Are you dissing Thor?

It sure sounds like it.

Heretic.

Yeah, I never understood the impulse to elevate ID the way so many try to. It's a leap of faith that happens to not be in contradiction with any current scientific knowledge. Why not just leave it at that?

I think perhaps the reason people agitate in favor of ID as some sort of parallel alternate to evolution is partly the fault of those that teach evolution. The proper theory of evolution doesn't say anything about the presence or absence of God, but many try to speciously use evolution as an argument for atheism. And they have been quite successful in many ways in defining the debate that way.

That's just as silly as the ID folks saying that their faith is scientific, but atheists who make that argument are rarely, if ever, called out for ridicule the same way the ID folks are.

Science merely attempts to put forth hypotheses regarding the way things work, and then test those hypotheses to see if they can reliably predict observed results given known inputs.

Evolution works as a currently acceptable hypothesis because it has held up (so far) as an explanation of why things have turned out the way they have and seems to have some predictive power in that regard (certainly in the micro anyway).

Intelligent design, and all matters of faith, fail these tests as anyone who has ever prayed that their team would win the World Series can tell you.

But then, that's why they call it faith.

Every once in a while, you just break out a few seriously intellectual paragraphs. And then I'm all like, where'd THAT come from. This is one of those times. But not the Thor part.

Exactly. Well, that, and as a sort of backlash against the (rabid!) rants that umm... I guess "evolutionists" would be the best term for those who think "Evolution answers all questions, and anyone who asks about Designers is a theocrat waiting to destroy the ability of children to reason scientifically"? Anyway. Do I think ID should replace Evolution? No.

But ID is not the "Young-Earth Creationism" so many decry it as, and I see no harm in reminding children that the Theory of Evolution, at least as popularly taught in grade-school science classrooms, is woefully incomplete as an Answer To Everything.

(And yeah, I expect sometime in the next ten comments, someone's going to blow in here and say something along the lines of, "Sure, Evolution doesn't have all the answers, but even mentioning ID with anything other than full-out derision is WRONG WRONG WRONG!!!!!!! It's giving those stupid Creationists control over the minds of the Children!!!" It's happened everywhere else the topic has come up.)

Compared to the outright lies and propaganda being taught in public school, a little ID will be a welcome antidote. So it probably isn't true. Evolution probably isn't true either and the scientific method can't be used to duplicate results either.

That argument should be the biggest problem facing us.

How does Santa Claus fit into all of this?

Science is supposed to be the dispassionate study of what is. If Thor were actually out there flinging lightning bolts around, science would have to change to accomodate him.

You can't have some fixed, pre-determined idea of what science says about stuff. Another wacky example: what if people's mass varied based on how fast they were moving. Wacky idea, right? Even if we discovered that it really were happening, science would have to pretend that it didn't...

Non-falsifiable theories aren't scientific, either, and can safely be ignored. But that's different from saying that "science" doesn't change based on observed phenomena.

Inteligent design is actually pretty scientificly legitimate in my opinion. Read Darwin's Black Box. It's not any Noah's arc type of stuff, it's more like how does evolution take pretty big jumps that can't really be explained by pure randomness. Bad explanation, but check out the book.

Not from me, Dave.

Look, as a criticism of Darwinism, ID is spot on. It points out all kinds of problems with the way most scientists think about where we came from. Many of their criticisms are, as far as I can tell, unanswerable under current Darwinian thinking. Why shouldn't we teach the holes in the theories? We teach about black holes and other failures of Euclidian and Newtonian physics, right? It might actually inspire some critical thinking out there...

The problem is when you start to call it a "theory", though. It's not really a theory, as I understand that word to work in a scientific sense. As Ace points out, it's not falsifiable because it doesn't really make a claim other than "Darwinism is wrong". Unless the claim is "Darwin is wrong, therefore God created the earth." That doesn't follow logically.

What I think ID can do is continue showing the difficulties with the prevailing purely secular explanation of how we got here. But as for proving the existence of God--I don't think he'll let that happen. Either Creation is sufficiently miraculous for you, or it's not.

Of course, for scientific method the THEORY of evolution is more wanting than ID. There are so many disprovable "facts" bandied about, about evolution, that any but the most fastidious scientist ignores the real facts in favor of the ease of acceptance of the repeated.

Would I favor exposure of children to ID? In a heartbeat, as long as it was given the same caveat evolution SHOULD be given, and that is: THIS IS WHAT A GREAT MANY PEOPLE BELIEVE ABOUT THE ORIGINS OF THE UNIVERSE AND LIFE! IT IS NOT PROVABLE, CANNOT STAND UP TO SCIENTIFIC METHOD, BUT IS ACCEPTED AS FACT BY MANY. ID ALSO CANNOT BE DISPROVED.

Let the howls begin.

You ask me, I think the reporter was a ringer trying to divert our attention from the war on terror. Clever bastards.

Oh!! the Southpark Republicans are having a FIT.

But one of my favorite Southpark Republicans (Jeff at PW) put it so perfectly I am quoting him everywhere on this:

I nevertheless do believe that addressing the field of ID theory in science classes provides a perfect opportunity to show how ID and evolution do not necessarily contradict one another, and that—if evolution is taught properly—the controversy itself disappears, except as a propaganda tool ginned up either by creationists or materialists who like to use it as a rhetorical club against their ideological opponents.

I actually think there is pretty good evidence for the Resurrection--at least in the form of eyewitness accounts from people--insiders like the apostles and outsiders--who subsequently acted as if they had seen a miracle ( i.e., keeping faithful until they were executed despite pressure to renounce Christianity). If they knew it was a lie, why would they die for it?

Obviously this is pretty ancient but we believe things about the ancient world based on less evidence than this.

Science is supposed to be the dispassionate study of what is. If Thor were actually out there flinging lightning bolts around, science would have to change to accomodate him.

But the fact that the mechanism of lightning bolt creation was God-Magic would mean we wouldn't call the people trying to figure out Thor's mighty lightning "scientists."

We would call them "Priests of Thor."

Studying and divining the workings and wants of gods is what priests do, not scientists.

Let's say God exists. Should scientists begin theorizing about him? Running experiments, maybe?

How would one do that?

But Ace, it's through the study of what was considered the supernatural that science actually began to form in the first place. To limit the study of science as "Science Only" is to ignore what science hasn't explained...not because it necessarily CAN'T, but because it hasn't YET.

Do people go this ape$hit when concepts like ESP or ghosts or other dimensions beyond the 3 physical ones are discussed in school? Hey, those were COOL science subjects...but since this ID stuff is linked with religion -- and it has been for thousands of years now -- folks seem to lose their minds and demand it be banned from even being discussed.

Scientific study is incomplete if you don't consider all the possibilities, even the fantastic ones, so you can justifiably discard what doesn't belong.

Later,
bbeck

Just remember that theories which fundamentally rely on the eternal existence of matter are scientific, but theories that rely on the eternal existence of consciousness are not scientific.

I'm kind of agnostic myself, but this whole Glenn Reynolds-like, religious-people-are-stupid bigotry is getting kind of tiresome. Reasonable, "secular" people subscribe to a faith that competes with Christianity, but they refuse to recognize that it is a faith. You say that creationism is not falsifiable. True enough, but neither is Darwinian evolution which asserts that life evolved through the natural selection of random (goalless) mutations. That sounds plausible enough, but utterly unfalsifiable. If you believe, and 'believe' is the correct term, in Darwinian evolution, you must do so on faith. Presumably a faith that you accept as the one true faith that must be accepted and taught to the exclusion of all others. Sound familiar?

Also, what is a 'mundane' or 'natural' force? How would you go about analyzing space, time, consciousness, etc? What would a mundane scientic explanation of these things consist of? Science has it's limits and those things beyond it's scope (whether or not you include the origin of the species) are, by definition, supernatural.

It's not any Noah's arc type of stuff, it's more like how does evolution take pretty big jumps that can't really be explained by pure randomness

Part of the deceit of all this is equating "Darwinism" with "evolution."

Much of "Darwinism" -- a particular theory of evolution -- has been proven wrong or mostly wrong or partly wrong. So you can say, as a scientist, "Darwinism is largely discredited" but still believe in non-Darwinian evolution.

But a lot of ID proponents take such statements out of context, misleadingly suggesting that because this or that can't be explained by "Darwinism" means that it can't be explained by more modern theories of evolution. They know that's misleading, and they've been called on it before, but they keep repeating that deceit.

As for sudden jumps in evolution-- well, yes, the modern conception is periods of stability and then periods of great evolution. "Randomness" may or may not explain it; but changes in circumstances can. If there's a long and severe drought and only smaller coyotes are able to survive (having less need of water and less surface area to lose water), then you're going to find in 100 years what you have is almost all small coyotes. Possibly to the point where they've actually become a different species from their original stock.

Whoa, Ace. You're not gonna like the heat on this one, I can tell.

Oh, and for the record: evolution is not a theory, it is a scientific fact. *Natural selection* is the theory that explains the evolution observed.

You want to argue with the theory, go ahead, but please choose the right one to argue with.

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

Do people go this ape$hit when concepts like ESP or ghosts or other dimensions beyond the 3 physical ones are discussed in school?

Apeshit, no, but goddamnit, if that crap is being taught in science class than there's something seriously wrong.

As for other dimensions-- well, that's different. We know there's at least one more and there's reason to believe there may be others.

You know, a lot of liberals who know nothing about science love evolution because it's conceptually easy to grasp and because it lets them mock the Christians.

Granted.

But with all due respect, Christians are exposing themselves to this mocking by continuing to insist that their Holy Book serve as a high school biology textbook.

If a kid wants to reject evolution, fine. There's no requirement that a kid believes what he's taught (although, granted, some arrogant teachers do insist on just that).

But please let's stop with the nonsense of teaching religious beliefs under the guise of 'science."

If you want to reject science, fine, science isn't the end-all be-all. But stop making others learn your religion smuggled in as "Intelligent Design."

Actually, Jake, your mass does change with your velocity. (At least your Relativistic Mass changes). It's just that at speeds so far below that of light, such a change is effectively non-observable. Your relativistic mass is expressed as : Relativistic Mass = Invariant Mass / sqrt (1 - velocity^2/speed of light^2)

ID has no place in school, but we've come to this point precisely for the reasons Wardlow and Goldstein point out - it's not about science anymore, it's about the war between Atheism and Religion.

Let's say God exists. Should scientists begin theorizing about him? Running experiments, maybe? How would one do that?

You're doing it.

Watch out for lightning bolts, heathen.

That's true, and the left keeps pushing evolution for decidedly non-scientific reasons, but I find the counter-push to be worse in this context.

Believe in ID. Believe in the Seven Day Creation, the Young Earth, the whole nine yards.

But please stop making up ersatz pop-science at about the level of In Search Of and pushing it into the classrooms.

Ace, there was a preacherman named Thomas Bayes who set aboutthe question of how to prove the existence of God scientifically in the 18th century. He didn't quite do it but ended up making an enormous contribution to probability theory. Here's a quick critical look at Bayes' findings: http://atheism.about.com/library/glossary/general/bldef_bayes.htm

My only comment is: There is no God and I didn't evolve.
(But Thor? Sheeeeet. That hammer can really put the hurt on you if you don't watch out!)

Ace,
you are confusing creationism with ID. Please read the quote from Jeff above.

No one is trying to smuggle anything in...or.... are we???

This seems to be happening all over the RINO's blogs!

The religious conservatives are busted!!!

You have discovered our secret plan of not only brainwashing the masses with debate on this subject, but we plan on filling the school’s water fountains with holy water!!!!

They won’t even know they have been baptized!!!

Then we plan on renaming our Churches things like “Hooters” and “Joes’s Crabshack” to lure the heathen in. They will look just like resturants (food and boobs too!) But once they are full...BAM!!!!! Let the preaching begin!

Yes, you may have discovered SOME of our diabolical plan, but not all. not all.

Be afraid. Very afraid.

If I wanted Balloon Juice's opinion I'd ask God to inscribe it on a stone tablet so Moses could shove up his ass.

The other odd thing about this is that I never really saw how natural selection (better, Dave?) and evolution were inconsistent with anything but the most literal interpretation of Genesis. I think even most creationists would acknowledge that, say, dachsunds or roses changed over several generations of selective breeding, or that Americans are getting taller, etc.--in other words, that at least small some degree of evolution happens, even if we're not really sure how lizards grew wings and became birds. If it is illogical to say"Darwin was wrong, therefore God exists," it is equally illogical to say "Darwin was right, therefore God doesn't exist." The two beliefs are not inconsistent.

RWS, you're a peach!

If I wanted Balloon Juice's opinion I'd rip open his skull, eat his brains, and shit his opinions right back into his skull.

I was a creationist kid, but once I discovered that the loonies were flat out wrong I adapted to ID. Then I realized ID really limits God as well, so now I'm not sure anymore.

I have no problem with evolution being taught in school alone as long as it isn't a vehicle for atheism or humanism.

I see no problem with the belief that God created the universe and set in motion everything just the way he wanted.

ID is not a scientific theory.
And neither is Evolution.
A SCIENTIFIC THEORY by definition can be proven or disproven. You cannot prove or disprove either "theory" because you cannot recreate the world in either way.

At the most, both are faiths that can have the circumstantial evidence of each be compared to see if they're legit.

So therefore, we are just reduced to viewing each as a faith and we can present evidence on both sides to provide some insight into the past.

It is purely foolish to call Evolution or ID as science. With this in mind, both should either be taught or banned.

There's a very simple requirement for any scientific theory:

Can we test it?

We can test evolutionary theory. If we find hominid fossils in Silurian strata, splat. Evolution is toast.

We can't test Intelligent Design. There is simply no possible question that ID doesn't have a glib answer for.

That means it's not science. It's religion.

And any attempt to promote it as science, knowing this, is fraud.

Now, Evolution and Christianity are not mutually exclusive, but Evolution is science and Christianity is religion.

And ID is bullshit. It's bullshit because it pretends to be science. If it claimed to be religion, I'd still consider it to be bullshit, but that's just my opinion... And it would never get taught in schools.

ID is obviously not science, and if any teacher tried to indoctrinate me with that crap I'd put him in a headlock and choke him with a nerf ball.

But I can't get too "hopping mad" about this because -- let's face it -- "science" as it's taught to eighth-graders isn't science -- it's just a bunch of facts to memorize and regurgitate. And again let's face it -- those "facts" are supposed to be the gospel truth -- otherwise why memorize it.

So all this talk of science being a methodology is totally irrelevant because science isn't taught that way -- at least before you get to college.

blood parasite:

You misstate what a scientific theory is. A scientific theory *can not* be proven, right or wrong.

Instead, it can be used to explain observed facts, and over time, may be used to predict events in the future.

Some theories have explained observed events for a long time. For instance, the "theory" of Netwonian gravity. Would you like to argue with *that* theory? After all, it's just a theory. Take it on "faith."

The fundamental concern with natural selection isn't that it's wrong-- it's not, it's observed working every day (visit an antibiotics lab). It's that you can't "test" a theory in reverse, so you're basically assuming that natural selection always worked the way it does today, all the way back into history.

Now, before you think that's a huge loophole, we've got a couple thousand years of observed sunrises. Is the Theory Of The Rotating Earth a useful predictor for what came before man was around to observe the sunrise?

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

P.S. Why not teach ID in school? It's clear nobody bothered to learn anything in Fundamental Principles Of Science 101.

Maybe this is OT, but I'm also a little peeved that we're letting the 'Gravitational Theory' get off scot-free here. The children need to learn about its flaws, what the 'Supercreator-make-things-go-upsies-downsies' theory has to say. Equal time. That's all I'm asking.

I see no problem with the belief that God created the universe and set in motion everything just the way he wanted.

Please don't dismiss Intelligent Design until you've looked into the concept of "irreducible complexity," posited by Michael Behe. It holds that any biological system that consists of multiple parts, the loss of any of which would render the system inoperable, cannot have evolved in a graduated (Darwinian) manner. All of the parts would have to have been assembled before the system can operate, therefore they would have no individual reason to have evolved --think human vision, the bacterium flagellum (consists of 50+ parts), blood clotting (requiring a cascade of chemical reactions). Lots of books, videos and internet links are available -- check it out!

blood parasites:

That whole "a theory is not a fact" bullshit has been refuted so many times I'm amazed you have the stones to bring it up again. Surely you have read this post on the Talk.origins website, which explains the issue quite clearly? Seriously; spend some time on the Talk.origins site...and I recommend the same for any other doubters.

Evolution is as much a fact as gravitation -- you seem to have forgotten your elementary science lessons which clearly explain how scientific facts are illuminated by theory. Neo-Darwinist theory illuminates the fact of evolution by natural selection and random mutation.

Evolution is an absolutely bedrock, core principle upon which modern biology rests. We don't know all the details yet, but that evolution is true is beyond any serious scientific doubt. It is a fact, but perhaps not a Fact -- science does not achieve absolute certainty, thus the lower-case "f".

It is an absolute truism that people who claim to disagree with evolutionary theory invariably misunderstand it.

ted,

That's quite true. But still, we don't teach kids that Napoleon was Lincoln's father just because some people think that's so. And the fact that we don't teach kids principles of historical research until college (later, really) doesn't mean we shouldn't give them the best foundation as far as what we know, historically, to be accurate.

Christine -

Irreducible complexity is nonsense. Every example raised by Behe has been demolished.

The Talk.Origins Archive is a fund of useful information on Evolution, including a comprehensive and crushing rebuttal of irreducible complexity.

Dude, Napoleon *WAS* Lincoln's father. I've got the DVD that proves it.

Christine:

Behe's "Darwin's Black Box" was published in 1997, and he's done almost nothing since then to counter the refutations of his work. The fact is, Behe's basic contention that some systems are "irreducibly complex" is pure eyewash -- he has yet to posit a human system which cannot be shown to have analogues, precursors, or adaptations in other organisms.

Behe also has not managed any follow-on work, no new experiments or theoretical work that would illuminate his thesis. This is completely contrary to the scientific method, and shows Behe to be an apologist, not a scientist.

Seriously; catch up by looking at Talk.origins. Even if you disagree, it will save you from making the same long-discredited arguments.

The stuff about the eye is nonsense. There are great benefits to having a basic light sensor. Obviously improving that is beneficial too.

I believe in evolution, but the one thing I'm always curious about is the wing. Obviously nothing could just suddenly evolve working wings, which means that non-flying, non-gliding wings must have been useful at some time. But for what?

If a big ass flap of leather or whatever can't make you glide or fly, what possible use could it serve? Trapping insects? I don't know.

Monty,

I'm familiar enough with the theory. It's not that I disagree with it. It's just that the randomness of the mutations and the naturalness of the selection are unprovable and unfalsifiable.

Ace -

I assume that any flap that is semi-large would be useful for at least partial gliding, or slowing of descent.

ace:

Wings are interesting evolutionary structures, but hardly surprising: wings serve the same purpose in the air that flippers do in water. Wings have evolved independently among several species because it's an excellent adaptation: birds, bats, and insects all developed different kinds of the same structure but to do the same thing -- to fly.

People argue that a partial wing is no use, so how could it evolve? The answer is that partial wings are statistically better than nothing -- a partial wing can help with balance, with gliding, with agility, even with secondary sexual display (think of peacocks). The interesting thing is that some animals actually don't use their wings -- penguins, ostriches, kiwis -- but still have enough use for them to make them beneficial.

Remember: nature doesn't do grand re-designs. It tinkers, it uses what's already there. A adaptation "works" if it statistically enhances the changes for an organism's survival -- that's it. There's no long-term design goal, no ultimate end-state.

Although I would agree they seem plausible.

Most of you...seem to have no idea what ID is.

Let me give you an example. Mount Rushmore: is it a product of intelligent design - or random (naturalistic) forces?
The answer, of course, is intelligent design. Which prompts the next question: How do you know? Well, because we saw it built. What if we hadn't seen it - what if it came into being before recorded history? How then, can we state, unequivocably, that Mt. Rushmore must have been "designed"?

Better yet, let's take the Rosetta Stone. Is it the product of intelligent design? Again, the answer is obviously "yes". The theory of Intelligent Design simply states that there is some level of "complexity" that CAN NOT be reached by random chance. The most obvious implication of ID is in biology - how can you look at a single-celled organism, which is infinitely more structured, organized, and complex than the Rosetta Stone, and say "this is the product of random chance realignment of amino acids".

ID is a scientific theory that attempts to quantify what separates "must be designed" (e.g. Rosetta stone) and "could be random chance" (e.g. cloud in the sky that kinda sorta looks like Ace - from the side, if you're drunk). The reason its a theory is because no one has yet been able to make that mathematical/scientific definition.

So, if you believe evolution - you believe that the rosetta stone and Mount Rushmore are possibly artifacts of random meteorological and geological processes. ID simply says that Evolution (Neo-Darwinism as a process of natural selection and random mutation) can't explain biological rosetta stones (e.g. bacterial flagellums). It makes no attempt to define the missing (non-random) process that would allow evolution to "work" for the biological structures we see.

Sorry, Christine, I've read on ID, and I still can't find anything that doesn't boil down to, "it's complicated, so God must have stepped in at that moment and done it." Irreducible complexity assumes that what you are studying always existed as it is. If someone were studying a 2005 Nissan Maxima in isolation, and removed the fuel injector, the car would not work. That doesn't mean there were no cars before we arrived at the fuel injector. I think you misunderstand the basic concept of selection. The trait already exists and is selected for b/c it is most functional in that environment. The trait is not created as is. Over time, more refined (for lack of a better word) versions of the trait are selected until it no longer has an obvious resemblance to the original. Just b/c we cannot explain a complex characteristic at this time does not mean the hand of God touched the organism at that moment. Maybe it did, or maybe we need more time to figure it out.

I assume that the first state of wing-development would NOT aid in gliding, because that seems to be an all-in-one leap, which seems unlikely. From nothing to a useful gliding wing? I don't think so.

I have trouble understanding how a flap of bulky, air-catching leather can help a walking creature's "agility." Seems like it would just slow it down and subject it to being blown around randomly.

Try running around in a cape attached to your arms and legs. See if helps your agility or balance.

I can guarantee you it won't get you laid. I've tried it.

You leave the site alone for a few hours, and look what happens.

I do not demand that issues of faith be argued against issues of observable science. I'm ok with the dialogue. I get what evolution explains, and what it does not explain. Quoting Darwin, "I consider the eye, and I shudder".

Nor do I demand that issues of faith be argued in public education. Both of my children are products thereof, I understood their responsibilities and mine.

As bats use their wings to trap insects, until I've heard of something more plausible, I guess that's my best guess.

drc - We know perfectly well what Intelligent Design is. Yes, you stated its claims correctly. Yes, we know that.

And it's not science.

djs - The randomness of the mutation and the naturalness of the selection are not theoretical. They are observed, established facts. The question is whether this drives evolution. And from everything we have ever observed, they do.

I'm not sure but I believe Michael Behe has answered his critics. I don't know how to link (this is now my second blog comment posting), but google Michael Behe or consult the most recent issue of The American Spectator. All of the critics have been answered (to the best of my knowledge).

Ace: Check this out re. wing evolution. Came out in 2003.

http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2003/0117chicken.shtml

I guess it could also be useful for helping an awkward two-legged creature (like a protobird) keep bipedal while sprinting, but I don't know. Seems like that whole wing-deal would be step backwards from the stability of being a quadruped.

Ace, think penguins. Is it a wing or a flipper?

djs:

Evolution has been observed many times, both in the lab and in the field. It has been "proven" in the same way that Einstein's theory of relativity was "proved": by theory and calculation followed by experimentation. Is it exact? No. But the basic idea is quite well verified, thank you very much.

To dispute evolution is to deny an absolutely bedrock principle of modern science, and is exactly similar to claiming that the Sun revolves around the Earth, or than the Earth itself is flat. It is nonsense, complete and entire. I'm sorry if that offends you or anyone else, but there it is. Generations of biologists, geologists, geneticists, physicists, archaeologists, paleontologists, and cladists have established the basic principle as sound beyond all reasonable doubt: evolution is how nature works, down to a very deep and fundamental level. You may not like it, but then, Nature isn't terribly concerned with what you like and don't like.

Daniel Dennett wrote a very profound book called Darwin's Dangerous Idea on this very topic. Evolution isn't just a biological precept; it's how Nature works, from galaxies to the sub-atomic realm. It permeates everything.

drc pretty much has ID spot-on as I understand it. It's actually a very good back-pocket explanation of the entire field.

The reason, I believe, that so many Christians are in favor of ID is because it's a direct push-back from what far too many schools have been teaching for years in science classes - that evolution directly speaks against the existence of a God. It's that improper mingling of science and religion that has already existed - at least since I was in school many years ago - to which Christians have objected. ID very much appeals to them because it is, at the very least, at least as scientific as saying "evolution disproves God's hand in nature".

The problem is that both are bad science. Science can not speak in any way on the origina of life, only how it's observed life develop. Evolution speaks to some of that, but not to all of it. Unfortunately, too many teachers believe that it does and teach it that way. ID is the reaction that says "there could very well be another way and here's one of those ways".

Hah. Seems that Nature article is about protobirds using semi-wings as a running aid.

I don't doubt that a psuedowing could be useful if you're as awkward, on the ground, on two legs, as a flightless bird. But, again: Why evolve away from the nice, stable, tried-and-true four-legged configuration into this awkward flappy running deal?

Pixa,

No one has ever observed speciation as the result of a naturally selected random mutation.

"Evolution is a fact" arguments crack me up. Especially the "just as much a fact as gravity" ones.

Here's a test: Drop a ball. On your head, preferably. Using the law of gravity, I can tell you how fast it'll be going when it knocks you out, based on how high it was when you dropped it. Gravity - tested and confirmed.
Next test: Take the common ordinary bat. Show me evidence that it "evolved" from another type (non-bat) predecessor. Show the development of wings, sonar, special vocal cords, etc. Oops, can't. As a matter of fact, there's no physical evidence that bats were ever anything other than....bats. Evolution - tested and found lacking.

If you wish to have FAITH that bats "evolved" from non-bats - feel free. But it seems rather odd, doesn't it, that we have museums full of "hundred-million-year-old" dinosaur fossils - but not a single fossil that gets us from shrew-like animal to bat?

By the way, ace - if you accept it as possible that some non-human intelligence (God? aliens? Dave from Garfield Ridge?) might have "tweaked" the process, but that we must arbitrarily disallow those explanations because they are "supernatural" - don't you condemn us to teaching a lie, if the "supernatural" actually occurred?

Ace: That question wouldn't be so puzzling were you born/live on a hillside environment.

Ace, to put it simply, b/c you can reach higher. You can fill an open niche and your survival rate increases.

Monty,

Doesn't offend me in the slightest. I admire your faith.

No one has ever observed speciation as the result of a naturally selected random mutation.

Maybe not exactly what you were looking for, but interesting news from last week. Butterflies. Nice pictures too.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4708459.stm

DRC,

Not all organisms lend themselves to a clear fossil record. How different would the fossilized bones of a ground rodent and flying rodent look if both had long forelimbs? The membranes on the wings of the flying rodent would likely not appear in the fossil.

drc - Bats, is it?

Well, the fossil record for bats is very patchy, that's true. But we do have other examples for the evolution of echolocation (in cetaceans) and wings (in birds).

So there's no reason to suspect that bats didn't evolve from earlier mammals - though it would be very nice to find some transitional fossils.

DRC, thanks for the nod to my non-human intelligence. 'Bout time someone recognized me as the Deep One that I am.

As for the contention that evolution has anything to do with God, guess what? It doesn't. As science, it's neutral. Just the same as chemistry or physics. Again, explanations of observed phenomena-- no value judgments there.

Full disclosure: I'm an atheist. But I'm also someone who sees no incompatibility between understanding evolution without a designer, and the presence of an ultimate Creator. I can't prove that God exists, but neither can I prove that he/she/it doesn't. Instead, I just don't see a reason to invoke an Almighty to explain things that can be explained.

Intelligent Design proponents defend the "God of the Gaps," the Designer who bothers with the size of flagellums and the structure of eyeballs. But not too long ago, that same Designer-- or God, as we called him before the ID crowd decided young Earth Creationism gave them a bad rap-- was also responsible for great floods, locust plagues, and the death of first-born Egyptians. Awfully busy Designer, that.

Man's science has spent a few thousand years accurately explaining away the mythologies of our ancestors. I have little reason to doubt that it can explain away the confusion of a few people who misunderstand evolution, if they were open to the scientific method in the first place.

But hey, if someone wants to believe a Creator, a God, or a Designer once said "Let there be light," I'm cool with that. It all had to start somewhere, right? I just don't need that same Creator inserted into every mystery remaining in life-- it belittles Him, and mocks humanity's intelligence.

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

I wonder how many people who question evolution have had anything more than a chapter or two studying genetics. In many ways, the clincher for evolution is our understanding of genetics and the fact that it so closely followed our prior understanding of the process. Our view of the connections between individuals and species found an eloquent explanation in DNA.

Observed instances of speciation.

We have also witnessed the AIDS virus mutating literally before our eyes during the past two decades; this is characteristic of this kind of virus.

Human beings and chimpanzees are close cousins; the gorilla is related, but less so; orangoutans still further; monkeys further still. But somewhere millions of years ago we had a common ancestor; this much is beyond dispute. Genetics has shown it to be true beyond any doubt or question (even if you discount the obvious morphological similarities). Chimpanzees and Bonobos, though superficially similar, are separate species and probably diverged relatively recently. And even Neanderthal Man was probably not Homo Sapiens Sapiens but rather a closely related but separate species called Homo Neanderthalensis.

But in the face of decades of lab work, genetic matching, homological and morphological cladistics, and all the rest, the best the creationists can come up with is, "Yeah, but canya see it? Were you there? How do you know if you weren't there?"

The answer is simple: I am here, and because I am here I know my mother and father conceived me. I was not present at the conception because I did not exist yet, and yet I can say with absolute certainty that the conception took place because I am here. This kind of reasoning can lead one to a fallacy, but I avoid the fallacy by not relying strictly on logic: I have the science of human biology to show how my mother was impregnated, how she gestated the embryo that turned into me, and how I was born.

Q.E.D.

And another point - fossils aren't our only evidence for evolution. Genetic studies are immensely illuminating, for example, this study of bat evolution.

Hate to go in a different direction here, but is there some chance that Knight-Ridder might have colored up the story a little bit to make you all pissed off? While channel surfing tonight I stopped on the windbag O'Reilly long enough for him to claim that the K-R article made some leaps that didn't match up to the interview. Since I didn't see or hear the interview, I don't know who's telling the truth, but I do know that K-R isn't real friendly to Bush and it wouldn't be impossible to believe that a writer might have his own agenda.

Just sayin'.

Even if it were mighty Thor creating lightning bolts and shooting them across the sky, science would still have to propose an alternative, natural, and, under the hypothetical, wrong theory about lightning-bolt creation. Something involving mundane forces like friction and static and localized abundances and dearths of electrons.

Close, but what you're really doing is substituting an explanation of HOW thunderbolts are made for an explanation of WHO makes thunderbolts.

Example, Richard Feynman tells a story about how his father demonstrated inertia to him with a simple experiment using a ball in a wagon. When Richard asked his father why the ball did that (not move when the wagon did), his father accurately told him that no one knows "why", but the fact that it acted that way was called 'inertia'.

There is a world of difference between describing something, even in infinite detail, and actually explaining something.

In your Thor and the thunderbolt story, your two alternative "explanations" are not actually alternatives. The scientific-sounding explanation merely explains how thunderbolts are made but doesn't exclude the possibilty that Thor made them.

TheDude beat me to the general point on genetics, but that's okay, I won't sulk.

Any sufficiently advanced technology seems like "magic" to the great unwashed.

500 years ago they'd have burned you at the stake for wielding a flash light.

I'm going to bow out of the conversation for tonight, but I want to leave everyone with this:

I've been having this exact same damned argument with creationists for the last two decades. ID is nothing more or less than the old Christian creationism dressed up in new pseudoscientific clothes. It is a deeply misguided and ultimately dishonest endeavor because it sets out to illuminate nothing and to clarify nothing; rather, it exists only to oppose Darwinist theory.

Neo-darwinian evolution is a deeply unsettling concept even for atheists like myself to contemplate; I can imaging how frightening it must be for religious people. And yet to draw away from science and embrace this ludicrous ID nonsense is akin to casting away astronomy and going back to astrology -- giving up an illuminating fact (however uncomfortable it may be) for the comforting fiction of a Universe made only for us.

'Science could not simply say "Thor makes 'em," even if Thor really did make 'em.'
This is probably the stupidest thing I've read here, beating out every other time when you were TRYING to be stupid.
Science is, if nothing else, a record of observances, and if it could proven or observed in any way that Thor was slinging lightning bolts around, science would have to accept that as an observable fact, and not be cowed due to some moronic bullshit about certain observable facts not FEELING scientific enough.

The problem that a lot of people have with evolution is that, whatever questions it may answer, it is not observable or recreatable on the scale it would need to be to prove that it was the process responsible for the world as we know it. Despite this, evolution IS being taught as a fact instead of a theory and religious people are understandably pissed off about this.

Arguably, it makes more sense that to believe the world was created by some intelligence, whether alien or god, than to say that a series of trillions of improbably, if not impossible, coincidences happened in order to bring us as functional lifeforms today.
If your view of the cosmos feels threatened by ID or whatever else, say so, but don't feed us bullshit about things not being scientific because they don't FEEL like science or whichever bullshit phraseology you choose to use.

I think ID is a crock, but even the scientific community, when you're on the fringes of what we know sounds pretty mystical. ex. assuming a "big bang" what decided the physical parameters for this particular universe?

Despite this, evolution IS being taught as a fact instead of a theory and religious people are understandably pissed off about this.

Evolution is a fact and a theory.

Evolution the Fact is that new species arise. We know this.

Evolution the Theory is our best explanation for how this happens.

It's not our fault if you didn't pay attention is science class.

Nobel laureate in astrophysics, Dr. Subrahmanyan Chand­resekhar, a professor at the University of Chi-cago, whose achievements included a mathe-matical description of space-time around black holes and the formulation of a law on the limits of the masses of dwarf stars. He had this to say about Newton: “It is im­portant for all of us to look again at the works of this ama­zing man. It is fashionable today to think of Einstein as the epitome of scientific genius, and compared with us ordinary mortals, Einstein was indeed a giant. But compared with Newton, Einstein runs a very distant second. In his Principia, Newton created the science of dynamics at a single stroke. The Principia underlies nearly every aspect of modern science. Perhaps most astonishing, Newton wrote the entire book in only 18 months. Can you imagine Einstein having done such a thing? I cannot.’’

Newtonian mechanics is still a pervasive influence in today’s science but it has undergone modification with the advent of relativity and quantum mechanics. Einstein’s general theory of relativity showed that gravity is a consequence of the curvature of the fabric of space-time around a massive object.

“But remember,’’ Dr. Chandresekar said, “that Newton himself tried to correct the impression that he had explained gravity. He made it clear that he was only attempting to calculate what gravity does not to explain the underlying nature of gravity. That remains a profound puzzle to this day.’’ [emphasis added]

-----

from an article in the Manila Times (now viewable only through google)

BTW, for those keeping score, Isaac Newton was a Christian.

My view of the cosmos is not threatened by ID. The concept that it should be given anything approaching equal standing with evolution in a public school setting is the concern. ID supporters want to throw out evolution and the massive supporting evidence simply b/c it does not yet explain everything. ID detractors questions it b/c it explains nothing and provides no evidence for the nonexistant explanation. Saying an outside intelligence/God made it happen is not a scientific explanation. It is a hopeful guess.

That last was me, addressed to Edwards. Sorry.

1.The argument for Evolution does not explain life itself or why anything exists at all. Therefore believing in evolution does not preclude believing in a creator, or to take it one step further, being Jewish or a Christian and believing in God.

2. Intelligent design does not argue for a creator or a God in the Judeo-Christian sense. One can believe that Intelligent Design is correct and at the same time reject all traditional Judeo-Christian teachings about God.

3. Neither the theory of evolution or the argument for Intelligent Design explain why anything, from solar systems to bacteria to monkeys etc., exists at all.

Given especially my point no 3, I believe the hostility among so many people towards the arguments for Intelligent Design is misplaced, and unexplainable except to the extent that their belief in evolution is part of a 'politically correct' package of beliefs, dissent from which is not tolerated. And yet for some reason a lot of politically incorrect people react towards Intelligent Design the way Harvard's faculty reacted to Lawence Summers.

The tone of Glenn Reynolds, Balloon Head and even Ace reminds me both of the Harvard faculty and of the nyt's editorials - overwrought and bullying, trying to shout down those who dare to stray for a 'politically correct' orthodoxy. I am both surprised and disappointed.

The argument for Intelligent Design should not be treated as a heresy, but as an opportunity to view life from yet another angle which may help us understand more about the universe we live in, and about which so many mysteries remain.

Pixy Misa,

I missed the evolution is fact part. I was probably listening the Theory of Evolution part. Or maybe it was the part about spontaneous generation.

The problem is that the Book discusses origin.

If it didn't discuss origin, as it doesn't discuss a number of other things for which we have scientific proof for, there would be no problem. You don't hear the faithful arguing about bugs we can see under the microscope doing their ugly deeds, because there were no microscopes when the Book was written.

But because men have always wanted to know 'Why are we here?' the book discusses origin.

Which, in this former believer's sight, is unfortunate.

Why aren't there these great controversies about the cause of cancer? Or strokes?

If the Book said that strokes were caused by bad humors, or demons, would that be what we called blood clots in medical school?

From a former believer; let's not torture Galileo again.

Monty,

You know I'm not a big advocate of one theory or the other. I'm just bothered by the religious zeal and bigotry of evolutionists.

Incidentally the paper you linked (http://talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html)
was riddled with examples of ID. Here's just one example:

Halliburton and Gall (1981) established a population of flour beetles collected in Davis, California. In each generation they selected the 8 lightest and the 8 heaviest pupae of each sex. When these 32 beetles had emerged, they were placed together and allowed to mate for 24 hours. Eggs were collected for 48 hours. The pupae that developed from these eggs were weighed at 19 days. This was repeated for 15 generations. The results of mate choice tests between heavy and light beetles was compared to tests among control lines derived from randomly chosen pupae. Positive assortative mating on the basis of size was found in 2 out of 4 experimental lines.

In the case of the other speciation 'events' described, it was taken on faith that they ad taken place as the result of the natural selection of a random mutation.

Max,

I agree with most of what you say regarding the lack of conflict between ID and evolution. They can coexist. However, ID is fundamentally religion and evolution is science. The issue is not with the existence of ID, but its introduction, in any significant way, into a science classroom.

Falling in on the creationist side, I am always amazed that we mortals think that we have to know or explain everything.
My God is bigger than any theory and I don't pretend to understand.

max,

I didn't think my tone was "bullying." I presented an idea and gave an example of that.

It's not overwrought to be very annoyed at people attempting to cram their religion down my science.

I don't cram my science down your religion.

I suppose scientists could, employing the same psuedoscience as ID, prove that God doesn't or can't exist.

How'd you like it if that was part of the science curriculum?

I mean, at the very least, we could teach that science casts a great deal of doubt on, say, the rather implausible tale of Noah's Ark.

I wouldn't like that myself. But what you don't seem to understand is all this bullshit about dressing up creationism in scientific clothes is similar. You're using psuedoscience to push a (sincerely held) religious belief where it doesn't belong.

ID proponents say "well this is an alternate belief system." Fine. But it's not science. Jeff Goldstein makes the case, persuasively, that this is a clash of belief systems, one materialistic and scientific, the other spiritual and metaphysical.

Which is true.

But metaphysics should not be taught in science class.

In a philosopy class, such a debate would be appropriate.

But in science?

Give me a break. Does anyone really believe that "God Created The World And Animals" is really a freaking scientific theory?

As opposed to a theory you think is true?

You may think it's true, but how on earth that's science, I don't know. Some may think that believing in Christ will grant salvation, but that, too, is not science.

Should history teach the story of Noah's Ark?

Even if you believe that, surely you concede that there is not anything in the academic record to support the notion of a worldwide flood and the animals going in two by two to be saved on an immense ship.

There's a difference between things you believe, whether due to faith or otherwise, and things that can be proven with any kind of academic rigor.

And as for the "zeal" of the evolutionists-- well, most people are zealous when it comes to what they believe happens to be the truth, and what they think happens to be pure crankery.

Surely you're not suggesting I take a po-mo, multi-culti view of all this, where I say "Okay, if you believe that, maybe it's true after all," even if I think you're flat-out wrong.

djs,

I don't get it. Your example of ID in the article is an experiment with selective breeding? Could you elaborate? It is late and I am obviously missing something.

Ace,

If God creating the universe isn't scientific, then why is the Big Bang theory scientific?

Neither can be scientifically proven, right?

Neither makes much sense from a practical standpoint either.

I just got done reading all the comments and I have one question. Why are some of you so *angry* about this (and you know who you are)? Are you so convinced that when young people are taught different ideas (and we're probably talking high school here) that they will all of a sudden become drooling morons and won't be able to differentiate between what is science and what is religion? What exactly are you so upset about? Are you all ready to flip back to the democratic party if our President holds a different opinion then you on this topic? Wow, there's real fundamentalism on display here; on both sides of the issue.

Let's see: how many KEPT mutations would it take (considering a minute number of mutations are "kept" by natural selection) to go from a "living" electrocuted piece of swamp mud to a stellar example of thinking humanity like J. Frenchy Kerry? A million? Two million? A billion?

And how long has "nature" been working on the JFK pinnacle of natural selection, from amoeba to war hero?

Mutated change can explain a lot, but I have a VERY difficult time believing all the incredible chance it would take, and time. I may be lazy, but God (intelligent design, Intelligent Design) seems imminently as logical, if not more so.

The Universe is the world, balanced upon the back of a Great Turtle.
And that should be taught in University.

And Ace, the wing thing is best explained on water; a reptilian critter could skitter across the top of the water by jumping up and flapping these things, and escape a water predator much better than by swimming with them.

TheDude,

I don't get it. Your example of ID in the article is an experiment with selective breeding?

That was the point I was going for.

they selected the 8 lightest and the 8 heaviest pupae of each sex

I find that to be specious relativism. I argue for everything I'm pretty confident about. Why should I suddenly say, "Gee, I think you're talking pure bunk, but you know what? You seem to believe passionately in that bunk, so by all means, let us introduce decidedly non-scientific God-Magic-Theories into our science classes."

Again:

Even if God were proven to exist, science would still have to remain in the realm of natural, observable, repeatable phenomena.

God would be an enigma to science, a black hole. Scientists might know he existed (due to some dramatic revelation), but without the ability to "test" him or subject him to careful observation, He'd be immune to scientific analysis.

There is something like that in nature, or at least one theory of how nature came to be. In the intial moments of the Big Bang, there were no natural physical laws, at least as we understand them. So everything before that crucial second is likewise immune to science. We can never know what it was like in those moments because none of the physical laws we know or understand were in operation.

IF you believe that a frog can turn into a handsome prince in the very instant of the kiss of a princess ...than you believe in a fairy tale.

IF you believe it takes a wee bit longer then that, than you believe in evolution.

Ribbet.

If God creating the universe isn't scientific, then why is the Big Bang theory scientific?

Well, because we can observe, and have been observing for a century, that every object in the universe is rushing away from every other object, which means, going back in time, they were all much closer together, and so there must have been a "big bang" of some sort to send the pieces of the cosmos skittering away in all directions.

There's also background radiation, which somehow suggests an ancient explosion or something, but I don't know much about that. But I do know that an observable phenomenon suggests a Big Bang.

There isn't any similar evidence for God creating the stars and animals.

Which, and I want to stress this, DOESN'T MEAN GOD *DID NOT* CREATE THE STARS AND ANIMALS. He might have; the evidence we have may be incomplete, and we're interpreting it wrong.

Still, it's the evidence we have, we're employing an assumption that there are no "magic" supernatural forces operating in the universe; the only forces that exist are those we observe.

Might there be a hidden magical supernatural power in the form of God? Of course there could be! But science has to deal with what is observed, not that which one can imagine. What one can prove (or suggest) to be true, not what one can't prove to be untrue.

Ace,

It's not so much that I think ID should be taught 'as science', it's that the religious dogma should be removed from the teaching of evolution. The positive assertion that the evolution of life has proceeded without purpose or design is faith-based.

I've seen these threads a million times before on Usenet with the same level of hysteria (on both sides) and the same name-calling (on both sides) and they don't seem to settle anything. But the idea that you consider people who advocate for teaching what you don't agree with as being purveyors of 'specious relativism' hits a new low, Ace. I hope you've just been hitting the Val-U-Rite vodka a little too hard tonight.

Carlos,

Please keep in mind that we are talking about trillions of organisms across the planet responding to limitless arrangements of stimuli, with a minimum of two billion years to work to this point. You view evolution as a straight line, which it is not. It is the story of failure as much as success. Those "kept" mutations are magnified b/c those that are not kept are removed from the equation. Also, remember that the most inportant aspect of mutations is that they provide new variations. Existing variations (which are, taken as a whole, staggering in number)and the selection of the most functional and adaptive among them is the backbone of evolution. Mutatations simply prevent stagnation and offer new opportunities. To my way of thinking, ignoring the elegance of variety and adaptation in nature is, in its own way, an underestimation of God.

I believe in God, I believe he created the universe. I do not believe he is, like my worst bosses, a micromanager. That is my personal belief, and not what I expect you to accept and, therefore, not something I ask to be brought into a classroom.

"so there must have been a "big bang" of some sort to send the pieces of the cosmos skittering away in all directions."
This must have been some darn IslamoFascist with a suicide vest. Yep. Couldn't have been God's way of kickstarting the Universe.

...not enought time, Ace & theDude. 15 billion years since the instant of the Singularity simply Isn't Enough Time to allow for, umm, life. (Or more correctly, the simplest possible self-reproducing organism.)

That's always been the real problem with evolution as an explanation of "Beginnings" (or the spontaneous combination of swamp-mud through random lightening strikes as someone - brilliantly - suggested).

Beginnings are not observable; can't be. Won't ever be. Everyone's guessing. Hopefully, some people are quessing correctly. But that's ALL it is: hope.

And would everyone just quit confusing the "theory of evolution" with the science of natural selection? They are NOT the same (and ID'ers - and even the older generation of creationists - have never had a problem with the observed processes of natural selection) ...well, not since the 1870's or so.

Kat,

It absolutely COULD HAVE BEEN God. I'm not denying that, and I don't think any scientist would say he could prove it wasn't, either.

Especially, given the black-hole nature of the pre-big-bang, because we have no idea what caused it, and, probably, can never determine what caused it.

I'm not suggesting that science of any sort disproves the existence of God. Hell, I'm not even saying science disproves that God designed the universe.

I'm saying that there's no evidence that he did, and natural forces, minus God, are enough to explain most things, including speciation.

It's possible that God is, as they used to say, the Master Clockmaker who created the forces and set them running to one day cover the earth in million different species. There's nothing to disprove such a theory, and I'm not sure there could be. The theory is pretty immune to disproving.

But-- not science.

Ace,

Did you actually read my post?

This sentence - "You're using psuedoscience to push a (sincerely held) religious belief where it doesn't belong" - makes me think you didn't.

My whole point is that neither evolution or intelligent design are incompatible with any sort of traditional religious or non-religious belief because neither explains why anything exists at all. Intelligent design (by default for lack of any other explanation) assumes there is something more to life here on earth than what we see before us, but what that something is is an open question. Evolution, while it doesn't assume there is something out there that is responsible for life as we know it, also doesn't expressly deny the existence of that something. Believing in evolution does not mean you can't believe in God and believing in intelligent design doesn't mean you have to believe in God (in the traditional sense).

That's why I don't understand the blanket rejection of Intelligent design - it's not a religious question - it's a scientific question that's on the table.

The question both evolution and intelligent design attempt to answer is 'Why does life exist as it does?' I started as a regular believer in evolution, but the more I read about evolution the less satisfied I was with the scientific answers it attempted to provide. I stumbled onto a couple of books about intelligent design and the scientific arguments contained in them made much more sense than anything I have read in favor of evolution.

Three of the points I found persuasive:

1. The incredible complexity of life on earth.
2. Genetic mutation is so infrequent, so counter-intuituve (Why change something that's working and how do you chage it quickly enough when external conditions change?) and so much of the time unsuccessful.
3. Evolution does occur at the species level - it's the 'big leaps' that are so hard to explain via evolution.

Among the books I've enjoyed:

Evolution : A Theory In Crisis
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/091756152X/ref=pd_rhf_p_1/103-0184924-9894244?v=glance&s=books&n=283155&no=*

DARWINS BLACK BOX: THE BIOCHEMICAL CHALLENGE TO EVOLUTION
class="text">http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0684834936/ref=pd_sim_b_1/103-0184924-9894244?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance

the idea that you consider people who advocate for teaching what you don't agree with as being purveyors of 'specious relativism' hits a new low, Ace.

What I termed "specious relativism" was your suggestion that I should just sort of accept what you're saying as a viable alternative scientific theory, just because you believe in it.

How is that any different than the liberals telling me I should just accept radical violent hateful Islamism as an equally vialble alternative to western liberal democracy?

I don't believe what you do. In fact, I strongly disbelieve in it. And I'm afraid I just can't settle on a "let's just say we're both right in our own ways" compromise.

Evolution is science, even if it is wrong.

ID is not science, even if it is right.

It's that simple.

God may exist. It may be perfectly true He exists. This does not mean that Chapter One of every history and science textbook should begin with a statement about the existence of God.

I don't understand why the ID people can't have their theory -- just not in science class. Why does it have to be in science class? Get a dictionary and look up the word "science." It's not science. HELLO?

Ace,

I somehow hyperlinked the last 3 paragraphs of my post. Is there any way you can un-link them?

Brandon,

You want me to dismiss the existing evidence for evolution and, at the same time, accept your supposition that 15 billion years is not enough time? In addition, you suggest natural selection is accepted enough to explain limited adaptations, but nothing approaching the speciation proposed in evolution? Forgive me, but that seems rather arbitrary.

Brew,

Any theory involving God is not science because God cannot be predicted. God is a scientific black hole admitting of no further exploration.

Suppose -- not to belittle you, but suppose -- that medicine had taken the position that disease was caused "Because God willed the disease upon the patient."

Can you not see my point that constitutes an end of all further scientific analysis? And that medicine would not have advanced any further? And that only praying to god/appeasing spirits would have been the treatment for all disease?

Once you say "It's magic" (and yes, God's powers are "magical," in the way we usually think of magic; he controverts and changes physical laws at his will) there is simply no possible further scientific inquiry that can go forward.

"It's magic" or "It's God's will" is the end of the line, end of file as far as the advancement of science.

That's what my Thor analogy was meant to illustrate. Once you say "Thor creates lightning," what further conceivable science can be done as regards lightning?

The existence of matter is not possible, something cannot be produced by nothing. Just because scientific theory has to ignore this till they get a round tuit doesn't mean it should be ignored. Yeah, yeah, I know all this stuff and us are here. makes you think, don't it?

That's why I don't understand the blanket rejection of Intelligent design - it's not a religious question - it's a scientific question that's on the table.

Uhh, sure. Please explain what other possible being or force could conceivably be responsible for this billion-year plan you call "Intelligent Design," APART from God, or at least a being of such godlike power (the power, apparently, to toggle off the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, which prevents this sort of long-term forecasting) as to be indistinguishable in power and role from God as he his conventionally imagined.

Please don't be cute. You claim "If you believe in ID, you don't necessarily believe in God."

Really.

Who would we call this omniscient, omnipotent Intelligent Designer if not God, the Alpha and Omega?

And which atheists out there, precisely, are advancing this theory?

The Dude,

Not insulting at all. In fact, I'm pretty much in agreement with your view that God does not micromanage the universe. It's just that the jump from evolution to atheism is not a rational one, so I tend to defend ID because:

1) the people who zealously oppose ID and tend to be obnoxious and unaware of their own faith-based assumptions
2) the people who zealously oppose ID are frequently statists, leftists or columnists for the New York Times (OK, this one is not entirely rational).

I aimed this at Reynolds, but it's big enough to hit Ace, too:

http://urbanelephants.com/nyc/node/336

Hey, if we are gonna get philosphical (yes, you started it, Dennis) I'll go ahead and toss out one of my favorites. It is attributed to Nietzche, but I found it in a work of historical fiction, so don't bust my chops if he did not really say it.

Anyway, paraphrasing:

assuming time is infinite and the amount of matter in the universe is finite, this exact moment will repeat itself infinitely.

djs,

Agreed, generally, on those points. Have a good night.

Dude-could you repeat that?

Science could not simply say "Thor makes 'em," even if Thor really did make 'em.

Careful, Ace...when Thor moves, he slices like a f'n hammer.

Personally, I'd love it if God would show up once a year, somewhere special maybe Jerusalem or the Alamo, hold a press conference and go on an integrity kick. Let some folks know they're on f'n notice and where there's a lot of loose shit going on.

but since He doesn't, it boils down to faith. I think a lot of the impetus for ID boils down to faith as well and comes as a backlash against some science teachers who crossed the line from teaching Darwin to teaching atheism. Because teaching kids what the empirical evidence in the fossil record supports and teaching them that their religious beliefs are false are two different things. And that second one's NOT cool.

Ace - the "creator" for ID (which I'm not a proponent of BTW) could just be something outside our particular experience base.

ex. When we genetically engineer some bacteria to do something like eat oil spills - in essence WE are that sort of "creator". Those useful bacteria don't know "we" exist - nor can they ever know such things because they're just bacteria designed to eat oil and shit perfume (or whatever).

If there's something out there in the universe way beyond us technologically, it certainly could be pulling our strings without us ever knowing it. That doesn't necessarily imply such things are "god" or mystical in any way what so ever. It/they may be no more "god" than we are "god" to the oil eating bacteria we designed and produce.

I agree with all that, and again, I sympathize with those who feel bullied by the atheist left on this issue.

There's little more annoying than a lefty who knows not a whit about science or math, who's avoided all those subjects all his life in favor of writing papers about the homoerotic relationship between Ren and Stimpy, being a big bear on evolution just because that's the way to tweak the Christians.

And I guess I'll take your word for it that there are teachers who teach evolution like that. I only had one teacher for the subject, and he didn't; he bent over backwards to give the state-mandated disclaimers about it being "only a theory" and all that. But that's anecdotal.

I don't think there really is any conflict between the idea of Intelligent Design and evolution through normal, natural processes. Or at least no proveable conflict. Did all of this goo asssemble itself into little bacteria because chemicals tend to do that sort of thing or because God had a plan that they should?

Or that God had a plan that chemicals would do that sort of thing when exposed to lightning and constant volcanic heat?

I think ID is a perfectly reasonable sort of theory in its broad strokes, a very reasonble manner of reconciling the Biblical account of creation with evolution.

And I don't mind that people believe it, or think less of them.

But-- it's just not science. It's a metaphysical, spiritual, religious assumption. Not science.

I don't mind Christians, even though I'm really not one (well, I am, but I'm not. You know what I mean). I don't mind that they believe some things I don't, such as paying taxes or leaving handicapped parking spaces for the handicapped.

But I do mind injecting what is a religious belief into a science class.

but to be political for a second, do you think this might encourage the left to get on board with school choice?

Want your kid to learn ID along with evolution? Here's yer voucher. Enjoy.

Give me a break, Tony. You are talking about someone who stands, in relation to us, as a GOD.

Ergo, he's a God.

Give it up with this ridiculous spin. "I'm not saying it's God, necessarily. I'm just saying it's a being of infinite foresight, intelligence, power, persistence, and wisdom, who created the universe and all life on earth through his will. But again, that's not God; it could just be my neighbor Fred, having a prank on me."

Puh-leeeze. Any being with that kind of power IS God, THE God, The ONLY God, unless you're postulating that there could be two or three or any number of such transcendentally powerful beings in the universe.

2. Genetic mutation is so infrequent

Genetic mutation is very common, and genetic variability is inescapable in species that reproduce sexually.

so counter-intuituve (Why change something that's working

It's a mutation. You don't have any say in the matter.

and how do you chage it quickly enough when external conditions change?)

You don't. You can always go extinct instead.

and so much of the time unsuccessful.

Well, yeah. That's the whole point.

Max, it's perfectly clear that you don't have the slightest understanding of evolution. Go back to the start and try again.

OCBill -

Subramanyan Chandresekhar was a giant in his own right. Not only in astrophysics and cosmology, but in pure math and math applied to meteorlogical modeling.

His point is notable. Newton's feats were remarkable.

America recognized his (SChandresekhar's) greatness. Though born in India and doing most of his best work in Britain, he also brought along dozens of top American scientists as PhD and post docs.

NASA's Chandra X-Ray telescope honors his name and America making that gesture to a native-born Indian was highly appreciated by the Indian people.

The Dude:

Actually, although there is seemingly limitless variation to species, and each subject to random mutation, when you consider electrocuted-mud-to-man, it is a linear distinction. As such, all other strains (mutations) not in that exact lineage would have little relevance to the evolution of mud-to-man.

As a Christian, I respect Ace's atheism (I don't agree, but he's got a right to it by choice) and another Christian's belief in both the God of the Bible and evolution (which I cannot for the life of me understand as a Christian, but cannot condemn for it).

What I can't cotton to is for relativists to preach evolution as scientific fact to the total exclusion of the existence of a higher power ("I can't see god, therefore anyone who mentions him in my class fails"). That is religious, it is religious bigotry, and it is not something I wanted my children to be confronted with daily from a pseudo-authority figure who doesn't have a clue.

If the religion of relativism is taught in public schools (and it has been for decades now), I want my religion given equal voice. If that's not acceptable, then religious relativists shouldn't howl when I want them displaced.

Just sayin'.

Okay, ace (et. al.) what part of this evaluation of ID do you have a problem with as "not scientific"?

1) There are characteristics of a material object that indicate it is designed (e.g. a watch has these characteristics, a pebble on the beach does not).
2) Certain objects have such an extent of these "design characteristics" that it reasonably precludes "random chance" as a possible explanation of the object's existence (e.g. a computer can NOT be the product of random chance, , laws of physics, and elements as found in nature).
3) Certain biological elements (e.g. a single-celled organism, a bacterial flagellum) have the same or greater level of "complexity" as other non-biological objects that we would define as "must be designed".
4) A logical conclusion from points 2 and 3 is that these biological entities must have been designed - they cannot be a product of random chance.

So, exactly where is this not a scientific position? Evolutionists typically disagree with point #3 - they don't feel that biological organisms are all that complex (I find that to be ridiculous, but hey, whatever), or they do believe that random chance could in fact generate a computer, given enough time (again, I don't find this very believable).

So, all you evolutionists - where's the flaw in the above argument? Or, how is the above position "not scientific", or "religious"? If you don't believe that "complexity" indicates "intelligence" - how do you rationalize the SETI program? Or the part of the movie "Hunt for Red October" where the sonar guy says "something THAT regular MUST be manmade..."

The thing with me is that I went to Catholic School and I was taught both. I went to Biology class and learned about evolution. I went to religion class later in the day and learned about God. As a result, I believe there is a great deal of truth in each and that they are compatible with one another. But that doesn't mean that God becomes science because He isn't, just like science is not the Be All End All of the universe.

Believing in God AND evolution is certainly possible and compatible. But faith (religion) and reason (science) are NOT compatible and shouldn't exist in the same sphere. They are the exact opposite of one another and faith shouldn't be taught as logic while reason shouldn't become dogma.

It's religious bigotry to exclude metaphysics from science class?

How about teaching jazz sax in calculus?

You think you have the right to have your religious beliefs reinforced in science class.

Not sharing your religion, and being more into science, I'd prefer not to hear about God in biology class. I'd also prefer not to hear about ESP, ghosts, angels, or any other unprovable belief.

It's not bigotry to keep magic out of science. It's just keeping science science.

I'm sure you wouldn't want alternate religions taught to you or your children in science class, either.

DRC,

Actually, I disagree with points two and three, and, as a consequence, four as well.

Up until point one you had me.

Here's what you don't get-- I do "get" what you're saying. It's just incorrect.

This is just a repackaging of the thoroughly discredited pseudoscience claim in favor of creationalism, that evolution was imposssible because the second law of thermodynamics states that a lower-ordered state cannot transform into a higher-ordered state.

That was just wrong. It was an erroneous statement of the second law of thermodynamics.

Now we're on to probabilities.

And when that gets discredited (another poster says it already has been), we'll be on to another theory.

Don't you get it? If the theory is always changing but the conclusion remains the same-- that's just not science.

The same as environmental "scientists" always chaging their assumptions and data to always get the same conclusion ("the earth is doomed! We must enact Kyoto!") is not science.

Ace:

Problem is, and has been, religion IS being taught in science class. It is the religion of relativism, and evolution is the point load for the instructors to take off from.

As long as they tell my kids/grandkids it is still theory, and don't tell them they're stupid for believing in a higher power, I'm cool with it. Just don't cross the line to religious zealotry in favor of being entirely PC, and too many teachers today do.

So, just to recap ace, you're saying:

1) A complex device like a computer CAN be the product of random forces of nature without any human/intelligent invention.
2) Biological organisms are NOT as complex as a device like a computer.

Do I have that correct? If that is your position - then yes, further discussion is pointless.

It is the religion of relativism, and evolution is the point load for the instructors to take off from.

So?

That has nothing whatsoever to do with evolution, either as theory or as fact.

Oh, and I especially liked this quote:

Don't you get it? If the theory is always changing but the conclusion remains the same-- that's just not science.

So, all you evolutionists - where's the flaw in the above argument?

2. Evolution doesn't claim that any species is created by random chance. Natural selection acts on genetic variability. The variability may be random; the selection is definitely not.

3. This isn't a theory. It's an infinite series of hypotheses. "The eye is irreducibly complex and could not possibly have evolved." (Immense catalogue of counter-examples demolishes claim.) "The wing is irreducibly complex and could not possibly have evolved." (Somewhat smaller catalogue of counter-examples demolishes claim.) "The flagellum is irreducibly complex and could not possibly have evolved." (Demolish.) "The immune system - " (Demolish.) "The single-celled organism - " (Demolish.) "The bat - " (Demolish.)

There's no coherent theory here. Just a series of failed counter-claims.

Bush has gone a little Theocratic...

1. First his Solomon-like stem cell decision.
2. Next he says he only consults God at the end of the day about Iraq (God may be on vacation)
3. Then he gets the idea from watching a video that T Schiavo is possibly as cognitive as he is, and must be saved. He takes a Grandstanding Flight nicknamed the Pinellas FL Panderfest.
4. Bush responds to news that Congress is considering passing a law opening up embryonic stem cell research with his 1st Veto threat. Enraged, Republicans split on issue with many vowing to break with Bush and DeLay to try for a Veto Override if he does it. (Which will fall right in the middle of his SCOTUS vote).
5. Now Bush wants Intelligent Design in the schools.

***Is Faith Healing going to be something Bush asks Federal funds for when healthcare comes up in 2006??*********

Gee, who knew religion would get ace all hot and bothered?

It's not a question of religion, it's a question of religion pretending to be science.

Pixa Misa:

I've avoided responding to you, because of the type of argument you tend to use - "all that has been discredited/debunked" - my response is, of course, "no, it hasn't", to which yours will be "yes, it has", ad infinitum.

However, I must point out that when you say, for example, that the argument that a single-celled organism can't be a result of random chance "(Demolish)", what you mean is that someone, somewhere, came up with a "just-so" story about how it "might have" happened, or "modeled" it in a "computer simulation". The fact being, single-celled organisms have NEVER, EVER, EVER, NEVER, been produced in a lab from anything other than another single-celled organism. A BAT has never been produced from another non-bat. No fossil record is available to show how a bat DID evolve - just a few "hey, let me create a fantasy of how it MIGHT have happened - let me lengthen a leg here, extend some skin there, give him a bad cold to mess up his larynx, etc. etc." stories properly salted up with technobabble - too bad we can't actually do any real-world experiments to back it up...

So your definition of "demolish" means "fairy-tale" to me - which makes debate pointless.

"Uhh, sure. Please explain what other possible being or force could conceivably be responsible for this billion-year plan you call "Intelligent Design,""

There are both materilistic and spirtiual answers to this question, depending on what you define as "God".

If the universe is 15B years old, a civilization could have evolved to the level of, say, Magrathea. In fact, I would propose it's arrogance to assume that there haven't been (aren't?) civilizations unimaingably far ahead of us.

Of course, that begs the question of where those beings came from. Ultimately, "why?" always resolves to a spiritual question. You could find answers in Bhagavad Ghita (in which you could find support for Creationism and Evolution), that we are all co-dreamers of the universe with God. This would make evolution not an accident at all, and at the same time remove God from any need to be involved in low level biological concerns.

To make a geekier reference, Fritz Leiber's Newhon mythos had gods related to specific animals. There were gods whose sole responsibility was a single type of animal.

There are a lots of possibilities besides a monolithic God-did-it explanation, the beauty being none are restricted by messy facts.

I think we should consider teaching Intelligent Design in the schools as long as we're balanced about it. That means teaching Stupid Design. Clearly the universe is a hare-brained bit of engineering.

And Stupid Design is verifiably true. Ever wonder how Barry Manilow's career lasted so long? Or how Ace got to be a top 100 blogger?

Now you know. :)

owever, I must point out that when you say, for example, that the argument that a single-celled organism can't be a result of random chance "(Demolish)", what you mean is that someone, somewhere, came up with a "just-so" story about how it "might have" happened, or "modeled" it in a "computer simulation"

And I must point out that you don't have the faintest clue what you are talking about.

What I am talking about is concrete examples of various stages of evolution of the properties in question.

Except for bats. There aren't any good transitional fossils of bats.

The fact being, single-celled organisms have NEVER, EVER, EVER, NEVER, been produced in a lab from anything other than another single-celled organism.

Completely irrelevant.

A BAT has never been produced from another non-bat. No fossil record is available to show how a bat DID evolve - just a few "hey, let me create a fantasy of how it MIGHT have happened - let me lengthen a leg here, extend some skin there, give him a bad cold to mess up his larynx, etc. etc." stories properly salted up with technobabble - too bad we can't actually do any real-world experiments to back it up...

Is that it?

Your so-called theory rests entirely on the poor fossil record for bats?

I'll note that every characteristic of bats does show up in transitional fossils of other species, and I've already linked to an article discussing the molecular evidence for the evolution of bats.

But I suspect you won't care.

Like artificial stupidity.

Lieber reader,

Ummm, if it walks like a duck, swims like a duck, quacks like a duck, and creates the stars and the earth and the animals and the lillies in the fields like a duck, it's not a duck, it's a deity, and there's no use trying to be cute about the point.

ID presupposes the existence of God.

Question:

Science is supposed to lead to further questions, further theories, further experiments.

Let's say everyone agrees with ID and deems it The Way Things Came To Be.

Now it's Day Two of the ID Regime.

What do you do next? Please explain what "scientific" inquiries you'll now conduct.

Now that you've established that life arose from the supernatural workings of God's will, what do you do to further that theory? What test do you set up to determine how God exerts his will?

Just curious.

If it's really science, it should lead to dozens of interesting avenues of inquiry.

some might say those aren't bugs, those are features. Not me, but some...

that was to Ted. pimf.

Falsifiability is not the only requirement of a scientific theory. It must also be predictive. It has to explain something.

ID fails on both of those as well.

look--if colleges can teach womens studies and teach that Western Civilization is the cause of all evil in the modern world and that White men are the reason there is any evil in the world, then why not alow I.D.? Who is harmed by the idea that we are all endowed with inalienable rights by our creator? The theory that each of us is created for a holy sacred purpose, perfect for that purpose in God's eyes is not an idea that will destroy anyone's life or lead to hatred or violence. Quite the contrary. I.D. is the basis for believing in the brotherhood of mankind.

Someone brought up politics aways up there. It looks to me like this is a fine case for federalism, where the Upper Punkahoma Valley Consolidated School District can be for including an ID element in the science class if they so desire, and the Marin County School Board can teach that all truths are equally valid, except those of Christians, and the vast majority of school districts across the country can decide to just keep on teaching the prevailing views.

I mean, why is this a Federal issue, and why is the President taking time to worry about it? He could be out exercising, for gosh sakes.

I'm not sure how it should be done, but I do think evolutionary theorists and the rest of us, who are merely hangers-on, are better off intellectually if we somehow avoid letting evolutionary theory become an orthodoxy. I don't think most of us are going to want to try to avoid orthodoxy by pretending to have no opinion; however, there seem to be other ways that one can avoid turning evolution into a new religion.

One of those ways is very profitable intellectually. It's to try to think carefully about the limits as to what natural selection really has done and continues to do. One error, it seems to me, is for us to imagine that four billion years of evolution have culminated in us, as if twenty-first century man is the best thing Earth has seen so far. We're just as likely to degenerate under conditions of ease as we are to become more closely fitted to a harsh environment. Those of us whose ancestors come from northern Europe have the obvious example of our skin's loss of sun protection, made necessary by the requirement that we absorb enough sunlight in northern climes to produce the vitamin D we need. The acquisition of one adaptation (improved UV absorption) was identical to the loss of another adaptation (improved UV blocking). There's no arrow of progress here.

ace,

Creating the heaven and the stars might be an order of magnitude more challenging than trying to evolve a single species on a single planet. And that might be an order of magnitude more challenging than creating time and space.

But that's neither here-nor-there. Your point is that ID kills scientific inquiry. Looking at DRC's four points, I'd say you're right:

"2) Certain objects have such an extent of these "design characteristics" that it reasonably precludes "random chance" as a possible explanation of the object's existence"

"Reasonably includes" = "those things which I am capable of imagining and willing to accept."

Pure poison.

In the face of overwhelming evidence, the scientific community took centuries to accept the idea that the world is older than 6,000 years, so ingrained was that thought. (It still influences the common world view in the west, even among those who are anti-Judeo-Christian.) This really stymied geological progress for a few decades.

---What do you do next? Please explain what "scientific" inquiries you'll now conduct.--

I wouldn't start with ID for scientific inquiry. It assumes too much and prohibits too much. I'd start with Heisenberg: What are the characteristics of observation that allow it to change reality? If observation makes micro changes then can many micro changes make a macro change? Etc.

But, hey, I'd teach kids how to change a flat and balance a checkbook first.

To DRC:

" (e.g. a computer can NOT be the product of random chance, , laws of physics, and elements as found in nature)."

A computer is not alive. It does not adapt, reproduce or have any means for independently powering itself (respiration). When they can, we will see systems of previously "unimaginable" complexity.

In fact, we can already see such a thing in the Internet. Suggest 40 years ago that there'd be anything this complex in existence, and you would've been mocked. Nobody could've "imagined" the hundreds of millions of people all making connections.

In both cases (the Internet and self-replicating/adapting/computing machinery) intelilgence is at work--just not in any micromanagerial sense.

All said and done, of course, the only real problem is the way schools teach, or perhaps the fact that state-run schools exist at all.

OK
ID=god did it
god= science

churches teach god
churches=science school

shouldn't they lose
their tax-exempt status?

Ace -

This is just a repackaging of the thoroughly discredited pseudoscience claim in favor of creationalism, that evolution was imposssible because the second law of thermodynamics states that a lower-ordered state cannot transform into a higher-ordered state. That was just wrong. It was an erroneous statement of the second law of thermodynamics.

The 2nd Law refutations against the creationist position (as pseduo-science) confused "order" with "complexity" (in the Scientific American article of years ago).

There is a HUGE difference between "order" as represented by crystallization in rocks (and as the basis for argument against creationist positions), and the complexity of the proteins in living tissue (which creationists were pointing out).

If you break up a crystal ...you get smaller crystals. The matrix remains the same to the smallest element. So? Break up a protein ...and you get ...soup.

The problem with "local systems of order within the larger system of increasing entropy" is the issue of what the increase of energy (i.e., solar heat) does to complexity in living systems, and not with any issues of "crystalline" order. Like, who cares?

This was a recognizable straw-man refutation. And as a refutation of the anti-creationists to the issue of meaning of the 2nd Law on local systems re:creationism, it was ...refuted. Long ago. Because it was the evolutionists who confused mere order with complexity. Uh-uh ...we weren't talking about rocks man. The argument didn't follow.

(As far as I'm aware, the refutation of the refutation has not been refuted. Hell, what biologist is going to argue that increasing solar energy into the planetary atmosphere to the necessary point to allow for the necessary complexity isn't going to result in, well, jambalaya?)

To get mud-to-man (great! phrase, Carlos), you're going to have to increase local [planetary] energy to the point where (while order may increase: think quartz), complexity will, er, boil. We use ovens to sterilize bacteria ...too much increase in radiation doesn't cause mutational rates to explode, it cause cellular structures to explode.

Tell me, which is more internally consistent (in the logical sense): punctuated equilibrium - which posits that a dinosaur lays an egg, and a chicken gets hatched (in a mutational "mega-event") - to Science? Or faith that "...on the 6th day He made Man of the dust of the earth" to Religion? Seems to me a helluva leap in logic to suggest that positing dinosaurs eggs can hatch out to, er, chickens for a scientist ...than it is for a believer in Judeo-Christian hagiography (a joke! Christians) to suppose that a supernatural divinity created an ordered universe.

Who, pray tell, has made an inconsistent leap in logic here?

That's the rub. As others have said, BOTH OF THESE "THEORIES" ARE BELIEFS ...and they can (and do) appear to be both irrational and anti-scientific to someone holding the different belief.

What I'm telling you is that you're sitting in the pews, listening to the sermon Just Like Me. The difference is I know I'm in church, and you're not aware you're hearing a preacher.

You think I'm "unscientific" for my belief in Design for entirely rational reasons ...and I'm laughing at you because you're not even aware that you're preaching to an apostate believer (because I walked in your shoes, and took those classes, and read those books - and maybe a helluva lot more, as I got decades on ya, man - and made your arguments ...and - once - accepted your beliefs as a believer) ...but no longer.

Too many straws man. The camel died. A plague on both your houses.

And Pixy ...mutations are, well, problems - to various degrees - in nature. Errors in coding. Bugs. Breaks in the helix. Bad things. What are generally pointed out as examples of "beneficial mutations" in the literature are generally not spontaneous "new" traits ...but are rather existing traits - recessives - in the code, that are responding to some new element in the environment that is favoring the trait now. Selection will than do it's thing, and that recessive will become a dominant. But it ain't new. It was there all along. Just FYI.

And again ...don't make the mistake that natural selection is Evolution. ID'ers find that ...amusing.

What I'm telling you is that you're sitting in the pews, listening to the sermon Just Like Me. The difference is I know I'm in church, and you're not aware you're hearing a preacher.

Brandon,

Well put and right on the money!

Ace, you completely misread everything I said - try it again.

What I'm saying is the ID creator could be a relative thing, just like...well Einsteins "relativity". One's notion of "god" is entirely dependent on their frame of reference and position in the scheme of things.

To an ant I'm about to squash in total ignorance as I walk down the street, I'm as much a "god" (albeit a completely random and apparently vengful one) as anything its ever encountered so far in its life - but I make no claims to be a god. To the half drowned baby lizard I fished out of my shower drain last night and revived/released I probably looked like the hand of god saving their life (the little guy truly didn't want to leave the safety of my finger as I tried to get him to scoot off on a palm tree in the years) - yet I make no claims to be a god even though that's what I probably seemed to the baby lizard.

If we're the "ants" on someone else's stage, we'll never know it - but those others aren't necessarily "gods" as you claim - because THEY may be the ants on yet another group's stage, etc, etc.

What you're proposing is some twisted "relative god" notion that I don't necessarily buy because if the nature of a "god" changes because of where you're standing, then its not much of a god to begin with - not much different than the multiple gods notions of the Greeks and Romans.

I'm a lot more comfortable with the notion (presuming there is a god at all) that I and the baby lizard I saved share the same one.

And Pixy ...mutations are, well, problems - to various degrees - in nature. Errors in coding. Bugs. Breaks in the helix. Bad things. What are generally pointed out as examples of "beneficial mutations" in the literature are generally not spontaneous "new" traits ...but are rather existing traits - recessives - in the code, that are responding to some new element in the environment that is favoring the trait now. Selection will than do it's thing, and that recessive will become a dominant. But it ain't new. It was there all along. Just FYI.

Nope.

There are cases of spontaneous benificial mutations - even in humans. Verified to the precise gene. They're rare, of course. If you randomly change anything, you're more likely to break it than improve it. (Actually, most mutations are neutral, having no significant effect at all.)

But they happen.

What I'm saying is the ID creator could be a relative thing, just like...well Einsteins "relativity". One's notion of "god" is entirely dependent on their frame of reference and position in the scheme of things.

That's pretty much what Ace is saying. If something is directing evolution, you might as well call it "God", because that's how it quacks.

look--if colleges can teach womens studies and teach that Western Civilization is the cause of all evil in the modern world and that White men are the reason there is any evil in the world, then why not alow I.D.?

Because they're all crap?

Just thinking that if ID is elevated to being an "alternate theory" then Panspermia - the idea that life is seeded in the universe by an advanced alien race farting around with carbon, silicon, confined magnetic field, machine forms of life capable of evolving further, but not "evolved" initially from basic material, might also be tought.

The other thing is that ID has to watch folding the more scientifically clueless creationists into their camp. The creationists who refuse to believe in the fossil strata, scientific age dating methodology, DNA/Molecular biology diffusion over time, and refuse to believe any evolution whatsoever happens - everything is "God did it!". Have to watch those folks. Kind of like having a conference of Christians exploring the illumination of the Faith by the Madonna and in walks the guy with a jug of moonshine and a fist full of live rattlesnakes saying God thought Mary was a hottie...

The earth is slowing down(when did it start rotating?) All things natural are moving toward chaos, not organization.
Even with our great medical advances, how long is does the average man live?
If God can create worlds, don't you think he can create things to look whatever age he wants?
I have more questions than answers, ID has some merit. Darwinism has proven itself to be suseptable to fraud and abuse(pigs teeth). Let us study what is available and not make wild assumptions about what cannot be proven.

ID is a dead end. It is authorative and hence, non-science.

Yes, there's always the chance it could be right, although visioning God as a micro-manager doesn't ring really right with me.

But ID stops the scientific processes of thinking and wondering about things. To progress, science needs questioning, new probes to stick into a theory. ID does not have that: it provides the conclusion without the ability to question it. God did it, end of story. It kills curiosity and it imposes truth.

In a remerkable sense, though, the theory of neo-darwinistic evolution is increasingly improved by the hordes of questions that creationists/Intelligent Designers toss at the biologists to say, "Look! This can't be explained!" And then people take a better look and find an alternative explanation that fits within the evolution theory. It's the evolution of the evolution theory, sort of co-evolving.

And Ace, birds didn't develop away from quadrupeds. Their ancestors were thought to be bipeds, from the saurischia dinosaurs who were predators. Pseudo-wings could've been of aid for stability during leaping or for gliding out of trees, the bottum-up or top-down development. The debate isn't finished on that.

A computer is in some sense "intelligent" without being concious or self aware. DNA is more than a simple transcription system, it also has significant computational capability, and over millions of years may have been running "software" we do not yet understand.

There are many non-religious scientists claiming that random variation and mutation comes up short in explaining all of evolution and are suggesting that there is something like "software" guiding the process.

It would still be a godless process yet in some way guided by "intelligence" we are not aware of yet.

It's called Intelligent Design, not Divine Design. At its simplest, it offers an alternative to the belief that the earth was an amazing accident.

It takes far more faith to believe that everything just happend spontaneously.

Read Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything. It's very even-handed and lets the reader make up his own mind.

Ace,

I'll try once again -

Evolution does not answer the question of why anything exists at all nor does it 'prove' there is no god. Many people bleieve in both evolution and God and their belief systems do not collapse under the strain.

ID has come to the conclusion that there must be a creator only because the other major hypothesis - evolution - does not explain why life exists as we know it. ID did not start with the premise that God exists - let's prove it; it started asking questions about the theory of evolution and came up with an alternative explanation

Finally, ID does not equal creationism - creationism is a religious belief - someone wrote that the world was created in 7 days and those who believe that look for evidence to sustain their belief and ignore evidence that contradicts it. (Hey, that sounds like how people who believe in evolution behave doesn't it.)

Finally, a cheap shot - evolution led directly to the 'science' of eugenics (survival of the fittest) and eugenicis was part of Hitler's rationalization for the Holocaust. (It also played a part in Stalin's desire to create a 'erfect' society. In fact all of the mass murder movements of the 20th century were based in part on a eugenics approach to humanity - cull the bad and you'll end up only with the best - with bad and best of course being defined by the mass murderer.)

Ace, please read a few books on ID - you'll find them very interesting and frankly not in the least 'religious', but in fact totally 'scientific'.

Reading over the comments left since my last post, it strikes me (as it always does) that the ID proponents are dishonest as to their motives. They speak grandly of a "designer", a "force" or "intelligence", when what they really mean is God -- and not just any God, but the Christian God. Seriously: there are other spins to the ID idea that do not involve God (or even a supernatural deity) at all.

Do the ID'ers think that aliens did all this? Or the Sun God Ra? Or even Allah? How about Vishnu, or Set, or Kronos, or Zeus? Why, it could even be me, for all the ID'ers know -- you can't prove otherwise, so why not? But that's not what the ID'ers are saying, is it? Suggest some "intelligence" other than the Judeo-Christian God and they'd screech like a scalded cat.

How do you falsify ID? It is falsification, after all, that makes or breaks a scientific theory: how do you test it? On what scientific principle(s) does it rest? How does it square with other sciences -- geology, astronomy, geodesy, cell biology, genetics -- that argue convincingly for the neo-darwinian model?

Neo-darwinian evolution can be (and has been) tested in a thousand different ways, and it always holds up -- genetics has provided the last and most decisive test of the common descent of all living things on this earth. But ID cannot be tested, and is in fact untestable. It is a just-so story, a "god of the gaps" apologia to any and all scientific mysteries.

Look: if you want to believe in God, and that God created everything you see around you, fine. But be honest about your motives, and don't dress up your religious belief in three-dollar words and call it science.

Max said:

Evolution does not answer the question of why anything exists at all nor does it 'prove' there is no god. Many people bleieve in both evolution and God and their belief systems do not collapse under the strain.

Science does not answer why -- that's why we have philosophy and religion. Science answers the how. Science cannot "disprove" God because God is not a scientific theory, and thus not vulnerable to disproof.

I can tell you that I created the Universe and everything in it ten seconds ago (complete with memories of non-existant past times). This is perfectly valid and is in fact pretty much what the ID people assert. But how can you prove I didn't? You can't, because what I just said is not a scientific theory.

However, if I said that the earth is shaped like a taco, that can be disproved and thus is amenable to science. The earth is in fact an oblate spheroid, and can be empirically shown to be so using other (similarly disprovable) methods of science and mathematics.

Neo-darwinian evolution is disprovable, especially in light of the New Synthesis brought on by genetics. We have posited that Chimpanzees and Humans are closely related; this could be disproved decisively if a chimp had radically different protein receptors than humans. (They don't, which is why they catch the same diseases that we do, and vice versa.) The DNA tells the story, and it is unambiguous: we are related, and pretty closely. There is more genetic variance between a mouse and a rat than there is begtween Homo Sapiens and Pan Troglodytes.

There is nothing about evolution or science more generally that prohibits a belief in God; many practicing scientists are in fact devout Christians. Kenneth Brown (author of "Finding Darwin's God") is a practicing Catholic, but there are other examples. There's no need to feel that an understanding of evolution somehow negates or disproves religious belief.

That's Kenneth Miller, not Kenneth Brown.

What President Bush said in respoinse to the question last week of whether creationism should be allowed to be discussed in schools was the following: "You're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas; the answer is yes. I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought, so people can understand what the debate is about."

Heaven forbid (ironically enough) that in your little world people be allowed to debate ideas in a public school forum. Of course, the question of whether you've been allowed to breed and whether you actually have children in school is not something I'm familiar with, so maybe you're not really affected by this.

Be that as it may, according to the most recent Harris poll, a majority of Americans (55%) agree with the President. They too, think that public schools should present both theories of evolution and creation or intelligent design.

Stick to your guns there, Ace.

Right.

If you were able to show, for example, that horses (which have a nice clear fossil record) had more in common genetically with water cress than, say, cows, evolutionary theory would crash and burn.

Of course, you can't show such a thing; it's complete nonsense. Evolutionary theory predicts that nothing like that can happen, and it is borne out by the facts. Every time.

ID has nothing useful to say on the matter.

Max-

ID has come to the conclusion that there must be a creator only because the other major hypothesis - evolution - does not explain why life exists as we know it.

Nonsense.

The question of "why" has nothing to do with evolution or science. It's one of philosophy, metaphysics or religion. Not science.

ID did not start with the premise that God exists - let's prove it; it started asking questions about the theory of evolution and came up with an alternative explanation

Nonsense again. ID proffers no explanation of any sort. It says "You can't explain how this happened to my satisfaction, so I will claim that magic fairies did it."

That's all it says. It's not an explanation of anything.

Ace, please read a few books on ID - you'll find them very interesting and frankly not in the least 'religious', but in fact totally 'scientific'.

No. I've read some of them, at least in part. Since I am not totally ignorant about biology - which you pretty much have to be to believe in ID - I find them laughably crude attempts at scientific fraud.

Be that as it may, according to the most recent Harris poll, a majority of Americans (55%) agree with the President. They too, think that public schools should present both theories of evolution and creation or intelligent design.

Polls, huh? Who's the political guy at the White House? Yeah, Karl Rove.

Another Rovian plot.

I question the timing. Wait for the other shoe, people.

Pixy, I fear that we waste our time. The ID'ers are following the standard script, to wit: ignore all current science, keep repeating the same arguments over and over, and act as though no one has refuted these arguments even though they have in fact been refuted (to devastating effect) about a thousand times already.

I pray that Ace posts another movie or zombie thread, so we can all be one big happy family again.

One has to be ignorant of biology to believe in God?

Quite the contrary. In every discovery of Science I see God's hand.

Here is a good piece of advice I received once. Never disbelieve what you don't understand.

I've always wondered why the theory of evolution and the belief that God created 'everything' are considered mutually exclusive. Take the Big Bang: At its core, at its most reductive point, there is always the question: Where did that piece of matter that exploded outward, ever-expanding to make up the known universe, come from?

Why is it so far out to think that A Higher Being put it ALL into motion? Maybe that's the Creation: (Insert the deity of your choice here) pushed the Start button and initiated the Big Bang with some leftovers or some cosmic detritus or something, and let it all play out. Geology, evolution, and natural selection all take place here on Earth as part of a process put into motion by (insert the deity of your choice here). Every now and again, said deity throws in the platypus or footprints of men and dinosaurs in the same rock layer or something else to keep us on out toes.

There. It’s all wrapped up with a nice bow. It’s a win-win. Evolutionists get to keep their theories, the ID’ers get to have God (assuming that is their deity of choice, of course) in the middle of it all. Can we go back to making fun of people whose political beliefs differ from ours now?

sparkle:

One has to be ignorant of biology to believe in God?

I have said before that it is entirely possible to be both a conventional Christian and a conventional Darwinist. Many practicing scientists find no dichotomy between faith and science. This non-existent dichotomy is unfortunately propagated in both sides of this debate, and causes many people of faith to reject the science of evolution in spite of the mountain of evidence laid before them.

Does the study of astronomy negate a belief in God? Will a knowledge of relativistic theory somehow cause your faith to disappear? Will your knowledge of geology somehow make your belief system fall into tatters?

But to deny a scientific creed that is as bedrock a principle as evolution is akin to denying the existence of the electromagnetic spectrum or asserting that the world is flat. Evolution is how Nature works. Whether God created it that way is a matter of faith, not science.

Is now an inappropriate time to talk about flying monkeys?
Explain THAT with evolution.
Can't, can you.

-Did I just blow your little mind?

I think your argument has a hole in it. Science does in fact deal with the supernatural. Much of todays science would have (and in many cases was) been considered 'supernatural' 100 or even 50 years ago. In many ways, todays magic is tomorrows science.

Long post, so I know this has been said before but: Science in school, religion at home, or in religion class. What is so hard about that? ID cannot be proved by science, so it does not belong there. ID is a way to take things we don't know and use it as a wedge to insert religious concepts into schooling. No teacher should say that evolution is perfect, but they shouldn't just throw their hands up and say "God did it" either.

At the same time, evolution is often a wedge driven by the atheists to marginilize religion. One does not have to believe in Creatinism to be religious, and I too hate the lefties and libertarian types that sneer at the concept of any higher power. But lets leave science to science and religion to religion. There will always eb things we don't understand, but that doesn't mean that they can't be understood. Evolution is not a threat to a Creator, it is merely our way of trying to understand the universe that he created (if thats they way it is). And remember this:

"If you're doing it right, they won't know you're doing anything at all."

Thanks Jeff. Neither ID nor evolution actually deal with the *original initial origin* of things.

As far as "It's not a question of religion, it's a question of religion pretending to be science", well, evolution is science pretending to be (the lack of) religion. Every time this is brought up the evolutionists look like the frothing snakecharmers and the ID guys look reasonable. Tell me again who the religious zealots *really* are?

Also, Bush's comment was perfectly defensible and on any other topic would be applauded by most people. (Well, if it was said by someone other than Bush). The question was asked to elecit a response like this to set people off. "People should be exposed to different ideas" shouldn't be a big deal.

Rightwingsparkle -

One has to be ignorant of biology to believe in God?

No, not at all. One has to be ignorant of biology to believe in Intelligent Design - the so-called theory - as it has been propounded. It is obvious nonsense to anyone who has a reasonable grounding in biology.

Never disbelieve what you don't understand.

Well, yeah.

"People should be exposed to different ideas" shouldn't be a big deal.

If someone can come up with a scientifically valid alternative to evolution -- i.e., is falsifiable and amenable to the scientific method -- then by all means teach the alternative in science class. But ID/creationism ain't that alternative. It is religion cloaked in pseudoscience and as such has no place in the science classroom.

Ian S.

As far as "It's not a question of religion, it's a question of religion pretending to be science", well, evolution is science pretending to be (the lack of) religion.

Nope.

Evolution is science. The end.

People may use it to attack religion. If the religion in question makes specific pronouncements of fact that are known to be false, that may be valid; otherwise, not.

Monty - well said.

In science, there are no points for trying hard. There are right answers, and there are wrong answers, and there's no arguing with them. What you want or expect or feel should be right is irrelevant; the Universe proceeds with what is.

Whew. Glad I stayed outta THIS one overnight.

Anyway, a few points:
-- Jeff, God could have started it all with a Big Bang. Or perhaps not. We can't see before the beginning of time, so that's not a scientific question, but a metaphysical one.

That's okay, we can have that discussion, and I would venture that both Ace and I (and Monty, and Pixy) all agree that is a defensible, metaphysical position.

-- Without invoking deep discussion of cosmology, there are also theories that obviate the need for a "beginning" to the universe-- the Big Bang being an instance endlessly repeated, or merely the most recent instance of a new universe sprouting off a "multiverse."

But hey, lots of math there, involving "science," so I'm not gonna get into all that here.

-- Evolution has nothing to do with subjective 'progress." It merely *is*. Some evolution "works". Some evolution doesn't. The dead-ends either get discarded over time, or fall by the wayside. The traits that have benefits, or are at best, neutral, get passed along.

A lot of people erroneously believe that humans are the "best" species that could be come with, from an evolutionary standpoint. From a purely adapative standpoint, there's nothing wrong with bacteria, viruses (if they're even "alive"), or even the shark. Dinosaurs spent many more millions of years on Earth than man has to this point, and never developed intelligence to the level of man. In fact, nothing else developed intelligence to our level, which tells me that intelligence isn't all that necessary to evolutionary success.

In fact, given our track record, it might ultimately be a hinderance.

-- Again, few if any evolutionary biologists will argue with a belief in God (okay, Dawkins will, but ignore him for the moment). What they will argue is that you don't need to invoke a God, creator, or designer to explain the mysteries the ID crowd raise. They rely on a God of the gaps, one that does all the hard work that man can't explain. . . today.

Guess what? That same God worked even harder a few millenia ago when people feared evil humours and comets in the sky. He's not so busy today with modern medicine and astronomy.

One would think that genetics would have pushed this God out of the evolutionary gaps as well, but it hasn't happened yet. Obviously.

-- ID'ers ask why evolutionary proponents are so threatened by the teaching of ID in schools. We're not. . . as long as it's not in science class, because it's not a scientific alternative.

As Ace put it much more eloquently than I, evolution is science, even if it is wrong. ID is not science, even if it is right. Value neutral there, and it says nothing at all about the existence of a creator, or a designer, or a Shiva, or a giant Holy Turtle.

You want to believe in God, please, by all means do. It is not bigotry to maintain that God does not have a place in science (nor is it the same to say vice versa). Science can not answer your questions of faith, and neither can faith answer the questions of science.

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

Here's the reasons this whole discussion is futile:

The atheists *CANNOT*, under any circumstance accept the notion of creation or divine intervention in the evolutionary process because its a direct assault on their *BELIEF* system. In other words it attacts their faith that there is no God.

People who believe in the God of the Bible *CANNOT*, under any circumstances accept the notion that God is not somehow involved in creation because it is a direct assault on their *BELIEF* system. In other words it attacks their faith that there is a God.

And for those who claim to believe in the God of the Bible but reject his participation in creation or the evolution process, well, you guys are just makin' stuff up!

So as somebody above mentioned, let's get back to kicking liberal ass because there's a war on!

P.S. I didn't believe in evolution based on the lack of transitional forms. Then I met cedarford. Now, I'm not so sure.

Flying monkeys.

Think about it.

fat kid wrote:
How does Santa Claus fit into all of this?

It's funny you should mention that.

We have an observable event - every Christmas Eve night, millions of children get toys.

The "creationists" for many decades told everyone that a man in a red suit named Santa Claus flew around the world in a magical vehicle to deliver these toys to the good little boys and girls.

Then, some "evolutionists" extensively explored the North Pole, where this man was supposed to live, and found no evidence of him at all. Not a trace. So they declared that there was no Santa Claus.

The "evolutionists" then deduced that since there was no Santa, then the toy delivery on Christmas Eve must be a coincidence - an accident that happens every year on the same night. After all, the smart "evolutionists" observed that many children received additional toys at seemingly random times during the year, so the Christmas Eve event must simply be a coincidental accumulation of this randomness.

Then, there were "designists" who observed the same phenomenon but declared that this Christmas Eve event could not possibly be random. For it to happen each year, they thought, it must be directed by some sort of intelligence.

The "evolutionists" proclaimed the "designists" to be "creationists," since everyone who has half a brain in their head knows that there's no Santa Claus!

And the "creationists" yelled that there was a Santa Claus, because the "designists" said so.

At which point, the "designists" tried reiterating the point that they said neither of these things.

And they all lived pissed off ever after.

BrewFan:

You have obviously ignored every word I've written about how evolution does not conflict in any way with belief in God. Thus adding evidence that ID'ers like to refute their own strawman arguments rather than the ones we evolutionists actually make.

lauraw:

Again with the flying monkeys. If I'd have known you would get this obsessed by them, I'd never have created them in my secret underground lair. Nothing but trouble, and you can just imagine the stink. Plus, those damned monkeys'll bite you.

Science's job is to attempt to falsify the theory of evolution. They make no such attempts. Science is only interested in falsifying anything critical of evolution.

So in a pharmacological sense, science will soon discover that cancer is the cure for cancer.

Also an apology to Ace for the snark last night. It was a long day and I was real annoyed with what I perceived as the subtext to this thread; that Bush is some kind of idiot savant theocrat and was leading us fanatic Christians off the conservative plantation again. I think what he was really saying is that within the context of education lets not arbitrarily take any ideas off of the table. If you want to teach creationism or ID in Philosophy instead of Science, personally, thats A-OK with me.

Ace,
I don't want to wade into these waters here, as far as all the specifics and evolutionists claiming everything about ID has been discredited while not understanding any of the current research (which many ID'ers do to evolution as well). I have the debates often on my own blog.

But I did want to say that part of your argument against ID as science is plain silly. You talk about what would happen to science after ID "reigned," as if science would just stop and no other research would take place.

This ignores the fact that the majority of the founders of the modern scientific fields were, in fact, believers in a Creator God, many were Christians. They viewed scientific exploration of God's creation as part of their God-given responsibility. It didn't stop them from doing science, on the contrary, their faith encouraged them to do even more.

Take the current ID field - there are scores of highly educated, top notch scientists who are working in the field of ID right now (many of whom are not Christians, some are Jews, some are Muslims, some are even agnostic). They don't just twidle their thumbs waiting to debate evolutionists. They are actively involved in scientific exploits in their specific fields, as well as in the field of ID.

People, ignorantly use Galileo or "flat earth" to bash both Creationists and ID'ers (yes they are different) over the head, but it is interesting to note, who is against any challenges to the status quo.

All that being said, I would gladly stand with evolutionists, atheists and whoever else in opposition to liberal policies. We can have this debate (and I think we should), but at the end of the day remember who your friends and allies are. We may disagree on this topic, but the moonbats are the ones we really need to "battle."

Monty, my point was the left loves the "lets include other ideas" as long as it's ideas they like. Bush mentioned discussing it to let poeple know what the debate is about, not to indocrinate the youth to prepare for the coming Theocracy, as the leftists will read it. I don't want ID in the classroom, but I think Bush moved the goalposts answering the question and did an ok job.

"You have obviously ignored every word I've written"

monty,

Don't take it personally, but everything you had to say I've heard before. Lots. You'll also note that I imply that there are many people who believe in evolution that also believe in God. What's your problem?

Can I ask a scientific question here?

I watched part of the the spacewalk and heard leter that the astronaut pulled that piece of filler out.

Are any of the parts on the space shuttle actually attached to each other, or is it more of an orderly pile?

Because it seems to me that the thing is shabby if you can just pull pieces off of it that are held there by nothing but inertia.

Its like throwing a sandwich up in the air isn't it. The wind holds it together on the way up but the way down is tricky. What the Hell is actually holding the thing together?

Again with the sloppiness in terminology.

Evolution is an observable fact. It happens every day. Questioning it is like questioning the sunrise.

*Explaining* evolution is where the "theories" come in. Natural selection is the popular scientific theory, which can be falsified. To date, it hasn't, which means that until something better comes along, it works well enough to explain the evolution we have observed.

If ID wants to compete with that, fine, by all means. How do I test the presence of a designer? Natural selection can be tested in a petrie dish. How do I use ID to predict what will happen in that petrie dish? How do I get to see into the mind of this designer?

One more thing: the theory of natural selection is value neutral. . . like all science. Science can be used as a tool for good or for evil. The determination of what is good and what is evil is the role of philosophy, of ethics, of morality, or religion. That some may have used conclusions they drew from evolutionary theory for evil-- or, in a more mundane fashion, the exclusion of God from the moral sphere-- well, that's their problem, not mine. Science is corrupted all the time, in many fields.

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

So, lauraw, what you're really asking is whether the space shuttle was created or did it evolve? Obviously we can eliminate intelligent design :)

Monty.
Monty, Monty, my sweet corn muffin.
You're evil, and you're a genius, but you're no evil genius. Wait...
whatever.

-Oh, and your 'dogloo' in the backyard is not an 'underground lair.'
Cut it out.

BrewFan:

The atheists *CANNOT*, under any circumstance accept the notion of creation or divine intervention in the evolutionary process because its a direct assault on their *BELIEF* system. In other words it attacts their faith that there is no God.

When you say this, you prove that you haven't understand much of what I've said. You are simply replying to your own strawman argument, which is a favored tactic of ID'ers/creationists. I don't say that to be rude, but there it is. One need not be an atheist to believe in evolution; one need not be an evolutionist to be an atheist. The one does not predicate the other.

My problem with this is the dishonesty: if you are a Christian and think God created everything, fine. Just say so. Just admit that, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, you think that God created everything and leave it at that. Even if you're not a Christian but still think evolution is bogus for some supernatural reason that's not obvious, just say so. But you don't disprove evolution by simply opposing it. Evolutionary science is not rhetoric or philosophy. It relies upon many decades of hard-headed scientific experimentation and observation that cannot simply be wished away.

-Oh, and your 'dogloo' in the backyard is not an 'underground lair.' Cut it out.

Well, it's kind of a lair. A few throw pillows, some curtains, my super-secret mad-scientist gear....

I mean, seriously, Brewfan.

I have a vehicle, its not even a space vehicle, but I can't pull pieces off of it without a crowbar or a sledgehammer or something.

But this space shuttle thing flakes right apart. What the Hell.

lauraw:

Re the shuttle: the tiles aren't really all that tightly-packed on the lander -- you can stick your pinkie finger between some of them. This is because the expand when heated (i.e., entering the atmosphere) and contract in the cold (i.e., in space). There is a material between the tiles that preserves the insulation, and this is part of what is poking out.

Space hardware is a really interesting mix of strength and fragility -- the lunar lander's skin was in some places thinner than tinfoil.

I'm glad somebody gave me a good reply before I hooked those booster rockets up to the Ford.

lauraw:

Oh, so now your stealing my Rocket Propelled Death Car idea? Damn you, woman! It's not all wine and roses being a Somewhat Evil Genius, you know; you can't pay the rent on Flying Monkey rentals alone. The whole killer Laser Satellite idea was a bust, and the Evil Robot Al Gore wasn't quite the success I'd hoped it would be. The Death Car is my last chance for financial solvency, and you're going to ruin it!

Dennis,

I said earlier:
assuming time is infinite and the amount of matter in the universe is finite, this exact moment will repeat itself infinitely.

To expand a bit, if you have a finite amount of matter, there are only so many ways it can be arranged. Given an infinite amount of time, any particular arrangement of that matter will be repeated infinitely.

Sorry, this is a bit off topic now.

monty, I really have no idea what you mean. You say "One need not be an atheist to believe in evolution; one need not be an evolutionist to be an atheist". I agree with that! One small qualification though; if you're an atheist but not an evolutionist then what are you? An ID adherent? I suppose its possible, because the ID could have been carried out by Klingons but I haven't seen that idea discussed seriously so I'm skeptical.

"My problem with this is the dishonesty: if you are a Christian and think God created everything, fine. Just say so. "

Ok. I admit it. You badgered it out of me. Here I was trying to be dishonest but ol' monty flushed me out!

"Just admit that, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, you think that God created everything and leave it at that."

I admit that God created everything (in the context of the doctrine of the First Cause; beyond that, I'm not as certain about things as you are.). Happy now?

Intelligent design doesn't have much to do with religion. The theory just claims that because the world is so complex and seems to make so much sense, there might be some sort of logic behind what is here instead of it just being a random mess. People like to connect "intelligent design" and God because they can't imagine anything other than a "God" having this intelligence, but that's not the case. Intelligent design doesn't say anything about man not evolving from animals, only that there might be some sort of intelligent force behind the whole thing. It takes just as much faith to believe in that as it does to believe in evolution.

Two-fourteen posts. Wow!
Usually attained only
in haiku flame wars.

Dude, you wrote:

"To expand a bit, if you have a finite amount of matter, there are only so many ways it can be arranged. Given an infinite amount of time, any particular arrangement of that matter will be repeated infinitely."

True, but the number isn't infinite-- it's been determined that the universe would repeat itself exactly "only" 10 to the 10 to the 28th light-years away.

Or, if there is quantum separation at work (i.e., every quantum alternative creates a "new" universe), then that copy exists right next to you, in a different universe.

Multiverse theory is pretty whacked, and unfortunately, requires far higher math than I can master to explain properly. Then again, at its highest levels, it can't be explained at all-- not yet, and possibly not ever.

Of course, when we get to the "not ever' part, that's where I prefer to invoke the Almighty ;-).

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

BrewFan:

The point I was trying to make (and which you nicely just affirmed) is that you reject evolution for religious rather than scientific reasons. ID is dishonest because it tries to hide that fact behind a lot of pseudoscientific gibberish.

[I]f you're an atheist but not an evolutionist then what are you?

1. You might think that pan-dimensional aliens have created this Universe (perhaps in a singularity) as an experiment.
2. You might believe that the physical universe actually does not exist per se; that it is a collapsing-wavefront probability wave embedded in a higher-order energy matrix.
3. You might believe, as the Raelians do, that superintelligent aliens "seeded" humans here and tinker with their DNA every so often to keep things on track.
4. You might believe that humans are avatars of higher-order beings -- that the body is simply a vessel for a non-corporeal intelligence which has life independent of the vessel itself. (Scientologists seem to believe this, although it's hard to tell.)

I could go on, but there are lots of atheistic beliefs that have little to no scientific basis at all. Atheism, like religious belief, is not scientific because it cannot be disproved.

Evolution, however, is science because it can be disproved. It's just that no one has disproven it yet (nor are they likely to, given the weight of evidence).

Thanks for the correction, Dave. I'd hate to look like a fool the next time it comes up.

Wait, wait WAIT.

........................

I can RENT flying monkeys?

"The point I was trying to make (and which you nicely just affirmed) is that you reject evolution for religious rather than scientific reasons"

monty,

Please direct my attention to the comment where I rejected evolution. For any reason. I'll be waiting.

BTW, here's a good little intro to multiverse theory, including its problems, from Slate a few years back.

I've always been partial to the Matrix theory: if there are near-infinite number of universes, then it's just as likely that we are in a "constructed" universe than an un-constructed one, i.e. we could all be figments of a computer's imagination. . . or a God's. Although, in this case, "God" would still have been a being that "evolved" the power to create the "universe" we see, but still within a single universe that's part of a larger multiverse.

Got that? Cool.

Man, I love cosmology. Best way to get trippy without droppin' acid.

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

ok. I waited long enough. I didn't say that.

Seriously, monty, you need to get out of 'attack mode'.

Should the idea of God or creator or the nature of life be approached in schools? I think so. And so should relativity theory. And so should grammar. All are very important to the lives we lead in (very different) ways.

But Einstein's theories belong in Physics not in Spanish class. Grammar ought to be taught in English class not Algebra. And "philosophical" questions about the nature of life ought to be discussed in philosophy class not science.

Why is this so hard to figure out?

Sue: I like your analogy. Ho ho ho!

BrewFan:

I'm not in "attack" mode; I'm just responding to things you said. And this whole "I'm just being reasonable" approach doesn't cut it, and is part of what irritates me so much about the ID/creationist cant. I like ya, BrewFan, but you're still playing rhetorical games, and it angries up my blood.

If you agree with evolution, then why all the rodomontade? Why seek for another theory that doesn't explain the universe nearly as well, and doesn't depend so heavily on special pleading?

lauraw:

I only rent my flying monkeys to evil potentates, other mad scientists, and Wicked Witches. (And I'm even reconsidering that policy. The last Wicked Witch never paid the rental fee and I never saw those flying monkeys again.)

Let's be honest, Dave, you don't need any help getting trippy. Good article though.

Joe, one of the contributors to my blog, is both a Christian and an evolutionist. I'll let his words speak on this one:

My personal opinion is that God is the creator, that he created the universe with physical laws and constants that made the evolution of intelligent life possible if not inevitable, that in general science is credible and that its discoveries are genuine (not that they are infallible, but that we are able to explore an honest universe that appears as it actually is), and that the Bible is not intended to tell us about the function of the natural world. I furthermore believe, based on Hebrews 11:3, that we will never know when or whether God has intervened in the process between the Big Bang and us. If it could ever be scientifically proven that God had intervened, then we wouldn't need faith to know he is the Creator (much less that he exists). Indeed my appreciation for God as Creator has grown exponentially since I ditched young-earth creationism, not the other way around.

Read the whole thing here, as I think he makes some good points. The two positions need not be in opposition. The problem, as has been stated in this discussion, is that the debate has become a proxy for the age-old question 'does God exist?"

Personally, I think ID is an attempt to explain creationism using the language of science. As creationism is a supernatural event, and science an observational process, I don't see how the two are compatible. I guess that's where faith comes in.

The last Wicked Witch never paid the rental fee and I never saw those flying monkeys again

Hello?
Have you ever heard of a security deposit?

But, have it your way. You're not the only nearly evil genius holed up around here.
There's a guy down the block says he's got some moth-winged gibbons I can look at. Sounds promising.

"I'm just responding to things you said"

What things? You accuse me of not reading your posts then you keep attacking me on things I didn't say. You cut and paste some of my comments and then go on some rant that has nothing to do with what you cut and pasted!

"And this whole "I'm just being reasonable" approach doesn't cut it,"

Ok, I apologize for being reasonable but I really don't see a purpose to being unreasonable. I have no problem, monty, that you believe in evolution. Really. Its ok with me.

"BrewFan, but you're still playing rhetorical games, and it angries up my blood."

WTF ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!!!! You asked me to state my beliefs and I did. Are you confused by the doctrine of the First Cause and how that relates to evolution? If you want, I'm happy to 'splain it.

Can't we all just get along?

"Are you confused by the doctrine of the First Cause"

Looks like Slublog is taking care of this for us monty. Any questions?

lauraw:

Sure, go to the gibbon guy. See where that gets you. Sure, he's an unreliable alky and his gibbons are disease-riddden stench-bags, but go ahead. He's cheaper, isn't he? No reason to pay mere pennies more for quality flying monkeys who don't have dandruff and lice and who can actually fly. It's not like I have bills to pay or anything. It's not like I have to pay for pallets of Monkey Chow and yearly subscriptions to Modern Ape magazine.

Go ahead! No hard feelings here.

Chump.

BrewFan:

I suspect this is the apropos time to declare a truce and move on. Like many arguments of this kind, much heat and little light is shed to no good purpose. No hard feelings on my part, and I hope none on yours.

No hard feelings monty. I enjoy your comments. They are always intelligent and well thought out. So a truce it will be! Unless I find out you're a Vikings fan, too :)

"blood parasites:

That whole "a theory is not a fact" bullshit has been refuted so many times I'm amazed you have the stones to bring it up again. Surely you have read this post on the Talk.origins website, which explains the issue quite clearly? Seriously; spend some time on the Talk.origins site...and I recommend the same for any other doubters.

Evolution is as much a fact as gravitation -- you seem to have forgotten your elementary science lessons which clearly explain how scientific facts are illuminated by theory. Neo-Darwinist theory illuminates the fact of evolution by natural selection and random mutation.

Evolution is an absolutely bedrock, core principle upon which modern biology rests. We don't know all the details yet, but that evolution is true is beyond any serious scientific doubt. It is a fact, but perhaps not a Fact -- science does not achieve absolute certainty, thus the lower-case "f".

It is an absolute truism that people who claim to disagree with evolutionary theory invariably misunderstand it."

I love how evolutionists must repeatedly, quite dogmatically and obsessively repeat the word "Fact" like they were rattling off a Rosary in church. But evolution is in fact a fact not a religion of non-religion. Right?

It is an absolute truism that people who claim to disagree with evolutionary theory invariably misunderstand it."

There seems to be a bit of this on both sides. Evolution, as it describes changes among species or even the creation of what amounts to a new species is fact, is provable. Evolution as used to expand the above to account for all life on earth, is not.

Monty, these were your words:

I only rent my flying monkeys to evil potentates, other mad scientists, and Wicked Witches.

I assumed you were refusing to rent to me. Now you playing the violin for me?

Look, the other thing was a scam anyway. I went over there and Mr. Fairly-Evil Genius was just this poindexter kid.
And his moth-winged gibbons were like, the size of moths, not gibbons with big huge moth wings. Three itty bitty gibbons floating around in a jar with a stick and a leaf in it.
I said, 'What the Hell am I supposed to do with these tiny things?"
He goes, "Well, they're very mischievous."

I told him to forget it.

Defense Guy:

No less a light than Theodosius Dobzhansky said, "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." This guy was a giant in modern biology and not given to hyperbole. The New Synthesis of Neo-Darwinism provides a framework for all life on earth.

For some interesting background on the interrelationships between species, read up on HOX genes and how they control bilateral symmetry in vertebrates. Absent evolutionary theory, it's hard to imagine how such a gene could come about, or what purpose it would serve were each species (or genus, or family even) "created" ex nihilo.

After reading through every comment posted here, it occurred to me that we wouldn't have to waste time fighting over this if private education was put on equal footing with public education through the use of school vouchers.

I happen to believe in both a higher power and evolution, so this debate doesn't get me as upset as it does some others . If anyone is interested in reading a scientific case for God, I recommend "God, the Evidence". Even if you don't buy in to the author's argument (I found the evidence for life after death experiences to be particularly weak), it's still an interesting and informative read.

lauraw:

I assumed you were refusing to rent to me.

Am I to take it, then, that you are not an evil potentate? When did this happen? Why am I always the last to hear the news?

If I am mistaken and you are indeed still known as the Scourge of the Seven Worlds, Evil Goddess of Endless Sorrow, and the Dark Mistress of Incomprehensible Mystery, then of course you are still welcome at Monty's Flying Monkey Shack. I'll even give you the "World Dominatrix" discount if you act before the weekend. (Monkey Chow is extra.)

* Even the most literalist, Bible-thumping Christian believes that evolution occurs *to some extent*. After all, they believe we all come from Adam and Eve, and there's gotta be something to explain why different regions of the world have people with different skin color, etc.
* Theories which are based on experiments (i.e. gravity) are fundamentally different than ones that are based on or attempt to explain history (evolution, ID, even religion; note how virtually every religion has a section on "how we got here"). The latter attempts to explain how things happened in the past, so different techniques are used to prove it. You can't say "but gravity is only a theory too" to prove evolution. Nor does the sun rising everyday have anything to do with it. Similarly, saying that ID (or religion) is not falsifiable while evolution is, thus evolution is a theory and ID isn't (or is just a "belief" for religion), is a red herring. There are two cases for ID: either you think it has something to do with religion, or you think it doesn't. If you do think ID has something to do with religion, then disproving it is as simple as disproving the religion from which it stems. I assume religions have materials that are falsifiable, like books and cities, no? If you think that ID has nothing to do with religion, then please attack it on its own merits rather than just trying to paint it away with the religion brush.
* Inadvertently, I think TheDude scored one for ID with his Nissan example. Fuel injectors don't happen by accident. People (that is, intelligence) created them, due to seeing that there's a need for one, figuring out how to design one that works, etc.. Once you start using man-made objects (or processes, like dog breeding) to prove evolution, you've subtly started using intelligent selection to try to prove natural selection.
* God being immune or completely separate from science. I think you're wrong on this one, by injecting "natural" as a necessary qualification. Science is, at its core, about observations, and a collection of human knowledge. If God were _proven_ to exist, any details would be added to that collection -- and people who reject that wouldn't be practicing science. I guess I'm picking at the words you chose here, because if God were proven to exist, there must've been some way to make that proof, and that way is the method of "testing" itself (i.e. testing whether or not God exists), in contradiction with what you said in your next paragraph. Presumably, a proof of existence gives enough details for scientific analysis. As a complete aside, I just wanted to bring up an idea: as have been mentioned, being able to describe physical actions (i.e. gravity, electricity, etc.) via equations is not the same thing as explaining their underlying nature. What if their underlying nature is God's forces at work, and we've been observing God the whole time? Just a thought.

Thanks Guy T. :)

There is no Santa Claus, yet the idea of a Santa Claus leads to the same result as if there had been a Santa Claus.

I think Dawkins' concept of a meme is applicable, except Dawkins thought (erroneously, in my opinion) that biological memes are all spontaneously generated.

And to the dogmatic evolutionists here: explain why Francis Crick felt the need to support transpermia in relation to the origins of life on Earth.

Sue,

Oh, hell, Crick isn't even the weirdest scientist when it comes to stuff like that. Scientists are no different than anyone else when it comes to the offbeat.

Velikovsky thought that the planet Venus was shot out of Jupiter as the result of some huge impact. Edwin Hubble stuck with the old "steady state" model even after the redshift experiments proved that the universe was expanding. Lots of geologists thought subduction was nutty clear into the 1970's, until the exploration of the deep sea subduction zones sealed up the case for good. There was one particle physicist (I forget his name) who actually thought he was teleported into another galaxy where he engaged in all kinds of heroic derring-do, rather like John Carter of Mars.

Human fallibility is why it's so important to have peer review in science. It weeks out the quacks and the cranks.

weeks=weeds

me no spell good

Scientific observation has proven the constancy of the speed of light. Much of what physicists now believe about our universe is built around this fact, including the belief that, for an object moving through space at the speed of light, time stands still.

In other words, there is no passage of time at light speed.

If this is true, then it is also true that the conditions are present for the existence of an omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent being - for at the speed of light all things would be possible.

Does this prove the existence of God? No. But it does give new meaning to the utterance "Let there be light." It also causes one to wonder if the idea of God as a being made of light is more than coincidence.

Vanshalar,

You are really taking my anology out of context to make your point. I was talking about "irreducible complexity" and demonstrating that there is a danger to analyzing anything too narrowly. Nobody would argue that there have not been instances of intelligent design, specifically on the part of humans manipulating selection, but to expand that to be a scientific explanation for every (or even most) significant change in species is absurd.

Ixnay on the ourgescay. Cauldron is in dry dock. Gave up that gig for this little packing & shipping place.
Just dabble in evil on the side now, I like to keep up with the trends.

Does Monty's Flying Monkey Shack take Amex?

lauraw:

Amex?!? What kind of bottom-dwelling low-rent budget-rate Flying Monkey Shack do you think I'm running here? Cash on the barrelhead, sweetheart, in low-denomination non-sequentially-numbered bills. Or plutonium nuggets. I have a...project...that requires plutonium. I'll also accept florins, guilders, doubloons, American Double Eagles (pre-1900), Spanish gold pieces of eight (Alfonso X or earlier, please), or pre-Empire Roman gold bars.

A lot of people erroneously believe that humans are the "best" species that could be come with, from an evolutionary standpoint.

I don't know. Those cockroaches are pretty tough little bastards. Much tougher than airborne simians.

Sorry, let me restate myself;

Does Monty's Flying Mondky Sahck take American Express.... as in, the whole fucking company with all souls on board screaming for mercy?

Holy crap what happened to my hand

You really can't say 'flying monkey' too many times. It's unpossible.

ID is falsifiable. Take a non-flagellated bacteria, put it in an environment with an environmental pressure (i.e. a current), and run multiple generations. Does it develop a flagella through random mutations?

This experiment has never been run to my knowledge.

Also, I have never heard a satisfactory explaination how mutations and gene transcription errors can explain significant information creation, which is what is required to turn a starfish into a man.

Ace, franklly, when you discuss ID and set up as a strawman that ID'ers argue from Genesis 1:1, when the works of people like William Dembski and Michael Behe having nothing to do with that, you sound like a fool. Please, read up before you post nonsense.

Monty wrote
Oh, hell, Crick isn't even the weirdest scientist when it comes to stuff like that. Scientists are no different than anyone else when it comes to the offbeat.

[list of irrelevant quacks with quirks, except Hubble, who was simply adhering to the scientific dogma of his day]

Human fallibility is why it's so important to have peer review in science. It wee[d]s out the quacks and the cranks.

So you're calling Francis Crick a quack or crank? You do realize you're talking about the co-discoverer of DNA, right?

You still haven't explained why Crick felt the need to support transpermia as an explanation of the origin of life on Earth.

One would think that a staunch atheist who helped crack the very code of life would have no need of such "quackery" or "crankiness." All he would need to say was something along the lines of "these amino acids bumped together until they began to replicate and form life." But he didn't.

One more thing, Monty. Please point me to a peer reviewed refutation of Crick's transpermia "quackery." If you can't come up with the article text, then the article's title, authors, and the journal in which it was published will suffice.

Joshua,

Um, first of all, I did read up on it a bit. I read the refutations; have you?

I confess I'm not a bear on this latest version of Creationism (and that's what it is). But I knew a bit about the last attempt at this sort of thing, and so I'm afraid I'm a bit skeptical about the new "theories."

Look, long story short, you're claiming you can prove the existence of God based on the speciation of the planet. STOP WITH THE NONSENSE THAT YOU'RE NOT TALKING ABOUT GOD AS THE INTELLIGENT DESIGNER.

There is simply no other candidate for the position of several-billion-year-old infinitely powerful, infinitely omniscent Intelligent Designer, able to toggle off the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle at his whim in order to peer into the far future without all that inherent uncertainty about where one electron might end up (which would spoil things down the road).

So, okay, you're saying you've proved the existence of God, basically. And yet you deem this a "scientific" theory, just as scientific as a theory that does not claim to presuppose or prove the existence of God.

Sorry, again. Once again, it's not science.

It's pop pseudoscience. It's Chariots of the Gods.

I was on a hayride last night and I'm positive the horse pulling the wagon was releasing some flagellated bacteria. Don't know if it was mutated or not. My 5 year old and I thought it was damned funny tho.

You can believe in the Great Watchmaker all you like; again, I think this is a reasonable belief.

But it's not scientific, and ought not be taught in science class, except in the "history of science" bit they put in every chapter, where different theories are mentioned.

Chemistry books mention alchemy, and that's fine. They do not, however, endorse the notion that alchemy is real science.

Wow, all. Step back and read every post. Then go read Koz or DU. Ace readers are damn smart!

ace wrote:
There is simply no other candidate for the position of several-billion-year-old infinitely powerful, infinitely omniscent Intelligent Designer, able to toggle off the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle at his whim in order to peer into the far future without all that inherent uncertainty about where one electron might end up (which would spoil things down the road).

You keep talking about Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. Isn't that a case of a scientific principle that tells scientists that they can't determine a particular thing? In this case, simultaneously the position and momentum of a subatomic particle?

Is this really science? Because if it tells scientists what they cannot determine, it can't be scientific, right?

And you're making a bunch of suppositions up there that have nothing to do with ID. If you can show me where ID states that the intelligence in question must have all of the traits you specify, then I will apologize for challenging you on this. Otherwise, it sounds to me like you haven't read all of the material you claim to have read.

It's pop pseudoscience. It's Chariots of the Gods.

That's that Velikovsky guy that Monty is talking about.

That's me getting snarky up there.

lauraw:

Sorry; I *already* own amex with screaming souls and all. I got it from Milken back in the Drexel days in return for his shriveled raisin of a soul (which I originally won from him in a fixed shuffleboard game). You're gonna have to do better than that. These are some quality flying monkeys, here.

I'll also accept non-cursed Pirate Treasure(tm).

Sue:

I'm not going to re-cap every article from every biology journal that disproves that silly-ass flagellum thing -- a quick check to Talk.Origins will set you straight. If you can't be bothered...meh. Your loss, not mine.

Here's a hint to everyone: if you start hearing crap about "information theory" in a biological context, it's a sure-fire sign you're talking to an ID-head and a devotee of William Dembski (whom some mathematicians have started calling Dumbski for his grade-school mistakes in both math and information theory).

Sorry I'm late to this discussion, but

Ace - Re: Wings
Bats are one of the closest relatives of primates, and so were already in the trees when the dinosaurs went extinct and all the niches were reopened to mammal-kind. Animals in trees tend to fall out all the time, so any little bit of leathery skin to cushion their fall would be a tremendous advantage. We may have all the stages of bat evolution, but we do have their living relatives to look at - including Dermoptera, the flying lemurs - who use their extra skin in exactly this way.

As for birds, yes, it is hard to go from quadrupedal stability to bipedal-short-tailed winged awkwardness directly. But it didn't happen like that. Dinosaurs were already bipedal 100 million years before Archaeopteryx, and it was a huge advantage. Since they had long rod-like tails for balance, bipedalism could allow them to outrun their lumbering protomammal competitors, and free up their hands for other uses (like slashing their prey). The large herbivorous dinosaurs returned to being quadrupedal when they became too large to support their weight on 2 feet (and when it became unnecessary for them to be fast to catch plants - all dinosaurs were originally carnivores). Recent finds in China suggest that these early dinosaurs may have already had feathers that functioned like hair. So by the time we get to the dinosaur-bird boundary, it is possible to have a fringe of longer feathers along their arms that are not wings. Such a fringe could have helped them leap on their prey, or sprint faster, without effecting the stability they have due to their tails. Eventually, some of them take off. Since flying opens up whole new possibilities and is a huge advantage over running, the long tail and bipedal balance on the ground becomes unnecessary. It also probably interfered with controlling their tail feathers for flight (Archaeopteryx was a terrible flier). So the tail is reduced to a nub for tail feather attachment. But the flip side is that they are unstable on the ground.

Well, that was a little long, but it is currect theory. Pterosaurs were probably more like bats in their origin.

The funny thing is that when Monty reads the evidence and theories at talk.origins he seems to come to the conclusion that these are things that help to disprove the existence of G-d in favor of random chance and evolution. When I do, which I do frequently, I find the science so beautiful as to actually point, possibly, to a very gifted craftsmen. I suppose I don't need to believe that both creationism and evolution can't co-exist in this world.

Monty, thanks for the link, if I am wrong about what I stated about you, please don't take it personally. The link was fantastic, but like many other attempts it lacks the causality to prove anything. Speculation, even when dressed in science, is still speculation.

That's the craziest thing I've ever read.
Doesn't even mention Franklin's groundbreaking Monkeywing Theory at all. Lemurs, you say? Paugh!

Lollia= HACK

Sue:

I was probably over-harsh in my last response. My irritation is more grounded in the flagellum topic than in you personally; it's just that this particular dead horse has been beaten (and beaten, and beaten) so many times that it's frustrating to have to go through the whole thing again like it's a whole new topic. ID'ers and creationists would do themselves a huge favor if they'd just catch up on the current literature in evolutionary biology and genetics. Most ID arguments are ten and twenty years out of date, and were never that strong to begin with.

I regret the tone of the post, if not the substance; my apologies.

"I did read up on it {[ID] a bit." - ace the shut-in rent-controlled rum + seven-up and Fleischman's gin-guzzuling fundie basher

Name, title and ISBN of the book(s) you read please :) . Because it sounds to me like the 'bit' you read on ID was maximum 2 words. And it sounds like you were hung over when you read them.

LauraW -

I'm sorry if I missed anything, the transition to land is more my area.

Thank you Monty. It's a good thing that Ace's server blew out my last comment. :) For awhile there I thought I had been banned.

Back to the topic, though.

I'm not sure if you've answered my question. Why did Francis Crick support transpermia as an explanation for the origins of life on Earth, when the pioneering work he did supposedly provided all of the explanation needed for it?

By the way, I've read a good portion of talkorigins, and when I got to the part that traced the evolution of reptiles to mammals and saw them extrapolate an entire creature from one tooth, I clicked out.

Lollia, I'm just spending my day pointlessly heckling and saying the words 'flying monkey' as often as possible.

I am late to the discussion, as well, and will only be repeating what others have said more clearly.

The existence of God cannot be proved - it has no basis in science. A belief in God requires that someone have faith in his/her/its existence. That's the basis for all religions. That's the test for those who believe. Without faith, God doesn't exist because we can't prove God's existence. By asking science teachers to teach ID, your asking them to teach faith and that is not science, nor is it teachable. Furthermore, once science, identifies and quantifies something, it no longer requires faith - it no longer is attributable to God.

We have so many examples of things which were initially thought to be a result of a higher being that science was able to show was really a result of our physical environment. Ace's example of lightning being created by Thor is as good as any.

Faith is personal, just as everyone's idea of what "God" is is personal, and has no place in a science classroom.

LauraW -

Ah, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that! :P

(just include a /sarcasm tag or something)

Sue, the term is panspermia (or exogenesis) and it's been around in various forms for about a century now. Fred H o yle and Chandra Wickramasingh first promulgated the "serious" version, if I remember right, but the modern genetic revolution has made any but the very earliest scenarios of panspermia very unlikely.

The most common panspermia concept I've heard of so far that has any empirical basis has to do with cometary impacts on a very early Earth bringing amino acids and other complex molecules to the earth's surface, and consequently "kicking off" the evolutionary chain-reaction. But it's just as likely that the planetesimals that made up the earth originally already had the amino acids and other complex molecules in them.

There is no evidence at all that higher orders of life -- nothing as complicated as even single celled animals or bacteria -- formed anywhere other than right here on earth.

Is this really science? Because if it tells scientists what they cannot determine, it can't be scientific, right?

Of course it's science. The proved that both position and momentum cannot be determined. It doesn't matter that it's proof of a "negative".

These debates never go anywhere because the two sides are debating different things.
The evolutionists always want to argue over whether non-scientists should even dare have an opinion on the subject of evolution. They always want to argue on a social plane, as in:

“All the smart people agree with me, so you should agree with me, too.”

“The people who disagree with me are bad people. They’re liars and fundamentalist Christians. You don’t want to associate with them, do you?”

“You shouldn’t dare having your own opinion on this topic until you’ve read every word that’s ever been written on it. Otherwise you might embarrass yourself.”

“So that’s what you think? Well, here’s a link to somebody who holds the opposite view. So you should just surrender right now.”

“Your view is just wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Only stupid people believe that.”

“We’ve defined your view with insulting words. So you should change your view to avoid the insults that we’ve tried to build into the debate’s vocabulary.”

None of these arguments is based in any way on the truth of evolution. In fact, you can make all of these arguments in support of any proposition—so long as you have the right social situation. These were the same sorts of arguments that I always heard in favor of liberalism as an undergraduate: Nobody ever wanted to argue for liberalism on its own merits. Instead, they always argued for the social benefits of being a liberal—and the social penalty for being a conservative.

Those opposing evolution are a much more varied group. Some are religiously motivated, but many are not. Some focus on Behe’s arguments about the uselessness of intermediate stages in slow evolution. Some like Dembski’s ideas about detecting design as a matter of probability. Only one other person in this thread mentioned the objection to evolution that seems most obvious to me: Regardless of the selection mechanism involved, the time required for randomness to generate useful information in any context quickly approaches infinity.

The evolution skeptics mostly want to talk about their theories and arguments. The evolution defenders mostly want to talk about what bad people the evolution skeptics are. As long as the two sides are talking past each other like that, the debate will spin endlessly and pointlessly.

Those first two paragrahs of my last post were quotes from another poster.

That's great, Monty, but you're still dodging the question. Why are you dodging the question?

As far as the terminology goes, it seems that transpermia is simply a less specific term than panspermia. So excuse me; please substitute the word "panspermia" in every post I have typed "transpermia."

Steve wrote:
Of course it's science. The proved that both position and momentum cannot be determined. It doesn't matter that it's proof of a "negative".

But that's one of the primary arguments used against ID and against irreducible complexity - that it's not science because it tells scientists what they can't determine.

You're in effect now saying that this line of refutation is moot, as long as ID can prove a "negative."

Sue:

What question is there to dodge? Even if complex molecules did come to earth as a result of cometary impacts early in the earth's history, it just means that the amino acids and other complex molecules evolved somewhere else. And I see no evidence in the literature that anyone is seriously claiming that higher order biological organisms were brought to the earth from elsewhere. I've stated before that evolution is how Nature works. It works everywhere, not just on the earth.

The problem with a lot of higher-order panspermia concepts is that they violate Occam's Razor and require a lot of special pleading. All the neo-darwinian sythesis requires is organic molecules, water, and time. All of which earth had in abundance early in its history.

[I]But that's one of the primary arguments used against ID and against irreducible complexity - that it's not science because it tells scientists what they can't determine.

You're in effect now saying that this line of refutation is moot, as long as ID can prove a "negative."[/I]

I don't think I understand what you're trying to say here. I wasn't talking about ID in that post - I was responding to what a previous poster said about the Heidenberg Uncertainty Principle.

Steve, an argument appearing many times in this thread is that ID isn't scientific, and so shouldn't be taught in science classes. This argument from definition relies on a very narrow definition of a scientific theory, which requires prediction. ID doesn't predict anything, therefore it isn't a scientific theory, therefore it shouldn't be taught in science classes. One of your earlier posts here suggested that ID should be taught in philosophy class instead of science class, I assume on this sort of argument.

But as your recent post shows, there are lots of scientific ideas that prove negatives, such as Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. So it's silly to say that ID isn't scientific because it only proves a negative, or that it isn't predictive.

Religion and science do not need to be in conflict. But if some of the religious continue insisting on pushing them into conflict, I'm afraid I'm going to have to side with science.

I'm afraid I'd have to side with most of the time with religion, but then I'm really not sure either way about creation. But it certainly is presumtuous either way to claim that any of us understand the answer to creation. The bible may perhaps be metaphorical, as it is in many places, and narrow minded people who don't have the imagination to believe in things that haven't been proven through science are every bit as steeped in the ignorant mythos of their own religion: narrow minded rationality.

The reason that this shouldn't be taught as science is because it is the exact opposite of science.

Scientific observation includes making an observation on a certain phenomenon and then making a hypothesis to explain that phenomenon. After that, you test the hypothesis and compile evidence that either supports or refutes the hypothesis.

ID presupposes that there is some higher entity. From there, it works backwards to prove that claim or to refute evolution. In the end, there is still no "proof" of an intelligent designer, there is no way to refute that there is an intelligent designer, and without this intelligent designer the whole theory falls to pieces.

You keep talking about Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. Isn't that a case of a scientific principle that tells scientists that they can't determine a particular thing? In this case, simultaneously the position and momentum of a subatomic particle?

Actually, it gives us the limit of precision to which both can be determined. The more precisely we measure one, the less precisely we can measure the other.

And it's testable, and we've tested it, and it's correct.

The atheists *CANNOT*, under any circumstance accept the notion of creation or divine intervention in the evolutionary process because its a direct assault on their *BELIEF* system. In other words it attacts their faith that there is no God.

Sorry, but that's nonsense.

Atheists don't have a belief system. (At least, not necessarily. Some atheists do; some don't.)

They judge by objective evidence.

Objective evidence for divine interference in evolution: None.

Therefor atheists assume that it didn't happen. Doesn't prove anything, of course; it's just a working assumption.

There's no faith involved in atheism at all. Does God exist? Hmm. Don't see one. Let's assume that he doesn't, until we get further evidence.

ID is falsifiable. Take a non-flagellated bacteria, put it in an environment with an environmental pressure (i.e. a current), and run multiple generations. Does it develop a flagella through random mutations?

That doesn't falsify anything. ID makes the claim that those random mutations weren't random.

IDist: See! Flagella! Clearly the work of the Intelligent Designer again!

Can't be falsified. Not science. Also complete bullshit.

But evolution is in fact a fact not a religion of non-religion. Right?

Exactly. Evolution is a fact and a theory. The Theory of Evolution (natural selection acting on genetic variability) is our explanation for the Fact of Evolution (that new species appear).

Do new species appear? Yes. Fact. The Theory of Evolution explains how.

Nothing religious about it at all.

It's just that some people seem incapable of grasping what it actually means.

Science's job is to attempt to falsify the theory of evolution. They make no such attempts. Science is only interested in falsifying anything critical of evolution.

Bullshit.

Every new fossil we find, every genetic study of any animal or plan or microbe, has the potential to falsify the Theory of Evolution.

Instead, every piece of evidence has strengthened the theory. That's not because we're not attempting to falsify it, it's because it's a damn good theory.

"There's no faith involved in atheism at all. Does God exist? Hmm. Don't see one. Let's assume that he doesn't, until we get further evidence."

But that would be agnosticism. Since there is nothing to prove or disprove the existence of a higher power the agnostic would basically refrain from saying one way or the other.

On the other hand, the atheist would say that there absolutely is no higher power - and there is no evidence to support that one way or the other therefore it is faith.

> The problem with a lot of higher-order panspermia concepts is that they violate Occam's Razor and require a lot of special pleading.

Aw raspberries, Monty, I was doing my damnedest to limit my participation to praise of the Santa Claus Paradigm and then you had to throw this in.

If you eliminate panspermia from the picture, then doesn't Occam's Razor come down pretty heavily on the side of ID'ers?

It seems to me that the only way one could argue that it doesn't -- i.e., that a construction surpassing the highest achievements of human mechanics is the cumulative effect of trillions of improbable events, as opposed to the possibility that there is some intelligence that shapes and perhaps even precedes matter (and which does not necessarily have a white beard or any of the trappings of a Sistine Chapel painting) -- is tantamount to an explicit assertion that intelligence can only be the product of purely material processes.

To put it more briefly: random chance is only the cleaner shave if one assumes up front that intelligence must be a by-product of matter.

But that would be agnosticism. Since there is nothing to prove or disprove the existence of a higher power the agnostic would basically refrain from saying one way or the other.

No, that's wrong.

Agnosticism is a statement about knowledge. Agnosticism says we cannot know whether God exists.

Atheism is a statement of belief. An atheist has no belief in God. An atheist doesn't need to claim that there is no higher power - just that they see no evidence for one.

Some atheists do make the claim as you said, but that's not central to atheism. Atheism itself is simply the lack of a belief system.

Guy T:

Abiogenesis doesn't need to happen by random chance. There are rules to chemistry; pathways that a far more likely than others. And there are relatively simple molecules that can self-replicate.

We don't know yet exactly how abiogenesis could happen, but the statistics commonly quoted against it are bunk.

As for intelligence being a by-product of matter: This is true of every observed instance, so it's a pretty solid theory.

"Atheism is a statement of belief. An atheist has no belief in God."

But my point is that this is a statement of faith. Just as I cannot prove to an atheist that there IS a God, an atheist cannot prove to me that there is NOT a God. Both sides are basing their beliefs not on evidence but on their own faith in their supposition about the existence of God.

Ace,
Scientists throughout the history of science have had no trouble attributing things to God. The prusuit of knowledge has been on balance pushed forward by religious people. would suggest that *if* incontrovertible evidence of God's hand in something were to emerge, that most scientists would have little trouble making that attribution. That said, I do agree that ID, as such, is not science and should not be taught. However, anyone who does believe in God does in fact believe at some level in ID. It is the imbalance in the public square and in public school which has led to God being censored from open discussion that has encouraged extremists to dominate the talk about the religious-science interface. Creationists who promote the myths of Genesis as science have confused the issue rather badly.

But my point is that this is a statement of faith.

It's nothing of the sort.

Just as I cannot prove to an atheist that there IS a God, an atheist cannot prove to me that there is NOT a God.

Of course an atheist can't prove there's no God. All he can point out is the lack of objective evidence.

Both sides are basing their beliefs not on evidence but on their own faith in their supposition about the existence of God.

You're not paying attention.

An atheist doesn't have a belief system. Doesn't believe there is a God. Doesn't believe there isn't a God.

All that atheism implies is the lack of belief in God. No positive belief - no belief in the non-existence of God - is required. Because there's no objective evidence for that either.

Some atheists do actively believe there is no God, but that is not required of the definition. That's extra.

But if, as you claim, atheism is by definition the lack of a belief system, how is that different that agnosticism (the idea that we cannot know whether there is a God)? It's not that I'm not paying attention, it's that you're defining two things the same way and claiming that they are different.

> We don't know yet exactly how abiogenesis could happen, but the statistics commonly quoted against it are bunk.

I don't know the statistics that are commonly quoted, but no matter how you slice it (Occam's Razor, get it? Ah ha ha ha!) there's a whole lotta random goin' on in evolution. Whereas the ID argument can succinctly be expressed as "Hmm, that's pretty cleverly put together."

I'm certainly not trying to argue that Occam's Razor is the end-all of tests of verity -- just that, to the extent one relies on it, I can't see how it wouldn't favor design by a landslide.

> As for intelligence being a by-product of matter: This is true of every observed instance, so it's a pretty solid theory.

I think you've just expressed a General Theory of Science there! Matter observed == solid. Genius!

(Heh, I apologize in advance if I sound catty. To my ever-increasing chagrin I have a hard time resisting the kind of jokes that only amuse myself.)

You keep talking about Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. Isn't that a case of a scientific principle that tells scientists that they can't determine a particular thing? In this case, simultaneously the position and momentum of a subatomic particle?

Yes. You can't determine this, even in theory, not because our measuring devices are so crude, but because at a subatomic level these things are not determined UNTIL you take the measurement.

There is "fuzziness" at this scale. An electron may be here, it may be there. It exists not in a specific location but as a probability cloud of possible locations.

Only a being with the power to toggle off this law of the universe (and it is a law, well settled, well proven) could possibly be able to plan billions of years ahead without error.

Is this really science? Because if it tells scientists what they cannot determine, it can't be scientific, right?

Yes, it's really science. It's been proven too many times to even bother arguing about.

It's a fact.

This is what begins to bother me in these discussions: the neo-creationalists claim that their theories aren't incompatible with known, proven facts of science, but when a fact is introduced that calls into question their beliefs, they just say, "Oh, what do scientists really know about the Uncertainty Principle anyway?"

It's this tendency to simply toss into the bin any inconvenient science that makes me suspect you're not arguing science, you're arguing faith.

But if, as you claim, atheism is by definition the lack of a belief system, how is that different that agnosticism (the idea that we cannot know whether there is a God)? It's not that I'm not paying attention, it's that you're defining two things the same way and claiming that they are different.

No, I'm defining two things differently and you're claiming they're the same.

Atheism is the lack of belief in the existence of God.

Agnosticism is the claim that the truth of God's existence cannot be known.

That's about as clearly as I can state it.

I mean, I know ID isn't the old Young Earth/Literal Creationalism theory, but similar stuff went on there.

Oh, carbon dating (a provable method of dating anything containing carbon, like fossils) says the earth is older than 6000 years? Well then, all the established science regarding the decay of the carbon 14 isotope will just have to be junked. After all, it's not THAT accurate, right?

"Atheism is the lack of belief in the existence of God."

But how can this imply anything other than "I believe there is no God"?

If you lack the belief in the existence of God, how is that any different than believing that there is no God?

I don't know the statistics that are commonly quoted, but no matter how you slice it (Occam's Razor, get it? Ah ha ha ha!) there's a whole lotta random goin' on in evolution.

Genetic variability is random. Natural selection is NOT random.

Whereas the ID argument can succinctly be expressed as "Hmm, that's pretty cleverly put together."

Which is clearly not a scientific theory of any sort.

Actually, what ID says is "You can't prove this evolved naturally, so magic fairies did it."

I'm certainly not trying to argue that Occam's Razor is the end-all of tests of verity -- just that, to the extent one relies on it, I can't see how it wouldn't favor design by a landslide.

Let's take the eye. The vertebrate eye is wired INSIDE OUT! The blood vessels and nerves are on the wrong side, and get in the way of your vision.

The octopus eye is very similar overall, but wired the right way.

And there are an infinite number of variations, from light-sensitive patches of flatworms to pinhole cameras to the compound eyes of insects.

Looks a hell of a lot like trial and error to me.

Steve: "ID presupposes that there is some higher entity. From there, it works backwards to prove that claim or to refute evolution."

No, it doesn't. Before you announce that it's unscientific, you should find out what it is.

This is as silly as Ace declaring that all IDers are just devious religious nutcases cleverly hiding behind a veil of mumbo-jumbo. Is he a psychic?

If you want a general starting premise for ID, it’s that randomness means something. It’s not just a black box or a cloud of fog. The rubber meets the road where evolution claims that random mutations in genes, combined with some selection mechanism, can over time turn one species into another. The IDer asks: What are the chances? What are the chances that a given mutation will produce a useful gene? Given rates of reproduction and mutation, how long would it take for successive mutations to produce the big changes from one species to the next?

What’s so crazy about that question? How does asking that question make someone a religious fanatic?

From an information theory perspective, evolution presents a truly staggering claim: that random forces can produce the quantity of information in the DNA of higher-order organisms within a few billion years. (Or really, just a couple hundred million.) But if you put pencil to paper, it’s very difficult to see how that quantity of information could arise through random forces in that amount of time. And it hardly matters how the selection mechanism works. The problem is in generating something for the selection mechanism to select.

Evolution theory blithely assumes a kind of information generation that no one can duplicate in any other information system. Try generating random pixels on a screen and see how long it’ll take before they produce something recognizeable. Try generating random letter sequences and see how long it’ll take before it produces a grammatical English sentence. And I don’t just mean think about calculating it. Start-> Programs-> Accessories-> Calculator. C’mon, you can do it! Take a chance! Or calculate a chance, to be more precise. How many possible sequences for a couple dozen letters? How many possible pixel patterns on a 640x480 screen? And how many combinations of three billion base pairs on the human genome?

Or if you don’t think that’s fair, how about something that won’t choke your Windows calculator? Try the number of combinations for a single gene of 4000 base pairs. If we try a billion mutations every tenth of a second, it’ll take 5x10^2390 years to produce that one gene. If those mutations continue at a billion per tenth of a second for the entire age of the Earth (let’s say five billion years, just to be generous), then the chance of that one gene appearing is about one in 1x10^2381.

Now maybe there’s some deep flaw in this argument. Maybe my numbers are off. Maybe there is some deep principle of generating information through random forces that we’ll discover next year that’ll fix all these numbers.

But in the meantime, does it really make me a slavering religious lunatic to simply ask: What are the chances?

If you lack the belief in the existence of God, how is that any different than believing that there is no God?

Completely.

An atheist has no belief in God. He has no objective evidence for God, so no belief.

An atheist has no belief in the non-existence of God. He has no objective evidence for that either.

An atheist has NO BELIEFS ABOUT GOD AT ALL.

(Again, excepting certain individual atheists.)

This is as silly as Ace declaring that all IDers are just devious religious nutcases cleverly hiding behind a veil of mumbo-jumbo.

I declared no such thing. I said you're arguing a "theory" that presupposes and (inavoidably) proves the existence of God, and that you continue to be cagey about admitting that, and that this is, yes, a "faith-based" theory that has no business in the science room.

It is pseudoscience. The same sort of case could be made for ESP, using selective and incorrect readings of literature about brainwaves.

Ben Bateman:

First, learn something about information theory before you start spouting off about it.

Second, EVOLUTION ISN'T RANDOM. Genetic variability is random. Natuarl selection is NOT.

This is as silly as Ace declaring that all IDers are just devious religious nutcases cleverly hiding behind a veil of mumbo-jumbo.

No, there's a second category: Those who have been gulled by the first.

But if you say, "I have no beliefs about the existence of God" how can that be different than saying "I cannot know whether or not God exists"? What other reasons would you not have a belief on an issue other than that you cannot know the "truth" no matter what position you take?

It seems rash to say ID = supernatural unless all intelligence is supernatural. Just as God (or Thor) doesn't have to exist for Darwin to be wrong, God (or Thor) is not required for the existence of a creative intelligence. Maybe it was the Kree. Or the Klingons. Or any of the Hollywood aliens who periodically show up to "harvest" us. Doesn't matter. ID just says it appears from the evidence that there were deliberate interventions in the development of life on Earth. Another planet may or may not have another story.

Most of this debate looks like intelligent and well meaning people tripping over loaded buzzwords. If Darwin was wrong, it doesn't mean the Spanish Inquisition takes over as a logical next step, magic reigns or ID is right. If ID theory is wrong, it doesn't mean God doesn't exist or that Darwin is on any stronger footing.

Personally, I struggle with macroevolution's account of the development of complex systems and I'm skeptical that life would so easily produce new species (taking into account the periodic cataclysms that screwed up the work of those magical "billions and billions of years") without such flexibility being observable in nature today. Then again, microevolution seems observable and sound.

ID represents an explanation somewhat superior to macroevolution in that it is at least consistent with the evidence. And I don't think it is necessarily unscientific to observe the evidence in a room and conclude someone had been there before you. But the superior explanation is not necessarily the right one. If we come up with a theory that trims the number of required entities, Occam's Razor takes over. Even though all of these explanations may be wrong.

Science is not really about truth, and this gets some of us into trouble. It's about workable and predictive theories. Storytelling for geeks. Maybe the story is false; that's OK. It only has to be reproducible in its workings and consistent with the evidence. Macroevolution doesn't do that. ID may. Something else may do better. Most of us should be able to live with that.

Monty wrote:
What question is there to dodge?

[snipped]

The problem with a lot of higher-order panspermia concepts is that they violate Occam's Razor and require a lot of special pleading. All the neo-darwinian sythesis requires is organic molecules, water, and time. All of which earth had in abundance early in its history.

I will ask this question for at least the fourth time, and I will still not get a proper answer from you, because your ego will not allow you to use three simple words.

HERE IS THE QUESTION:

Why did Francis Crick feel the need to support panspermia as an explanation of the origin of life on Earth?

Please note I did not ask what panspermia was, or why it was wrong.

When you explain in minute detail why panspermia is not necessary to explain the origins of life on Earth, you are not arguing with me. You are arguing with the beliefs of Francis Crick.

Francis Crick, along with James Watson, discovered the very bedrock upon which neo-Darwinism is founded - DNA. Yet, he didn't feel it was sufficient to explain abiogenesis. Why is that?

Ace wrote:
Yes, it's [Uncertainty Principle] really science. It's been proven too many times to even bother arguing about.

It's a fact.

This is what begins to bother me in these discussions: the neo-creationalists claim that their theories aren't incompatible with known, proven facts of science, but when a fact is introduced that calls into question their beliefs, they just say, "Oh, what do scientists really know about the Uncertainty Principle anyway?"

You misunderstood me. I am not questioning the science of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. You are absolutely correct; it is a fact and it is science.

What I was attempting to illustrate was that it's unsound to call something unscientific because "it tells scientists what they can't do." This is one of the excuses I've seen in this thread for blithely dismissing ID, and it's not a valid one.

Ben,

I'm not debating your argument at all. It is exactly what I believe - that the universe, in all of its splendor, could not be the product simply of an explosion of a speck of dust billions and billions of years ago. I believe that every scientific discovery was put into motion by God.

However, that does not make it science. You're arguing something philosphically not scientifically.

I don't think I can say any better than Ace did in his original post. Even if we were to somehow gain insight into the universe and found that yes, undoubtedly, God exists and shapes our world, that still would not make ID science. We couldn't test God. We couldn't find out more about the nature of God. We would hit a wall because out natural laws and theories break down and there could be no further inquiry into the subject.

Don't get the idea that I think you are some sort of frothing religious nut for your belief in a Creator - far from it. But you propose injecting into science the idea that something that cannot be tested is a fact. We would just say " well we don't know how or why this happens, so let's just say it's God kids rather than continue to rationally and scientifically try to approach this." It just isn't science and I don't know what else to say about it.

Sue,

There was an astronomer who once said "If I knew the position and momentum of every particle in the universe I could work backwards to construct the entire history of the cosmos."

But that's impossible. Not impossible on a just a practical level, but impossible on even a theoretical level. You cannot know where the atoms and electrons really are. You cannot trace them backwards; you cannot predict them moving forwards, at least perfectly. You're always subject to the vagaries of the HUP.

This is a physical law.

The only sort of being capable of avoiding this law would be one of such, ahem, GODlike power as to be able to dismiss this pesky law at his will.

Ergo, such long-range planning -- "And in the ten-billionth year the carbon molecules raining down from the solar nuclear furnace that shall be called 'the Sun' shall self-assemble into proteins and being the long process of becoming life" -- is impossible, unless one presupposes a Godlike level of magic capable of violating this fundamental law.

Now, if you believe in God, of course you believe he has that power. He can do, well, anything. He created the laws of the universe, and presumably he can suspend, modify, or just ignore them at will.

But, again, that's magic, and it's by definition not science.

It's a perfectly reasonable belief. I do not think it's a "dumb" belief. I think smart people can believe such a thing. I'm not sure I disagree with it myself.

But it's not science. It may be a reasonable belief, but anything involving magic sure the hell is not a scientific belief.

Ace, why do you assume that the design had to be done at the very beginning of the universe?

Why do you assume it had to be one and only one entity that did the designing?

ID says none of this. Why do you assume it does?

> Genetic variability is random. Natural selection is NOT random.

So, it's guided?

Let's say, then, it's an emergent property of interactions between processes in which there is some amount of randomness and no amount of intelligence, that arrives at an end result whose sophistication dwarfs anything produced by known intelligences. Maybe so... but it still doesn't pass Occam's Razor. Again, I am not saying Occam's Razor is the only or even the best criterion of scientific truth; but I am saying that, if evolutionary theory is correct, it seems like a sterling example of when Occam's Razor is not a guide to truth.

> Actually, what ID says is "You can't prove this evolved naturally, so magic fairies did it."

I've seen a fair amount of emphasis on "you can't prove this evolved naturally," not so much on "magic fairies did it." But then I am only a layman.

> Looks a hell of a lot like trial and error to me.

Yes, to me too.

Ace and everyone,

Fascinating discussion. If Bush had actually said he believes Intelligent Design should be taught in science class, I might agree with all this uproar here.

Unfortunately for this thread, he didn't say that and again the MSM has twisted his words.

Transcript follows:

"Q I wanted to ask you about the -- what seems to be a growing debate over evolution versus intelligent design. What are your personal views on that, and do you think both should be taught in public schools?

THE PRESIDENT: I think -- as I said, harking back to my days as my governor -- both you and Herman are doing a fine job of dragging me back to the past. (Laughter.) Then, I said that, first of all, that decision should be made to local school districts, but I felt like both sides ought to be properly taught.

Q Both sides should be properly taught?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, people -- so people can understand what the debate is about.

Q So the answer accepts the validity of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution?

THE PRESIDENT: I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought, and I'm not suggesting -- you're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, and the answer is yes."

Now how do you get "I think Intelligent Design should be taught in public school science classes" from that???

(crickets chirp)

Subsunk

Subsunk,

DOH! Snookered by the MSM again. Good post.

“The age of the earth is now established beyond any reasonable doubt as very great, yet in the United States millions of Fundamentalists still stoutly defend the naive view that it is relatively short, an opinion deduced from reading the Christian Bible too literally. They also usually deny that animals and plants have evolved and changed radically over such long periods, although this is equally well established. This gives one little confidence that what they have to say about the process of natural selection is likely to be unbiased, since their views are predetermined by a slavish adherence to religious dogmas.” —- Francis Crick (The Astonishing Hypothesis (1994), p. 261-2)

Francis Crick may have discovered the structure of DNA, but that was 50 years ago. His other scientific hypotheses have not been supported, and so have been discarded by most of the scientific community. Just because a man makes one important discovery, does not mean that all conclusions he drew from it must be supported if there is evidence to the contrary. He did not perform the countless experiments in abiogenesis based on DNA that followed. We have make replicating viruses in the lab with nothing more that floating bases, we have made amino acids from water/methane soup. Remember, abiogenesis only happened once as far as we know or are concerned (since everything has a common ancestor, and later enzymes or acids forming would probably have been eaten by something). So even if it is a longshot, it becomes likely it will happen at some point. It only took nearly a billion years this time, in other conditions it may take a shorter period, or a longer one. Fatty acid membranes form themselves, DNA self-replicates, so does RNA. And in any environment where molecules were hot enough to rearrange themselves, all these things were probably happening at once. These are just Carbon, Oxygen, and Hydrogen atoms when you get down to it, reacting in any way they can, especially when other elements are involved.

Crick's hypothesis was based on the scientific information from decades ago. But science moves forward. Remember, back at the turn of the century people could win the Noble Prize in Medicine for trying to treat Yellow Fever. Now you basically have to make a huge discovery at the atomic level or cure cancer.

Also, RNA probably came before DNA, something which Crick agreed with after his panspermia suggestion.

But if you say, "I have no beliefs about the existence of God" how can that be different than saying "I cannot know whether or not God exists"?

Atheism is an absence of belief, based on the absence of objective evidence.

It makes no claim as to whether evidence exists or not, jsut that we haven't found any.

Agnosticism makes the claim that there is (and can be) no objective evidence.

You can be an agnostic believer. If you say, for example, that belief is a matter of personal faith, not of objective proof, that objective proof can never be found - and you believe in God - then you are an agnostic theist.

What other reasons would you not have a belief on an issue other than that you cannot know the "truth" no matter what position you take?

Because you presently have no evidence. Why would you have a belief when you have no evidence?

(Atheists clearly use a different evidentiary standard to theists here, but that's fine as long as we are clear that that's what is going on.)

Then again, microevolution seems observable and sound.

There is no difference between microevolution and macroevolution.

Macroevolution is just lots of microevolution.

Then we come along after the fact and divide things up into species. Sometimes the divisions are clear, because intermediary critters have gone extinct for whatever reason. Sometimes the divisions are more-or-less arbitrary.

But it's always the case that species are defined afterwards.

> Genetic variability is random. Natural selection is NOT random.

So, it's guided?

NO.

No, it isn't guided. Natural selection is directionless.

It's SELECTIVE. That means it's NOT RANDOM.

Let's say, then, it's an emergent property of interactions between processes in which there is some amount of randomness and no amount of intelligence, that arrives at an end result whose sophistication dwarfs anything produced by known intelligences.

No. Let's not say that, because it's nonsense.

I've seen a fair amount of emphasis on "you can't prove this evolved naturally," not so much on "magic fairies did it." But then I am only a layman.

Yes, they try to de-emphasize the magic fairies, but that is what it's all about.

If you say that it can't have evolved naturally, then something did it. There is no evidence, anywhere, for the existence of anything that could have interfered with evolution.

IDists protest that ID is not just Creationism in fancy clothes. They're lying, but if we take them at their word, then what they are saying is magic fairies did it.

> Looks a hell of a lot like trial and error to me.

Yes, to me too.

Then why the claim that design was involved?

Do you know about the Ediacaran fauna? They were the first large animals, at least, the first that show up in the fossil record.

They had no stomachs. Indeed, they had no insides at all. They absorbed nutrients and expelled waste through their skins, just like single-celled creatures. Since this is terribly inefficient for larger creatures, they had evolved fantastically weird and complicated shapes to get the surface area they needed to live.

They disappeared about 600 million years ago, around the time that stomachs evolved.

This looks like blind forces of nature to me; I see no evidence of a designer anywhere.

Subsunk -

Science isn't about exposing people to different schools of thought.

Science is about discarding wrong answers.

When it comes to science, the whole "different schools of thought" agenda is pure baloney.

> No. Let's not say that, because it's nonsense.

So, it isn't random; it isn't guided by intelligence; it doesn't rely on emergent properties; but it's selective.

Magic fairies it is, then.

What about an avacado pit?

That thing is HUGE. I mean, seriously.

what's up with that?

Axolotl wrote:
“The age of the earth is now established beyond any reasonable doubt as very great

[blah blah blah]

Francis Crick (The Astonishing Hypothesis (1994), p. 261-2)

Thanks for taking oodles of bandwidth to say what I stated before in a mere sentence fragment - that Crick was a staunch atheist.

That doesn't explain why he felt the need to embrace panspermia. If anything, it multiplies the mystery. If he believed that natural processes could do it all, why did he feel the need to shift the processes to an extraterrestrial origin?

We have make replicating viruses in the lab with nothing more that floating bases, we have made amino acids from water/methane soup.

I assume you are referring to the Miller-Urey experiment in the latter half of your sentence, which did not properly simulate prebiotic conditions on Earth.
As for the first half, about "manufacturing" viruses, that is very intriguing. Could you post some source links, please? Notice I'm not dismissing this out of hand; it's just that I haven't heard of this before.

However, neither of these things answers my question:

Why did Crick feel that panspermia was the best explanation for the origins of life on Earth?

You and Monty have written lengthy dissertations on what panspermia is and why it's wrong and why Crick was wrong. I think it's probably wrong as well. But no one here has explained why Crick was so enamored of panspermia in the first place.

Is it that you don't know? If so, why not just come out and say, "I don't know?"

Guy T -

So, it isn't random; it isn't guided by intelligence; it doesn't rely on emergent properties; but it's selective.

Correct.

Magic fairies it is, then.

Do you know NOTHING about evolution? Seriously?

That doesn't explain why he felt the need to embrace panspermia. If anything, it multiplies the mystery. If he believed that natural processes could do it all, why did he feel the need to shift the processes to an extraterrestrial origin?

Because he was a crank?

One scientific breakthrough doesn't confer immunity to nutty ideas.

Dave.
You're heckling.
Heckling's bad.
I disapprove.
Don't let me warn you again.
Oh, by the by-

FLYIN MONKEEEEEES

Guy T -

To elaborate:

Natural selection.

You have a bunch of sheep. Some are faster than others, due to genetic variability. (They have longer legs or stronger muscles or bigger hearts or whatever.)

The faster sheep are less likely to be eaten by wolves. That doesn't matter at all if there are no wolves in the area, but if there are wolves about, then speed will be selected for.

If the main problem is competition for food, some other properties will be selected for - longer necks, better digestion, something like that. Whatever gives you a better chance to survive and have offpspring, to pass on your genes.

It doesn't have a direction. It's not guided. And it's not random.

Pixy, Crick's work was in direct relation to the question of abiogenesis. The whole point of discovering the structure of DNA was to explain how life could have arisen from non-life.

By calling Crick a crank on this matter, you risk calling him incompetent in the very field he helped to pioneer.

Is it safe to say you don't know why either, Pixy?

I am not heckling, I am forwarding a theory.

Inattentive Design.

Ok, like, the nose. Why in the world would you put a nasty, drippy thing like that upside-down over your mouth?

Sue -

No, I don't know what his thought process was. I don't know why anyone thinks the way they do. That was Crick's personal conclusion. You made the point that becuase Crick discovered DNA, that his word should be infallible when it comes to everything else. I, and most scientists, think he was wrong. Individual scientists can be wrong, and they can believe in things that others dont, just like any Human. Scientists can disagree, and that is how you get competing hypotheses. Eventually one will win out due to consensus. Crick's theory doesn't have the evidence or consensus to back it up. Plus, he based his conclusions on the science of decades ago, when things are moving ever faster and experiments have been performed that support abiogenesis.

But your point was that because he discovered DNA, he automatically knew all its secrets, which is not true either. He discovered structure. Other scientists discovered the codes for amino acids, and how RNA reads DNA. So he didn't know all the secrets of the molecules.

I will have to find the cite for the virus experiment. I think it was in Dawkins' "The Ancestor's Tale"

Thanks, Pixy, that was the point I was trying to make with way too many words!

Well that was fun, but I've got to go to bed now. This thread's too damned long for me to check for a proper answer to my question tomorrow, so let me know in the next creation vs. evolution vs. intelligent design vs. pretentious oozer vs. backward religious fanatic thread if anyone answered with something besides "Crick's a crank." Thanks.

On the subject of abiogenesis, Crick was a crank.

Sorry, Sue, but that's how it is.

He helped discover the molecular structure of DNA. And on other subjects, he was a crank.

Pixy, I think Sue is showing a fundamental problem with these debates. IDer's think that all scientific pioneers are treated as untouchable gods - Darwin, Crick, Watson... They don't realize that every scientist would love to prove them all wrong and discover something world-altering.

I mean, who wouldn't want to hear people debating (insert own name here)-ism, rather than Darwinism if they could find a better, truer, alternate. But no one has been able to, which is why Darwinism persists and becomes a better fit all the time.

I was going to list a few of the famous cranks - Newton (alchemy), Shockley (racism), Penrose (brain function), Tesla (everything)... But I don't think Sue wants to listen.

Dave in Texas -

The vertebrate eye (wired back-to-front) and the human spine were definitely Friday afternoon jobs.

Also feet.

Ace: "I said you're arguing a "theory" that presupposes and (inavoidably) proves the existence of God, and that you continue to be cagey about admitting that, and that this is, yes, a "faith-based" theory that has no business in the science room."

That makes no sense at all. How does my theory presuppose the existence of God? I'm just looking at the numbers---the real probabilities involved in random forces generating useful information. And you're just retreating to a social attack. You assign positions to me that I don't agree with. You attack my character by saying that I'm cagey in concealing my deep religious fantacism. You don't want to debate evolution. You just want to attack people who disagree with you.

Pixy: "First, learn something about information theory before you start spouting off about it."

See, Pixy, this is a social attack. It's 100% content-free. You're just insulting me. This is what I've come to expect from evolution defenders, and this is precisely what raises evolution skepticism in ordinary people.

Pixy: "Second, EVOLUTION ISN'T RANDOM. Genetic variability is random. Natuarl selection is NOT."

Let's say it again, Pixy: Natural selection can't select something that DOESN'T EXIST. Think about that sentence for a moment, please. My argument has nothing to do with natural selection. Let's assume artificial selection that's 100% accurate. It still can't select something that doesn't exist.

One more time: As I outlined above, the chance of random forces creating a given gene are unimaginably small. And until those random forces create the genes, natural selection can't select them.

Pixy: "IDists protest that ID is not just Creationism in fancy clothes. They're lying"

Ah, we have another psychic! Pixy has peered into the depths of my soul and seen the moral corruption within. Pixy, you and I could do Vegas! I'm thinking of a number between one and ten. . . But you knew that already, didn't you?

By the way, it's pretty hard to have a good debate when you accuse the other side of lying. Just something to think about.

"Macroevolution is just lots of microevolution."

Tell ya what, Pixy: Let's talk to someone who breeds dogs professionally. Let's suppose that we've got an unlimited amount of time and money, and we want to hire a professional dog breeder to control breeding in a population. Can he breed bigger dogs? Yep. Can he breed dogs with extra fur? Yep. Can he breed fast dogs? Yep. Can he breed dogs with wings? Um, no. Growing wings is not part of the natural genetic variability within dogs. Dog genes vary naturally on several dimensions, such as size and hair properties. But dogs genes do not vary naturally on other dimensions, such as number of limbs. Growing big dogs is nothing at all like growing dogs with wings.

And, as I expected, nobody wants to touch the real numbers. (C'mon, now. The calculator is right there under your Start button!) Just to amuse myself, here are some comparisons:

Approx Number of Atoms in the Earth: 8.87x10^49
Approx Number of Atoms in the Universe: 1x10^81
Approx Number of Photons in the Visible Universe: 1x10^89
Number of Possible Combinations in a 4000-base-pair gene: 4^4000, or 1.73x10^2408

Those are the facts, folks. If you see some presupposition of God or secret evil religious belief in this basic arithmetic, then the delusion and fantacism are yours.

Can he breed dogs with wings? Um, no. Growing wings is not part of the natural genetic variability within dogs.

No.

It would require a mutation.

Mutations happen all the time.

And then they get selected on.

Most mutations are neutral; neither beneficial nor harmful. Most of the remainder are harmful. Beneficial mutations are relatively rare, but they are known and documented, even in humans.

You don't get a winged dog out of one mutation, of course. You'd need a few mutations, and a whole lot of selection. Take fifty million dogs for twenty million years, and see if can't get one to fly.

Approx Number of Atoms in the Earth: 8.87x10^49
Approx Number of Atoms in the Universe: 1x10^81
Approx Number of Photons in the Visible Universe: 1x10^89
Number of Possible Combinations in a 4000-base-pair gene: 4^4000, or 1.73x10^2408

And those numbers are relevant how?

Evolution ain't random.

As I outlined above, the chance of random forces creating a given gene are unimaginably small. And until those random forces create the genes, natural selection can't select them.

Random forces don't create the genes. Random forces change the genes.

The likelihood of a mutation causing a change in a gene is one, by definition. Then selection acts on that change.

Pixy has peered into the depths of my soul and seen the moral corruption within.

You might be in category 2, but judging by your behaviour I doubt it.

For this blog: Best. Thread. Ever.

It reinforces my notion that not all righties are bible-thumping, brainless, greedy fascists.

Some of you are just greedy fascists.

Carry on.

Back on the flying dogs thing:

Many IDists and other anti-Evolutionists claim that the wing is irreducibly complex, that there is no use for half a wing, and that wings could therefor not have evolved naturally.

Bollocks.

Half-wings, quarter-wings, two-thirds wings, one-tenth wings and every other fraction you can come up with can be found throughout the animal kingdom.

Penguins use theirs to fly underwater. Ostriches use theirs to steer while running. Flying squirrels and sugar gliders jump from tree to tree. Flying fish escape from predators. Various birds that can't fly (or can't fly well) also use their wings to give a burst of speed or height to escape predators.

Half a wing is basically half as good as a wing.

Or we could make flying monkeys. Even better...

TEST: H O Y L E

...yes, Ace's blocker is blocking H O Y L E for some reason ...so I'm not misspelling the guy's name, or being cutesy

Sue -

Crick didn't "propose" panspermia, really. He more like embraced it. (The idea had been around awhile ...like since Anaxagoras ...in one form or another.)

So. To your question ...why did Crick feel panspermia was necessary? Elementary, my dear Watson. - Because of the numbers. The numbers don't add up. Numbers? (And thank you Ben Bateman, for actually noticing my post.)

The problem is time. Time, sigh. Not Enough Time. (Time ...which inevitably runs up against the conundrum of what to do about the 2nd Law.) A billion years simply is not a lot of time, y'know. Hell, for life to arise, fifteen billion years isn't a lot of time. Worse ...the actual period when life - when inanimate random collisions of combinatorial molecules became self-reproducing creatures of various icky sorts - arose (on earth) ...is telescoped into a period of "only" a few hundred million years. If that.

And that's a real problem. Crick wasn't an idiot, and he had enough math to clearly see the problem. So he ...side-stepped the issue.

The "type" of panspermia that Crick embraced is called "directed panspermia" ...which is that life was seeded throughout the galaxy? universe? (again, whatever) by some kind of [space-going] civilization. Hey, you go with what you know, and Crick went with that. He was troubled by "the numbers", and he sought at least a believable solution. (Hell, if you can frickin' believe that frickin' punctuated equilibrium "solves" the problems that neo-Darwinism frickin' ignores, then you sure as hell shouldn't have a problem with ET Ents manning functional space-going roto-tillers, sowing the space lanes with sporal fecundity.)

Now. Crick's "directed" panspermia is NOT what Fred H o y l e, and Chandra Wickramasinghe proposed ...or rather what they observed. Chandra (a very, very brilliant mathematician) noted that the incidence of ultraviolet absorption at 2200Ås, and postulated that it might be due to graphite, or a polymer similar to cellulose, built essentially of formaldehyde units (I think I've got all that right) ...to explain certain aspects of astronomical observations at infrared wavelengths. As far as I'm aware their observations have been confirmed in all the cometology studies to date (the spectroscopy data was never in doubt): it seems that the interstices of space are indeed full of organic "goo", and that's pretty much the accepted wisdom these days. Space, the final frontier pizza.

The question you might - again - ask, Sue, is "Then why did H o y l e and Wickramasinghe feel the need to propose panspermia? too" ...umm, because they're brilliant? The "got it"?

Here's the relevant, bandwidth-testing prize:

Chandra Wickramasinghe "Yet perhaps the most significant single difficulty associated [with] the neo-Darwinist view of life is that microorganisms are far too complicated. When bacteria were created, or accomplished, or formed as the case might be, it is true to say that 99.99% of the biochemistry of higher life was already discovered. Some 2000 or so enzymes are known to be crucial over a fairly wide spectrum of life ranging from simple micro-organisms all the way up to Man. The variation of amino acid sequences in these enzymes are, on the whole, rather minor. In each enzyme a number of key positions are occupied by almost invariant amino acids. Let us consider how these enzymes sequences could have been derived from a primordial soup containing equal proportions of the 20 biologically important amino acids. At a conservative estimate say 15 sites per enzyme must be fixed to be filled by particular amino acids for proper biological function. The number of trial assemblies needed to find this set is easily calculated to be about 10 ^40,000 —a truly enormous, super astronomical number. And the probability of discovering this set by random shuffling is 1 in 10 ^40,000. This latter number could be taken as a measure of the information content of life as reflected in the enzymes alone. The number of shufflings needed to find life exceeds by many powers of 10 the number of all the atoms in the entire observable Universe."

Life ...formed. Of random combinations of molecules. Or ...as a result of something non-random.

You have ONLY the two choices. Either life formed as a result of random (chance) combinations of molecules (in the primordial soup, whatever), or it ...occurred somehow else; call it design, call it god, call it frickin' engineering, call it fairy-effin'-dust (I don't care).

IF life occurred as a result of the random (chance) combinations of molecules (the naturalistic belief) ...a problem arises. The issue of time. I've noted the problem before. To wit, you need a lot of it. Time, I mean. A lot more time than has happened since the Singularity event.

There simply hasn't been enough time for life to arise. Evolutionists - yes, including those on talk.origins (and I spend a lot of time there: excellent site: sharpens the wit) - generally just ignore the problem. It's insoluable in Darwinistic terms.

And the issue is even worse when you telescope the period from the cooling of the planetary crust to the arisal of simple forms some 4½ billion years ago. Good God, you're seriously suggesting to me that you can get Life from Unlife in only a few hundred million years? This issue began to be seriously raised by the mathematicians (and not, dear people, by creationists ...although they soon enough latched onto it) in the late 1950's or so. It came to the attention of people like H o y l e, Wickramasinghe - and Crick - and ...they proposed solutions. Panspermia.

So ...there ya' go Sue.

Good God, you're seriously suggesting to me that you can get Life from Unlife in only a few hundred million years?

Yes.

It's insoluable in Darwinistic terms.

It's irrelevant to Darwinistic theory.

This issue began to be seriously raised by the mathematicians

And therein lies the problem. Stop talking to mathematicians and ask the biochemists.

Mathematics will give you nice looking numbers, but you can't get the right answer by asking the wrong question.

Oh yeah, I fixed the Hoyle problem. Hoyle Hoyle Hoyle.

Anyway, false dichotomy.

Life formed from something much simpler, that wasn't life as we'd recognise it, but was self-replicating in a sufficiently friendly environment. (Soup.) Exactly what, we don't know. But it didn't go from amino acids to bacteria in one step, and it didn't need to.

Well, that just nicely sums up the heart of the evolutionists expository lucidity, doesn't it than? "Kill the irrelevant mathematicians." Brilliant.

"Surfs up!"

Tah.

I didn't tell you to kill anyone.

I just pointed out that multiplying numbers together doesn't get you anywhere if you don't have the right numbers.

> If the main problem is competition for food, some other properties will be selected for - longer necks, better digestion, something like that. Whatever gives you a better chance to survive and have offpspring, to pass on your genes.

We may just be talking past each other, then; I thought that description was pretty much what I stated in my nonsense statement.

The question is moot, though. My original concern was with Occam's Razor and I now have the answer I wanted.

I wrote: The atheists *CANNOT*, under any circumstance accept the notion of creation or divine intervention in the evolutionary process because its a direct assault on their *BELIEF* system. In other words it attacts their faith that there is no God.

Pixy wrote: Sorry, but that's nonsense ...
There's no faith involved in atheism at all. Does God exist? Hmm. Don't see one. Let's assume that he doesn't, until we get further evidence

Pixy,

This was a silly thing to say on your part. I have to admit to being amused on how you decided to take the cedarford approach to debate; make an ad hominem attack and redefine words. Somehow I think this is beneath you but I may be wrong. Your fundamentalism and/or pride may well have overtaken your common sense.

Here's the definition of 'assume':

take to be the case or to be true; accept without verification or proof;

So tell me, how is taking something without verification or proof different then believing something?

On Occam's Razor supporting ID, I thought this was already covered. As unlikely as you may think natural selection and evolution might be, bounce that against the liklihood of an all-powerful designer making all of this, including satisfying all the requirements that Ace provides regarding the laws of the universe and the ability to foresee billions of years into the future, AND hide all evidence of his/her/it's existence other than the complexity of his design.

Um, yeah. I'll take the random genetic mutations, naturally selected over time resulting in evolution as the more likely possibility, thank you.

I got news for you BrewFan, you are playing just as many games with words as anyone else.

To actually suggest that it takes faith to not believe in God is just silly. Faced with no actual evidence of God, it isn't an asumption that there isn't a god. At worst that may have been a poor choice of words by Pixy if you want to get all Funk and Wagnalls on us.

Even if you take umbrage with "assuming" there is no God in the absence of ANY evidence of God, "assuming" there IS in the face of the very same evidence is an assumption, or faith many orders of magnitude greater than assuming there isn't. If you want to get all mathematical about it, in comparison, the magnitude of "faith" needed to believe there is no God is, for all pracitcal purposes, ZERO compared to the faith required to believe there IS a god. If you want to argue over how infintesimally small that faith is, fine. But in comparison it is essentially zero.

Furthermore, the basic scientific process STARTS with an assumption, an educated guess, a hypothesis. You cannot even have science without assumptions. The trick then, is to TEST that assumption. Since all evidence exists to support the "assumption" that there is no God, it is hardly unverified.

One more for me...

My basic position on this is, what is the point, exactly of ID ?

Assume for a moment that all the scientific community is at once swayed to accepting ID as fact. What next ?

I'm not even going to postulate the answer. I don't see a "next". How do you go about using this "knowledge" that there was an intelligent designer going forward ?

Seems to me the end point is exactly that, just accepting ID as fact. Then you're done.

I don't even see the point. Now, for SURE there are large groups of ID proponents who know damn well where we go next, and that's to "wedge" their religion into everything. Outside of questions of morality, I don't see the point of THAT either, but they want it, nonetheless.

So, BrewFan, what is YOUR point in all this ? Is it only to sway me to your point of view, to accept ID as fact ? Seriously, what is the point ?

Practically speaking, if you want to teach ID, go ahead. You aren't actually teaching any "science", you would only be regurgitating the so-called evidence for ID for students to digest. And, again, for what purpose ? Debate ? What debate ?

Is there or isn't there an intelligent designer ? I don't see where the answer to that question helps anyone, especially when you consider that the two things COULD co-exist. ID doesn't help a lick.

I'll tell you what, though, it basically suggests you stop trying to prove that the mathematically improbable COULD happen. THAT is what science is. Mathematics of probability says evolution is terribly unlikely, bordering on impossible ? Well, science is out to find a way to prove it IS possible. ID only assumes it isn't possible, postulates an untestable explanation, and stops. If that's what you want to teach, great.

Too bad there ARE many religious nuts pushing ID so there is, effectively, no way it will ever become reality, even if it is just a bad idea in the first place.

Sherard (or Pixy's mom, whoever you are),

"I got news for you BrewFan"

I assure you, you don't.

"Faced with no actual evidence of God, it isn't an asumption that there isn't a god."

If its not an assumption what is it? Are you saying its a fact that there is no God?

"there is no God in the absence of ANY evidence of God"

There is no evidence for God? By who's standard? Yours? Well, the way the discussion goes around here it shouldn't suprise me if you have your own definition of this too.

"If you want to argue over how infintesimally small that faith is, fine. But in comparison it is essentially zero."

So you agree with me that it takes faith to be an atheist? Good. There's hope for you yet (although your mathematics analogy is irrelavent not to mention lame)

"So, BrewFan, what is YOUR point in all this ? Is it only to sway me to your point of view, to accept ID as fact ?"

My point is you're an asshat for dropping in here without reading the comments and then flaming somebody for something they didn't say. Please direct me to the comment that says I accept ID as fact.

RE: Dave's Inattentive Design theory;

And what's up with knees. I mean, really, good God. Couldn't these things have been designed to handle lateral movement a little better?

"To actually suggest that it takes faith to not believe in God is just silly. Faced with no actual evidence of God, it isn't an asumption that there isn't a god. At worst that may have been a poor choice of words by Pixy if you want to get all Funk and Wagnalls on us.

Even if you take umbrage with "assuming" there is no God in the absence of ANY evidence of God, "assuming" there IS in the face of the very same evidence is an assumption, or faith many orders of magnitude greater than assuming there isn't. If you want to get all mathematical about it, in comparison, the magnitude of "faith" needed to believe there is no God is, for all pracitcal purposes, ZERO compared to the faith required to believe there IS a god. If you want to argue over how infintesimally small that faith is, fine. But in comparison it is essentially zero"

So it takes more faith to say that the entire universe was created by something rather than by an eplosion of a speck of dust (which presumably always existed)?

The bottom line is that there is not enough evidence for either position so anyone who says something other than "I have no clue about whether God exists" is making assumptions on the issue based on no evidence.

I want someone on this thread to explain viruses. Viruses skirt the threshold between being alive and being a chemical compound. Scientists really don't know whether to classify them as alive. They are nucleic acids acting with a minimum of help and reproduce by hijacking the machinery of other compounds and structures in the cell. Early life was probably just like them - RNA or self-replicating DNA abusing other nearby compounds. And they evolve quickly. In an experiment in which a virus was put in a soup of other organic compounds, the viruses quickly lost everything necessary to infect a host and streamlined down to what they needed to exploit the new environment. They got down to 550 bases! (Dawkins, the Ancestor's Tale, p. 577.

By the way. This was the experiment I referenced earlier. When the same scientist put nothing but the virus's replicase enzyme and the raw materials for nucleic acids in the same soup, RNA appeared, and eventually became a virus all its own.

Now, as to the numbers, a probability like one in a billion does not mean that it will take a billion tries until you get that result. It means that that result will happen once in a billion tries. It can happen sooner or later. It can happen on the first try.

Concerning life, once the RNA forms it begins to effect other chemicals around it and maybe catalyse itself, and you do not need to try any more. So the probabilities don't apply after that point because the results are skewed and no longer random.

Pixy: "Random forces don't create the genes. Random forces change the genes.

The likelihood of a mutation causing a change in a gene is one, by definition. Then selection acts on that change."

And what is the chance that a random change in a gene will create a useful gene, or even an operative gene? Let's try to estimate it.

The probability is a fraction. The numerator is the number of possible useful genes. How many of those do you think there are? A trillion? A quadrillion? A quadrillion times a quadrillion? Not big enough? OK, I'll be generous: Let's say that there are as many useful genes as there are atoms in the universe. The real number is probably nowhere close to that, but it's certainly not higher. So there's your numerator: 1x10^81.

Now let's try the denominator: Remember how we do that? Assuming a 4000-base-pair gene, the number of possible combinations is 1.73x10^2408.

Now let's try the division. Math doesn't seem to be a strong point for evolution defenders, so I'll go slow: On top of the fraction, we have a one followed by 81 zeroes. On the bottom of the fraction, we have a one followed by 2408 zeroes. You probably learned how to do these in Junior High: Each zero on top cancels out a zero on bottom. So we reduce the fraction so that there's a one on top and a one followed by 2327 zeroes on bottom.

That's your probability, Pixy, of getting a true mutation that's useful. (Actually, the real chance is much lower because I've wildly overestimated the number of useful genes.) So tell me again how random forces created the useful genes when there were so many other genes that they could have created.

You think that my numbers are unfair? Take an extra trillion useful genes! Heck, take a google of 'em, then multiply by a billion! It doesn't matter. No matter what you do in the numerator, you've still got TWO THOUSAND zeroes in the denominator.

You can insult me all you like, Pixy. You can stick your fingers in your ears and sing to avoid hearing about the evil math. You can claim not to understand anything I've said. You can attack anyone you disagrees with you. You can call them liars, dupes, or religious zealots. You can repeat over and over that you’re right, right, right, and that I’m wrong, wrong, wrong. Maybe you can even insist that schoolchildren must be taught to believe in evolution’s black box of information generation.

But the 2000 zeroes don’t care, Pixy. They’ll still be there, waiting for you in the denominator of that fraction. And evolution won’t make much sense until somebody figures out how to handle them.

Dammit Monty!

The fucker bit me!
He BIT me!
I thought you said these things were trained?

I want my plutonium pellets back.
This is total bullshit.

lauraw, you ever wonder what a chair would look like if our knees bent the other way?

it's ok if you haven't.

Wow, I don't have time to read through all the comments, but they are all interesting I am sure. My comment is to agree that ID or whatever certainly does not meet the requirements of a scientific theory, but neither does speciation.

Nice trick, Bateman. You take a theoretic value (possible combinations of 4000 base pairs) and compare to a bounded empirical value that must be constrained by the number of actual atoms in the universe, for no particular reason. Your arithmetic doesn't bring us any closer to knowledge of the proportion of lethal to non-lethal genetic mutations than if we'd thrown a dart at a wall with our eyes shut.

Your method is Dembskian, so perhaps you'd like to comment on the following:

In attempting to define complex information, Dembski conflates a definition of information from Classical Information Theory (probability) with a modified definition from Algorithmic Information Theory (computational length, or Kolmogorov complexity). Recall that Dembski defined information as -log2 p, where p represents the probability of an event. This is essentially Shannon's usage in Classical Information Theory. On the other hand, he goes on to state that -log 2 p is a complexity measure:

Information is a complexity-theoretic notion. Indeed, as a purely formal object, the information measure described here is a complexity measure... Given an event A of probability P(A), I(A) = -log2P(A) measures the number of bits associated with the probability P(A). We therefore speak of the "complexity of information" and say that the complexity of information increases as I(A) increases (or, correspondingly, as P(A) decreases).

So far so good. Dembski has applied Kolmogorov complexity to the Shannon information resulting from a single event. The errors begin where he states:

It is CSI that within the Kolmogorov-Chaitin theory of algorithmic information takes the form of highly compressible, non-random strings of digits

There are two things wrong here:

1. In Chaitin-Kolmogorov usage, highly-compressible strings have low complexity/information content, not high complexity/information content.
2. Dembski is confusing the measure of a strings compressibility with its probability of occurance.

Dembski makes a fantastic leap in assuming that an information metric derived from the probability of a single event (-log 2 p) and the shortness of the minimum algorithm needed to represent the event (Chaitin-Kolmogorov) are necessarily related. Unsurprisingly, the mathematical rigor supporting Dembski's case is lacking. In fact, there is no reason to conclude that any relationship between event probability and Kolmogorov complexity exists for an arbitrary information source. If such a relationship were inherent, there would be no need for the existence of Fano-Shannon codes which recode messages to force such a relationship. Dembski makes a critical mathematical error.

Dembski's second great leap is his assumption that, if a pattern exists prior to a possibility being actualized, it must be causal. Anyone trained in statistics must know the danger in making assumptions of causality simply because a correlation between two variables is noted. Correlations do not imply causality between the correlated variables. For example, the correlation between malaria and swamps was observed long ago. The disease malaria was incorrectly attributed to the bad (mal) air (aria) near swamps. The correlation was correctly noted, but the assumption of causality was flawed. While a correlated pattern and actualized possibility may have a related cause, one cannot assume the pattern caused the actualized possibilty. Accordingly, this proposal for detecting design is highly suspect. Again, this is a critical error.

To make matters worse, Dembski relies on knowing the probability of a single event occurring. It is not in general possible to know the probability associated with a single event. One must have statistical knowledge of the process from which the event arose to know its probability with certainty; or a sufficiently large number of samples to estimate it. Pretending the probability somehow depends on the event's Kolmogorov complexity doesn't help.

His argument that CSI cannot be created by a combination of chance and necessity (or mutation and natural selection) is an argument from ignorance. Dembski asserts that it cannot be done, but fails to demonstrate why. He also implies CSI will provide information about excluded possibilities, without showing how.

The farther Dembski goes, the more he resorts to arm-waving. He provides no evidence to support his so-called Law of Conservation of Information, which he admits is a "strong proscriptive claim." Since it is a claim and not a law, any arguments based on it can and should be rejected as pseudo-science.

It is interesting to contrast the stated purpose of the article:

(1) show how information can be reliably detected and measured, and (2) formulate a conservation law that governs the origin and flow of information

with his statements further on in the article as he gets to the heart of his argument:

This is a vast topic whose full elucidation is beyond the scope of this paper (the details can be found in my monograph The Design Inference).

and

The aim of this last section is briefly to sketch the Law of Conservation of Information (a full treatment will be given in Uncommon Descent, a book I am jointly authoring with Stephen Meyer and Paul Nelson).

In other words, having loaded up a long article with glib arm-waving lacking in details, after first claiming that a profound new principle will be formulated in the article - Dembski directs the reader to his next book.

The entire essay is here: Information Theory and Creationism.

"Nice trick, Bateman. You take a theoretic value (possible combinations of 4000 base pairs)"

There's nothing theoretical about 4^4000. It is the number of possible arrangements of base pairs in a 4000-base-pair gene.

"...and compare to a bounded empirical value that must be constrained by the number of actual atoms in the universe, for no particular reason."

I mention the number of atoms in the universe to try to illustrate the size of the numbers involved. People accept the mystical information-generation claim of evolution because they vaguely imagine that the Earth has been around a really long time, and there have been a lot of creatures on it having mutations. But those numbers are utterly inconsequential compared to the size of the search space to create even a single gene. The trouble is that people have trouble thinking clearly about such huge numbers, so I wanted to give them a guidepost. I couldn't find anything physical beyond the number of photons, though.

"Your arithmetic doesn't bring us any closer to knowledge of the proportion of lethal to non-lethal genetic mutations than if we'd thrown a dart at a wall with our eyes shut."

That sentence is nothing but a sneer. As with other evolution defenders, you're using social tactics instead of discussing substance. Do you dispute my estimation of the numerator or the denominator? Do you dispute how I've defined the fraction? Are you saying that we know nothing whatsoever about that fraction?

"Your method is Dembskian, so perhaps you'd like to comment on the following:"

Here we go with the social again! I’m no expert on Dembski, and I have no interest in defending him. I'm just making a very simple observation that anybody who passed High School algebra should be able to understand:

In every information system that I can think of, dividing total meaningful arrangements by total possible arrangements yields a very low number. And that number drives rapidly towards zero as the system becomes more complicated, because the denominator simply explodes to unimaginable sizes. Therefore, it’s simply preposterous to talk about random noise generating information in under a trillion years in any complex information system. You can’t do it with letters in a book. You can’t do it with pixels on a screen. You can’t do it with bits on a hard drive. You can’t even do it in the abstract within a computer, unless you create an extremely simple information system.

Call them unscientific if you like, but those are my observations. I’m not at all impressed by vague allusions to enormous spans of time or billions of creatures reproducing. The number of creatures and the amounts of time are big, but the denominator in that fraction is vastly bigger.

I’m not saying that this proves some designer. Maybe there’s some principle of information generation that we haven’t discovered yet. But to claim that every evolution skeptic is a drooling religious moron is patently offensive nonsense. Anyone who paid attention in High School algebra should be able to see why.

Let's make this real simple: your denominator is fine, but you pulled your numerator out of your ass.

To clarify: the number under question isn't "useful genes", it's all the genes preserved by natural selection, which would be all "non-lethal genes". Take your argument and substitute "lethal" for "useful" and see what happens to it.

Most of the genome is junk anyway, with only about 3% of it doing anything.

Like most creationists, you confuse evolution with the cause of the first living cell. Evolution only starts when you have a life form capable of reproducing, so the probability problem is constrained by the range of variations that can reasonably be applied to a working system without killing it. It's more like debugging a program than writing one from scratch.

Artificial life researchers find, by the way, that novel and useful mutations occur in their systems with some great regularity. There are a lot of reproductive events in the world, and nature has some very fine filters to separate lethal mutations from the rest.

Natural selection is a very intelligent system.