Posted on 05/09/2005 11:35:25 PM PDT by Crackingham
While Kansas State Board of Education members spent three days soaking up from critics of evolution about how the theory should be taught in public schools, many scientists refused to participate in the board's public hearings. But evolution's defenders were hardly silent last week, nor are they likely to be Thursday, when the hearings are set to conclude. They have offered public rebuttals after each day's testimony. Their tactics led the intelligent design advocates -- hoping to expose Kansas students to more criticism of evolution -- to accuse them of ducking the debate over the theory. But Kansas scientists who defend evolution said the hearings were rigged against the theory. They also said they don't see the need to cram their arguments into a few days of testimony, like out-of-state witnesses called by intelligent design advocates.
"They're in, they do their schtick, and they're out," said Keith Miller, a Kansas State University geologist. "I'm going to be here, and I'm not going to be quiet. We'll have the rest of our lives to make our points."
The scientists' boycott, led by the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Kansas Citizens for Science, frustrated board members who viewed their hearings as an educational forum.
"I am profoundly disappointed that they've chosen to present their case in the shadows," said board member Connie Morris, of St. Francis. "I would have enjoyed hearing what they have to say in a professional, ethical manner."
Intelligent design advocates challenge evolutionary theory that natural chemical processes can create life, that all life on Earth had a common origin and that man and apes had a common ancestor. Intelligent design says some features of the natural world are best explained by an intelligent cause because they are well ordered and complex. The science groups' leaders said Morris and the other two members of the board subcommittee presiding at the hearings already have decided to support language backed by intelligent design advocates. All three are part of a conservative board majority receptive to criticism of evolution. The entire board plans to consider changes this summer in standards that determine how students will be tested statewide in science.
Alan Leshner, AAAS chief executive officer, dismissed the hearings as "political theater."
"There is no cause for debate, so why are they having them?" he said. "They're trying to imply that evolution is a controversial concept in science, and that's absolutely not true."
Anyway, the lions finding it difficult to pick out the one they are hunting in the herd because of the mess of stripes interfering with their perception is only a just-so story, but it sounds plausible to me. Zebras are social and there is also a hypothesis that they identify individuals using the stripes, a form of sexual selection.
What reply are you thanking?
Are you agreeing with the assertion that frauds like Piltdown Man and archioraptor were not uncovered by mainstream biologists? Are you agreeing with the implication that biology is corrupt, and fraud is only uncovered by opponents of evolution?
You scare me. Things like that are posted every day here, and sometimes it's hard to detect sarcasm.
That's what the evolution critics fail to understand about science. They correctly point out that criticism of a theory is accepted in science. They fail to realize that mere criticism is insufficient to overturn the established theory. In other words, criticizing a theory is acceptable, but the burden of proof is on the critic to show that the accepted theory is incorrect, not on the scientific community to show that the critic is wrong.
In fact I think, if I've understood their posts correctly, that there are Freepers who think that life is only maintained from moment to moment by a mystical as-yet-undiscovered supernatural force field.
Thus explaining the chartreuse and magenta striping of zebrae.
I knew an Aggie with a pet zebra; he named it Spot.
"Zebrae". Wow! That told me. I'm running with the plural being zebra for now, and I'm too lazy to look it up.
Depending on the saturation and brightness of each color your hypothetical plaid-striped zebra might well appear unrelieved and easily outlined grey to the hungry b&w visioned lion. Squish, Crunch, Gulp.
As a zebra is a herd or a game animal, the plural is properly: zebra. (I don't know what the Latin plural would.)
Thanks for the info. My science history, I will admit, is not as strong as I would like.
The problem is that the appearance of design has never been denied. The source of the design is natural selection.
The function of theory in science is not to produce truth, but to suggest lines of research that can actually be carried out. Natural selection has been a fertile source of research proposals for 150 years. ID has yet to publish a proposal that is not already part of mainstream research.
My response was to thank the correspondent for reply post #358, not to endorse or analyze it or any previous assertions made.
That is my custom for acknowledging a post and discussion which I am watching but not yet engaging.
When someone has posted something that is both dishonest and personally insulting to me, and you thank them for their post, I have to assume you wish to instult me.
Calm down. Alamo-Girl doesn't do insults. Although there are times -- such as the recent quote-mining incident -- when I wish she'd be more judgmental.
Intellectual honesty includes being able to admit when a quotation you've cited is misattributed or taken out of context.
All one has to do is say "I stand corrected" and move on, not using the same quote again. Instead, you seem determined to stand behind these falsified and misused quotations as if they are valid and no one has refuted them.
"Gould has written that if we could rewind the "tape" of evolution and replay it, the result would not be the same (Gould 1989). Among other things, humans are almost certain not to re-evolve. This is because the number of contingent causes (asteroids hitting the earth, continental drift, cosmic radiation, the likelihood of significant individuals mating and producing progeny, etc) are so high that it is unlikely they would occur again in the same sequence, or even occur at all. If an asteroid hadn't hit the Yucátan Peninsula 65 million years ago, for example, mammals probably would never have diversified, as they didn't in the 100 million years before that." ~ John Wilkins
For example, for this quotation you do not provide a source for the quotation. Having done a search, I see this is citation is from an essay from the Talk.Origins archive called Evolution and Chance. At the top of the page, the author states that this essay is meant to be read in conjunction with an essay called Chance from a Theistic Perspective written by Loren Haarsma.
This is important contextual information to have. Omitting this, and the source of the article serve to isolate the authors word from their intended meaning. What follows is a longer citation which more fully demonstrates the author's purpose. To get a full understanding of this quote, I suggest that readers go and read the other essay by Haarsma as well.
Gould has written that if we could rewind the "tape" of evolution and replay it, the result would not be the same (Gould 1989). Among other things, humans are almost certain not to re-evolve. This is because the number of contingent causes (asteroids hitting the earth, continental drift, cosmic radiation, the likelihood of significant individuals mating and producing progeny, etc) are so high that it is unlikely they would occur again in the same sequence, or even occur at all. If an asteroid hadn't hit the Yucátan Peninsula 65 million years ago, for example, mammals probably would never have diversified, as they didn't in the 100 million years before that.
Processes explained by science are affected by their intrinsic properties, the initial conditions and the boundary conditions. The cup fell from 1 meter. That's an initial condition. There was no real wind, but there was air friction. Those are boundary conditions. The cup had a certain mass and fell in a gravitational field of 1g. Those are the intrinsic properties. These last are not explained by Newtonian physics, but by Einstein's physics of time and space.
Contingent events are sometimes exceedingly sensitive to the initial conditions. A single slight difference can lead to a radically different outcome. If the cup fell from one meter but into the folds of a rigid tablecloth (a boundary condition), then a millimeter of difference in the way it fell (in its initial conditions) could leave it in pieces on kitchen floor, or in the dog's sleeping basket and safe, though in need of a wash.
Evolutionary theory explains why objects with certain properties move and change the way they do: how organisms change over time. In evolution, the initial and boundary conditions are contingent. That is the extent, the whole of it, of randomness and chance in the history of life.
Fear of the ordinary sense of chance and random which Gould describes above arises largely from a desire to find meaning in the events of the world around us. Science is not the appropriate place to find this meaning.
The emphasis in the last paragraph is mine.
The point I'm trying to make is that in this article, Wilkins is trying to explain that the end condition of physical processes has a great deal of dependency on the starting conditions and the boundry conditions. Wilkins does not claim that there is no meaning to life and existence. He is not worshipping chance, as you suggest. At the end of the article, conveniently omitted by you, the author Wilkins expressly states that science is not the appropriate place to find meaning -- not that no such meaning exists!
Science is about describing the physical world in concrete terms. The search for the meaning of existence comes from the study of philosophy and metaphysics, not biology and chemistry.
Though posters to these threads have repeated pointed out that you are misusing these quotes, you continue to cite them as they are valid. Furthermore, you frequently refer to evolution as a cult and scientists as cultists and idolaters. Is it any wonder people question your integrity?
js1138, I have no idea what you are talking about. The post at 358 was from hosepipe to me and Dimensio. You are not mentioned on that post at all. And the only post since by hosepipe (at 494) doesn't mention you either.
PatrickHenry, the reason I don't get involved in the quote wars is that they do not interest me. In order to assert a position one way or the other I'd have to do the research myself.
Theology, philosophy, mathematics and physics on the other hand, do interest me - so I invest the research time gladly!
I'm calm. I'm just point out that people should be careful about who they thank and when, and what for.
Thanks for a ping is OK. thanks for a response to a post is generally OK.
But this particular post was supporting a falsehood, and was extremely insulting. Thanking the poster was not appropriate.
I entered the sidebar at post 307 to bring the previous post to the attention of the ones who had been mentioned. I didn't take a side.
My contribution was to offer another source article for Anthony Flew's position on evolution since the original one had expired and to offer two more links to Gerald Schroeder's website, since he and Flew had just attended a conference before Flew publicly made his statement disavowing his previous atheism.
The only reply to my post was from hosepipe at post 358 where he said that Dimensio was correct. I'm not sure what was intended by the rest of the post and it wasn't material to my involvement.
Returning now to the question of who discovers fossil hoaxes - I frankly do not know and wouldn't assert anything without first researching it.
I would, however, say that I want scientists to hold all prior work to scrutiny - nothing in science should achieve the status of dogma.
Absolutely. Oztrich Boy gulled me just yesterday.
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