Darwinists in real time - a reflection

This whole case is really complicated and I don’t understand all the intricate details. O’Leary Thanks for your patient explication of the facts!!!

I am curious as to what the consequences will be if a legal entity does decide that the faculty decided not to vote for tenure based on Gonzalez’ support for ID? Is that religious discrimination? If so, can this be overturned on those grounds?

If it is not religious discrimination, how can we get this overturned, i.e. what grounds are there for recourse? Thanks again!

Denyse,

And getawitness, at 18, then compares astronomy to Near East Studies, of all things. NES is notorious for suspicion of severe compromise due to financing from Middle Eastern interests! I won’t permit a long, useless combox thread on whether or not those accusations are true; it’s the comparison itself that raises an eyebrow.

None of the cases I mentioned had anything to do with “financing from Middle East interests,” whatever you mean by that. So, that’s a total red herring.

My point is that it’s ridiculous to be shocked that ID had something to do with GG’s tenure denial. Didn’t he submit The Privileged Planet as part of his tenure case? If so, he’s asked them to consider ID! So it is profoundly unlike the case where you discover that someone “doubts the hype [sic] about global warming.” It’s more like someone sent you a dossier to evaluate that included a book-length articulation of those doubts, and then ask surprised that those doubts played a role in the evaluation. It is also a false analogy because “firing” someone is different from denying someone tenure, and because it’s actually legal in America to fire someone for all sorts of stupid reasons, as long as those aren’t specifically protected.

I don’t really have a strong position on whether GG should have tenure. I’m not an astronomer, and I’m not at ISU. But as I’ve pointed out elsewhere, any assistant professor in science should be discouraged from publishing a popular science book. As Richard Rowson advises, such books are “a very risky use of a young scholar’s time.” (”The Scholar and the Art of Publishing,” in The Academic’s Handbook, edited A. Leigh DeNeef and Crauford D. Goodwin, second edition, p. 276).

BarryA, I’m not a materialist. I’m a postmodern relativist Christian.

you see Dembski - I got in trouble by the moderator for calling Maya stupid- sorry about the incivility- but i knew she was a blind by choice broken record. Also one thing I was thinking about the Darwinian argument- I think it is time we Christians (im kinda agnostic though) need to come to grips with- The God of Darwin is greater than the Christian God in his super natural abilities. He can create a universe out of nothing- create CSI out of nothing- created consciousness out of nothing- defy all possible probabilities and guide the history of the world with out even thinking a thought about it- he can account for all of life’s successes without doing anything or caring - and best of all unlike God, he accounts for none of its troubles because he really didn’t do anything! Talk about a free lunch- gee wiz!

I liked D’souza’s comment during the debate against the Darwinian atheist- D’souza says to the effect of “They are using the cosmological OJ defense- well it sure looks like he did it in this universe but there could be millions of other universes ones where you killed your wife so as you can see all things considering the glove don’t fit we must acquit!”

“Intelligent design WAS the reason Gonzalez was denied tenure.”

I must sniff just a wee bit again: I don’t doubt that ID was part of the reason GG was denied tenure. ID is perceived in the scientific community as a dishonest attempt to dress a particular religious viewpoint in scientific clothing. If ID wants to play in the scientific sandbox, it has to play by the rules: Do lots of studies, publish lots of papers in peer-reviewed journals, build up a body of evidence in support of ID theory. Thought experiments and analyses of other people’s data are not enough.

And Ms O’Leary, despite your protestations, you clearly have not learned what tenure is about. Tenure is not a right, guaranteed by meeting certain minimal requirements. You won’t get an accurate picture of the tenure process from Disco, or a newspaper. Do your homework before you sink in the ad hominem.

Yeah, well, thanks for that advice, Denyse, but I’m not advertising anything.

Speaking of advertisements: Although I don’t have a postition on GG’s tenure, I this this case makes a lousy advertisement for Gonzalez to future employers. He better hope the case at ISU is successful. He’s put all his eggs in that basket, and if it fails, it will be that much harder for GG to get another job at a research university. Everybody who looks at GG for a future job will know he’s brought in very little money. Add to that the DI response to the denial, which lets everybody know that if he’s denied tenure he’ll raise a hue and cry. What research department would want to hire someone like that?

Thanks, BarryA; I tip my useful idiot cap in your direction.

Didn’t he submit The Privileged Planet as part of his tenure case? If so, he’s asked them to consider ID!

I don’t think this has been written anywhere. I had assumed the answer was no.

Denyse and Barry,

Getawitness has been one of the most, if not the most, thoughtful commentator on this site, which has unfortunately been overrun with too many Darwinists acting as if left alone by their parents for the first time. I am disappointed that you would criticize a fellow Christian as a dupe for the other side just because he doesn’t nicely fill the role you would have him play in this whole melodrama.

Your treatment of GAW makes me ponder 1 Samuel 2:3: “Do not keep talking so proudly or let your mouth speak such arrogance, for the Lord is a God who knows, and by Him deeds are weighed.” You might ponder your approach to Christianity and why it fills you with such anger towards fellow believers who don’t toe the line of your certainty.

Although I don’t have a postition on GG’s tenure, I this this case makes a lousy advertisement for Gonzalez to future employers.

I believe GG wanted to let the matter drop after the initial tenure denial, but was encouraged to pursue both appeals so that others would not have to go through the kind of self-censorship that you advocate. There are some things that are more important than career considerations, don’t you agree?

OUTSTANDING post, Denyse. One that I’ll be able to refer to many times in the future.

Thanks.

specs, what on earth was you last post about?

“am disappointed that you would criticize a fellow Christian as a dupe for the other side just because he doesn’t nicely fill the role you would have him play in this whole melodrama.

Your treatment of GAW makes me ponder 1 Samuel 2:3: “Do not keep talking so proudly or let your mouth speak such arrogance, for the Lord is a God who knows, and by Him deeds are weighed.” You might ponder your approach to Christianity and why it fills you with such anger towards fellow believers who don’t toe the line of your certainty.”

are you reviving the ancient art of cryptography?

Stand up, Denyse, and continue standing up in spite of any tendency to despair as you contemplate a worldview in its death-throes.

You may well wonder how it is possible that genial crackpots like Carl Sagan and Paul Davies are welcomed with open arms in academia and given generous access to PBS and the Times while someone who makes an eminently reasonable inference of design from the fine-tuning of the universe is excluded as if he were some sort of freak.

The reason is that Modernism (and its rear-guard movement, Postmodernism) has obtained institutional status and become impervious to reason. If you think you are alone in your despair, consider those on the liberal arts side who must now endure an endless barrage of smug nihilism from hordes of self-absorbed dilettantes who obtained tenure by parroting the party line.

But the hardening of party lines can also be seen as a harbinger of better things to come. The same academics who thought of themselves as radicals and lovers of freedom thirty years ago have now become reactionaries, as the famous emails make clear. And at that point the difference between dogma and reality becomes too obvious to ignore.

The old paradigm is already dead. The intransigence you identified is restricted to a few small and shrinking islands. We may feel frustrated by the dogmatism of the universities and the media, but old bastions of materialism like the Times and PBS are rapidly losing influence for that very reason—because they are unable to change.

They are hardening their lines of defense, but they cannot stop the change that is being wrought through discoveries in basic science. Materialism cannot stand for long when it must manufacture multiple universes in order to account for the orderliness of our own. The same weight that makes its intransigence possible will also cause it to topple over.

I want to state for the record that i feel tenure is a really perverted thing. Most time it is abused and i talking as someone who has daily experience with it. No one deserves a job where you are virtually beyond reproach. How about tenure for the president of the united states. Or how about tenure for musicians : once you hit the top 100 you get to stay there for ever. Tenure is a disgrace to me especially in the modern era where people can go online and get information for free and have it be less bias in most cases than that which they get in a public class room hence, the ID controversy “that isn’t real.”

Nonetheless it is obvious that tenure exists and he was as deserving of it as any much as any of those other charlatans IMOP.

I often thought that one of the most insightful comments about any intellectual philosophy ever was by Michael Sugrue about post modernism. He said post modernism was an intellectural cul de sac.

specs, what on earth was you last post about?

I have found getawitness to be a interesting commenter here. He always makes me think,
even when he goes against the prevailing wisdom. I cannot read his comments
without walking away with the impression of an individual that has put alot of deep thought and
energy into his Christian walk. Yet, in the space of several comments, Denyse has questioned
his approach to Christianity and Barry has labelled him a “useful idiot.”

And what did he do to suffer such insults? He looked at the same information, but came to a
different conclusion. Denyse and Barry’s certainty belies, not Christian charity, but a pride of
intellect. Which is, ironically, an epithet normally reserved for smug Darwinists. I am merely
asking them to consider whether their rough handling of getawitness was really appropriate.

Well, maybe the lesson in all of this is keep your mouth shut before you get tenure, then after you get it, become the biggest, barking-est, meanest, and biting-est dog in their universe.

MacT

I must sniff just a wee bit again: I don’t doubt that ID was part of the reason GG was denied tenure.

Well, the evidence begs to differ, yet ISU made up other reasons for the denial which is dishonest. They lie for the purpose of promoting their unsupported naturalistic philosophies. Then they fund their unsupported naturalistic philosophies (like UCD through unguided naturalistic processes) with stolen tax dollars. Why does naturalism require such dishonesty to propagate?

ID is perceived in the scientific community as a dishonest attempt to dress a particular religious viewpoint in scientific clothing.

You mean by the tax funded secular community, not by the scientific community. There is a difference. The fact of the matter is that naturalistic philosophies (ie: UCD) are dishonest because they brainwash students with their naturalistic philosophies with stolen tax dollars while censoring all criticisms and opposing views. That’s dishonest. I can give reasons why UCD and other naturalistic philosophies are dishonest, you can’t give me a single reason why ID is dishonest. You merely claim it’s dishonest and making such a claim is easy enough but substantiation is a whole different issue. I say UCD and other naturalistic philosophies are dishonest and I can substantiate. You claim ID is dishonest but you can’t substantiate.

If ID wants to play in the scientific sandbox, it has to play by the rules: Do lots of studies, publish lots of papers in peer-reviewed journals, build up a body of evidence in support of ID theory. Thought experiments and analyses of other people’s data are not enough.

ID does research and wants to do more research but the secular community tries to deny them the means to do research. Furthermore, assuming you’re right, just because someone doesn’t do research doesn’t mean their theory is wrong or unscientific. So what if we discover ID to be correct through the course of normal research?

And Ms O’Leary, despite your protestations, you clearly have not learned what tenure is about. Tenure is not a right, guaranteed by meeting certain minimal requirements. You won’t get an accurate picture of the tenure process from Disco, or a newspaper. Do your homework before you sink in the ad hominem.

Yeah, we get an accurate picture of the tenure processes from these E - Mails. They deny tenure on the basis of someone’s position on ID and then lie about it. This dishonest processes is funded by stolen tax dollars (they’re taking money that doesn’t belong to them to fund such a dishonest processes). Is that accurate enough for you?

sp/processes/process

My apologies Barry. When, after GAW disavowal of being a materialist, you modified your statement by adding “their fellow travelers, and Lenin-esque useful idiots” I presumed you were doing so to be inclusive of GAW. I guess I am not used to lawyers adding superfluous phrases to their writings. I am hope GAW is relieved to know that you don’t necessarily include him in either of the categories. After all, “fellow traveller”, while not as blunt as “idiot” does carry it’s own negative baggage.

I asked a question above that no one has addressed. I’ve been coming here for my information instead of the distorted views I’ve found everywhere else on line.

What is the legal basis of the challenge to ISU? Will it be religious discrimination? If so I could see that being a problem in the long run, although it might get GG a seat in the faculty.

If it is not religious discrimination, then what? It seems that the funding/graduate student success rate/ publication record issue is a pretty tough obstacle, and that the best chance GG has is to argue that his religious beliefs were held in contempt by the faculty voting on his tenure.

Sally_T: Here’s more info http://www.evolutionnews.org/

I don’t know what the basis of a lawsuit would be, but since GG is a government employee, I assume the University is required to go through some due process before letting him go (denying tenure). If they conspired beforehand, or violated their own standards, then perhaps there’s been an unlawful termination. There ought to be some kind of equal protection for government employees, I would think.

I disagree with getawitness.

I would say it is in a young scholar’s best interest to publish popular science books.

That way he/ she can make their own money to fund their own research and therefore get out of the academic pap that resides at universities.

To MacT:

If ID is perceived as you say then it is time to allow ID to be openly discussed in the academic world. Then all will see the perception was wrong.

But that is part of the problem. It is easy to misrepresent ID as long as ID doesn’t get a voice.

Also there isn’t one peer-reviewed paper that can account for the physiological and anatomical differences observed between allegedly closely related species, such as humans and chimps.

The premise that we share a common ancestor with chimps cannot even be tested.

BTW there is a huge body of observations, data and evidence that support the design indference. All one has to do is to pull their head out and look.

As for thought experiments that is all the anti-ID side has- and that is a fact. Otherwise the theory of evolution wouldn’t even be able to be challenged. However reality demonstrates the theory relies heavily on speculation and imagination as evidenced by the lack of data explaining those aforementioned differences.

And anytime you would like to address that it may help your credibility.

getawitness writes, “I’m not a materialist. I’m a postmodern relativist Christian.”

I know that, in that same sense, you are a Chrisitan/Darwinist. But I was wondering exactly how that works.

Which Biblical principles get diluted after passing through your filter of postmodernist relativism? Is your Darwinism subject to the same kind of reconstruction? Or, as is more likely the case, do you revise your Christian teachings in the name of open-mindedness, while holding fast to your Darwinist ideology come hell of high water.

Ms. O’Leary,

Thank you for cutting through the smokescreen of the evolutionists/materialists:

“Intelligent design WAS the reason Gonzalez was denied tenure. We now know that from the records.”

Hard evidence is hard evidence no matter what the evolutionists/materialists try to say.

By the way MacT are you a full fledged Neo-Darwinists, as Dawkin’s, or are you into some kind of punctuated equilibrium like MacNeill?

I ask so as to know exactly how to address you, I’ve noticed that you have never clearly stated your exact position with the evidence, or any exact evidence for that matter, at least you have not in my discussions with you. So it would be very helpful if you could clarify your position for me please.

well specs my problem is that it is so obvious to me and the others that this is a classic case of an ID lynch mob. I agree that even if I think someone is less than smart that i should except their delusion because after all even Einstein was wrong about a few big things. My problem is that you are using a poor argument in defense of GAW “saying that they are bad Christians and will be judged just puts you right along side of them and dissolves your reproach.” My point is it sounds more like you agreed with GAW then you are hurt by the contributors words being that you just turned around and committed the same crime you claimed them of. On one hand you are mad about how he is treated but on another you defend his position. Which one is it? If both, then go back and pose a stronger argument in favor of GAW’s opinion and post it without resulting to the name calling you criticized the others for. But the reality is I don’t think you cared at all about the name calling- but that you just approved his argument but couldn’t make a strong enough one for yourself.

Bottom line I thought you judging barry as some for of a bad christian underminded your strong position that I other wise would agree with- I hate the “your a bad christian argument.”

It doesn’t matter that it was tenure denial, it is unfairly applying the rules based on personal beliefs. It is about censorship. I don’t know if he would have gotten tenure based on the rest of his research (I believe he would). The question that ought to be answered (and this is very important) was GG a good scientist and yet was denied tenure mostly (or totally) because he advocated intelligent design. At a private university that would be okay, but at a state funded university that is a denial of his first amendment rights of free speech. If Dover is correct and ID is a religion (which I think is incorrect) then it is religious discrimination too under the 1st amendment.
anyway, it is probably against loads of policies in ISU’s own handbooks to discriminate on viewpoint.

Denyse, I just saw your comment to me:

Tyke: If I fire someone because I discover that he doubts the hype about global warming, and he then sues me, I CANNOT say afterward, “Well, I was justified in firing him anyway because he was a crappy employee.” The actual reason I fired him is the one that must be litigated because it is a fact, not a variety of suppositions after the fact. To the extent that the faculty had decided to deny GG tenure on account of his sympathy for intelligent design, and the tenure process itself was an elaborate sham, they cannot now say that they were justified by it. Whether they should have made the decision based on the process is neither here nor there. That was not how they made the decision.

First of all, they didn’t fire GG. They denied him tenure–i.e. they turned down his application for a permanent position in the faculty. As any lawyer will tell you, applying for a job or position is a very different legal situation than getting fired from one, so it would be wise not to mix up the analogies.

That being said, I am curious what you think the legal redress will be if a law suit finds that there was discrimination in this case. Since GG wasn’t fired, the court cannot order ISU to give GG his job back, and if ISU can prove that there are legitimate grounds for denying GG tenure, then I don’t believe it’s in the court’s power to force ISU to give GG tenure purely on the basis of the discrimination.

If a black man applies for a job and overhears a racist remark during the interview, he cannot expect a judge to hand him the job just because the employer is a racist. He has to prove that he has all the necessary qualifications for the job first.

At best, all the judge can do (besides apply some sort of punitive damages) in GG’s case is to order the faculty to revisit the tenure process with some additional oversight to ensure a fair and open process.

So once you get any discrimination suit against ISU out of the way, at best, GG will still have to go through the application process for tenure again and, at best again, his case will be decided on the merits of his career so far at ISU.

So, whether you like it or not, it still boils down to whether GG’s record is good enough for ISU to award him tenure. And that, to me, is far from a slam dunk. His lack of grants and PhD grads under his watch do not help his case, and I don’t have enough information to know if his publication and citation record is good enough on its own to make the difference.

The citation charts I see posted here seem to include citations of papers he wrote before arriving at ISU, and I doubt publication of a popular science book (now being hawked on Christian apologetics shows, BTW) or articles in SciAm are usually counted in the process.

I very much want to see a fair process here, but awarding GG tenure on a technicality and not on the merits of his application, is not the answer.

BarryA, I haven’t taken any offense. Can’t we all get along? I think so: you and I haven’t really been mad at each other.

Denyse, on the other hand, has been mad at me. Apparently I can’t help ticking her off. I’m not sure why.

StephenB [31],

I know that, in that same sense, you are a Chrisitan/[sic] Darwinist. But I was wondering exactly how that works.

Which Biblical principles get diluted after passing through your filter of postmodernist relativism? Is your Darwinism subject to the same kind of reconstruction? Or, as is more likely the case, do you revise your Christian teachings in the name of open-mindedness, while holding fast to your Darwinist ideology come hell of high water.

StephenB, I’ve tried to avoid getting into theology on a science site. But I’ve always appreciated talking with you, and in a certain sense I “opened the door,” as the litigators would say (eh, BarryA?). So, I’ll talk briefly about how I conceptualize these.

First, I don’t use the term “Darwinist” to describe my commitment to the scientific mainstream. I don’t think that’s a really useful term. (I may have used it here, but this is a special case because it’s used all the time by the other side.) My acceptance of biological evolution is of a piece with my acceptance of plate tectonics (am I a Wegenerian?), a 4.51 BY age for the Earth, or any number of standard scientific perspectives. Darwin’s texts don’t have any special hold on me, though I’ve read several of them and admire Darwin’s writing and reasoning.

So “Darwinism” isn’t something that guides my thinking on a day-to-day basis. Neither is “materialism.” On the other hand, although there are lots of ways to think that are not materialist, I can’t see any reasonable way to conduct a scientific inquiry that does not presume materialism as a methodological starting-point. So, imagine if you will the standard scientific perspective, which presumes materialism as method, as a kind of net or web cast over reality. When we think scientifically, we travel along one or another thread of this web. But we are restricted in where we can go — we can only go along the threads. At places where scientific inquiry is very exciting, highly developed through technology, or controversial, a number of threads meet like spokes at a hub.

My Christianity, which you seem to find kind of curious, is more liturgial than credal. That is, I’ve come to think of Christianity in experiential terms, as my experience of the sacred. In terms of personal history, I grew up with a nominal Christian upbringing, had a powerful conversion experience as a teenager, and was a very conservative evangelical for something like a decade. During that time, I was an inerrantist, which I no longer am. I suppose there is a sense in which that “principle” of inerrancy has gotten “diluted through [my] filter of postmodernist relativism.” To that I’d say that every perspective dilutes some Biblical principles. Every perspective “revises . . . Christian teachings in the name of” something or other.

I can see from the way you’ve framed the question that you’ll disagree: that I’m the one who’s diluted principles and others (perhaps you) have not, have kept more pure. In my experience, as inerrancy got diluted, poetry was strenghtened; as evangelism was muted, caring was intensified; as eschatology became irrelevant, a commitment to this world grew stronger and stronger.

Now, is this a consequence of my “Darwinism”? I doubt it. It’s who I am, and I’m comfortable with that. I would say that my Christianity is also a kind of web: differently configured, perhaps more dense and thready. If I approach things as a Christian, I move along those threads.

So I disagree strongly with the late Stephen Jay Gould that relgioon and science are “Non-overlapping Magisteria.” They overlap all the time. But they’re webs, not blankets. Each one is partial, surrounded mainly by space. They don’t necessarily touch very often, even when they overlap.

“Judging by the comments on this and other threads regarding GG’s tenure case, it seems clear that there is very little understanding or familiarity with the tenure process.”

Darwinist handbook, page 1:

3. When confronted with hard evidence against your position, claim the opposition doesn’t “understand”. The opposition will then be forced to prove they do understand, at which point you may simply dismiss them as fundamentalist whackos.

More seriously, it is abundantly clear why GG was denied tenure: he supports ID. Like duh, right? Ah well, it’s getting close to Christmas, so the internet atheists will be out in full force crying and whining how the GG denial was the right move. I still don’t understand why an atheist would even care what another clump of fortuitously organized matter is doing.

Carl Sagan, Cosmos (1980), pp. 5-6:

A galaxy is composed of gas and dust and stars — billions upons billions of stars. Every star may be a sun to someone. Within a galaxy are stars and worlds and, it may be, a proliferation of living things and intelligent beings and spacefaring civilizations… There are some hundred billion (10^11) galaxies, each with, on the average, a hundred billion stars. In all the galaxies, there are perhaps as many planets as stars, 10^11 x 10^11 = 10^22, ten billion trillion. In the face of such overpowering numbers, what is the likelihood that only one ordinary star, the Sun, is accompanied by an inhabited planet? Why should we, tucked away in some forgotten corner of the Cosmos, be so fortunate? To me, it seems far more likely that the universe is brimming over with life….

About the author:

Carl Sagan was the David Duncan Professor of Astronomy and Space Sciences at Cornell University, and a Pulitzer Prize winner. Cosmos became the most widely read science™ book ever published in the English language. The accompanying television series became the most widely watched series in the history of public television (PBS) until then, and has now been seen by 500 million people in 60 countries. It garnered both Emmy and Peabody awards. Sagan was also a recipient of the highest award of the National Academy of Sciences, the Public Welfare Medal, for “distinguished contributions in the application of science to the public welfare. …His ability to capture the imagination of millions and to explain difficult concepts in understandable terms is a magnificent achievement.”

“Judging by the comments on this and other threads regarding GG’s tenure case, it seems clear that there is very little understanding or familiarity with the tenure process.”

MacT, you and maya may well have more acquaintance with the tenure process than many of the commenters here. You certainly are more acquainted with it than I am.

However, my understanding is that GG’s dossier and application for tenure were submitted to nine highly regarded scientist/professionals of the department’s choosing for review. Six of those nine gave positive recommendations.

Perhaps you would have voted thumbs-down on the decision. But yours would evidently have been a minority POV.

The emails indicate that the rest of the department was concerned about the reputation they would acquire with a tenured ID proponent. But the opinions of the outside reviewers indicate that, apart from that concern, GG was deserving of tenure.

I can’t see any reasonable way to conduct a scientific inquiry that does not presume materialism as a methodological starting-point.

I see that by presuming materialism you have created a method for dissolving reason itself, the very reason by which scientia/knowledge exists. Those who attempt the “biological thinking” typical to Darwinism and biologists in general are trained in this way. They are trained to be blind to ID based on the assumption that there is a Blind Watchmaker and so on. Ironically the fact that their assumption leads them to cite their own imaginations as evidence may indicate the prevalence of what they are training themselves to be blind to. If their assumptions were correct or steadily being proven correct then they would be focusing on logic and the empirical evidence itself instead of imagining things about things. But where did the principle that science must methodically and progressively build and validate a philosophy of materialism come from? It seems to be an artifact of the history of science and philosophy because there is little evidence that science has and will always progressively validate a philosophy of materialism.

Perhaps Gonzalez was very clever in linking habitability/life with sight/discoverability in a way that is empirically verifiable and so on, as Nature tends to naturally point away from itself for those who have eyes to see it. In contrast Darwinists/biologists seek to link life to blind processes, yet in order to do so they have to rely on things like citing their own imaginations as evidence. (For example, citing imaginary universes to “explain” what can actually be observed in this one.)

Those who point to blind processes seldom deal with the small problem of their own blindness as an artifact of the Blind Watchmaker. Common word patterns indicating this problem: “I cannot see.” “We must not look…” “We must be methodically blind to the possibility of ID so it’s not even testable. Now let me show you how it’s wrong.” “There is a Blind Watchmaker.” And so on.

How is it that you are bearing witness as to what is reasonable? You have to have wit to be a witness, yet it seems that you seek methods by which to deny about half of all wit/knowledge. Note those who do not agree with your metaphoric lack of sight can and have seen a method to reason based on an ultimate Rationale for rationality. A vision of knowledge rooted in sight and insight is generally the philosophy which resulted in science as we know it now. In contrast, half-wits have now emerged who try to deny the nature of reason. Yet their own words often bear witness against them, apparently naturally enough. Why do you suppose some scribbling scribes used to write, “Those who have eyes, let them see.”? If all have eyes to see, then will not all naturally see?

getawitness: Thanks for your reply at #37. Let me reduce my earlier question to its simplest essence.

About 2000 years ago, St Paul wrote this: “for since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.”

About 150 years ago, Charles Darwin wrote this, “there seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows.”

Does nature show evidence of design?

A) The Bible— yes
B) Modern evolutionary theory —no

Clearly, there is no middle ground here. So make your choice, and then be forthright about where your loyalties are.

mynm [41], I wasn’t invoking materialism as a “philosophy.” I was referring to materialism more as standard operating procedure. Science is limited in what it can give, and it’s not the only source of knowledge. But it seems to operate pretty well by investigating the world as though material processes are regular and knowable.

StephenB [42], this is why I avoid having these kinds of discussions. I had hoped you were curious about how I think about these things, despite the way your question was loaded. I hoped we could have a conversation. Instead you turn out — again — to be uninterested in a conversation as dialogue. Well, I’m not going to join your amateur Christian debate club on a blog ostensibly about science.

So, imagine if you will the standard scientific perspective, which presumes materialism as method, as a kind of net or web cast over reality. When we think scientifically…

It seems to me that the difference between imagining and thinking is the systematic use of words as if they are artifacts with a capacity for bearing meaning/spirit/purpose or information. You begin by saying that you want people to imagine something with you, then seem to imagine that you’re thinking. It seems to me that it’s best to try to know reality, not to cast metaphoric webs over it.

I was an inerrantist, which I no longer am.

What if an error created your pattern of thought then and now? Texts as we know them contain errors, including the scripts of Scriptures and so on, yet that doesn’t mean that they cannot point to or bear witness to purer forms of information.

mynm,

It seems to me that it’s best to try to know reality, not to cast metaphoric webs over it.

My view is that knowledge is always (at least partly) metaphorical, and that metaphors are important and inescapable ways of understanding; See for example, Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors we Live By; Johnson, The Body in the Mind; David, “Psalm 23.”

mynm [41], I wasn’t invoking materialism as a “philosophy.” I was referring to materialism more as standard operating procedure.

That was exactly my point. Your view of science seems to be one which leaves it as a method of validating materialism. In popular understanding this Western vision of the world seems to be a “materialism” of a sort that seems to be based on a pseudo-Newtonian view of the world in which everything can be reduced to hard little bits of something or other hitting something else in long chains of cause and effect.

Science is limited in what it can give, and it’s not the only source of knowledge.

That would be very true if science was being or could be limited in a principled way, yet when those with the urge to merge claim that all forms of knowledge can be reduced based on their own, when they claim that the intelligent design of technology and the progressions and progress typical to it and so on and on are all a part of science then they may have to be answered on their own “scientific” terms.

But it seems to operate pretty well by investigating the world as though material processes are regular and knowable.

It seems that you’re imagining progress in a certain way instead of studying what has actually happened in history or making empirical observations now. Science and technology are linked, scientists know more about Nature once given technology like telescopes and so on but technology progresses through engineering and design. You seem to imagine that science guided and defined by a philosophy of materialism into always validating materialism will work out well instead of looking to history to see if it actually has.

mynm, I don’t follow what you’re saying. It’s all pitched a level of abstraction that I’m sure must be clear to you but is awfully convoluted to me. I was going to add that you misrepresent what I wrote, but I decided not to because I don’t know what you’re talking about there either!

My view is that knowledge is always (at least partly) metaphorical, and that metaphors are important and inescapable ways of understanding…

You apparently read what I wrote as an attack on metaphors. It wasn’t. It was an attack on the confusion of mind typical to a blurred pattern of thinking which actually seems to be based on imagining things. What passes for Darwinian reasoning is often a good example of it. Put simply, reasoning is not imagining. They may be complementary and perhaps even married when what is imagined is defined and ruled by sound reason but they can’t be blurred together in the way that those with an urge to merge seek.

Note that the language of mathematics, a language without metaphors if there is one, naturally speaks to important truths:

In a piece of mathematics that stands as an intellectual tour-de-force of the first magnitude, Gödel demonstrated that the arithmetic with which we are all familiar is incomplete:
‘…that is, in any system that has a finite set of axioms and rules of inference and which is large enough to contain ordinary arithmetic, there are always true statements of the system that cannot be proved on the basis of that set of axioms and those rules of inference. This result is known as Gödel’s First Incompleteness Theorem.
Now Hilbert’s Programme also aimed to prove the essential consistency of his formulation of mathematics as a formal system. Gödel, in his Second Incompleteness Theorem, shattered that hope as well. He proved that one of the statements that cannot be proved in a sufficiently strong formal system is the consistency of the system itself. In other words, if arithmetic is consistent then that fact is one of the things that cannot be proved in the system. It is something that we can only believe on the basis of the evidence, or by appeal to higher axioms. This has been succinctly summarized by saying that if a religion is something whose foundations are based on faith, then mathematics is the only religion that can prove it is a religion!

(God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God
by John Lennox :52)

I’ve seen some biologists argue that mathematics is not science as if that means that they need not be concerned with what many mathematicians might tell them. (E.g. Wistar) It seems once biologists of this sort are done defining science by their own dissections it will no longer be about a search for knowledge that is true.

mynm,

Note that the language of mathematics, a language without metaphors if there is one, naturally speaks to important truths.

Not necessarily. Lakoff, who I mentioned above, has written Where Mathematics Comes From: How the Embodied Mind Brings Mathematics into Being with Rafael E. Núñez. Another, similar perspective is taken by Brian Rotman, who was a mathematician before he became a philosopher. See his Ad Infinitum (on infinity, among other things), Signifying Nothing: A Semiotics of Zero, and Mathematics as Sign: Writing, Imagining, Counting.

Correction: of course math speaks to important truths. But it’s not necessarily the case that mathematics is “without metaphors.”

It’s all pitched a level of abstraction that I’m sure must be clear to you but is awfully convoluted to me.

That’s because abstraction is the only way to deal with patterns of information and it seems to me that there are many involved in things. I can ground some bits of text into more of a web for you, just let me know what you do not understand. Perhaps the most important point is that you are apparently defining science as a method of validating and building a philosophy of materialism, apparently because it seems to you that it works out well or some such. Are we making any progress yet?

The ironic thing about many who engage in arguments based on methodology is that they often seem surprised that what they think of as science continually validates or builds their worldview of philosophic naturalism of some sort. Did they expect it to do something else? It seems that an illusion of continual validation, even that which is based on citing their own imaginations as evidence, causes them to think that progress will always lead to a philosophy of naturalism. Yet what if technology and progress do not inevitably validate and lead to such a philosophy?

you are apparently defining science as a method of validating and building a philosophy of materialism

I don’t think so. First, I am not really trying to “define” science in the sense of saying what it “really” is. If I’ve given that impression, I was mistaken. Second, I don’t think science “validates and builds a philosophy of” anything. Philosophy seems to me a separate enterprise. But as a practice investigating the material world by material means, yeah, science seems pretty successful.

…it’s not necessarily the case that mathematics is “without metaphors.”

I didn’t say it was necessarily the case, only that if there is a language without metaphors then mathematics is it.

What the language of mathematics proves in the case of systems that are closed on their own terms may be a model for knowledge or information in general. I.e. any web of naturalism will always be incomplete, leaving the truth supernatural in some sense, don’t you agree?

Philosophy seems to me a separate enterprise. But as a practice investigating the material world by material means, yeah, science seems pretty successful.

Only if one agrees that consciousness is a “material means” while apparently relying on a notion of matter devoid of empirical evidence drawn from quantum mechanics. Can you imagine a way to separate consciousness from knowledge?

Also, one would have to agree that the technology by which science tends towards progress in knowledge is “material means.” Civilization tends to rise based on language, which is associated with knowledge and technology and so on. Yet language is not defined by “material means,” instead it has its meaning based on information content.

At any rate, I am not saying that matter does not matter. I am only emphasizing the importance of things like mind and encoded bits of information because of how you apparently want to methodically deny them or keep them separate. The problem with your position is that in all probability it’s impossible to keep mind and matter separate and it’s unreasonable to deny the transphysical nature of information.

First, I am not really trying to “define” science in the sense of saying what it “really” is.

It’s worth noting that this is the key point as it seems to be why Gonzalez was denied tenure, why some are censored, etc.

Apparently the majority of those who believe in the Darwinian creation myth do think that they can define what science really is. Yet, I’ve never seen much of an argument supporting such a view other than: “Well, it seems like progress has happened so far or somethin’.” I.e. it works. Leaving aside the issue of exchanging seeking the truth for seeking answers that lead to progress, better careers and so on, has it really “worked”? Is progress associated with philosophic naturalism and its validation?

H’mm:

Let’s start with the real reason that Dr Gonzalez was denied tenure, as stated by his HOD, Dr. Eli Rosenberg:

Dr. Gonzalez has stated that Intelligent Design is a scientific theory and someday would be taught in science classrooms. This is confirmed by his numerous postings on the Discovery Institute Web site. The problem here is that Intelligent Design is not a scientific theory. Its premise is beyond the realm of science. … But it is incumbent on a science educator to clearly understand and be able to articulate what science is and what it is not. The fact that Dr. Gonzalez does not understand what constitutes both science and a scientific theory disqualifies him from serving as a science educator.

Now, of course, “the” definition of what is and is not science is a vexed PHILOSOPHICAL question, one that is pregnant with possibilities for abuse, and one that on the evidence above and in associated threads and linked documents, the HOD [and the staff in general] are plainly ill-equipped to fairly and soundly address.

So, plainly they begged a big question, and simply inferred from GG’s rejection of methodological naturalism that “Dr. Gonzalez does not understand what constitutes both science and a scientific theory,” which in their naive and/or one-sided view immediately and blatantly disqualifies him to be a professor in a science department.

This is the same trick/trap that Judge Jones used/fell into in his now infamous abusive ruling at Dover. It also appears in this thread, courtesy GAW, in 37:

“Darwinism” isn’t something that guides my thinking on a day-to-day basis. Neither is “materialism.” On the other hand, although there are lots of ways to think that are not materialist, I can’t see any reasonable way to conduct a scientific inquiry that does not presume materialism as a methodological starting-point. So, imagine if you will the standard scientific perspective, which presumes materialism as method . . . When we think scientifically, we travel along one or another thread of this web. But we are restricted in where we can go — we can only go along the threads.

Let us remark on this:

1] In effect, we are seeing that “science” has been in effect redefined in recent years by materialists dominating key institutions as “the best materialistic explanation of the cosmos from hydrogen to humans.” Then, by definition, if you don’t conform — only thinking in terms of such entities and explanations — you are by definition not practising or don’t “understand” what “science” is.

2] As a direct consequence, if the actual truthful explanation of the world as we see it happened to be non-materialistic — which is surely a possible situation unless you know enough to know beyond possible revision [not in the gift of finite, fallible humans] — then “science” as redefined by the materialists could not access it. In short, “science” as the handmaiden and propaganda voice of materialism has here taken priority over the classic understanding of science as an empirically anchored truth-seeking activity.

3] “Classic understanding”? Yes, just as we may easily find in high- quality dictionaries, e.g.:

science: a branch of knowledge ["true, justified belief"] conducted on objective principles involving the systematized observation of and experiment with phenomena, esp. concerned with the material and functions of the physical universe. [Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 1990]

scientific method: principles and procedures for the systematic pursuit of knowledge [”the body of truth, information and principles acquired by mankind”] involving the recognition and formulation of a problem, the collection of data through observation and experiment, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses. [Webster's 7th Collegiate, 1965]

4] The implications follow at once, in light of GAW’s later remark, in 43:

I wasn’t invoking materialism as a “philosophy.” I was referring to materialism more as standard operating procedure. Science is limited in what it can give, and it’s not the only source of knowledge. But it seems to operate pretty well by investigating the world as though material processes are regular and knowable.

5] Implication 1: “science” is known to be synonymous in many quarters with “knowledge” (and even “rationality”) pretty much as the dictionaries cited note. So if something is viewed by the ruling elites in scientific institutions as “unscientific” in the sense of “contrary to today’s institutionalised methodological naturalism,” [MN] that will be heard far and wide as untrue, illogical and irrational. Thus, directly, how GG was treated: as one who is as Dawkins suggested: ignorant, stupid, insane or wicked.

6] Thus, too why we seem to be seeing a 1984-style doublespeak game. [i] Among the philosophically sophisticated cognoscenti, “science” is just a limited tool and procedure for inquiry playing by a rule of the game we call MN. [ii] But to the public [and this here evidently includes the ISU Physics and Astronomy Dept], if you are unscientific, you are an idiot or worse. For shame!

6] Implication 2: it is a well-known, commonly observed fact that causal chains involve [i] chance and/or [ii] mechanical necessity showing itself in natural regularities, and or [iii] agent action. Further to this, [a] in EVERY directly observed case of CSI and/or IC and/or OC, the cause is agency, and [b] there are good, empirically anchored — exhaustion of probabilistic resources — reasons for this (linked to the underlying principles of statistical thermodynamics,as Sir Fred Hoyle was fond of pointing out with his now classic 747 in a junkyard example; cf. also my always linked, esp. App 1 section 6). So, to impose that agency is not permitted in scientific explanations if it would in effect challenge the materialistic view of the cosmos, is blatant worldview-level, and in this case arrogantly closed-minded and abusive question-begging.

7] Implication 3: Those who impose the above question-begging attempted redefinition, then demand “scientific” evidence for the design inference on questions where it could adversely impact the materialist world-picture, know or should know [most IMHCO are philosophically ignorant] that they are deciding the question in advance of the evidence. Prejudice, in one word.

And, prejudice is a well known antecedent to witch-hunting abuse, unjust discrimination and outright dishonesty as we are plainly seeing in this case.

GEM of TKI

ID.net i dont know how you go about running your site but I havent seen a word from Denyse at any point in this discussion yet i can see everyones responses to Denyse. This makes me wonder if Karios is even getting th emessages I have been sending him… like no offense but what is going on here?

Getawitness said -

“

I can’t see any reasonable way to conduct a scientific inquiry that does not presume materialism as a methodological starting-point.

Well allow me to enlighten you. When you find design in nature and you cannot find a material designer it then becomes appropriate to suggest a non-material designer. The way this is scientific is that there is a reason that we can imagine the existence of a non-material designer and that is through the medium of information. It is CSI that is being scientifically observed here. There is no known way that the laws of nature can produce it except through intelligent agency. In the sphere of all material intelligent agency there has to be an intelligence that can account for the first material intelligence, logically that it. There are only two possibilities 1. a natural intelligence is built into the universe or 2, there is an intelligence that exists outside of the universe that is probably non material if of course we accept that the intelligence must be greater or equal to the nature of this world. If you can point to an example of natural intelligence being built into the world for example an algorithm that permeates through nature that connects the complex as well as the simple - connecting the ID with the random- then you have a real inter-universal argument for physical built in intelligence. But… all evidence that is currently accepted and understood supports the idea that there is in fact no way to get around causation. It precedes matter. Is time for instance or space a material? The bottom line is- being that we are so ignorant in our ability to comprehend the universe as it is (as shown mathematically by Kut Godel and in physics by Heisenberg) we can, if open-minded, suspect a cause that exists “outside” of matter (in the logical sense), thanks to our wonderful faculty of reason.

So as you can see reason is perfectly compatible with anti materialistic causalities. The que