Posted on 12/03/2005 5:28:45 PM PST by Right Wing Professor
TO read the headlines, intelligent design as a challenge to evolution seems to be building momentum.
...
Behind the headlines, however, intelligent design as a field of inquiry is failing to gain the traction its supporters had hoped for. It has gained little support among the academics who should have been its natural allies. And if the intelligent design proponents lose the case in Dover, there could be serious consequences for the movement's credibility.
On college campuses, the movement's theorists are academic pariahs, publicly denounced by their own colleagues. Design proponents have published few papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
(and yes, the word "reality" should always be taken as sarcasm when used in conjuction with DU)
See here from the list-o-links.
Post all the links as you please.
Your're a Darwinist idiot, PatrickHenry.
"Modern evolutionary theory pre-supposes there is no God. In fact, it is really cowardly of the Darwinists who claim that religion and science are mutually exclusive in this regard. Many of you don't even have the guts to state the obvious. This is a choice between God and no God."
The essence of evolution is that nature/environment/random mutations -- over a long period of time, may be thousands or millions of years -- shape living things.
Inserting God(or any supernatural force) into the argument and trying to explain away phenomena magically(eg. God created earth, sky, and humans, so that's that. Want evidence?! Refer to [ancient scripture] in [page#] [chapter#] [verse#])is pseudo-science, and therefore belongs in a philosophy or a religious class.
" If Evolution is based upon actual science then why is it still considered just a theory? "
Because Theory is the last stage in science. There is no higher level.
A famous evolutionist once famously said that a monkey typing randomly would eventually pound out Macbeth. As famous and educated as he was, he was truly clueless about combinatorics. Yet the notion he espoused -- that anything can happen given enough random events -- is one of the key ideas behind evolution.
Someone with a bit more understanding of combinatorics did an actual calculation. I don't remember the details off hand, but it went something like the following. If you filled the entire known universe with one monkey per cubic yard and had them type randomly at a very high rate for the entire known age of the universe, chances are vanishingly small that they would ever get past the first page of Macbeth.
By the way, I scored a 4.0 in Probability and Statistics as an undergrad -- not bad for someone with "NO clue about probability"! I believe I was in the top one or two of a class of around 60. That was a while ago, however.
They're really coming out of the woodwork tonight.
Curious how God's Ark doesn't draw the same ire from the Christians who are reprimanding me on this thread and by private mail about the Landover Baptist* post. If I were defending Christianity, I'd be more appalled by the seriousness of God's Ark than the satire of Landover Baptist*.
* Per the demands of the faithful, note that this post does not include any links whatsoever to Landover Baptist's website.
"No one ever went broke underestimating the taste (intelligence) of the American people" - H.L. Mencken
The scientific method:
Which part of the scientific method does ID not follow?
Is it observation? No, because the hypothesis was generated by observing biological systems and noting that they were irreducibly complex.
Is it hypothesis? No, because based on the observation of IC, and knowing that Darwinism cannot explain such systems, the hypothesis of Intelligent Design was postulated.
Was it Experiment? No, because experiments have been done to determine if IC systems in certain bacteria are indeed IC.
Was it observing experimental results? No, because the observations that bacterium with proteins removed from an IC system could only be kept alive by providing them a non-natural diet that compensated for the missing protein.
Was it revising the hypothesis? No, because when the arch theory was proposed to explain IC systems, the ID hypothesis was re-examined to see if this explanation invalidated the theory.
Please explain to me how ID does not use the scientific method.
My tagline will deal with it.
MONKEYS TYPE SHAKESPEARE PLAY
The classic puzzle about whether an infinite number of monkeys typing for an infinite period of time would type a Shakespeare play has been answered in the affirmative. Researchers at the Raleigh Institute near Manchester, England, announced that the monkeys in their lab produced a perfect version of "Romeo and Juliet."
"We've been holding our breath for weeks," says Alan Ripshaw, the researcher in charge of the Monkey Project. "We knew the monkeys were getting close, but we've had a number of false starts.
"One time they got to the fourth act of Macbeth, before making a mistake. The monkeys also recently typed out a Norman Mailer novel, but that doesn't count."
Ripshaw says he began the project because he was intrigued with the controversy over whether Shakespeare really was the author of the plays bearing his name.
"Some scholars think Bacon was the real author," Ripshaw says. "That's when I had the thought, 'What if they were written by monkeys?'
Ripshaw assembled 5,000 monkeys and an equal number of typewriters. The monkeys were rewarded with bananas every time they filled up a page with letters.
"Ninety-nine percent of it was nonsense," Ripshaw says. "But one of the monkeys put up a blog on the Internet, and it has a big following."
But a researcher checking says the monkeys made a mistake. "In one reference, they called 'Romeo,' 'Romero.'"
Says Ripshaw, "I guess it's back to the drawing board."
-- JAKE ANDERSON of the Weekly World News
I'm considering your insult as a compliment. If only I too could be wise when I grow up.
"A famous evolutionist once famously said that a monkey typing randomly would eventually pound out Macbeth."
If he is so famous, do tell us who *He* is.
"Someone with a bit more understanding of combinatorics did an actual calculation. I don't remember the details off hand, but it went something like the following. If you filled the entire known universe with one monkey per cubic yard and had them type randomly at a very high rate for the entire known age of the universe, chances are vanishingly small that they would ever get past the first page of Macbeth."
He's an idiot. You can't make a probability calculation on a process you have don't understand. It's impossible.
"By the way, I scored a 4.0 in Probability and Statistics as an undergrad -- not bad for someone with "NO clue about probability"! I believe I was in the top one or two of a class of around 60. That was a while ago, however."
You need to get your money back; you were swindled.
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