, onions and wheat have more DNA per cell than humans do.

Behe has even admitted that there could be evolutionary lineages for the eye. Several species, such as the nautilus, have a primitive precursor to our eye. I know Behe has problems with our photoreceptor cells but in many ways our eyes are far less complex than many people think. Our eyes are not very high resolution and in fact, our brain does an amazing amount of processing and pattern matching to give us the images we ‘see’. There are 12 different snapshots that the eye takes; one such snapshot, concerns itself with edges of an object, and so on (for a fascinating book on how our scientific knowledge is leading up towards a technological ‘singularity’, I recommend Kurzweil’s book, “The Singularity is Near”). I reject the notion that an eye is irreducibly complex. Similarly, I reject that blood clotting is an example of IC (various animals, including the whale, also a mammal, lack a key factor but their blood still clots).

With regard to Biblical references, two of the things I love the most about it are the parables and inherent wisdom in Christ’s teachings. Does anyone SERIOUSLY think, however, that you need to take a log out of your eye before you take a speck out of another’s, literally?

Saying that some people believe the Bible literally seems to be meant as a put-down. I would imagine there are very few people who literally take every word literally. When Jesus said, “I am the Bread of Life,” I don’t think you’ll find anyone who thinks you must take Jesus out of the oven and spread a little butter on Him.

No, thanks for the funny visual. =) Apacalyps seems intent on taking everything literally (despite the fact that the Bible never mentions a 24 hour day, he says the Bible is absolutely clear on this point).

It seems to me rather foolish to cut short such questions, as if it’s more important to preserve the theory of evolution unchanged rather than actually answer those questions.

I don’t think we’re cutting short the discussion. Science is all about evidence; directly or supporting from other areas (such as math), and ID doesn’t contain any of that. Also, a simple search on Alta Vista shows that despite its youth, a simple search for ‘irreducible complexity’ results in 1.4 million hits and ‘intelligent design’ 90.6 million hits; it is being discussed and bandied about. Asking questions alone doesn’t disqualify a scientific theory.

Perhaps the relationship between ID and creationism is similar to the relationship between evolution and atheism?

Perhaps, but that still doesn’t explain why many people on this thread extend this discussion to the 6000 year old earth. That age was calculated by a priest (?) hundreds of years ago, if I’m not mistaken. It’s not Biblical, is it? It’s been a long time since I’ve read all of the Old Testament, so tell me if this isn’t so (I’m reading the Gospels currently, not as enamoured with the Old Testament).

Yes, evolution is a theory. Unfortunately, many evolutionists forget that…

That alone isn’t sufficient an excuse to ‘punish’ evolution because some believers get pushy.

But when we talk about a complex structure developing by evolution, there is no DNA for a species that does not yet exist. It seems unreasonable to think the evolution would have occurred without some corollary to DNA that directs the process of evolution.

See my point earlier about ‘species’ being a man-created classification system; you’re putting too much emphasis on the word.

The gaping hole in the theory of evolution is not really the origin of life or the origin of “irreducibly complex” structures. The gaping hole is its dependence on random mutations over incredibly long periods of time. The origin of life and the origin of “irreducibly complex” structures just highlights two cases where random mutations are clearly inadequate.

I’ve discussed the problem with irreducible complexity earlier, but we can see changes in humans in just the pass few hundred years (we’ve gotten taller), and eye colour (blue and green eyes are a mutation of brown).

No takers on the delta of the Colorado River, which many of you said proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the Biblical version of the flood was real? Since the Valles Marineris on Mars is larger and deeper than the Grand Canyon, what caused it? A Martian flood?

Something else to think about; one of the whale’s closest DNA relatives is… the hippopotamus.

BTW, Red Pill, I think you were banned not because Allah is an atheist and you’re a Christian, but because you spammed a thread. I don’t think religion has anything to do with it.

linlithgow on April 25, 2008 at 12:35 PM

After calls that theregoestheneighborhood was brilliant in his rebuttal and I posted the item above in answer to his post, not much happened.

Red Pill tried to claim that evolutionists don't follow scientific principles in proving evolution, but neglects to mention how the ID movement DOES satisfy it and then attempts to backpedal on the Colorado River Delta, saying that the amount of material doesn't jive with the evolutionists explanation of it. So I posted the final comment you see below.

Probably my last post on this, seems it doesn’t seem to sink in with you.

1. The Grand Canyon was formed over millions of years. The material from that lengthy erosion isn’t just going to stay there. That’s silly. Also, when you tried to use the Grand Canyon as proof of the flood, you didn’t say there wasn’t enough material; you said there was NO DELTA. I showed you there was, and now you are finessing your previous comment.

2. You keep saying things like “Multiple historical “proofs” of the Darwinian Theory of Evolution have been proven to be frauds” but you don’t show any evidence or instances. I believe I dealt with Piltdown man in a previous post, and if you read my post, I give you numerous opportunities to refute specific points I made supporting evolution and dislodging your contentions. I even did a bit of brush up on people like Behe and pointed out that he now grudgingly admits there could be an evolutionary path for the eye and deal specifically with a lot of what you IDers claim are the Holy Grails proving your point and you ignore my comments.

3. You’re trying to define and hinge the veracity of the theory of evolution on some pre-constructed irrelevant questions you’ve contrived, such as: “how many mutations would be required to change from the simplest life form to the next simplest life form”. It’s a moot and stupid question. How does that prove anything? Evolution was billions of years in the making and with 3 billion base pairs, there isn’t enough computing power in the world to process that data. Heck, we have trouble with predictive global weather patterns because of the computing power needed. I’d like to know how the number of mutations it takes to make a human being is germane. If it’s 147,990,859,454,387,422 and not 147,990,859,454,387 what does that prove? Your question is just silly. I’ve seen people on this thread say it’s statistically impossible and I have repeatedly asked for references for that and been met with resounding silence which brings me to …

4) I have specifically addressed and successfully countered many of the vagaries on your side of the discussion in an attempt to move it to a more scientific realm and away from baseless accusations, to which no one, including you, have countered with rebuttals of substance or fact. Your inane comment that somehow the delta of the Colorado River doesn’t contain enough materials to prove erosion (and you don’t even phrase it that way), isn’t scientific and doesn’t prove your contention and I even mentioned the Valles Marineris as a bonus.

Again, you’re just making baseless assumptions (of what you think a delta would/should look like), and because it doesn’t fit your fantasy you shake your head but you don’t PROVE anything, you have no scientific background and don’t care for it, apparently. How can you possibly be expected to be taken seriously on this board, never mind in the academic/scientific world, when your best argument isn’t an example but a feeling or a thought and not something measurable, observable or experimental in nature.

I say the eye isn’t an example of IC, talk about Behe’s admission, about how we see, about simplified examples of our eyes in other creatures and no one discusses that. I mention that we have a lot of unused genetic material and no one responds. I mention how other species clot without having the same biological composition we do and there’s silence. Instead you answer me with a silly question that’s not even pertinent. I thought you wanted a debate about ideas and were interested in the other side; didn’t realise you’d keep your fingers in your ears and repeat the same similar questions and baseless accusations over and over again, regardless.

It’s too bad you just recite the mantra, I guess hoping it will make it true. It doesn’t. Again, I also don’t have to prove anything; evolution has been worked on, discussed, dissected, refined for over a hundred years; it’s seen tens of thousands of eyes and nowadays a handful of people have some qualms about it, so we should just toss it based on their unscientific say so?

Unbelievable.

Talk about science being a religion; ID has become the latest sect.

linlithgow on May 14, 2008 at 2:42 PM

Posted by hanyap at 5:58 PM | Comments (0)

Intelligent Design (part 2)

The extended entry contains the response to my post. Excerpts cut from my post are in italics.

To ID believers, what would convince you? What fossil proof would change your mind? What test would convince you? Even after Miller’s 1950 experiment (and several since) showing that inorganic elements, when subjected to electricity, resulted in amino acids - life’s so called ‘building blocks’ - you say that evolution is impossible, that life could never have started in some primordial soup on a planet in the throes of early existence. So what would alter that perception?

Face it: the reason people believe life started spontaneously is not because there are any experiments that reproduce it, but because evolution requires life to begin from non-life, or it’s not purely naturalistic. If life didn’t begin in a completely naturalistic way, then evolution is no more scientific than special creation. When evolutionists run out of answers, they fill in the gap with anything that sounds plausible.

I take umbrage with the fact that when someone believes in evolution they suddenly are labeled atheists and the morality questions fly. Really, it’s possible to believe in God’s wonder and majesty (and be humbled by it), and believe in evolution. Every God fearing person I know (save two who like ID) believes in evolution. Many believers in evolution are atheists, but the opposite is not true. When ID proponents have dolts who claim a banana is proof that God made us as we are today, that does a LOT to discredit any possible rational questions that ID may have hidden under the scrub. If you’re going to try and say ID is science, know the playing field and accept it; you won’t win by trying to redefine what science is, or what a Theory or Law is. Why is suddenly the Bible now not only religion, but science, physics, paleontology…?

Speaking of no evidence:
There is no evidence fossils could be made in 4000 years.

Fossilization does not require great amounts of time: just favorable conditions. I’ll bet you there’s a lot more evidence for rapid fossilization than there is for life occurring spontaneously. Why is the complete lack of evidence for spontaneous generation of life no big issue, but the relative rarity of modern fossilization a big obstacle?

Saying an eye is complex ergo it couldn’t have evolved isn’t experimental evidence. Just as many on this thread say evolution isn’t reproducible, how are you going to test this? Also, you can’t prove a negative; you can’t prove God doesn’t exist, for example, so how are you going to prove an eye couldn’t be the result of evolution?

I’m told that evolution is the scientific theory, so I’m sure you wouldn’t be raising this question unless evolution producing eyes had been proven in a valid scientific experiment: say, a double-blind test in a laboratory. Otherwise, I could just turn the question around and ask, “Can you prove the eye evolved?”

Of course, we know it’s never been observed or reproduced. But since believing all life developed from simpler organisms, evolutionists believe the eye evolved because they have to in order to believe in … evolution.

I’m afraid the reasoning is just that circular.

In order to truly believe ID, it seems we have to completely give up on dating techniques (carbon and others) even though they seem to have borne out the authenticity or aging of artifacts, scrap geology as a science, along with plate tectonics, anthropology and archaeology. What will you guys let science keep, or is it all dustbin material?

When you date the fossils by the geologic layer they are found in, and date the geologic layers by the fossils found in them (”index fossils”), then it’s not all that hard for each to confirm the other’s age. Until someone notices the circular reasoning inherent in it.

Regardless, all dating methods produce their age estimates based on a beginning substance that decays into an ending substance at a certain rate. However, the implicit assumptions in these processes are a) that there is none of the ending substance in the item being dated to begin with, b) that the decay rate has remained constant over time, and c) that there has been no other process that also produced that ending substance. Only if all these assumptions hold true, and if the rate was measured accurately or not, will the radiographic dating be valid.
Evolution depends on too many things that have not been proven, but must be accepted in order to accept evolution over all. Two of the most egregious examples are the requirement to believe in spontaneous generation of life in spite of NO evidence it has ever happened, and questionable evidence that it might even have been possible.

Teach ID in religion class; I don’t care. But it doesn’t belong in science because there are hundreds and hundreds of years of experimentation and research by hundreds of thousands of scientists on genetics, radioactive decay, geology, biology, chemistry, paleontology (etc) that go in to support the theories (and hypotheses) that are taught in science class and there is NO such corpus for ID. Saying that everyone is being quashed is a cop out; I haven’t seen anyone here talk about experiments that support ID - only anecdotes, and currently we don’t define science that way. ID is a recent product, why should it be on the same plane as evolution?

Tack that on to the fact that some body parts or organs are irreducibly complex, and it’s clear that those things can only evolve when all required genetic mutations come together.

With regard to Biblical references, two of the things I love the most about it are the parables and inherent wisdom in Christ’s teachings. Does anyone SERIOUSLY think, however, that you need to take a log out of your eye before you take a speck out of another’s, literally?

It’s equally silly to read things that are obviously to be taken at face value and labor to turn them into an allegory or metaphor. For example, when Leviticus lays out in great detail how to offer a burnt sacrifice, it would be foolish to think the fire was only metaphorical.

Again, I think you make too much of “every word absolutely literally.” Jesus said that God is a spirit, which implies not a body at all, so it seems unlikely we should take the “image of God” to mean something physical.

…. No other species is so interested or curious about its environment and we certainly are the most intellectually advanced. If that’s the case, we would be fools to throw out everything – a millennia of science and research - and ignore our senses. What God has given us are the tools to fully appreciate the depth of what He has made, and I think if we deny that we’re denying the very thing that makes God’s children.

As Proverbs tells us, “It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.” The wonderful thing about science is the search for knowledge, and the above verse seems to suggest this is a great, even a royal, pursuit. ID, at heart, is skepticism that evolution addresses certain problems that nearly require an intelligent designer or force to solve, such as irreducible complexity or the huge jump from inanimate things to life. It seems to me rather foolish to cut short such questions, as if it’s more important to preserve the theory of evolution unchanged rather than actually answer those questions.

Several of you have defined ID as acknowledgment that God was involved in our creation, yet then many of you start talking about how the flood was only 4400 years ago. THAT is creationism. I’d therefore like ID clarified, really clarified; what are its parameters?

Perhaps the relationship between ID and creationism is similar to the relationship between evolution and atheism?

Scientists for years have discussed the anthropic principle, an idea that came out of analysis and examination of our universe. Look it up; it’s fascinating. Science examines alternatives using its own methods and processes, and it is important for it to continue doing that, unimpeded by emotion.

Yes, evolution is a theory. Unfortunately, many evolutionists forget that, and start off any discussion by claiming that evolution is a known, proven fact. Asking how life began is at least one way to move past that by demonstrating that evolution is in fact still a theory, and unproven.

Theories should be challenged. If they can be shown true, they will survive the challenge and remain unchanged. If they can be shown faulty, they will be improved. If they can be shown false, they can be rejected and replaced with better theories. Any of those three outcomes is a good one.

There is a lot of intolerance around; in universities, the workplace, politics. Unfortunately, it’s nothing new, but in some cases (like global warming), VERY obvious. If a scientist can get money to fund research investigating a radical idea or approach to a problem, he shouldn’t be ostracised. However, he can’t bandy it about as a law or theory on the same plane as science that has been established after scrutiny.

linlithgow on April 22, 2008 at 10:48 PM

I think you approach very near to the core of ID here. Yes, a sperm meeting an egg develops into a very complex baby in just 9 months. But it happens because the baby’s DNA contains all the information necessary to develop. This DNA came from the baby’s parents.
But when we talk about a complex structure developing by evolution, there is no DNA for a species that does not yet exist. It seems unreasonable to think the evolution would have occurred without some corollary to DNA that directs the process of evolution.

theregoestheneighborhood on April 23, 2008 at 2:59 AM

Posted by hanyap at 5:44 PM | Comments (0)

Intelligent Design

Last year, I was a (fairly) active participant in a debate surrounding the movie "Expelled", which attempted to uncover bias in academia, in particular as it relates to professors who are supporters of Intelligent Design (ID).

Charles at Little Green Footballs (one of my favourite sites), asked for blogs that hadn't bought into the ID movement.

I submitted my site, and Charles was kind enough to include me (thank you SO much!). It prompted me to finally post an excerpt from the exchange I participated in on Hot Air (you can see the whole thread here).

The post I include below is rather long, (as are subsequent entries) for which I apologise. I've excluded the previous comments to which I am responding to, and if I could trim an aside I did. Most of the exchange is in the extended blog section, so it doesn't hog the site; I've also split it into multiple posts. The first post is mine, the second is a rebuttal, and the final entry (containing two posts) are my contributions, responding to the rebuttal.

Re: Evolution and ID-
Pointing out Darwin’s flaws (he was by no stretch perfect and subscribed to many prejudices), doesn’t negate decade upon decade of study and research subsequent to his findings. Don’t the Libs try to demonise our Founding Fathers by pointing out they owned slaves? That doesn’t somehow taint every thing that Jefferson did, nor should it take away from Darwin’s observations about adaptation.

People have bandied about dogs a great deal on this thread; well, they’re an interesting example. Supposedly our modern dog is descended from wolves that were domesticated in Europe/Asia and brought across the land bridge. Dogs, unlike humans, have been bred for traits; appearance, senses, ability, size, to name a few, so they aren’t a good comparison for human evolution. They are however, based on our completely human constructed taxonomy nomenclature, a sub-species of wolf; so you could say one species evolved from another (also, coyotes – a separate species - and wolves have bred, so perhaps ‘species’ isn’t as set as we think). There is a lot of grey area when it comes to divvying up creatures into what we call species; it’s completely man made, meant to make classification of organisms and creatures we come into contact with have some uniformity or commonality. That is why a tomato is a fruit.

Speaking of no evidence:
There is no evidence fossils could be made in 4000 years.

In order to truly believe ID, it seems we have to completely give up on dating techniques (carbon and others) even though they seem to have borne out the authenticity or aging of artifacts, scrap geology as a science, along with plate tectonics, anthropology and archaeology. What will you guys let science keep, or is it all dustbin material?

Teach ID in religion class; I don’t care. But it doesn’t belong in science because there are hundreds and hundreds of years of experimentation and research by hundreds of thousands of scientists on genetics, radioactive decay, geology, biology, chemistry, paleontology (etc) that go in to support the theories (and hypotheses) that are taught in science class and there is NO such corpus for ID. Saying that everyone is being quashed is a cop out; I haven’t seen anyone here talk about experiments that support ID - only anecdotes, and currently we don’t define science that way. ID is a recent product, why should it be on the same plane as evolution?

…Ever stop to notice God’s week was of precisely the same duration and pattern as man’s regular week?…
apacalyps on April 20, 2008 at 2:44 PM

Because… the length of the work week was taken from the Bible, maybe?
During the French Revolution, the week changed to 10 days for a spell, it was the French Republican calendar, and was used for approximately thirteen years. Also, by the way, cells don’t have a ‘sex’. Cells divide.

With regard to T-Rex tissue being taken from a leg bone, the La Brea tarpits have served as an excellent repository for fossils. Peat and organic matter in other parts of the world have resulted in bones and tissue being well preserved, the Tyrolean man was amazingly preserved in ice, and the ancient Egyptians used very primitive techniques to preserve soft tissue over 5000 years ago with incredible results. Soft tissue can last for far longer than a mere 4,000, which is but a blink in God’s eyes.

I don’t have a problem with the Big Bang; Black Holes are caused by a dying star collapsing upon itself into a singularity. As a result of the gravitational pull such a mass creates, (physics studs, feel free to expound and correct as necessary) it sucks in whatever matter is nearby. Black holes are supported by math and are anecdotally supported by the behaviour of objects around them, (they can’t be directly seen) so yes, they exist. It’s not that huge of a leap for me to accept the mass of the universe squished into (what we think of), as a small area. Gravity is a weak force but has a large ‘sphere of influence’, if you will. With regard to the energy of the Big Bang, you may have heard of E=mc^2; energy is equal to mass times the speed of light squared; useful in nuclear reactors and bomb making. Matter cannot be created or destroyed, merely transformed, etc etc.

So really to me, this comes down to how much I am willing to accept the world I see and know and experience around me, and taking every word in the Bible absolutely literally, with no exceptions. Considering the Bible was inspired by God but written and translated and abridged by man, I don’t think it is heretical to refuse to take every word literally. God made us in his own image, and I know many people think that means God is a biped with two eyes, a mouth, nose, etc., but what if what God gave us as a gift, of all the creatures on this planet, was intelligence and self awareness? No other species is so interested or curious about its environment and we certainly are the most intellectually advanced. If that’s the case, we would be fools to throw out everything – a millennia of science and research - and ignore our senses. What God has given us are the tools to fully appreciate the depth of what He has made, and I think if we deny that we’re denying the very thing that makes us God’s children.

Several of you have defined ID as acknowledgement that God was involved in our creation, yet then many of you start talking about how the flood was only 4400 years ago. THAT is creationism. I’d therefore like ID clarified, really clarified; what are its parameters?

You complain we don’t know for sure how life began, but that’s silly. There are LOTS of things we don’t know about the universe around us, why are you picking on that? Evolution is not a LAW, it is a theory; very few things in science are considered concrete enough to be called a Law. Scientists for years have discussed the anthropic principle, an idea that came out of analysis and examination of our universe. Look it up; it’s fascinating. Science examines alternatives using its own methods and processes, and it is important for it to continue doing that, unimpeded by emotion.

Something to think about: every time a woman gets pregnant, she begins a complex process that results in one fertilised egg becoming a complex human being with specialised cells and systems. Right there you have proof of how one simple microscopic cell can become something incredibly complex and intricate, and that only takes 9 months to happen. So why do you think it is so impossible that a single cell, over billions of years, could have evolved into a complex organism? Saying you simply can’t understand how an eye or cell could have existed without each one of its current intrinsic parts isn’t scientific and it is shortsighted.
There is a lot of intolerance around; in universities, the workplace, politics. Unfortunately, it’s nothing new, but in some cases (like global warming), VERY obvious. If a scientist can get money to fund research investigating a radical idea or approach to a problem, he shouldn’t be ostracised. However, he can’t bandy it about as a law or theory on the same plane as science that has been established after scrutiny.

linlithgow on April 22, 2008 at 10:48 PM

Posted by hanyap at 4:38 PM | Comments (0)

February 24, 2009

Patience

Could it be that even Obamaniacs and some of the elite are getting a little tired of down day after down day in the market?

Hot Air has a small list of grumblings from several liberal commentators and even moms in Maryland. First, the liberal leaning Washington Post has an op-ed from Michael Kinsley, who asks how borrowing and spending - which got us into this problem in the first place - will get us out of it and even if it does, we still have to pay it back, UNLESS inflation cuts the value of the debt in half. That would mean a return to the 1970's inflation!

Next up, of all people, is Chris Matthews on Hardball, who hosts several guests who claim that Geithner isn't inspiring confidence and even Matthews chimes in, saying he thought the floor was 8,000, but it looks like the floor is really 6,000 and people (including him) are getting angry.

What did he expect? Obama says that the level of the market won't have an effect on his fiscal policies! Obama's little dog and pony show may have impressed an already enamored audience, but it doesn't fool the rest of us. He read the writing on the wall, (even Bill Clinton cautioned him about too much doom and gloom), and he decided to give a 'hopeful' speech. How people can become hopeful after being confronted with the stupidity of the stimulus (lets spend money on pork and then raise taxes to reduce the debt and pledge to be fiscally responsible!), I don't know.

The press used to jump all over President Bush for any verbal gaffe, yet Obama messes up big time, and claims we invented the automobile. He should never have made that mistake, it's embarrassing, (much worse than 'new-Ku-ler) yet you're not hearing much about it.

UPDATE:
Even Robert Byrd is expressing displeasure, stating that the numerous 'czar' positions that Obama has created amount to a power grab by the Executive branch. He's right, but the sad thing is that no one will listen.

Posted by hanyap at 9:14 AM | Comments (0)

February 20, 2009

We Are Not Alone

Rick Santelli of CNBC was at the Chicago Commodities exchange Thursday and gave an impassioned speech about how poor the Obama plan was and decrying its unfairness, to the cheers of the assembled traders. Santelli suggested having a Lake Michigan 'Tea Party' in July, and invited other capitalists to come.

If you aren't able to listen to talk radio much, let me share something with you... we are not alone. The airwaves for the past week have been filled with callers who are worried; one woman from Australia said that after 20 years in America she was moving back to Oz because despite the fact that they have socialised medicine, you can still carry your own medical insurance on top of it. Of course there are the usual democrat ideologues who call and try to contrive tu quoque's as a way of ameliorating the negative effects of the Anointed One's actions, but that isn't new. What is interesting is the moderate dems and independents for whom the blush of an Obama administration has already worn off. A woman yesterday (?) called in and swore earnestly up and down she was a democrat but was really nervous. She didn't give a come to Jesus speech, (probably because she identifies herself more as a traditional liberal rather than the modern socialist liberal), but she was clearly upset by the turn of events of the past four weeks. How could she not be? The stock market has lost 2000 points since Obama was elected and he turned a 430 billion dollar deficit into a 1.3 trillion dollar one in just two weeks. This deficit is now bigger than the entire budget for fiscal year 1982. How's that for a statistic to quote to your liberal friends who decried the cost of the war? The war has cost us 500 billion over the past several years, while Obama's three week price tag proves he is the most high maintenance prima donna to ever inhabit the White House.

There isn't much good news of late; the White House keeps talking down the economy and rumours of nationalising some banks resulted in huge sell offs at the end of last week, and despite Obama's pledge that he doesn't support the Fairness Doctrine, he hasn't stated he doesn't support the goals, which can be accomplished by the FCC regulating AM stations to become more 'local'. If there is one bright spot, however, it's that people like Eric Cantor, (Representative from Virginia), have taken up the banner and rallied Republicans against the Democrats.

We are facing a difficult time, folks; Obama and the libs want to ram their agenda down our throats, damn the costs. Despite the confusing verbiage, it's clear that the stimulus bill contains mostly provisions that keep people reliant on government, such as the expansion of welfare; it also included a provision that allows state legislatures to circumvent their governor, if he refuses to take money from the stimulus bill! Scary stuff.

Additional Reads:

Op-Ed on Canada's terrible health care and what we have to look forward to. Keep your eyes on the news and contact your legislators

Mark Steyn op-ed; get this... Obama returned the bust of Sir Winston Churchill that the Brits gave us after 9/11 but this is still in his office. No kidding. I thought Obama was going to repair our image in the world...? Generally you don't do this by returning a gift a country generously gave us by stating that you don't want it in your office and furthermore, you don't want it in the White House.

Posted by hanyap at 11:58 AM | Comments (0)

February 12, 2009

From Bad to Worse

Unfortunately, Senators Snowe, Collins and Specter have decided that bipartisanship and a slap on the back from the Dems is more important than doing the right thing... not just anything, but the RIGHT thing.

This so called 'compromise' bill is still full of pork and even worse, the beginnings of socialised medicine. Buried within it, is the authority to set up the 'National Coordinator of Health Information Technology', which will monitor the care provided to you by you doctor, and verify that it is 'proper' and 'cost effective'.

It goes further, however, and takes pages from Daschle's scary healthcare manifesto, "Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis", by monitoring practitioner's use of the new system. Failure to do so may result in penalties, which are ill-defined in the bill. The Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research is meant to slow the use of cutting edge technology and medicine, because the use of such resources drives up 'health care costs'. In his book, Daschle calls out for just such a committee, praising the willingness of the inhabitants of European countries to accept a dire diagnosis while chastising Americans for 'expecting too much' (from health care).

As the above linked article goes on to say, older citizens will bear the brunt of this bill, as will people who suffer from any chronic disease, (I would add) whether the disease is the result of genetics, accidents, environmental factors or what have you. Basically, Daschle and the Dems are advocating Eugenics; the culling of the diseased and old in our society in favour of those who are considered healthier in our society. This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who knows the history of Planned Parenthood and Margaret Sanger.

Liberals claim concern for the 'common man' and his plight, yet here they are supporting an initiative whose only goal is to trim health care costs by denying people treatment. While they push for funds for 'green cars' for government employees (in addition to the current budget allotment), they are willing to let people die to 'cut costs'. Any American who doesn't stand up against this push towards socialised medicine needs to hang their head in shame.

AARP should be all over this, screaming, but they're a Democrat leaning organisation so you won't hear a peep from them.

Unfortunately Collins, Specter and Snowe voted for this bill; it's shameful, and you should let them know how you feel. Collins has had her fax off the hook, her phone isn't being answered and her voicemail is full. Figures, but it's worth the try:

Collins:
phone: (202) 224-2523
fax: (202) 224-2693

Snowe:
phone: (202) 224-5344
fax: (202) 224-1946

Specter:
phone: (202) 224-4254
fax: (202)-228-1229

I call this bill Sporkulus; Rush calls it Porkulus, people have various nicknames for it, but I originated the term Sporkulus for it. Why Sporkulus? Sporks are a creation of Satan (I say this only half in jest); they are offered as a cheap alternative to fast food restaurants stocking both spoons and forks, (God forbid) and they are a poor substitute for forks and an even worse substitute spoon. In other words, they perform neither task (for which they were designed) well. So it is with Sporkulus; it doesn't stimulate the economy, it doesn't alleviate unemployment, it doesn't restrict government spending in order to reduce costs. It has money in it for ACORN, the NEA and all sorts of pet projects for members of Congress, yet it doesn't do anything to ameliorate the financial pressures business and industry are currently experiencing. It doesn't lower taxes significantly, but it does ensure that non-taxpayers will get a cheque. It's disgusting.

Perhaps Obama, who fancies himself the inheritor of Lincoln's legacy, should acquaint himself with this Lincoln quote (which is one of my favourites):

"I hold if the Almighty had ever made a set of men that should do all the eating and none of the work, he would have made them with mouths only and no hands; and if he had ever made another class that he intended should do all the work and none of the eating, he would have made them without mouths and with all hands."

It's funny that Congress has found ethics, suddenly; it was fine for Franklin Raines (an Obama advisor) to oversee misstated earnings in the billions at Fannie Mae yet walk away with tens of millions of dollars in salary and perks, but the banks aren't supposed to give bonuses to their execs. Funny that... but it really just typifies the attitude of the Democrats - one rule for thee, and another for me.

Hang on to your hat, boys and girls; the next few years are going to be VERY bumpy. God help us all.

Posted by hanyap at 9:20 AM | Comments (0)

February 6, 2009

End of the Honeymoon?

There are some indications that the tint of may be fading from the rose coloured glasses and that the starry-eyed love so many people felt toward Obama is waning. About bloody time, I say.

Rasmussen's daily Presidential approval index shows the fourth straight day of below 40% approval ("strongly approve") of Obama's performance as President, while those who 'strongly disapprove' has climbed to 21%, up from about 15% just two and a half weeks ago. Since Obama was chosen as President, his 'strongly approve' number had not dropped below 40% until this recent spate.

Likewise, support for the current stimulus plan being debated in Congress has fallen to 37%, while another poll indicated that 50% of the public thinks the plan is likely to make things worse, not better. Economist Paul Krugman, who asserted that you should write off anyone who says it's better to lower taxes than increase spending, got a loud round of applause from liberals, who claim that his win of last year's Nobel Prize for economics in essence makes his opinion beyond reproach (never mind that brilliant minds like Milton Friedman, also a Laureate, and George Stigler vehemently disagreed with this view, as they were proponents of the Chicago School of economics). It appears that Friedman and Stigler's views are the ones that are part of the American psyche, however, as 57% of taxpayers feel tax cuts are good for the economy, while only 17% disagree. Interestingly, I haven't seen this groundswell support of tax cuts reported with the near ferocity that Krugman's assertion was.

Perhaps nothing sums up the building unease over Obama's Presidency better than Charles Krauthammer's recent column for the Washington Post, where he points out the irony of hope and change at the same time we're all witness to Obama's wail of "pass this stimulus or we'll crash and burn!". Geithner, Daschle, Solis, Richardson and Nancy Killefer were problems Obama had to deal with and the fact that their problems were generally said to be tax or favour related was a blow to his 'change we need' mantra, particularly as so many Americans are struggling. But it's the pork and earmarks in the stimulus bill - which got a unanimous no from the Republicans (and a few Dems), in the House, that is perhaps attracting the most uncomfortable scrutiny of Obama's administration to date.

Steven Malanga, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, in an article for Real Clear Markets, mentions another dirty aspect of this economic downturn; the gap in unemployment between the public and private sector. The public sector is enjoying an unemployment rate of only 2.3%, while numbers unveiled today show an increase in private unemployment rates to 7.6%. The so called 'stimulus' bill - aptly referred to as 'the Porkulus bill' by Rush - focuses on public works projects, which means even more public sector jobs that are filled, while the private sector is ignored. The 'tax cuts' the Democrats claim are in the bill is a red herring; the 'cuts' come largely as tax write offs, and many taxpayers don't qualify for them or will find claiming them onerous.

This is nothing more than an injection of pork into states and projects whether they need them or not; it's not meant to spur growth in the private sector, where real wealth and job creation occur, it's meant to further the arm of the Federal government and make states and the taxpayer even more reliant on government. It's redistributionism at its nastiest, really. While horribly mismanaged states like California, New York and New Jersey struggle with horrible tax rates and out of control spending, the Feds intend to bail them out, meaning those who manage their affairs well are now punished and forced into helping prop up the Democrat political machine in these states (yes, I said Democrat; Arnold is not a Republican, regardless of WHAT he claims). People are irked at Patterson's new proposed fees (including an obesity tax) and New Jersey's residents are resoundingly dissatisfied with the condition of the state (you only need to drive along once peaceful neighbourhoods filled with single family homes and witness their transformation into packed apartment buildings experiencing a surge in crime), to see how far The Garden State has fallen. People and business are flocking out of California as quickly as they can, and yet the tax dollars of citizens in healthy states like Utah will be used to prop up the dysfunction of two left coasts. Rather than have nature take its course with these states, rather then leave them to their own well deserved fates, they will be rewarded with pork from the stimulus bill, propped up for a bit longer and able to punish their captive audience for another few years.

Luckily, it appears that the Porkulus has finally come under some scrutiny, and just in time. Reid, Pelosi and Obama are still intent on forcing this through by using threats, coercion or fear; whatever they need to in order to wrest some more control from us and push this country closer to their socialist utopia. We beat back the amnesty bill; hopefully public outcry will save us from this travesty of a bill.

Related:

Excellent FT opinion piece arguing against Krugman and Keynes

An excerpt:

...One of these good economists was Bastiat’s fellow Frenchman Jacques Rueff, who in a 1947 journal article attacking The Fallacies of Lord Keynes’s General Theory pointed out that governments “have a choice between only two solutions: to allow the apparatus of production to adapt itself to the structure which, by the movement of prices, the will of the consumers tends to impose upon it, or to adapt the desires of consumers by authoritative regulation to the structure of the productive apparatus which we do not propose to change”. And insofar as the government’s “investment programme diverts means of production from the areas where they are more desired to less useful employments, it will reduce the standard of living”.

But Nobel Prize-winner Paul Krugman, who calls today “The Keynesian Moment”, justifies such a trillion dollar investment programme on precisely the Keynesian foundations that Rueff demolished – the claim that money “would otherwise be sitting idle”. When Mr Krugman buys his stimulus bonds, I am curious where the “idle” money will come from. Will he sell stocks? Bonds? Withdraw funds from the banking system? If it is not to come from a cash box, it is not idle, and Mr Krugman can only fall back on the hope that the government will use his funds more productively than businesses can.

Miscellaneous interesting reads:

Quiet return of the Fairness Doctrine

Coleman vs. Franken

Opinion: Debra Saunders on the stimulus

Jan 30 WSJ article (with map) on proposed spending

Stimulus aids illegals

The stupidity that is SCHIP

Would be funny if it wasn't so alarming:

Call about a delinquent payment

Finally! Something to be excited about:

The Watchmen Movie

Posted by hanyap at 9:15 AM | Comments (0)