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Canadian vendor of Darwin’s certainties strikes back against O’Leary
| August 19, 2008 | Posted by O'Leary under Intelligent Design |
110 Responses to Canadian vendor of Darwin’s certainties strikes back against O’Leary
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Mainstream scientists believe that evolutionary theory meets these criteria, and the standards reflect that. Repeatable doesn’t mean that we have to be able to reproduce something in the here and now – if it did all theories about the past would be excluded. Repeatable means that if we take additional observations that our original observations will be observed: the fact that trilobite fossils are found in the Devonian era but not the Eocene is a repeatable observation.
I know you guys don’t believe or accept the conclusions of mainstream science, but as far as the Kansas Science standards are concerned, that is irrelevant. The goal of the science standards is to describe core findings of mainstream science, and the statements about evolutionary science that are in the standards are such.
Also, I am a bit tired of this accusation that I evade, duck and deflect. I answer the questions I am interested in and have time for, and often do not answer them to your satisfaction. I don’t mind you saying you disagree or saying that you think my answer is inadequate, or just plain wrong, but I think you could stop making accusations about my character. I don’t do that to others, and I would appreciate it if it were to done unto me.
Corrected grammar:
I don’t mind you saying you disagree or saying that you think my answer is inadequate, or just plain wrong, but I think you could stop making accusations about my character. I don’t do that to others, and I would appreciate it if it were not>/b> done unto me.
Darn – too much of a hurry here at lunch:
Corrected grammar:
I don’t mind you saying you disagree or saying that you think my answer is inadequate, or just plain wrong, but I think you could stop making accusations about my character. I don’t do that to others, and I would appreciate it if it were not done unto me
“The goal of the science standards is to describe core findings of mainstream science, and the statements about evolutionary science that are in the standards are such.”
So that’s why government schools are so boring!
Jack, I, for one, would be willing to start all over again, meaning that I am resolved to take a more respectful tone. Frankly, I don’t like being snippy, because it doesn’t really fit my personality. In fact, it makes me uncomfortable. Yes, it did seem to me that you were evading some fundamental questions. To me, it seemed more of a strategy than a character flaw, so you may be reading a little too much into that. On the other hand, there are a lot more of us here than there are of you. So, I am sure it is hard to keep up.
Keep this in mind. We are the underdogs in this conflict, and you are the favorite. It is easy to be congenial and magnanimous when the courts, the state, and the academy see things your way. There is nothing like a little power to give one a sense of equipoise. It is not so easy to exhibit that same generous spirit when you are fighting for your life under unjust circumstances. Still, some things are re-doable, and I think defining one’s internet ethos is one of them. So, I am going to practice more patience.
There is also the problem of pride, people get competitive, and truth gets lost in the process. Add to that the difficulty of processing life-changing facts that can shake up one’s world view and uncharitable dialogue may be the result. That said, my point and Jerry’s point were pretty straightforward. I will not confuse this thread with my agenda, but Jerry’s question still stands, and I think it is a fair one.
Thanks Stephen.
Also, I think I answered Jerry’s question in #91, although the sentence “Repeatable means that if we take additional observations that our original observations will be observed” should have said “Repeatable means that if we take additional observations then our original observations will be confirmed.”
And to Rude: I presume that by “government schools” you mean public education, which happens to be where I work everyday. I don’t doubt that many students are bored with school, but science is not boring just because it teaches mainstream science. Science is fascinating, and many a student has a good teacher that gets that enthusiasm for science across.
StephenB,
I rest my case with Jack Krebs. Does anyone besides Jack think he has answered my question.
Has he ever been able to show that gradualism or any other mechanism whether natural or not has anything to do with macro evolution? And if it hasn’t then any such association should be removed from the Kansas curriculum and text books.
It should be alright to mention that macro evolution took place, or specifically that new species appeared in the fossil record that are distinctly different from any that have appeared before but there is no known mechanism to account for their origin and that the ideas of Charles Darwin as expressed in the Origin of Species for the origin of all species have no basis in fact. No scientific data has been discovered to support Darwin’s thesis except for minor variations in current species.
Maybe Jack could comment as to why my previous paragraph is not more accurate than what is in the curriculum and the textbooks.
The vast majority of the world’s biologist disagree with you, Jerry, and the science standards reflect what the vast majority believe. It’s that simple. When the majority believe as you do, the science standards will change.
Can I ask someone to give me a good definition of micro vs macroevolution. My understanding from reading the threads is by macro one means to say a new species is form, but an obvious caveat of that is our definition of species is somewhat vague. Or perhaps I am just reading it wrong.
Thanks.
Jack Krebs,
Could just one of that vast majority please provide some empirical data since you/we know that you cannot do so. You obviously know that you are making the fallacious argument from authority. You just admitted that there is no information otherwise you would be all over it. Is that any way to teach science to children and young adults. I would be embarrassed by your answer.
And Jack you have an educational background in evolutionary biology.
—-Jerry: “I rest my case with Jack Krebs. Does anyone besides Jack think he has answered my question.”
I don’t think he answered or even approached the question.
Jerry, let me be more specific. I don’t think those KC standards were written to control runaway evolutionary theory but rather to institutionalize anti-ID ideology. The very idea that science can be established through consensus and then codified into law is ludicrous.
StephenB,
Jack Krebs is a nice guy and has admitted his involvement with this issue due to personal reasons. I have been trying for over a year to get Jack to give an honest answer about the debate and he has used every possible technique to avoid answering a simple question. It would be instructional to see just how Jack has avoided the question.
The standards were not set up with evolution in mind and as far as I am concerned are good standards. The problem is that something that is proposed as science fails the standards. Jack knows it that if he admits it, he is toast as far as participation in setting standards in Kansas.
Similarly, Ted Davis will not answer direct questions about evolution. I have a couple out there for him that are also going unanswered. Ted Davis is a great source for information and he has been a great asset for us here but he too fails on the issue of evolution. At ASA there is a whole stable of scientists who range from neutral towards ID to very hostile but I have yet to see anyone of them ever answer the evolution questions except to sneer at anyone who does not accept the conventional wisdom.
Jerry @103:
I want to disagree with you about one point here, but first I want you to know that my disagreement in no way implies disrespect for your many strong contributions to the discussions here.
I don’t know whether Jack Krebs is avoiding our arguments or not, but I think it’s unfair to say that Ted Davis won’t answer direct questions. I think he’s answered most of the questions we’ve set for him, even if he hasn’t always given the answer that we want to hear; further, it may well be that he has simply missed some of them (sometimes we fire 20 posts a day at him). Remember that he has a day job (as a professor of the history of science, and I would guess an excellent one).
I of course would love it if he answered all the questions we posed to him at length, because I’ve found his answers balanced and informative, even when he disagrees with us. I would be interested in his answer to my Martian rock sculpture example, for one thing. (See the 244-post AAAS video thread.) But he may simply not have the time to answer every question.
I don’t think Ted minds at all that we vigorously disagree with some of his points; he’s a true scholar and is not offended by intellectual criticism as such. But I think we should not impugn his motives. From his point of view, he’s coming into a lion’s den here, and he’s doing it with the calm of a saint. We won’t get many TEs like him to visit so regularly and write such generously long posts, so I think that, while we can and should hit him hard intellectually — he’s a big boy, and very bright, and can take it — we should impute only the highest motives to him. From my knowledge of him, the highest motives are the only ones he’s got.
T.
Timaeus,
I was one of the first ones here to welcome Ted Davis and he has my total admiration for what he does at ASA and what he has done here. I would be very interested in what Ted has to say about macro evolution but doubt that we will see any extensive response since the topic is really the “third rail” in this debate and I have yet to find someone who supports Darwin’s ideas for macro evolution either here or anywhere ever defend that belief. So I don’t expect Ted to do so but then he is at a disadvantage since no defense exists or else we would have seen it.
I have not seen a coherent response from anyone at ASA even though most hold in disdain anyone who does not accept Darwin. In recent months I have noticed a more guarded tendency in comments there by some on this topic.
Stephen Matheson before he got banned here said he would take on the question when he had time, but that will not happen here. It will be interesting just how any of them will proceed if they ever try since they have been used to using micro evolution to justify macro evolution with out realizing the difference and assuming we deny micro evolution too.
Jerry and Timaeus, in my experience TEs answer only the questions that they want to answer. On many occasions, I have raised a relevant objection or outlined a specific point only to receive a twelve-paragraph response that answers in exquisite detail a question I didn’t ask. If I do finally pin them down, they will engage me just long enough to keep things at the surface level. When the probing starts to uncover the inevitable inconsistencies their position, they find a new interrogator, engage him at a superficial level, and start the process all over again. All the really hard questions are left hanging in mid air.
Oh, what a merry muddle! (“And we are right, and you are right, and everything is quite correct…tra la, la, la.”)
So it is true that ID has religious significance to many, ourself included. In fact ourself is willing to admit that “religion” is the main reason for our interest in ID. For over a century, the West has been subjected to a militant atheism and subjectivism calling itself (with typical modesty) “Modernism.” The effect of this atheism on culture and the arts has been devastating. ID provides the resistance movement with a “wedge issue,” as a certain lawyer puts it—a self-evident lever against the sheer weight of the Zeitgeist.
Meanwhile it is also true that NS has religious significance for many, including the sanctimonious trinity of Dawkins, Harris and Dennett. For them, NS means that God is dead and man is free to embrace his purely material nature. Note that neither one of these propositions has anything to do with science. Both are philosophical, and both reflect “postmodernism,” which has abandoned the ruined dream of the superman and now attempts to fill the void created by his demise with either power or “play.”
Within these very large cultural outlines there are innumerable subcurrents that are neither (a) nor (b). TEs, we are now convinced, can indeed be very sincere Christians and opponents of the oppressive materialism of the age. IDers (including Him Who Shall Not Be Named, for fear of five thousand more posts, and that’s just this afternoon) can indeed be sincere atheists, if there is such a thing, and can have a purely scientific interest in the basic concepts of ID, which appear to be irreducibility, NFL, and fine tuning.
What happens at the micro level will not matter in the end. All of the confusions and misunderstandings and hurts—real or imagined—on display in the current thread will be washed away by the great tide of time. The big picture is what matters. Will ID succeed in its ambition to become a wedge issue for cultural change? Preliminary results indicate that the answer is “yes.” It has already had a devastating impact on the suzerainty of Modernism and materialism, and for one simple reason: design is self-evident.
I am very, very grateful for the comments of Timaeus in 104 above. A strong ID supporter once put it something like this in private conversation: this ID/TE thing has become like Northern Ireland (or, at least what NI was until recently): there’s just so much history of violence, that it’s impossible to talk civilly about honest differences of opinion.
jerry–The only answer I can give you myself, with any confidence, concerning common descent is this: as Mike Behe, Francis Collins, and many others have pointed out, the genetic evidence for common ancestry is very, very strong. This is what I would call the “fact” of common ancestry, not a theory of precisely how it happened. If you want to say that no one can show that “chance” mutations + NS can do all that, I’d be sympathetic. If that is what you mean by having no evidence for macroevolution, however, I do not agree. Perhaps I am using the term differently. When I say “macroevolution,” what I mean is the “fact” of common ancestry itself: it surely looks (at least to Behe, Collins, and me) that evolution (ie, common ancestry) is true at both the micro and macro levels.
I think you have disagreed with my view on that, which is fine. But, if you grant (at least for the sake of argument) that my definition of macroevolution is simply as above, then you must also grant that I have at least pointed at a very solid answer to your question.
Is this perhaps why you have not seen an answer? Is it perhaps that many think the question has been very adequately answered, b/c they are hearing something different than what you might actually be asking?
Ted Davis,
I am aware that you cannot respond and believe that is a major loss for this website. So I will not say too much since the conversation can not go on and it is one that should go on here and you and others at ASA should be major contributors. However, that is our loss and I hope it somehow rectified.
Just one comment for you and others and that is this is the first time I ever saw UCD and macro evolution linked in such a way or as you put it
When I say “macroevolution,” what I mean is the “fact” of common ancestry itself.
Whether this is true or not, and I have seen no good evidence that UCD is true, there is nothing in this that says mechanism and that is what the debate is all about.
The idea of UCD should be flushed out and the evidence for it presented. Common ancestry of part of total range of species is not UCD. Micro evolution is common descent by definition and is prevalent in the world but it is not everything. And for UCD to be a valid concept, it has to be everything.
And as I said before, but even then UCD says nothing about mechanism and mechanism is the only real part of the debate. You seem to agree when you say
“If you want to say that no one can show that “chance” mutations + NS can do all that, I’d be sympathetic. “
Ted Davis (#108),
You vigorously argue for common descent. Yet you say,
It sounds like you have no objection in principle to major changes in living organisms being evidence for ID. Is that reading you correctly?
If not, what do we not understand?
If so, it would appear that you would have no objection in principle to a position similar to that of Behe. Would you agree with him on the actual scientific evidence? If so, welcome to the Big Tent. If not, what scientific, as opposed to theological or philosophical, errors did he make in Darwin’s Black Box and The Edge of Evolution, and why? We may actually get somewhere here.
I agree with you that the Northern Ireland model (at least the previous one) is not a good one for Christians. And I am pleased that you have tried to avoid it.