JMHO: One of the current premiere Conservative thinkers and editorialists in the USA and a member of the FOX opinion team/roundtable almost every night in prime-time.
BTW....................GOOGLE is your friend.
Posted on 12/05/2005 4:06:56 AM PST by PatrickHenry
The leaders of the intelligent design movement are once again holding court in America, defending themselves against charges that ID is not science. One of the expert witnesses is Michael Behe, author of the ID movement’s seminal volume Darwin’s Black Box. Behe, a professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University, testified about the scientific character of ID in Kitzmiller v. Dover School District, the court case of eight families suing the school district and the school board in Dover, Pa., for mandating the teaching of intelligent design.
Under cross-examination, Behe made many interesting comparisons between ID and the big-bang theory — both concepts carry lots of ideological freight. When the big-bang theory was first proposed in the 1920s, many people made hostile objections to its apparent “supernatural” character. The moment of the big bang looked a lot like the Judeo-Christian creation story, and scientists from Quaker Sir Arthur Eddington to gung-ho atheist Fred Hoyle resisted accepting it.
In his testimony, Behe stated — correctly — that at the current moment, “we have no explanation for the big bang.” And, ultimately it may prove to be “beyond scientific explanation,” he said. The analogy is obvious: “I put intelligent design in the same category,” he argued.
This comparison is quite interesting. Both ID and the big-bang theory point beyond themselves to something that may very well lie outside of the natural sciences, as they are understood today. Certainly nobody has produced a simple model for the big–bang theory that fits comfortably within the natural sciences, and there are reasons to suppose we never will.
In the same way, ID points to something that lies beyond the natural sciences — an intelligent designer capable of orchestrating the appearance of complex structures that cannot have evolved from simpler ones. “Does this claim not resemble those made by the proponents of the big bang?” Behe asked.
However, this analogy breaks down when you look at the historical period between George Lemaitre’s first proposal of the big-bang theory in 1927 and the scientific community’s widespread acceptance of the theory in 1965, when scientists empirically confirmed one of the big bang’s predictions.
If we continue with Behe’s analogy, we might expect that the decades before 1965 would have seen big-bang proponents scolding their critics for ideological blindness, of having narrow, limited and inadequate concepts of science. Popular books would have appeared announcing the big-bang theory as a new paradigm, and efforts would have been made to get it into high school astronomy textbooks.
However, none of these things happened. In the decades before the big-bang theory achieved its widespread acceptance in the scientific community its proponents were not campaigning for public acceptance of the theory. They were developing the scientific foundations of theory, and many of them were quite tentative about their endorsements of the theory, awaiting confirmation.
Physicist George Gamow worked out a remarkable empirical prediction for the theory: If the big bang is true, he calculated, the universe should be bathed in a certain type of radiation, which might possibly be detectable. Another physicist, Robert Dicke, started working on a detector at Princeton University to measure this radiation. Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson ended up discovering the radiation by accident at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, N.J., in 1965, after which just about everyone accepted the big bang as the correct theory.
Unfortunately, the proponents of ID aren’t operating this way. Instead of doing science, they are writing popular books and op-eds. As a result, ID remains theoretically in the same scientific place it was when Phillip Johnson wrote Darwin on Trial — little more than a roster of evolutionary theory’s weakest links.
| When Behe was asked to explicate the science of ID, he simply listed a number of things that were complex and not adequately explained by evolution. These structures, he said, were intelligently designed. Then, under cross-examination, he said that the explanation for these structures was “intelligent activity.” He added that ID “explains” things that appear to be intelligently designed as having resulted from intelligent activity. |
Behe denied that this reasoning was tautological and compared the discernment of intelligently designed structures to observing the Sphinx in Egypt and concluding that it could not have been produced by non-intelligent causes. This is a winsome analogy with a lot of intuitive resonance, but it is hardly comparable to Gamow’s carefully derived prediction that the big bang would have bathed the universe in microwave radiation with a temperature signature of 3 degrees Kelvin.
After more than a decade of listening to ID proponents claim that ID is good science, don’t we deserve better than this?
"IDers will go the way of ... Baseball Card Economists."
Just so I can understand the analogy, exactly what is a "Baseball Card Economist"?
It seems that somebody needs to be educated on the difference between a mean and a median. Perhaps you should stick to your area of specialization.
Exactly, or presidential candidate and early ID proponent William Jennings Bryan. Long and Bryan were hardly conservatives in the sense of a belief in limited government. They were "conservative" because they opposed modernity, Bryan advancing a pre-modern guild employment system that was not so different from Long's flirtation with fascism.
Scientific American had a specuial supplement that discussed parallel universes. What I described was a Type I based on the classification scheme given. Type II was based on quantum mechanics. When a quantum 'event' become manifest, all probability outcomes become real, but our universe only follows one path of outcomes. I can't remember the Type III but I think it was based on Brane theory.
Strange. I have graduate courses in testing and have never heard of an unbiased test.
Lots of people have tried to make unbiased, but it's pretty futile.
Sorry, since you divided by (a-b), this equality holds only if a <> b. So a and b both can't be 1.
see post 97.
I think he is aware of that. The proof in his post is a very famous one.
You said "exactly". Don't use a single example to generalize to all results.
If a probability is more than zero, it will probably happen given infinity.
More precisely, if the probability of an event is more than zero, it will occur with probability approaching one as the number of repeated trials increases without limit.
I'm familiar with the joke proof that 1 = 2, but thanks for the laugh.
And The John Templeton Foundation doesn't?
Delete exactly and insert hyperbole...'cause that's what I was doing.
Darwin was a doctor with a completed medical degree?
Or, Murphey's Law of Speciation No. 322: "Don't go to bed with someone dumber than yourself."
Right. Especially when organic compounds form so readily, thus before very long, the oceans are full of sub-assemblies that don't need to be "invented" all over again from ground zero.
Additionally, all these "the odds are against DNA" computations totally ignore the powerful effect of what me might call parallel processing. Each cubic meter of ocean has millions (billions?) of "experiments" going on all the time. So in a few hundred million years, an amazingly large number of combinations is possible.
You'd be amazed how many people can't figure that one out.
They will morph into something else. I'm anticipating "Designed Macroevolution".
OK, but the point is that while there are many (in fact an infinite number of ) theoretical circumstances in which the mean and median are the same, this is not true in general, and it shouldn't be assumed to be so.
Not if the gene is recessive.
You need to add, "If the events are independent."
This is one of the Borel-Cantelli lemmas. (Wikipedia's entry is correct here; I checked.)
When, however, the lay public rallies round an idea that is denounced by distinguished but elderly scientists and supports that idea with great fervor and emotion — the distinguished but elderly scientists are then, after all, probably right.
-- Isaac Asimov's Corollary to Clarke's First Law
Terry Goodkind's 'Wizard's First Rule' seems appropriate here, too...
People are stupid. They will believe anything they want to be true or fear to be true.
if evolution is true and homosexuality is genetic - why are there still homosexuals? wouldn't this non reproductive gene have been eliminated from the gene pool at some point? when it comes to science, i'm one of those ignoramuses who believes that God created man in His own image and homosexuality is a choice that people make.
Presuming for a moment that homosexuality is in fact genetically determined (a hypothesis far from demonstrated), I'd have two responses:
negative eugenics.
Sorry, no "canceling" after junior high. And no dividing by zero before or after junior high.
I knew that the John Templeton Foundation and Dr. Karl Giberson did not support ID.
I don't support or adhere to ID either...but I would never quote Giberson and/or The John Templeton Foundation in defense of my objection to ID.
In your case, I believe that it is must be an instance of...my enemy's enemy is my friend.
BTW, when creationists do that...you guys call it quote-mining.
Nice try, but that's not quote mining.
Quote mining is taking parts of a quote out of context to try and make the quote appear as though the person was saying the opposite of what they were actually saying.
For example, Darwin in his writings anticipated a series of objections to his ideas, and then answered them, demonstrating why those objections were baseless. Several creationist websites have listed those objections without his answers, making it appear that Darwin knew his theories were flawed. That's quote mining.
This may be a case of strange bedfellows, or a broken clock being right twice a day (as in the case of Pat Robertson and radical feminists agreeing on pornography or the ACLU supporting Rush Limbaugh's case in Florida), but so long as Patrick Henry isn't misrepresenting their views on this subject it isn't quote mining.
"Intelligent design" may be interesting as theology, but as science it is a fraud.
~Charles Krauthammer
i don't presume that homosexuality is genetic. in fact, like all other behavior, i believe that it's chosen. thanks for the explanation. it seems this recessive trait is becoming more and more prevalent - at least in post Christian europe and america. it'll be very interesting to see where america is in 50 years. my guess is we're about a half century "behind" europe. the only hope for america is if the evangelical church can withstand the stampede toward secularism both inside and outside of the church. based on the rest of western civilization's track record, i wouldn't bet on it.
Who is Charles Krauthammer?
Huh? PH possibly posts more articles on ID than anyone here. Posting articles on a subject and pinging people to them is a strange way to "suppress" something!
Or when you write "suppress," should we read "disagree with"? (Easily done if so, as we're used to the same decoding when reading whining rants from leftists.)
It's still not clear how homosexuality is relevant to the evolution vs ID debate.
So, IDers, tell us something we didn't know, based on your theory. Then go find it.
They can't, because it makes NO useful (meaning testable) predictions; hence the reason why IDers are so determined to try to change the very definition of science itself to include the supernatural.
Nah, there a (sic) damned good reason that (sic) those pursuing such professions are intellectually endowed.
Evidently that endowment does not include facility in written English. Perhaps such skills are reserved for the ignorant unwashed masses.
>Nah, there a (sic) damned good reason that (sic) those pursuing such professions are intellectually endowed.
Evidently that endowment does not include facility in written English. Perhaps such skills are reserved for the ignorant unwashed masses.
Congratulations. You've done a nice job of making a strawman argument over grammatical errors in order to dodge the content of the argument. I guess that makes you the elitist.
i don't presume that homosexuality is genetic. in fact, like all other behavior, i believe that it's chosen.
I was speaking hypothetically, to answer his question. Thought I had made that clear.
thanks for the explanation. it seems this recessive trait is becoming more and more prevalent - at least in post Christian europe and america.
I'm pretty sure that the percentages are about the same historically. More likely, what you see as an increase is a combination of increased access to media for all types of people via the Internet and the fact that people just feel less compelled to keep it to themselves.
just a question that puzzled me since those who say that homosexuality is genetic and not a behavior choice are also usually strong evolutionists. it would seem to me that this gene would be getting less prevalent not more prevalent as the human species continues to evolve but apparently that's not necessarily the case. hopefully, it won't continue to multiple to such an extent that the whole human race is homosexual - although that would solve the "population explosion" problem and alleviate the need for so many abortions.
JMHO: One of the current premiere Conservative thinkers and editorialists in the USA and a member of the FOX opinion team/roundtable almost every night in prime-time.
BTW....................GOOGLE is your friend.
Students are usually taught by their teachers to "cancel" things, and they forget the actual mathematical operation they're doing. Couple that with being so used to playing with variables, forgetting they stand for actual (oops, almost said "real") numbers, and most people fall for this joke.
Speaking of "real," more geek humor: "God is real, unless declared integer."
20 points to any old-timers who get that one.
Whatever genetic component homosexuality has, the expression of it has changed quite a bit just in historical times. It's not an all or nothing proposition. There is no reason someone with homosexual proclivities can't have children. They can have heterosexual sex to procreate, and on the side have homosexual sex. It's almost never been 100% one way.
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