Posted on 04/21/2008 7:23:01 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
In Ben Stein's new film "Expelled," there is a great scene where Richard Dawkins is going on about how evolution explains everything. This is part of Dawkins' grand claim, which echoes through several of his books, that evolution by itself has refuted the argument from design. The argument from design hold that the design of the universe and of life are most likely the product of an intelligent designer. Dawkins thinks that Darwin has disproven this argument.
So Stein puts to Dawkins a simple question, "How did life begin?" One would think that this is a question that could be easily answered. Dawkins, however, frankly admits that he has no idea. One might expect Dawkins to invoke evolution as the all-purpose explanation. Evolution, however, only explains transitions from one life form to another. Evolution has no explanation for how life got started in the first place. Darwin was very clear about this.
In order for evolution to take place, there had to be a living cell. The difficulty for atheists is that even this original cell is a work of labyrinthine complexity. Franklin Harold writes in The Way of the Cell that even the simplest cells are more ingeniously complicated than man's most elaborate inventions: the factory system or the computer. Moreover, Harold writes that the various components of the cell do not function like random widgets; rather, they work purposefully together, as if cooperating in a planned organized venture. Dawkins himself has described the cell as the kind of supercomputer, noting that it functions through an information system that resembles the software code.
Is it possible that living cells somehow assembled themselves from nonliving things by chance? The probabilities here are so infinitesimal that they approach zero. Moreover, the earth has been around for some 4.5 billion years and the first traces of life have already been found at some 3.5 billion years ago. This is just what we have discovered: it's quite possible that life existed on earth even earlier. What this means is that, within the scope of evolutionary time, life appeared on earth very quickly after the earth itself was formed. Is it reasonable to posit that a chance combination of atoms and molecules, under those conditions, somehow generated a living thing? Could the random collision of molecules somehow produce a computer?
It is ridiculously implausible to think so. And the absurdity was recognized more than a decade ago by Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the DNA double helix. Yet Crick is a committed atheist. Unwilling to consider the possibility of divine or supernatural creation, Crick suggested that maybe aliens brought life to earth from another planet. And this is precisely the suggestion that Richard Dawkins makes in his response to Ben Stein. Perhaps, he notes, life was delivered to our planet by highly-evolved aliens. Let's call this the "ET" explanation.
Stein brilliantly responds that he had no idea Richard Dawkins believes in intelligent design! And indeed Dawkins does seem to be saying that alien intelligence is responsible for life arriving on earth. What are we to make of this? Basically Dawkins is surrendering on the claim that evolution can account for the origins of life. It can't. The issue now is simply whether a natural intelligence (ET) or a supernatural intelligence (God) created life. Dawkins can't bear the supernatural explanation and so he opts for ET. But doesn't it take as much, or more, faith to believe in extraterrestrial biology majors depositing life on earth than it does to believe in a transcendent creator?
Academic freedom may give tenured professors the right not to be fired for what they say and write, but it does not prevent the University from removing them from teaching.
All the more reason for considering at tenure review whether a person is likely to be productive after being give a job guarantee. It is reasonable to ask whether a person will contribute to the goals of the university or will use the job guarantee to pursue activities detrimental to the interests of the university.
Take it up with Congress. They have oversight of Government agencies.
As a conservative do you agree with the conservative platform?
Your conservative red herring is going to be ignored.
The OSC report has found that unfair treatment was given to Sternberg although they had no jusridiction to punish or force the SI to provide information for them in regards to a specific portion of the law. All of your red herring arguments are foolish. A charitable organization does not purport to have "academic freedom" neither are they government organizations. A corporation is not a government organization, and in most cases cannot discriminate based upon political or religious leanings. A church is obviously none of the above and of course can decide who does what with respect to religion since that is directly a right established explicitly by the first amendment. If you were a conservative you would know that.
Baylor can decide who teaches what and where within the scope of their institution. However, it is bogus to claim any sort of benefit due to "academic" freedom if their actions belie that claim.
Are you suggesting that a tenure committee cannot project a prospective teacher’s value to the university based on whether he accepts the consensus definition of the work to be done?
I am not suggesting anything. I am telling you that people are being discriminated against for their mention of ID.
Once again, I have to ask for an example of a person who is unemployed or who has fired from a paying position for supporting ID.
I've answered that and I do not pursue red herring. People have been pressured etc. due to their mention of ID. That is beyond a doubt. The comments and emails of those that pressured etc. are the evidence.
Keep thinking. If you really want to know. Do the work and don't try to pass it on to me. It was your idea not mine. I made no assertion about the list that obsesses you.
By implication. If knowing that in each case, except maybe Gonzalez, the institutions do not admit to preventing an individual from teaching or being associated with something that they did not like, then you state the following" How is it unfair to prevent someone from teaching something the university does not want taught?; it is reasonable to draw the implication that the universities were lying about said motivator. So show me in every case that we are discussing that the institutions admit to preventing them from etc.
You're welcome. But I did not do that, I asked a question indicating that I drew an inference. Since you have no inside knowledge of these cases, your questions are entirely hypothetical and are red herring so you have no reason to apply any answer given to the situations under discussion. I have public comments and emails to back up my conclusions.
Then they should be honest about it and admit it.
If the alleged victims have a legal case, I suppose they can pursue it, although I don’t see much of a case for someone wh never actually had a paying job.
My question is why conservatives are pissing and moaning about discrimination. I think the ability to discriminate based on job performance is a good thing. I don’t think the employee gets to decide what job performance is, and I don’t think a conservative would want to hang on to a job or volunteer position where they are not wanted.
Well, those series of questions are a minefield of traps. First some types of discrimination are illegal. Other types of discrimination are unethical. Further types of discrimination are immoral. And other types of discrimination are counter to stated viewpoints. Finally there are types of discrimation necessary to achieve stated goals. Well, I don't think that any of the cases presented in the movie fit the last description so either they fit in one of the others I mention or they belong to one that I have missed. I have not mentioned types of discrimination necessary to achieve unstated goals, because I believe those are close to unethical or immoral.
As to whether a conservative would want to hang around a position where they were not wanted, that falls in the category of speaking for others. I try to avoid that activity. Speaking for myself, I would sue the [very hot place] out of any employer that attempted any discrimination based upon my non-job related legal activities.
You don’t think it it reasonable to discriminate against a person who undermines the goals and objectives of his employer? Or one whose goals are antithetical to the goals of the employer?
That situation would be covered by the "discrimation necessary to achieve stated goals" if they were stated. Were they? If not, I think that is close to unethical or immoral. A simple test to ascertain if the goals were stated would be for you to list those goals and objectives. If they are not stated, well then your statement is entirely hypothetical and deserves no answer.
Sorry, but employment decisions never have been and never will be based entirely on fill in the blank criteria. When any group of people are deciding on who will make a lasting contribution to an organization, personal judgement will factor in.
You seem to be advocating Union Rules: punch the card the requisite number of time and you can’t be touched.
Oh, so black-balling is fine in your world? Besides that, I have never made the statement that personal judgement is not part of the equation. In fact, it may be entirely the reason for employment. If someone wants to mow my lawn, that employment is completely a personal decision. However, we are not discussing lawn-mowing.
Your last statement is not a question, but an assertion of your own. I suggest you support it with evidence. I have never mentioned Union Rules nor punch cards in this discussion. It also seems self-evident that "fill in the blank" criteria are a necessary component to any employment decision(again, we are not discussing lawn mowing). The only "jobs" of which I am aware that meet your "untouchability" criteria are tenured university positions.
I also will take this opportunity to provide an example of the undermining the stated goals and objectives criteria. That would be the case of Ms. Comer who undermined the neutrality sought by the TEA.
NCSE was kind enough to provide a draft letter showing that she had been warned for her activities 8 months before the email forwarding event.
Blackballing implies excluding someone for reasons other than performance. A person who stops looking for natural causes becauses he wants to believe in supernatural causes is not going to be a great contributer to science. Behe and Dembski are prime examples, having contributed little other than demonstrating the futility of looking for limits to evolution.
So when an atheist is confronted by obvious indications of design in microbiology, he can always blame it on the aliens, which still does not answer the foundamental questions about origins, does it?
I’ve heard Dawkins several times, he always comes off as an arrogant God-hater, because that is what he is. His description and assertions about God sound exactly like how I once felt about my father, when I was myself an arrogant, rebellious leftie myself back in the early 1970s.
Ohh? Well is the limit I cited in post 168 not a limit on the Darwinian paradigm? Especially since Darwin's whole book was based upon natural selection, "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life".
Post 168 on what thread?
By the way, I haven’t forgotten that I entered this discussion by suggesting an objective method for deciding whether Ben Stein’s assertion of pervasive career threats is actually true. We have hundreds of people who have supported ID in the most public way possible. Let’s look at their careers and see if they have been fired in unusual percentages.
"..the uncritical acceptance of natural selection as an explanatory force for all aspects of biodiversity (without any direct evidence) is not much different than invoking an intelligent designer..." Michael Lynch The Origins of Genome Architecture, p 368
If AC wants to say something that stupid, let him say it himself.
How is an observable feedback mechanism like the action of an unspecified entity that does unspecified things at unspecified times and places?
I'm sorry that should have been 288, and that is on this thread.
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