Posted on 10/11/2005 7:27:16 AM PDT by Valin
In the most recent issue of the American Scientist, Pat Shipman issued a warning to his fellow Darwinists, informing them of the impending threat placed upon their theory by intelligent design (ID):
“These events prompted me to take ID seriously, and this movement scares me. Now I feel like a jogger in the park at night who realizes that she is far too isolated and that the shadows are far too deep…. I fear my days are numbered unless I act soon and effectively. If you are reading this, the chances are that you are in the same position.”
Shipman has officially sounded the alarm. This comes after twenty years of warnings from the ivory towers, issuing the message, “Protect Darwin, or else.”
In 1983, Dr. John Patterson, self-avowed atheist and evolutionist, was serving as one of the members of the Iowa State University committee on instruction in the sciences and humanities. He presented a proposal to the committee suggesting that any student who was enrolled in a science-related course, and who, at the conclusion of the course, continued to maintain a personal belief in creation, should receive a failing grade. Furthermore, Patterson said that if the university discovered that it inadvertently had conferred a degree upon a student who, upon having graduated, nevertheless believed in creation, the degree should be rescinded.
Twenty years later, Micah Spradling, a pre-med student at Texas Tech University, applied for entrance to Southwestern University’s medical school. In order to complete his application, he needed a letter of recommendation from a specific faculty member, Michael Dini, an associate professor of biology at Texas Tech. Dini required that in order to receive a letter of recommendation with his signature, a student was required to meet a three part criteria. The first two criteria were standard academic requirements. The third criteria, however, is one Spradling was not prepared to fulfill. Dini asked that Spradling “truthfully and forthrightly affirm a scientific answer” to the question: “How do you think the human species originated?” Spradling was denied a recommendation based entirely on the fact that he did not accepted Darwinism as a fact.
Just the next year, Nancy Bryson, a biology professor at Mississippi University for Women, was asked to give an extra-curricular presentation on a topic of her choosing. Bryson, who earned her Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of South Carolina, held a talk entitled “Critical Thinking on Evolution.” The talk presented evidence—marshaled by scientists, philosophers of science, mathematicians, law professors, and geologists—of serious problems with Darwinian evolution. Immediately following the talk, a professor of biology stood in front of the group, reading a prepared statement attacking Bryson’s presentation. “This is just religion masquerading as science" he urged in his five minute soliloquy. After the diatribe, students warmly approached Bryson, thanking her for her talk, sharing their disgust with the attack pointed at her by the professor. The following morning, several professors from the Department of Sciences and Mathematics filed complaints to the Vice President of Academic Affairs regarding her presentation. The next day, the VPAA informed Bryson that in the next academic year, she would lose her position as the Division Head of her department. She was also told she was in grave danger of losing her tenure-track appointment.
This June, Bryan Leonard, who received his Master's Degree in microbiology, presented his doctoral dissertation to the committee responsible for granting his Ph.D. at Ohio State University. Leonard’s doctoral dissertation deals with the area of evolution education, specifically looking at how students react and shape their beliefs when presented with the scientific information both supporting and challenging macroevolution. In his dissertation, Leonard presents clear data that shows the majority of students are interested in learning both sides from a scientific perspective. Leonard's dissertation was suddenly postponed after three professors at OSU struck down his dissertation research because of his views on evolution, his use of human subjects for testing, and his public association of his beliefs with OSU. The three professors, in their letter to the committee, said, "We note a fundamental flaw: There are no valid scientific data challenging macroevolution. Mr. Leonard has been misinforming his students if he teaches them otherwise…” Of the 350 students polled by Leonard, 312 said that they would be more interested in learning the scientific information supporting and challenging macroevolution.
Earlier this month, President Timothy White of the University of Idaho issued a letter informing faculty that it was “inappropriate” for anyone to teach “views that differ from evolution” in any “life, earth, and physical science courses or curricula." The statement prohibits any views that differ from evolution, “no matter how scientific,” and no matter how related to the courses under study. White’s letter was released just as University of Idaho biologist and ID supporter, Scott Minnich, was set to testify about ID in a Pennsylvania lawsuit. Ironically, the university's own faculty handbook declares that "academic freedom is essential for the protection of the rights of faculty members in teaching and of students in learning" and that "teachers are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing their subjects" so long as they don't introduce irrelevant material.
There are two ways to win in the marketplace of ideas: you can either make the best products—formulating robust arguments and communicating your ideas clearly—or sabotage your competitor’s—stopping their research and censuring their work.
Joe Manzari is a research assistant at the American Enterprise Institute.
It's as verifiable as the evolution of the TTSS into a flagellum. Yet you accept the one merely on the basis that it has not yet been disproved, but not the other. Why do you think that's reasonable?
The most famous dinosaur of all time -- the brontosaurus -- never existed. . . . Watever you say, Chief. If you want to assume that an error with some bones means that the bones themselves never existed
Of course the bones existed. The assumption based on those bones, however, is erroneous.
You certainly can spell "arrogant", can't you? You either read that or you did not. If you nit-picked out "all the grammar and spelling error" then you read it.
You are as right as the Holy Church and the Inquistion was when it prosecuted Galileo.
These are all "non-verifiable" statements in the context that are using for veacity.
So too is the statement "There are no gods, there is no God." It is even less possible to demonstrate.
I'll skip Godel's theorem today, except to note that Truth is all about perception, an acceptance of that perception by the consciousness. Restated: there are truths that in any formal system that cannot be verified inside of that formal system.
> It's as verifiable as the evolution of the TTSS into a flagellum.
So you equate an infinite God with a flagellum?
Interesting theology you have.
Projection.
>G-d exists. Two lines parallel at one point never intersect at another. The sum of the interior angles of a triangle are 180.
> These are all "non-verifiable" statements in the context that are using for veacity.
The first is merest speculation, as scientifically valid as "Odin exists," "The Great Green Arkleseizure exists," "Frodo Lives!" or "Allah exists." None of these, including "God exists," are valid points for a scientific discussion. At what point in a muder investigation is it fvalid to bring up "God did it?" At what point in your average missing person investigation is it scientifically valid to conclude that being borne bodily up into Heaven is just as likely as a kidnapping?
The second two are true within certain limitations, false in others. I've seen triangles with total interior angles of 270 degrees. I've seen parallel lines intersect at two points. And, in fact, so have you. One does not need advanced hyperspace math of LSD to see such things... they are commonplace, everyday sights.
How do you figure that?
>> So you equate an infinite God with a flagellum?
> How do you figure that?
"It's as verifiable as the evolution of the TTSS into a flagellum."
On the one hand, you've got the rather mundane transformation of a small biological structure into a physically similar small biological structure with a different function. This is no more remarkable that a bird beak used for eatign bugs mutating into a bird beak capable of punching through bark to get at the bugs. Same structure, slightly changed through no will of the owner, into a structure capable of doing a new thing.
On the other hand, you've got an infinite God, capable of creating entire universes billions of lightyears wide, with every single subatomic particle specifically placed.
Now, for scientists, one of these propositions is far more extraordinary than the other, and consequently the level of evidence required for adequate confirmation would be equally extraordinary. But you equate the two as equally likely... which means to you a minor mutation is no more or less extraordinary than God.
As I said... interesting theology you have going there.
That God did it is as verifiable as the evolution of TTSS into a flagellum via the process the fellow described earlier.
On the one hand, you've got the rather mundane transformation of a small biological structure into a physically similar small biological structure with a different function.
Actually, it is not that mundane. If the TTSS actually did evolve into the flagellum the Theory of Evolution would pretty much have to be thrown out the window.
> That God did it is as verifiable as the evolution of TTSS into a flagellum via the process the fellow described earlier.
Disagree. For the thign to evolve, all you'd have to demonstrateis mutation. For God to have created it, you'd have to demonstrate God.
> If the TTSS actually did evolve into the flagellum the Theory of Evolution would pretty much have to be thrown out the window.
Curiously, nobody in evolutionary biology agrees with you.
No, to verify something you have to show that it can be done. Speculation about a possible evolutionary path from TTSS to flagellum doesn't show that it can be done.
If the TTSS actually did evolve into the flagellum the Theory of Evolution would pretty much have to be thrown out the window. . .Curiously, nobody in evolutionary biology agrees with you.
What would it mean if the TTSS preceded the flagellum?
> to verify something you have to show that it can be done. Speculation about a possible evolutionary path from TTSS to flagellum doesn't show that it can be done.
Really? Which of the steps described is counter to physical possibility?
> What would it mean if the TTSS preceded the flagellum?
That the TTSS existed first, at least for that particular bacterium. Not exactly something that would shake the pillers of science.
So if something is possible, it's verified?
That the TTSS existed first, at least for that particular bacterium.
No, it would mean it existed before all eubacterial flagella. Now, what is the purpose of the TTSS?
> So if something is possible, it's verified?
Ahem: "to verify something you have to show that it can be done."
Your own words, Chuckles.
> Now, what is the purpose of the TTSS?
I'm sure you're capable of reading the articles and finding out.
A being outside the natural laws of the physical universe can create life ex nihlo. We've just verified the existence of God and ID. Fair enough?
> Now, what is the purpose of the TTSS? I'm sure you're capable of reading the articles and finding out.
Thank you. But it's not my reading skills that are at issue. Why would the undirected evolution of the TTSS into the eubacterial flagellum be a kick in the shin to the ToE?
Apparently they saw a change in direction of the light. They attributed it to the gravity of the sun.
Could it not be from passing through the atmosphere of the sun caused a refraction which is known to change the direction of light?
Quoting from the introduction to the book Origin of the Species:
"After five years' work I allowed myself to speculate on the subject, and drew up some short notes; these I enlarged in 1844 into a sketch of the conclusions,..."
"For I am well aware that scarcely a single point is discussed in this volume on which facts cannot be adduced, often apparently leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I have arrived."
It is a religion because the book Origin of the Species does not explain the origin of the species.
You have to take on faith that Darwin's theory is fact.
Darwin himself states that his theories are actually his speculations and there is ample evidence that come to a different conclusion.
Why can't it be taught as a theory and the actual words of Darwin be used to explain where it came from?
ping for later read
I don't have the background to allow me to say what refractive effects are possible in such a situation.
A line drawn from an observer to the observed position of such a distant star would establish the apparent position of that star. I would imagine that the apparent position was considerably outside the disk of the sun and sufficiently outside to establish that such rays did not pass through appreciable solar atmosphere. One would have to know more about such "atmosphere" in order to be confident. I have never heard that such was a consideration so I am inclined to believe that it was not a factor.
I have read that the measurement error in the original observations were such that there was some significant probability of reaching the correct conclusion by accident of measurement error rather than by having actually measured the displacement. I haven't heard any challenge that would suggest that observations made with a more perfect experimental setup would violate the theory.
I believe that the "bending" of light rays by gravity has been separately confirmed by the action of "lensing" by very dense objects in the universe. Objects behind such dense obects can appear distorted because divergent rays become aligned causing the object to appear larger.
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