Posted on 12/22/2009 7:53:44 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Believers in human-caused global climate change have been placed under an uncomfortable spotlight recently. That is thanks to the Climategate scandal, centering on e-mails hacked from the influential Climate Research Unit (CRU) at England’s University of East Anglia. The e-mails show scientists from various academic institutions hard at work suppressing dissent from other scientists who have doubts on global warming, massaging research data to fit preconceived ideas, and seeking to manipulate the gold standard “peer review” process to keep skeptical views from being heard.
Does this sound familiar at all? To me, as a prominent skeptic of modern Darwinian theory, it sure does. For years, Darwin-doubting scientists have complained of precisely such abuses, committed by Darwin zealots in academia.
There have been parallels cases where e-mail traffic was released showing Darwinian scientists displaying the same contempt for fair play and academic openness as we see now in the climate emails. One instance involved a distinguished astrophysicist at Iowa State University, Guillermo Gonzalez, who broke ranks with colleagues in his department over the issue of intelligent design in cosmology. Released under the Iowa Open Records Act, e-mails from his fellow scientists at ISU showed how his department conspired against him, denying Dr. Gonzales tenure as retribution for his views.
To me, the most poignant correspondence emerging from CRU e-mails involves discussion about punishing a particular editor at a peer-reviewed journal who was defying the orthodox establishment by publishing skeptical research.
In 2004, a peer-reviewed biology journal at the Smithsonian Institution published a technical essay of mine presenting a case for intelligent design. Colleagues of the journal’s editor, an evolutionary biologist, responded by taking away his office, his keys and his access to specimens, placing him under a hostile supervisor and spreading disinformation about him. Ultimately, he was demoted, prompting an investigation of the Smithsonian by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel.
The public has been intimidated into thinking that “non-experts” have no right to question “consensus” views in science. But the scandal in at the University of East Anglia suggests that this consensus on climate may not be based on solid evidence.
But what about the Darwin debate? We are told that the consensus of scientists in favor of Darwinian evolution means the theory is no longer subject to debate. In fact, there are strong scientific reasons to doubt Darwin’s theory and what it allegedly proved.
For example, contrary to Darwinian orthodoxy, the fossil record actually challenges the idea that all organisms have evolved from a single common ancestor. Why? Fossil studies reveal “a biological big bang” near the beginning of the Cambrian period (520 million years ago) when many major, separate groups of organisms or “phyla” (including most animal body plans) emerged suddenly without clear precursors.
While all scientists accept that natural selection can produce small-scale “micro-evolutionary” variations, many biologists now doubt that natural selection and random mutations can generate the large-scale changes necessary to produce fundamentally new structures and forms of life.
Thus more than 800 scientists, including professors from such institutions as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Yale and Rice universities and members of various national (U.S., Russian, Czech, Polish) academies of science have signed a statement questioning the creative power of the selection/mutation mechanism.
Increasingly, the Darwinian idea that living things only appear to be designed has come under scrutiny. Indeed, living systems display telltale signs of actual or intelligent design such as the presence of complex circuits, miniature motors and digital information in living cells. The information and information-processing systems that run the show in cells point with a particular clarity to prior design. The DNA molecule stores instructions in the form of a four-character digital code, similar to a computer code. As we know from our repeated experience -- the basis of all scientific reasoning -- systems possessing such features always arise from minds, not material processes.
Thus, despite the orthodox view that Darwin showed “design could arise without a designer” there is now compelling scientific evidence to the contrary.
The question of biological origins has long raised profound philosophical questions. Have life’s endlessly diverse forms been the result of purely material processes or did a purposeful intelligence play a role? It’s not surprising that such an ideologically charged issue would illicit strong passions, leading even scientists to suppress dissenting views with which they disagree.
All the more reason -- in this debate as in the one about global warming -- to let the evidence, rather than the consensus of experts, determine the outcome.
-- Dr. Meyer is director for the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. He is author of Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design, honored in the Times Literary Supplement as one of the best books of 2009. He received his Ph.D. in the Philosophy of Science from Cambridge University.
placemarker
Who else?
The fraud rampant throughout the attempts to establish AGW beyond the shadow of a doubt is so reminiscent of that of the history of Darwinism in its vain and frenzied attempts to establish the ToE beyond any doubt.
If you can’t find the evidence in the field to support your theory, either manufacture it yourself, or, by assuming the conclusion, misinterpret the evidence in light of that.
Not *inability* but *deliberate refusal*.
IDers are just ‘useful idiots’ for the YEC’s.. and the creationists will turn on them in a heartbeat.
Not *inability* but *deliberate refusal* to believe or understand the science God gave man the ability and the will to do.
YEC’s disgrace His name.
People who twist Scripture to fit some man-made theory that they have about how things must have happened by relying on the subjective, agenda driven interpretation of the data they collect, are a disgrace to God’s name.
I can’t imagine anything more disgraceful to God than someone who calls themselves a Christian, calling Him a liar and teaching others the same.
Who’s a *Bible literalist*?
Please provide links and evidence to support that people believe that the entire Bible must be read word for word literally, without regard to poetry, parable, song, and other grammatical styles.
I’ll be getting the popcorn out while you find the links.
You’ve just been listening to the lies propagated by the Darwinists that anyone who challenges the ToE is a Bible literalist.
Darwinists love nothing more than to misrepresent any questioning of the ToE specifically and science as a whole as a *religious attack* on the ToE.
I’ve seen them knee jerk react to people who are evolutionists by putting them in the most extreme YEC box they can find and make up, simply for disagreeing with something some evolutionist said.
You need to get out more if you really thought that anyone who doubted Darwin was automatically a *Bible literalist*.
You philosophical naturalists crack me up :-)
" The evidence that you are trying to use to disprove evolution, falsifies creation."
The evidence itself neither proves nor disproves anything. It is the interpretation of evidence through a preferred philosophical paradigm and logical fallacy that leads you to believe you are looking at 'proof' or 'falsification'. There are only philosophical positions, not empirical ones.
"Isn't cognitive dissonance a wonderful thing : )"
Apparently... :-)
You are half right. Evidence can't prove anything, but it can certainly disprove a theory.
It is the interpretation of evidence through a preferred philosophical paradigm and logical fallacy that leads you to believe you are looking at 'proof' or 'falsification'. There are only philosophical positions, not empirical ones.
I know you would certainly like to believe that wouldn't you? Tell you what, go jump off a tall building then report back to me with your evidence or falsification of gravity. If you didn't fall then you have disproved Gravity, if you do fall you have evidence supporting the theory.
Good luck. Oh and the taller the building the better : )
You mean like anomalous orbital velocities of stars around the galactic center has disproved the current gravitational model? Or am I correct in that the evidence (anomalous orbital velocities) in no way disproved the theory but instead 'dark matter' was invented because of a philosophical commitment to a certain theory combined w/ fallacious logic?
"I know you would certainly like to believe that wouldn't you? Tell you what, go jump off a tall building then report back to me with your evidence or falsification of gravity. If you didn't fall then you have disproved Gravity, if you do fall you have evidence supporting the theory."
I know you would certainly like to deny that, wouldn't you? Tell you what, take a starship to a star with an anomalous orbital velocity and report back on the effects of 'dark matter' on your starship during the trip with your evidence or falsification of 'dark matter'. If you aren't affected, then you have disproved 'dark mattter'. If you are affected, you have proved it.
"Good luck. Oh and the taller the building the better : )"
Good luck. Oh and the farther the start, the better. :-)
A flaw in ID thinking is the belief that the human mind is Godlike
It hasn't disproven anything 'yet'. It may simply be evidence that the fabric of space is growing. The pioneer anomaly may support that idea too. When I go flying that doesn't disprove the theory of Gravity.
If you aren't affected, then you have disproved 'dark mattter'. If you are affected, you have proved it.
First to test your theory you have to have a theory. What is your theory? Gee isn't this exciting? We get to see GourmetDan's theory! I can't wait to see your theory disproving gravity : )
Exactly the point. Evidence contrary to theory is 'explained away' by conveniently-invisible, assumed 'dark matter' that is then 'identified' by the conveniently-circular appeal to the anomalous effect as evidence for the invisible evidence.
"When I go flying that doesn't disprove the theory of Gravity."
Don't know about you, but last time I checked, no anomalous gravitational effects are observed during flight. Just normal aerodynamic properties counteracting normal gravitational effects.
"First to test your theory you have to have a theory. What is your theory? Gee isn't this exciting? We get to see GourmetDan's theory! I can't wait to see your theory disproving gravity : )"
To be able to disprove a theory, anomalous evidence must be considered in light of scientifically observable evidence rather than 'explained away' by assumed, invisible matter that is invoked because the observations are off. Gee isn't this exciting? We get to see LeGrande's explanation for anomalous orbital velocities using real scientific evidence. I can't wait to see your explanation proving anomalous observed orbital velocities using observable evidence. :-)
While GGG and I have amicable exchanges, he and I agree on next to nothing. Merry Christmas, GGG.
That being said, GGG will admittedly (he has done so often) post any critique of Darwin’s theory, as anything that assists in tearing it down is seen as a good thing.
But have no fear, were Darwin’s Beagle to be sunk by said critiques (they’ve had 150 years to do so, so it does seem unlikely to happen), GGG would immediately turn on the IDers, grinding them into fine dust for their perceived apostasy. It’s the old, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, until I no longer need them.
Do I have that about right, GGG?
No. I asked you for your theory explaining it. I already gave you two possibilities.
Don't know about you, but last time I checked, no anomalous gravitational effects are observed during flight. Just normal aerodynamic properties counteracting normal gravitational effects.
And how do you know that isn't the case with the anomalous orbital velocities?
Not having all of the answers doesn't disprove anything.
I am shocked, shocked that you refuse to explain anomalous orbital velocities using real scientific evidence.
"And how do you know that isn't the case with the anomalous orbital velocities?"
So, please explain how these stars are using aerodynamic properties to generate anomalous orbital velocities in space.
"Not having all of the answers doesn't disprove anything."
That's got to be the strongest argument you've made to date.
Yes, I know that it is hard to believe that I don't have all the answers. You will just have to learn to live with a little uncertainty in your life.
Not having all of the answers doesn't disprove anything.
That's got to be the strongest argument you've made to date.
You seem to have a problem with living with uncertainty. Science doesn't provide certainty. I would rather live with a little uncertainty than 'know' something that isn't true.
It isn't hard to believe that you don't have any answers at all. What I said was, "I am shocked, shocked that you refuse to explain anomalous orbital velocities using real scientific evidence." That you think that means it is "hard to believe that I don't have all the answers" only shows how uncertain your positions are.
"You seem to have a problem with living with uncertainty. Science doesn't provide certainty. I would rather live with a little uncertainty than 'know' something that isn't true."
You seem to have a problem with credulity. But I see that you characterize it as 'a little uncertainty' so that you can 'know' something that isn't true.
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