Posted on 02/11/2009 8:07:30 AM PST by GodGunsGuts
Darwin, Intelligent Design, and Freedom of Discovery on Evolutionists' Holy Day
By Casey Luskin
Posted February 10, 2009
February 12 used to be universally recognized as the birthday of Abraham Lincoln—a day celebrating freedom. Needing a patron saint, Darwinists in recent years have converted February 12 into "Darwin Day."
There's nothing wrong with celebrating Darwin's birthday—if that's what you really want to do. But in recent years the advocacy of evolution has become increasingly associated with attempts to subvert freedom. To reclaim February 12 for those who love freedom, Discovery Institute and others in the intelligent design (ID) movement are calling February 12, 2009, "Academic Freedom Day" (see www.AcademicFreedomDay.com).
To be sure, Darwin supported academic freedom. In On the Origin of Species, he openly discussed weaknesses in his arguments and declared that "a fair result can only be obtained by stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question."
One would think that Darwin's latter-day defenders would follow his approach and allow debate over evolution in the classroom. But a lot has changed in the past 150 years.
Darwinists today seek to stifle scientific dissent from their viewpoint by asserting that there are no serious scientific weaknesses in modern evolutionary theory (called neo-Darwinism). The real losers here are students and scientific progress.
The more we discover about the cell, the more we are learning that it functions like a miniature factory, replete with motors, powerhouses, garbage disposals, guarded gates, transportation corridors, and most importantly, CPUs. The central information processing machinery of the cell runs on a language-based code composed of irreducibly complex circuits and machines: The myriad enzymes used in the process that converts the genetic information in DNA into proteins are themselves created by the process that converts DNA into proteins.
The problem for Darwinists is obvious: The simplest cell won't function unless this basic machinery is intact, so how does such complexity evolve via a "blind" and "undirected" Darwinian process of numerous, successive, slight modifications?
Even scientists who reject ID admit that neo-Darwinism is lacking. Biochemist Franklin Harold stated in a 2001 Oxford University Press monograph that "there are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations." Indeed, over 750 Ph.D. scientists have signed a list declaring their view that random mutation and natural selection are impotent to explain the complexity of life (see www.dissentfromdarwin.org).
As we sequence more genomes of species, biologists are also finding that one gene or trait implies one evolutionary tree, while another gene yields an entirely different tree. No wonder the cover of the journal New Scientist recently declared that with respect to his vision of a grand tree of life, "Darwin Was Wrong."
Common descent—the view that all species are related—has also failed to overcome a problem that Darwin recognized in his own day: the lack of evolutionary transitions documented in the fossil record. Instead, what we see are new biological forms coming into existence in "explosions," without clear evolutionary precursors.
Finally, Darwinists have long-argued that our cells can't be designed because they are full of functionless "junk DNA." But in recent years, biologists have discovered that the vast majority of our DNA is performing vital cellular functions and isn't "junk" at all. The wrong-headed conclusions of modern Darwinists have stifled scientific progress and slowed discovery of function for noncoding DNA.
Despite the bluffs of Darwinists, neo-Darwinism has plenty of scientific weaknesses that are discussed in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. Since cellular language implies an author, and microbiological machines imply an engineer, and genetically encoded programs imply a programmer, increasing numbers of scientists feel the solution is intelligent design.
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Casey Luskin is cofounder of the Intelligent Design & Evolution Awareness (IDEA) Center and program officer in public policy and legal affairs at the Discovery Institute in Seattle. He holds bachelor's and master's degrees in Earth sciences from the University of California-San Diego and a law degree from the University of San Diego.
I note with interest that no peer-reviewed scientific study accompanies the positing of irreducible complexity.
Why do you think that is?
Seems a bit disingenuous of the author to state that “Darwinists today seek to stifle scientific dissent” when the ID side pretty much eschews scientific research.
www.dissentfromdarwin.org
I haven’t seen any serious recent peer review of evolution that’s not attacked as anti-science and/or religion, yet I don’t see anything particularly anti-science or religious when I click on the ‘scientists’ link in here.
LOL. Ganged up on. On an anonymous internet forum. Not possible.
We who argue evolution on this site are already voices in the wilderness. We are not in the posting majority.
I don’t think your memo got out!
It's not an assertion it's fact...any government NEA-run school is testament to that!
Ah, a perfect circle.
The scientific establishment claims that all science must be from peer-reviewed articles.
They refuse to publish and/or fire anyone who considers ID.
Since no peer-reviewed papers exist (thanks to step 2), they declare ID not “science”.
I began to understand this when each and every peer review or mere criticism of evolution is attacked as being non- or anti-scientific and/or religious.
I’ve asked evo-cultists how they would recognize peer review from a creationist scientist vs. an evolution scientist if their work was submitted anonymously and there’s never been an answer from them.
So science has doctrine now?
Nope, just the cult of evolution. They’ve not yet succeeded, but at least one is calling for criminal prosecution for disagreeing with them, so it looks as if we’re not too far away from such a nightmare.
It’s a race....between the algoreacle and his hot air cult and the evo-cult of secular humanist godless NEA liberals demanding science be sterilized of God.
OK. Point me to a place where I can read the scientific dissent related to, say, irreducible complexity, you know, one of the topics mentioned in this thread that you have posted. Note that the request is for the scientific dissent, not philosophical. I’m pretty clear on the latter.
As a chemist, the most fascinating issue for me revolves around the origin of life. Before life began, there was no biology, only chemistry – and chemistry is the same for all time. What works (or not) today, worked (or not) back in the beginning. So, our ideas about what happened on Earth prior to the emergence of life are eminently testable in the lab. And what we have seen thus far when the reactions are left unguided as they would be in the natural world is not much. Indeed, the decomposition reactions and competing reactions out distance the synthetic reactions by far. It is only when an intelligent agent (such as a scientist or graduate student) intervenes and “tweaks” the reactions conditions “just right” do we see any progress at all, and even then it is still quite limited and very far from where we need to get. Thus, it is the very chemistry that speaks of a need for something more than just time and chance. And whether that be simply a highly specified set of initial conditions (fine-tuning) or some form of continual guidance until life ultimately emerges is still unknown. But what we do know is the random chemical reactions are both woefully insufficient and are often working against the pathways needed to succeed. For these reasons I have serious doubts about whether the current Darwinian paradigm will ever make additional progress in this area.
Edward Peltzer
Ph.D. Oceanography, University of California, San Diego (Scripps Institute)
Associate Editor, Marine Chemistry
More is found here:
www.dissentfromdarwin.org
click on the ‘scientists’ link.
And I'm a liberal commie atheist troll if I disagree with you.
...forward by ID’ers in the trial and as dishonest as the actions of the defendents - who should have been prosecuted for perjury.
Just a like a liberal, a lawsuit to silence the dissent isn’t enough, now you need to criminalize it, and you want dissenters doing hard time?
At least two of the defendents in the Dover trial perjured themselves. It’s a conservative trait to look for the law to be upheld but I expect nothing less than hand wringing and moral relativism from someone like you.
Well, you could either show us where govt run NEA schools allow for dissent of darweenism or keep bleating your endless strawmen and projections.
No, conservatives don’t demand children be taught science with a ridiculous ideology of being sterlized of God and can only be “taught” science as defined by godless liberal NEA cultists.
So you do believe that perjury is allowed as long as it advances your cause? That’s like taqiyyah, right? Interesting.
I could. Being on your enemies list is more fun.
Deciding whether ‘ID is science’ was central to the case rather than entirely irrelevant as you claim. If ID could demonstrate that it was legitimate science, then it could reasonably ask that it be included in the science curriculum at Dover. The painful part for ID’er (amongst many) was when it was shown concusively that ‘Pandas’ was a rehash of previous creationist texts.
As to the stuff about Minnich, most of those ‘7 or 10’ (knock yourself out guys!) articles in peer reviewed publications are review articles and contain little or no orignal science. Let’s hear from Behe on this matter, who testified on the stand at Dover that “there are no peer reviewed articles by anyone advocating for intelligent design supported by pertinent experiments or calculations which provide detailed rigorous accounts of how intelligent design of any biological system occurred.” I think we can safely say that the criticism of Jones’ findings is nitpicking, at best.
I don’t believe that we should uncritcially accept the pronouncements of judges. For that reason, I’ve read the transcripts of the trial. It’s obvious that Jones got the constitiutional aspect absolutely correct. The evidence that ID is not science and has a theological underpinning was also compelling and well within the scope of his findings.
Cheers.
No, you can’t.
Yes, I see you’re not alone, alot of liberals here either posing as conservatives and/or undermining science, Christianity, etc...
in your case, all of the above.
Can’t you do any better than that?
I don’t have any idea if perjury is involved, but this does remind me of your pitiful attempts at making excuses for faked fossils though.
So do you beliueve that faking fossils is allowed as long as it advances YOUR cause?
Like all liberals, you want to make up rules you don’t intend to abide by.
That’s like algore, right?...interesting.
Can’t do any better than expose that you can’t do it?
Can’t do, period.
If you haven’t got any idea that perjury was involved then why were you so convinced that it was ‘liberal’ of me for raising it?
If you can find anywhere that I said faking fossils was a good thing or ‘allowed’, please cite it.
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