The panspermia hypothesis, which asserts that life originated on a planet other than Earth and was brought here by either natural or intelligently directed actions, is hardly ludicrous, has at least some unexplained evidence in its favor, and holding it as an hypothesis is hardly evidence of buffoonery. The late Robert Bussard was well known to believe in panspermia. Several of my science fiction novels make use of this hypothesis, and I have yet to see any definitive refutation.

I am happy to see one more intelligent, informed, prominent thinker (All good science fiction writers are excellent thinkers) perceive the inherent ridiculousness (if that’s not a word it should be) of the Dawkins/Darwinist assertions.

Pournelle is not the first science fiction author to acknowlege the light: Orson Scott Card wrote something similarly critical of Darwinism a few years ago, (though he did try to be equally critical of ID).

The best conversion is of James P. Hogan: in his early novels he was very much a devout Darwinist. But he has seen the light and acknowledges that he was wrong: See his “Kicking the Sacred Cow” (couldn’t get it to link, sorry, you can look it up on Amazon)
He kicks some others in there as well. Provocative and fun reading, even if you believe in some of the cows he kicks.

I was surprised to see the “random mutation plus natural selection” parody of modern evolutionary theory come from Pournelle. If he really believes that’s how evolutionists account for the history of species of life, he might as well sign A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism.

But Dawkins doesn’t say that only fundamentalist creationists assert the possibility of evolution influenced by aliens from outer space. Given Pournelle’s distate for “entirely ignoring what the other side says [and] telling you what he wants you to believe they said”, it seems odd for him to put words in Dawkins’ mouth like this.

http://www.uncommondescent.com.....ent-289741

The end of this conversation puts the problem in perspective:

http://www.uncommondescent.com.....ent-290187

Oh well, what would you expect of a co-founder of Panda’s Thumb.

ID does not say that life must have an intelligent cause. ID says that an intelligent cause is the best explanation. It’s plainly stated in the side bar under “Definition of Intelligent Design”

The theory of intelligent design (ID) holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause rather than an undirected process such as natural selection. ID is thus a scientific disagreement with the core claim of evolutionary theory that the apparent design of living systems is an illusion.

ID is not a science stopper. It states that intellengent causation is the best explanation for the origin of life. This is something that may be falsified or at least rendered unneccessary which amounts to the same thing as falsification. It can be falsified by positively demonstrating a means of unintelligent causation in the origin of life. Falsifying the ID hypothesis is a science starter not a science stopper. I would say further that the presumption that life began through an unintelligent dance of atoms is the science stopper. When something becomes accepted as established fact there’s no impetus to find additional evidence in support of it.

On the other hand, the hoopla over the trivial observation Lenski made of E.coli acquiring the ability to metabolize citrate in the presence of oxygen actually reveals how little real evidence there is for chance & necessity as the creative force behind all of evolution. Time and chance pundits are clutching at straws to bolster the asserted efficacy of time and chance in evolution writ large. This pretty much proves that ID is a science starter not a science stopper. The “evolution” Lenski observed was indeed trivial. E.coli already has everything it needs to metabolize citrate in the absence of oxygen. The protein (citrate permease) that transports citrate across the cell membrane, for some unknown reason, isn’t expressed in the presence of oxygen. There are at least two simple random changes that can account for the acquistion aerobic citrate metabolism:

1) Another transport protein could have lost some specificity and now transports citrate. With the loss of specificity that protein might also be transporting molecules that would kill the organism in vivo which is why I wrote that Lenski should see what happens if the organism is placed back into a natural environment.

2) The regulatory region inhibiting the expression of citrate permease changed such that it is now expressed in the presence of oxygen. Again, an in vivo experiment should be conducted to see if the expression is harmful when not under glass.

In any case, all the complex stuff that E. coli needs for citrate metabolism was already present in the original cultures. Making a big deal of something new and trivial is proof positive that the so-called “overwhelming evidence” of time & chance being sufficient to explain all of evolution is actually underwhelming in the extreme. The overwhelming evidence is for descent with modification not the underlying cause of the modifications.

Tenure didn’t protect the bioinformatics website from being removed from Baylor’s server. Tenure didn’t stop Baylor from sending back the grant money obtained to fund the bioinformatics research. It does not follow that because a job cannot be lost that there is nothing at risk.

I agree with you that Gloppy is missed and I too wish he would come back.

Rumor has it Galapagos Finch’s real name was discovered by the evos, outted, and because he’s at risk for job discrimination for public support of ID he decided discretion was the better part of valor and buried the site.

If the name I saw tossed around was correct, Gloppy already has tenure and shouldn’t have to worry about being discriminated against. Tenure has certainly protected Dr. Behe from the ire of the Darwinists who would otherwise see him expelled. Gloppy should come back, he is missed.

With your definition, ID is falsifiable whereas DE is not

Using this definition one can find a television set — with corporate logo and all — in the desert and still citing yet-to-be-discovered forces and random events over infinite time, claim it came to be sans design.

I notce that a lot among the DOPs (Darwin Only Party), and specially among the non-american DOPs. Here in Portugal there are a few blogs wherein evolution is preached that “refute” their version of ID. When questioned what exacly are they refuting, they attack creationism, ID, Behe and other things, as if the arguements against one are the same against the other.

Most DOPs don’t take time to actually educate themselves about the arguments against unguided evolution. To them, attacking th belief that the biosphere created itself is attacking “science”.

Dawkins and other DOP priests keep their disciples in the dark by refusing to dfine the opposition correctly.