kevinw,

You said: “your book is awfully expensive ($27 for a paperback?). I didn’t see it on the website, but I assume a portion of the proceeds are going to a legal defense fund for the victims?”

Funny man. Well, for starters, it’s 450 pages, well researched, and wasn’t written in a day. I’d say it could sell for more, but, you wouldn’t believe it. Anyway, I’ll be selling the e-book version soon for much less if paperback is too pricey for your pocketbook.

” the connection is that, even in the absence of the claimed oppression, ID scientists are still unproductive. if you’re arguing that good science is being repressed, this fact certainly argues against that.”

Au contraire my friend, you are only seeing the glass half full. You still don’t get it. Many Darwin skeptics are excellent scientists in a variety of scientific endeavors. Many of them are VERY productive in their chosen fields, and are recognized for their accomplishments and acievements UNTIL their skepticism of Darwinian ideas becomes known. Then, all of a sudden, they can’t possibly be “good comrades” (as Ben Stein put it…)

“I’m sure you’re aware of Axe’s paper in Plos One, a reasonably well-respected journal. Behe’s paper was accepted in Protein Science, a middling journal. Dembski apparently had a paper accepted somewhere, although he won’t say where. as to whether or not they would get accepted in nature or science, that’s all hypothetical until they actually submit there. even if they get rejected (as most of us do, boo hoo), if it’s exciting enough it will get published somewhere and noticed.”

True. But you are focusing on the guys that are front and center in the ID movement. Don’t expect to see them get published in a Big Science journal near you anytime soon. When you shift your focus, what you find is a great many other scientists who are thought to be respectable and get published all over the place in highly respected science journals, UNTIL they are found out to be Darwin skeptics.

“the biologic inst website lists at least 3 full-time staff, including two PIs. since salaries are the biggest expense of any scientific endeavor, that indicates to me they’re reasonably well-funded. but maybe you know better.”

WEll, let me put it this way. John West once asked Ken Miller what his annual budget was FOR HIS DEPARTMENT at Brown University. Miller popped up with a figure, to which West stated “I wish I had that kind of budget to work with – but I don’t.” And I believe West was referring to the ENTIRE budget for Discovery Institute (of which Biologic is just a part).

I said: The problem that many Darwinians have is that they often seem to forget the fact that the imaginative bridges btwn the evidence is just that, and some of them have a tendency (after they co-mingle evidence with imagination) and call it all “evidence.”

To which you responded “I would like to see a clear example of this from the peer-reviewed literature. i think you’re conflating what science writers do with what the scientists themselves do.”

Oh dear, you ARE kidding me, right?

For starters, go read “Betrayers of the Truth” by Broad and Wade. Then do some research on confirmation bias. That ought to get you going down the path I’m thinking of.

When every piece of evidence is viewed as evidence (by scientists) that must somehow fit into an evolutionary explantion, I’m not conflating anything here.

It’s a fact. Nearly all scientists do this (even if it’s only lip service) when they report on the evidence: everything they look at is viewed in the light of evolution. When they don’t understand how any evolutionary connection played a role in the development of a critter, they assume it did anyway, and they put up all kinds of stories about how they imageine it “must have”, “most certainly”, and “without question” had to have occurred (via evolution).

Go read anything by Feduccia (on Birds), or Robert Carroll (vertebrate paleontology). These guys and others all talk about how we don’t really understand how various fossil critters are related, but by their homology, we KNOW they must be related somehow.

A MUST READ is Barbara Stahl’s “Vertebrate History: Problems in Evolution.” She was a trooper for evolution,but you won’t find a more revealing account of what we don’t know (and things haven’t changed much since she wrote it)

First of all, I don’t understand how or why you jump from my claim of discrimination to this question. There is no relevance I can see. What’s the connection here?

the connection is that, even in the absence of the claimed oppression, ID scientists are still unproductive. if you’re arguing that good science is being repressed, this fact certainly argues against that.

Finally, I never argued that the reason they have not published stuff in their own journal is bc of oppression. I WOULD say that their research would not likely get published in many cream-of-the-crop refereed science journals if the authors were known ID sympathizers. Would not matter how good their science was.

I’m sure you’re aware of Axe’s paper in Plos One, a reasonably well-respected journal. Behe’s paper was accepted in Protein Science, a middling journal. Dembski apparently had a paper accepted somewhere, although he won’t say where. as to whether or not they would get accepted in nature or science, that’s all hypothetical until they actually submit there. even if they get rejected (as most of us do, boo hoo), if it’s exciting enough it will get published somewhere and noticed.

Secondly, ID certainly does NOT have a “well-funded research center” that I know of. What’s your source for that info? How well funded are they?

the biologic inst website lists at least 3 full-time staff, including two PIs. since salaries are the biggest expense of any scientific endeavor, that indicates to me they’re reasonably well-funded. but maybe you know better.

The problem that many Darwinians have is that they often seem to forget the fact that the imaginative bridges btwn the evidence is just that, and some of them have a tendency (after they co-mingle evidence with imagination) and call it all “evidence.”

I would like to see a clear example of this from the peer-reviewed literature. i think you’re conflating what science writers do with what the scientists themselves do.

What is going to happen to that world-view when scientists finally figure out what IDists have been saying for years- that biological information is NOT reducible to the sequence. Rather it is very similar to the information on a computer disk- embedded on the DNA (and other structures) providing the assembly, editing, transcription, error correction and translation processes.

BTW development is not an indication of evolution.

Why osn’t PAX6 evidence for a common design?

Why must it be evidence for universal common descent when we don’t even know whether or not thne transformations required are even possible via any amount of accumulating genetic mistakes?

Then you say “be patient”. That is not going to happen when one preaches a conclusion that has not been confirmed by anything but a world-view.

I apologize for my rudeness at #42. Based upon the unexpectedness of the question and the phrasing of “do you know anything” made me expect you were about to launch into an attack on my person.

I think your suggestion in #46 is a good place to start. Although I’d add that we should be looking for any foresighted mechanisms, as well. Also, I note that any changes in Pax-6 expression might need to occur simultaneously with changes in other genes, which makes this endeavor all the more difficult since we’d have to search for possible alternate (non-eye related) functionality as well.

In any case, my point in all this discussion was to highlight how the grand claims of Darwinism (or whatever you want to call it) are largely unverified. This is the core of the theory yet supporting evidence only provides support for the smaller claims that ID proponents would expect to be true (although an exact “edge” is still a very rough estimate). Never mind OOL. We know that an intelligent agent is at least capable. But what remains to be researched is method (how did the actor act) and that is being tackled by ID-compatible hypotheses. Then of course there’s the identity issue, although that remains to be seen whether we’ll find any specific clues.

Sorry I’ve been away for so long…

Kahn said:
“Kevinw,I read over the case studies that were on the web and I am not still not impressed.”

Not surprising. You don’t sound like someone who would be (impressed). So read the book if you want a more robust perspective. I can’t give it all away for free. What’s on the SOD web site is intended to whet your appetite. Guess you don’t have any. That’s fine – you just go ahead and not be impressed.

“Even if they are as bad as you say, I ask you this in return: ID has its own well-funded research center and its own journal. Nothing supporting ID has come out of the research center and the journal hasn’t published in 3 years. can you really argue this is bc of oppression?”

First of all, I don’t understand how or why you jump from my claim of discrimination to this question. There is no relevance I can see. What’s the connection here?

Secondly, ID certainly does NOT have a “well-funded research center” that I know of. What’s your source for that info? How well funded are they?

I know there’s a lab (Biologic) and I’ve been there. But if that’s what you’re thinking is “well funded,” I would think again.

Finally, I never argued that the reason they have not published stuff in their own journal is bc of oppression. I WOULD say that their research would not likely get published in many cream-of-the-crop refereed science journals if the authors were known ID sympathizers. Would not matter how good their science was.

Someone said:

“I want real, empirical examples, just like you were asking of me. aren’t you the ones who accuse Darwinists of just “imagining” things?”

Darwinists DO imagine stuff all the time. But let’s be clear about something: imagination is an integral and legitimate part of building hypotheses when we don’t have all the evidence we need. The problem that many Darwinians have is that they often seem to forget the fact that the imaginative bridges btwn the evidence is just that, and some of them have a tendency (after they co-mingle evidence with imagination) and call it all “evidence.”

That IS a huge problem. And I understand it – it comes from a strong desire to see what you want to see. That’s what I call “confirmation bias.” As far as I can tell, most Darwinians start with the assumption that all the evidence fits into an evolutionary scenario of one sort or another. There is little to know question that it could have been any other way.

Not a truly objective approach to examining the evidence…would you say?

I asked the question bc I was going to suggest that you go to GenBank, collect all the sequence data and build a simple maximum parsimony gene tree. that would be a hypothesized pathway for the evolution of the Pax6 gene. then you could do a mutation-by-mutation analysis and see what you come up with. Or, you could just look at figures 2+3 from the Gehring paper I linked to. you would find that the evolutionary pathway is v simple, with a relatively small number of amino acid changes. however, the differences in eyes between those species is v great. of course, bc Pax6 controls so many genes, we can’t simply say that small changes in Pax6 have led to large changes in phenotype. but it does suggest that of the key players in eye development had a single ancient origin and may have controlled the development of the first rhadobmeric photoreceptors (recruited into all eye types) from simple precursors. this is surprising bc it had been thought that eyes evolved independently many different times- but these data suggest a single common origin. these photoreceptors are hypothesized to have combined with pigment cells to form a prototype eye that then evolved into all the current forms. an example of how this diversification may have occurred can be found in ragworm eyes. as larvae, they have simple eyes composed of a photoreceptor and pigment cell. as adults, they have cup-shaped eyes that are composed of many larval eyes and constructed through repeated expression of the same Pax-6 and other genes used to construct the larval eye. Similarly, Pax-6 is differentially expressed during formation of all metazoan eyes, suggesting that the evolution of complex from simple eyes may have at least partially been driven by changes in Pax-6 expression. this work is still in progress, I urge you to be patient; after all, we still haven’t found a cure for cancer despite orders of magnitude more scientists and funding. a promising avenue to get beyond just looking at Pax6 is to use microarrays to compare gene expression during eye development in different metazoans. this will allow us to get a handle on how the genes under Pax6′s control have evolved. this was done for mice just this week:

http://www.plosone.org/article.....ne.0004159

the other sources of info were “making of the fittest” and the review article by Gehring.

If the mechanism “proves” correct, then academic freedom is a moot point.

MY point is that academic freedom is not moot because the mechanism(s) cannot be objectively tested.

Khan,

Do YOU know anything about constructing a testable hypothesis?

If so this would be a good time to present a testable hypothesis based on undirected processes.

If you cannot do so then your digma trhreatens not only academic freedom but also critical thinking.