Comments on: Beavers Gone Bad

By: kairosfocus

kairosfocus — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 20:07:25 +0000

Apparently Mr Dunford does not know beavers or their works! (Cf here. Why would he imply that beavers are UNintelligent? They plainly are, just of limited and programmed in at birth intelligence.)

By: Norman Doering

Norman Doering — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 22:28:01 +0000

Do Humans have criminal intent when they hunt deer, dig up ant hills, or kill the rabbits that are eating up their gardens?

By: jerry

jerry — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 20:15:25 +0000

The EF does not necessarily point to an intelligence directly as I made on two separate threads in the last couple days. The EF could point to the presence of a life form such as a worm or a plant. Each could have left a trace of its existence and the trace is not the life form itself. Paleontology has pointed to these traces in some of its findings.

So paleontologists have used the EF to conclude life forms were present from their traces. One could say that the notches in the trees and the stackings were traces of some life form. So the beaver episode is the EF in action. It is a common human activity.

By: RoyK

RoyK — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 19:35:29 +0000

I found a response to this post from Mike Dunford at Science Blogs. Dunford points out that those who complained assumed they could detect intelligence without looking for motive (or in Barry's words, "intent"). But the Explanatory Filter says nothing to say about intent. If we need intent to make a conclusion in this case, why exclude intent from Intelligent Design? Dunford concludes that the error can be understood in terms of the EF:

Law: No known natural law results in the spontaneous stacking of felled trees. Move on to chance. Chance: The odds of a group of naturally felled trees spontaneously arranging themselves into a neat stack are incredibly small. Move on to design. Design: The felled trees are the result of an Intelligent Designer. There seem to be only two possible conclusions that we can draw from this episode. Either it's possible to correctly apply the explanatory filter, but come out looking like a fool, or the Intelligent Designer just might be a beaver.

By: Joseph

Joseph — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 21:42:25 +0000

Should the beavers be arrested and jailed for violating the environmental laws?

Only if the law applies to beavers.

And even then one could argue that the beaver were actually creating a new ecosystem- not destroying one.

By: Tim

Tim — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 16:24:57 +0000

Barry’s query forms an eco-humdinger
As beavers, by nature, give some greens the finger.
I opine that the test
(to make a formal arrest)
Means the cop’d have to be Peter Singer.

By: tribune7

tribune7 — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 15:54:25 +0000

Ward, I’m very worried about the Beaver.
– June Cleaver.

By: allanius

allanius — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 15:34:01 +0000

Arrest the dammed beavers.

Speaking of which, I once encountered a dam in New Hampshire that had three perfectly symmetrical tiers cascading up-river. One can only assume that the first two did not stop enough water for their needs.

Now, the notion that dam building was hard-wired into beavers by nature is really quite entertaining in itself. Anyone who has seen a dam close up is justified in feeling a little skepticism about the smug materialism on display in the Big Science crowd, the angry materialism of a Dawkins or a Provine.

But three tiers? Fail safe? Hard-wired? Tell me again; I seem to be a little dense today. How many years of small and imperceptible beneficial mutations? To go from absolutely nothing to a marvelous something? From no plan to a beaver dam? From chaos to information?

It is not those who intuit a logos in beaver logs who should be ashamed. It’s the propagandists of materialism and purveyors of impossible modernist fables.

By: bb

bb — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 15:32:39 +0000

If all of nature is in competition to survive, why is most of nature symbiotic?

By: bb

bb — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 15:23:58 +0000

Another mark of design? Beavers not only have physical features incredibly well suited to their environment, their dams impact their environment in a way civil planners can learn from. Beavers can help ease drought Impact of Beaver Dams Wider Than Thought Does a beaver say to himself..."drought's a cummin...better get that dam done so th' trees don't die" ? The beaver has a role that is much larger than survival of his species and that I'm sure he doesn't realize; almost like he's designed to fill a niche.