My fellow Texans, we have a problem. Don McLeroy, ID supporter, is the new head of the Texas State Board of Education. To give you an idea of what his views are like, check this speech he gave in 2005 at Grace Bible Church in Bryan, Texas. It has to be read to be believed. It's got all the creationist canards: micro/macro, its not about religion, outdated quotes, and of course, frequent reverent use of quotes from Philip Johnson, William Dembski, all the usual suspects. Those of you who are interested in a solid science education for your children better sit down and make sure you don't have a weak stomach. Here are some exerpts:
"1996 New York Times editorial, guest editorial, this is in response to a comment by someone believing in evolution, and so the guy has made this statement, 'This whole issue might make for an amusing debate were it not for the potentially grave consequences for society at-large. If we’re unwilling to unilaterally brand scientific nonsense as just that regardless of the sensibilities that might be offended, religious or otherwise, then the whole notion of truth becomes itself blurred and our democratic society is in peril as much by this as any other single threat.' Of course, the guy’s threat that this guy was responding to was not the threat of Darwinism, the threat of God as the creator, and it is just amazing that they can describe my feelings exactly. This is exactly how I see this.
That's right, the head of the Texas State Board of Education has accepted the ridiculous argument that accepting evolution means becoming an atheist. I'm sure this would shock the hell out of the millions of Americans who accept evolution and believe in a variety of gods. Personally I accepted evolution decades before becoming an atheist. True, if one puts one's faith in one's deity based on one of the common creationist myths, evolution is going to threaten your beliefs. So why do so? And why support an education department head that does? We move on to the next shocker:
"Uh, G.K. Chesterton, 100 years ago, 1908 basically, uh, made an interesting observation that is really interesting: 'The Christian is quite free to believe that there’s a considerable amount of settled order and an inevitable development in the universe. But the materialist is not allowed to admit into his spotless machine the slightest speck of spiritualism or miracle.' And I think that really describes it exactly, when you want to see, these people can’t stand anything getting into their spotless machine. They can’t tolerate anything. We can tolerate a lot, but they can’t tolerate anything."
OK, am I the only one uncomfortable with having an education head who can't organize his thoughts more coherantly than this? What in the world is he trying to say here? My best shot is that he's saying accepting evolution=>materialism=>belief in the perfection of ... what? Ourselves maybe? Other animals as well? Anyone who can parse this into conversational English has my utmost respect.
Now that last part is clear enough, but its absurd. The scientists are intolerant, but the Bible thumpers are the ones that can tolerate so much? Riiiiight, its a bunch of evolutionary scientists protesting movies they don't like, reasearch that offends their sensibilities, etc., while the religious right is all about live and let live. [snort]
"...here is our definition of what intelligent design is: it’s the biological theory, or you maybe leave off biological..."
This would be funny if it weren't real. At least he's on the right track: leave off "theory".
"And one other thing about these lessons, big tent, and this is, uh, in the big tent of evolution we all have disagreements, but we’re united in one thing, and we’re united in what we oppose. And you’ll see this later. This is the power of the deductive argument, but nature is all there is. We’re united against the fact that that’s a true statement."
Depressed yet? Yeah, he's united against facts all right. But more on the big tent:
"Now I would like to talk a little bit about the big tent. Why is intelligent design the big tent? It’s because we’re all lined up against the fact that naturalism, that nature is all there is."
Dang it Merle, there he is a-linin up aginst facts agin.
Whether you’re a progressive creationist, recent creationist, young earth, old earth, it’s all in the tent of intelligent design. And intelligent design here at Grace Bible Church actually is a smaller, uh, tent than you would have in the intelligent design movement as a whole. Because we are all Biblical literalists, we all believe the Bible to be inerrant, and it’s good to remember, though, that the entire intelligent design movement as a whole is a bigger tent. So because it’s a bigger tent, just don’t waste our time arguing with each other about some of the, all of the side issues. And that’s one thing that I really enjoyed about our group is that we’ve put that all in the big tent, we’re all working together.
That's right, don't waste time quibbling over the fact that some of you think the earth is thousands of years old, and some of you think it's billions of years old. Never mind that some of you think the Noah's ark story really happened, whereas others believe in evolution with a rare touch of the designer for a flagellum here, an eye there. No, no, feh on that. Work together, all your various religious factions. Ooooo, I almost forgot. Don't tell anyone that it's all about religion. It's s-c-i-e-n-c-e, always remember. Shhhhhhhhhhh.
Here he bitches about losing the 2003 battle over textbook content, and gives away the game.
"But I want to tell you all the arguments made by all the intelligent design group, all the creationist intelligent design people, I can guarantee the other side heard exactly nothing. They did not hear one single fact, they were not swayed by one argument. It was just amazing. I mean all the, my fellow board members who were really not even the scientists in the group, they were not impressed by any of this. They said, “Oh well, it’s just two opinions. And there were only the four really conservative, orthodox Christians on the board were the only ones who were willing to stand up to the textbooks and say that they don’t present the weaknesses of evolution. Amazing."
Gosh dang Merle, we put up a bunch of religious bullshit pretending to be science, and the only people that bought it were some really religious folk. Imagine!
What is truly amazing is that the head of the Texas Board of Education (am I depressing any of you yet?) doesn't know the basic facts about the most unifying theory in all of biological science, if not all science period.
"...all the arguments are dismissed like this here is a subversive, secret attempt to force religion into science.
It is a secret attempt to force religion into science. Your own words sir, supply ample evidence.
He goes on and on like that, comparing evolutionary theory to The Matrix, and railing on about "naturalism", a straw man of a philosophy that no real person believes, but that IDers/creationists see as the boogey man around every corner responsible for all scientific error.
The battle over the science curriculum is coming. It is inevitable with this man at the helm. Get the word out, and those able to fight him need to prepare for the conflict and speak. One nice thing about creationists is that their schtick rarely changes. They pretty much make the same exact argument every time. This is what got them creamed in Dover, and there is no reason it shouldn't happen here as well.
That issue should also be raised: any school that adopts any form of creationism/ID into its science curriculum is risking a very expensive lawsuit that they are almost sure to lose. The creationists win occasionally with local school boards, but the big court cases always go against them. The Dover case cost the school district $1 million. Anyone considering following the IDers lead had best think twice just on pragmatic grounds.
We are going to be on display for the entire scientific community. Let's not blow it.
Thursday, August 9, 2007
The Little Girl in the Airport: Santa, God and the moon
Mike Dunford has an interesting story about a woman at the Johnson Space Center lying to (or grossly misinforming if you like) her child about the moon. She tells the poor child the moon was created by God on the fourth day. Really. Think of what wonder and mystery that robs the child of. No huge planets careening through gazillion miles of space to collide in an explosion we cannot imagine. Instead, magic man declared "let it be", and it was. How utterly boring.
Yet people still wonder why Richard Dawkins suggests religious indoctrination a form of child abuse. Certainly not at the level of smacking the kid with a 2x4, but then again, that would heal in short order. Ignorance can last a lifetime.
Isn't the irony rich in that those most rabid about "family values" are also the ones that most mean to damage their children this way via homeschooling regimines chock full of such lessons?
This brings to mind an experience of mine years ago. I was sitting in an airport at the end of a gruesome business trip, and was in a very foul mood. Several of us were scattered across the chairs on the aisle, down which this little blonde girl was skipping. She looked to be about 5, and she was stopping by each person and asking them if they knew about God, and chatting about it before moving on to the next potential convert. Her mother was watching from a short distance, beaming ever so proudly.
Not being in the mood for this in the slightest, and ever annoyed at people who let their lovely children bother those of us who clearly chose not to have our own, I concocted a plot Mom would like none too much.
When the little girl got to me, and asked me if I knew about God, I smiled and said "Yes, I do. Do you know about Santa Claus?" She smiled and nodded her pretty little head. "Good" I said. "They kind of go together don't they?". More nods. "Santa and God, Santa and God, just remember that."
About this time it dawns on Mom that her baby was speaking to an evil evil man, and swooped in, took the little girl by the arm, and whisked her away with a glare and a soft admonition to her about not bothering the man. A gent near enough to hear chuckled, another huffed at me.
"The man" had a mighty laugh, and returned to his nap, secure in the knowledge that the seeds of doubt had been planted, and that one Christmas some 15 years hence, a young girl home from college was going to announce over Christmas dinner, to her stunned Christian family's amazement, that she is an atheist, and she doesn't believe in God or Santa or anything like that any more. And Mom will think of the man in the airport.
Hey, I can dream, can't I?
Yet people still wonder why Richard Dawkins suggests religious indoctrination a form of child abuse. Certainly not at the level of smacking the kid with a 2x4, but then again, that would heal in short order. Ignorance can last a lifetime.
Isn't the irony rich in that those most rabid about "family values" are also the ones that most mean to damage their children this way via homeschooling regimines chock full of such lessons?
This brings to mind an experience of mine years ago. I was sitting in an airport at the end of a gruesome business trip, and was in a very foul mood. Several of us were scattered across the chairs on the aisle, down which this little blonde girl was skipping. She looked to be about 5, and she was stopping by each person and asking them if they knew about God, and chatting about it before moving on to the next potential convert. Her mother was watching from a short distance, beaming ever so proudly.
Not being in the mood for this in the slightest, and ever annoyed at people who let their lovely children bother those of us who clearly chose not to have our own, I concocted a plot Mom would like none too much.
When the little girl got to me, and asked me if I knew about God, I smiled and said "Yes, I do. Do you know about Santa Claus?" She smiled and nodded her pretty little head. "Good" I said. "They kind of go together don't they?". More nods. "Santa and God, Santa and God, just remember that."
About this time it dawns on Mom that her baby was speaking to an evil evil man, and swooped in, took the little girl by the arm, and whisked her away with a glare and a soft admonition to her about not bothering the man. A gent near enough to hear chuckled, another huffed at me.
"The man" had a mighty laugh, and returned to his nap, secure in the knowledge that the seeds of doubt had been planted, and that one Christmas some 15 years hence, a young girl home from college was going to announce over Christmas dinner, to her stunned Christian family's amazement, that she is an atheist, and she doesn't believe in God or Santa or anything like that any more. And Mom will think of the man in the airport.
Hey, I can dream, can't I?
Another God-addled School Lesson: God's Math
At Good Math Bad Math, Mark Chu-Carroll has great article on a Baptist high school's explanation of a geometry class as being about studying "the nature of God", and how foolish that is. Mark's critique is especially interesting given that he is a religious reconstructionist Jew, hardly the evil atheist that critics of such views are so often painted as.
It is also a nice reminder of the universality of math. There is a reason some sci-fi writers emphasize the importance of having a mathematician in a group making first contact with an alien species. Physics formulas may differ, sociology will be quite different, but 13 is prime everywhere.
It is also a nice reminder of the universality of math. There is a reason some sci-fi writers emphasize the importance of having a mathematician in a group making first contact with an alien species. Physics formulas may differ, sociology will be quite different, but 13 is prime everywhere.
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Another Anti-Gay Crusader turns out to be gay
And this week's Ted Haggart Gay Prostitue Award goes to:
"Florida State Rep. Bob Allen, longtime anti-gay crusader who was recently arrested for soliciting an undercover cop posing as a gay prostitute, has a novel excuse: all the blacks in the park made me do it."
You can't make this shit up. I am getting to where I really love these reports of rabidly anti-gay pompous ass politicians that turn out to be gayer than a pink pup tent. It's not only nice justice for those who are overly concerned with what their neighbors are doing, but it presents a very nice way of countering the attacks of future buttinski's. On second thought, it gives a whole new meaning to "buttinski", but I digress.
The apparent correlation between being rabidly anti-gay in public and secretly gay in private gets another data point. How many do we need before we accept that this obsessive behavior is a form of self-hatred, and stop pretending these people have any objectivity at all? Personally, I think it is high time that every anti-gay crusader get asked whether he is gay in his private life, and can he prove it? It would be justice, and great entertainment as well.
Btw, be sure to check out the discussion at Dispatches, particularly Steve Reuland's comment at #19. Hall of Fame Material.
"Florida State Rep. Bob Allen, longtime anti-gay crusader who was recently arrested for soliciting an undercover cop posing as a gay prostitute, has a novel excuse: all the blacks in the park made me do it."
You can't make this shit up. I am getting to where I really love these reports of rabidly anti-gay pompous ass politicians that turn out to be gayer than a pink pup tent. It's not only nice justice for those who are overly concerned with what their neighbors are doing, but it presents a very nice way of countering the attacks of future buttinski's. On second thought, it gives a whole new meaning to "buttinski", but I digress.
The apparent correlation between being rabidly anti-gay in public and secretly gay in private gets another data point. How many do we need before we accept that this obsessive behavior is a form of self-hatred, and stop pretending these people have any objectivity at all? Personally, I think it is high time that every anti-gay crusader get asked whether he is gay in his private life, and can he prove it? It would be justice, and great entertainment as well.
Btw, be sure to check out the discussion at Dispatches, particularly Steve Reuland's comment at #19. Hall of Fame Material.
The DI's Michael Egnor keeps finding new ways to be foolish
Michael Egnor, brain surgeon and Discovery Institute shill, has weighed in on the discussion of whether Intelligent Design is creationism. As low as my expectations are when this man puts pen to parchment, he managed to surprise me yet again with a new level of inanity here at the misnamed "Evolution News and Views", a site for ID syncopants to take turns pretending they know more about biology than biologists, despite none of them doing any science.
In this article, Egnor misses the point of Mike Dunford's article here that discusses the dishonest nature of the ID movement Wedge Document (it's creationism with the overt religious references removed to attempt to pass legal challenge), and instead tries to defend Denyse O'Leary's contention that ID is not creationism:
"Intelligent design is the theory that some aspects of living things are more reasonably explained as the product of intelligent design rather than as the product of random variation. It’s a scientific inference, open to evidence, and it might be right or wrong. Creationism is the belief in the literal truth of the Bible, particularly in the Book of Genesis. It’s a religious inference, and creationists believe it cannot be wrong."
That's all well and good, until one pays attention to what IDers actually do rather than taking them at their word for what they claim they do. Then it becomes clear that the only reason IDers make the claims they do is because they believe in the Biblical creator. This is why an overwhelming proportion of IDers are fundamentalist Christians.
There is nothing scientific about their approach. They make no falsifiable predictions, nor do they perform any falsifiable experimentation, nor do they publish in the peer-reviewed literature. So the claim of being open to evidence is empty at best, dishonest at worst. They ignore the criticisms of their positions, such as the fact that . Most glaringly unscientific, they place any questions about their hypothesized designer as off limits. One is not ALLOWED to ask about it - how it works, where it came from, what its origins are, etc. Try imagining scientists discovering an artifact that was clearly deposited by aliens declaring that no one is allowed to ask those questions. The reason they declare these questions off limits is obvious: their designer is the Christian God, and they are trying to hide that fact. The only difference in approach between traditional creationists and IDers is honesty, as Dunford rightly points out.
Not content with that misrepresantation, Egnor defends IDers against Dunford's accusations of being anti-education with the "scientific" method of IDers: MSU - making shit up:
"Most intelligent design advocates are teachers — science professors in universities — and it’s fair to say that most are parents with children in the public schools."
Egnor needs to stop playing with his anesthesia machine. As Project Steve makes abundantly clear, the vast majority of scientists and science educators oppose ID/creationism. If most ID advocates are science professors, then ID's ranks must be small indeed.
"We have a huge stake in good science education, and we believe that the problems with Darwin’s theory should be openly and honestly discussed in public schools. The overwhelming majority of Americans support open discussion of Darwin’s theory in schools."
No they don't. The results of various self-serving surveys notwithstanding, the IDers have lost most of the battles on school boards and curricula whenever the agenda of the school board in question comes to light. Dover was the rule, not the exception.
And if the IDers are so concerned with a scientific discussion of the problems with evolutionary theory, why don't they submit their theses to the peer-reviewed scientific literature? Why attempt the battles in backwoods school districts instead? Simple: the more ignorant the audience, the better their chances of success, and they know it.
Egnor then goes on to a bizarre line of reasoning, even by his standards:
"Given that 80% of Americans reject the strict Darwinist interpretation of human origins, the current system of 'good science education' fails by the Darwinists’ own standards.
How many people accept modern evolutionary theory depends on how the question is asked. The more overtly belief in gods is depicted as being in conflict with evolution, the more people reject it. But so what? If 99% of students reject a science, that doesn't mean the answer is to teach pseudoscience! The answer is better science education. It is highly ironic that those like Egnor that work so hard to water down science education would then lay the blame on the student's confusion on someone else.
"Dunford and his colleagues in the evolutionary-thought-police have enjoyed a federally enforced monopoly on biology education for 50 years. It's a federal crime to question Darwin's theory in a public school."
Classic MSU. There is nothing preventing students from asking questions about science, and indeed, most scientists would argue that encouraging students to approach science critically is highly important. What federal law disallows is allowing religious material like ID to bypass the scientific process and be introduced in science class as science.
"Yet they have convinced less than 20% of their students of the validity of their science. What would we say about the didactic skills of physics teachers who, after 50 years of a monopoly on classroom instruction, only got 20% of students to accept Newton's second law?"
Interesting that Egnor chooses Newton's theories of motion, which were supplanted by Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Care to guess which would win at the polls of students? Newtons's, by a long shot. Ditto with quantum physics. 20% of the population thinks the sun revolves around the earth. Is Egnor's proposal to fix these problems to stop teaching relativity and quantum physics, and to give equal time to geocentrism?
Egnor then goes on to completely misunderstand Dunford's accusation of dishonesty with regard to IDer's religion and its basis for their beliefs:
"I deeply resent that assertion. I’m a faithful Catholic, I’m devoted to Christ and to the Church, and I attend Mass daily if I can. My faith in God is of central importance in my life. I recognize that much of God's work is beyond my ability to discern or to understand, and there's no a priori reason that I would expect to be able to discern it in biology."
But that is exactly what you are doing Dr. Egnor: assuming a priori that you can discern the design of your god from the designs of nature. That is the ID you push in a nutshell.
"Neither am I dishonest about my scientific beliefs. I believe that the scientific evidence clearly supports the inference that some aspects of living things (e.g. the genetic code, intracellular molecular nanotechnology) are best explained scientifically as the products of intelligent design. The only way that my religious beliefs influence my scientific beliefs is that as a Christian, I accept the possibility of intelligent design if that's what the scientific evidence suggests.
Wrong. You have no scientific evidence of ID, yet you believe anyway. Where are the ID papers published in the scientific literature? Dembski's explanatory filter, which supposedly can seperate designed items from undesigned ones, would be of great interest to archaeologists, SETI, and forensic scientists. Yet there is none, because it hasn't been subjected to the slightest test or rigorous definition within the mathematical and information theory communities.
"Unlike atheists, I don't restrict scientific explanations to strict materialistic causes if the evidence suggests otherwise."
This is both a lie and a straw man. First, most of the people opposing ID are NOT atheists. Most people have no trouble reconciling their religious views with science. Second, atheist scientists are interested in evidence, period. The reject ID/creationism because there is no evidence supporting it.
Finally, Egnor finishes with a bit of projection, another IDer favorite:
There's clear evidence for design in biology. Dunford’s paranoid style is increasingly a staple of Darwinist rhetoric. They don’t have the evidence to support their theory, so all they can do is accuse those of us who question dogmatic Darwinism of conspiring to “destroy good science education for every child in the public schools of America” and of lying about our faith. Much of Darwinist rhetoric isn’t scientific at all; it’s ad hominem attacks and conspiracy mongering. Darwinists will do anything to avoid debating the science.
Riiiiiiiight. That's why all those scientists (calling them "Darwinists" is Egnor's way of trying to poison the well by implying science is a religion) are debating evolutionary theory every day in the literature: is sexual selection more powerful than natural selection? How prominent a role does evo-devo play? Does all life have a common ancestor, or are multiple trees more likely? IDers have nothing to say on these subjects. Instead they sit on the sidelines muttering "Nuh UH!" and "We knew it would turn out that way" while the scientists actually do the science. It isn't an ad hominem to bring the truth of the Wedge Document to bear on ID and to expose it for the political anti-science movement it is, and those like Dunford who call them out on their dishonesty are right on target.
In this article, Egnor misses the point of Mike Dunford's article here that discusses the dishonest nature of the ID movement Wedge Document (it's creationism with the overt religious references removed to attempt to pass legal challenge), and instead tries to defend Denyse O'Leary's contention that ID is not creationism:
"Intelligent design is the theory that some aspects of living things are more reasonably explained as the product of intelligent design rather than as the product of random variation. It’s a scientific inference, open to evidence, and it might be right or wrong. Creationism is the belief in the literal truth of the Bible, particularly in the Book of Genesis. It’s a religious inference, and creationists believe it cannot be wrong."
That's all well and good, until one pays attention to what IDers actually do rather than taking them at their word for what they claim they do. Then it becomes clear that the only reason IDers make the claims they do is because they believe in the Biblical creator. This is why an overwhelming proportion of IDers are fundamentalist Christians.
There is nothing scientific about their approach. They make no falsifiable predictions, nor do they perform any falsifiable experimentation, nor do they publish in the peer-reviewed literature. So the claim of being open to evidence is empty at best, dishonest at worst. They ignore the criticisms of their positions, such as the fact that . Most glaringly unscientific, they place any questions about their hypothesized designer as off limits. One is not ALLOWED to ask about it - how it works, where it came from, what its origins are, etc. Try imagining scientists discovering an artifact that was clearly deposited by aliens declaring that no one is allowed to ask those questions. The reason they declare these questions off limits is obvious: their designer is the Christian God, and they are trying to hide that fact. The only difference in approach between traditional creationists and IDers is honesty, as Dunford rightly points out.
Not content with that misrepresantation, Egnor defends IDers against Dunford's accusations of being anti-education with the "scientific" method of IDers: MSU - making shit up:
"Most intelligent design advocates are teachers — science professors in universities — and it’s fair to say that most are parents with children in the public schools."
Egnor needs to stop playing with his anesthesia machine. As Project Steve makes abundantly clear, the vast majority of scientists and science educators oppose ID/creationism. If most ID advocates are science professors, then ID's ranks must be small indeed.
"We have a huge stake in good science education, and we believe that the problems with Darwin’s theory should be openly and honestly discussed in public schools. The overwhelming majority of Americans support open discussion of Darwin’s theory in schools."
No they don't. The results of various self-serving surveys notwithstanding, the IDers have lost most of the battles on school boards and curricula whenever the agenda of the school board in question comes to light. Dover was the rule, not the exception.
And if the IDers are so concerned with a scientific discussion of the problems with evolutionary theory, why don't they submit their theses to the peer-reviewed scientific literature? Why attempt the battles in backwoods school districts instead? Simple: the more ignorant the audience, the better their chances of success, and they know it.
Egnor then goes on to a bizarre line of reasoning, even by his standards:
"Given that 80% of Americans reject the strict Darwinist interpretation of human origins, the current system of 'good science education' fails by the Darwinists’ own standards.
How many people accept modern evolutionary theory depends on how the question is asked. The more overtly belief in gods is depicted as being in conflict with evolution, the more people reject it. But so what? If 99% of students reject a science, that doesn't mean the answer is to teach pseudoscience! The answer is better science education. It is highly ironic that those like Egnor that work so hard to water down science education would then lay the blame on the student's confusion on someone else.
"Dunford and his colleagues in the evolutionary-thought-police have enjoyed a federally enforced monopoly on biology education for 50 years. It's a federal crime to question Darwin's theory in a public school."
Classic MSU. There is nothing preventing students from asking questions about science, and indeed, most scientists would argue that encouraging students to approach science critically is highly important. What federal law disallows is allowing religious material like ID to bypass the scientific process and be introduced in science class as science.
"Yet they have convinced less than 20% of their students of the validity of their science. What would we say about the didactic skills of physics teachers who, after 50 years of a monopoly on classroom instruction, only got 20% of students to accept Newton's second law?"
Interesting that Egnor chooses Newton's theories of motion, which were supplanted by Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Care to guess which would win at the polls of students? Newtons's, by a long shot. Ditto with quantum physics. 20% of the population thinks the sun revolves around the earth. Is Egnor's proposal to fix these problems to stop teaching relativity and quantum physics, and to give equal time to geocentrism?
Egnor then goes on to completely misunderstand Dunford's accusation of dishonesty with regard to IDer's religion and its basis for their beliefs:
"I deeply resent that assertion. I’m a faithful Catholic, I’m devoted to Christ and to the Church, and I attend Mass daily if I can. My faith in God is of central importance in my life. I recognize that much of God's work is beyond my ability to discern or to understand, and there's no a priori reason that I would expect to be able to discern it in biology."
But that is exactly what you are doing Dr. Egnor: assuming a priori that you can discern the design of your god from the designs of nature. That is the ID you push in a nutshell.
"Neither am I dishonest about my scientific beliefs. I believe that the scientific evidence clearly supports the inference that some aspects of living things (e.g. the genetic code, intracellular molecular nanotechnology) are best explained scientifically as the products of intelligent design. The only way that my religious beliefs influence my scientific beliefs is that as a Christian, I accept the possibility of intelligent design if that's what the scientific evidence suggests.
Wrong. You have no scientific evidence of ID, yet you believe anyway. Where are the ID papers published in the scientific literature? Dembski's explanatory filter, which supposedly can seperate designed items from undesigned ones, would be of great interest to archaeologists, SETI, and forensic scientists. Yet there is none, because it hasn't been subjected to the slightest test or rigorous definition within the mathematical and information theory communities.
"Unlike atheists, I don't restrict scientific explanations to strict materialistic causes if the evidence suggests otherwise."
This is both a lie and a straw man. First, most of the people opposing ID are NOT atheists. Most people have no trouble reconciling their religious views with science. Second, atheist scientists are interested in evidence, period. The reject ID/creationism because there is no evidence supporting it.
Finally, Egnor finishes with a bit of projection, another IDer favorite:
There's clear evidence for design in biology. Dunford’s paranoid style is increasingly a staple of Darwinist rhetoric. They don’t have the evidence to support their theory, so all they can do is accuse those of us who question dogmatic Darwinism of conspiring to “destroy good science education for every child in the public schools of America” and of lying about our faith. Much of Darwinist rhetoric isn’t scientific at all; it’s ad hominem attacks and conspiracy mongering. Darwinists will do anything to avoid debating the science.
Riiiiiiiight. That's why all those scientists (calling them "Darwinists" is Egnor's way of trying to poison the well by implying science is a religion) are debating evolutionary theory every day in the literature: is sexual selection more powerful than natural selection? How prominent a role does evo-devo play? Does all life have a common ancestor, or are multiple trees more likely? IDers have nothing to say on these subjects. Instead they sit on the sidelines muttering "Nuh UH!" and "We knew it would turn out that way" while the scientists actually do the science. It isn't an ad hominem to bring the truth of the Wedge Document to bear on ID and to expose it for the political anti-science movement it is, and those like Dunford who call them out on their dishonesty are right on target.
New Fossil Finds Confirm what we already knew: Reporters foul up the science again!
New fossils have been found suggesting that Homo erectus and Homo habilis, both thought to be ancestors of modern humans, coexisted for about 1.5 million years. This is interesting news, but it does not carry the implications claimed by Seth Borenstein claims in his AP story on the find. Instead, he inadvertently promotes some common misconceptions about evolutionary theory:
"Surprising research based on two African fossils suggests our family tree is more like a wayward bush with stubby branches, challenging what had been common thinking on how early humans evolved...it further discredits that iconic illustration of human evolution that begins with a knuckle-dragging ape and ends with a briefcase-carrying man."
Far from being surprising, this is old news to scientists, who have long known that the prefect progression shown in common illustrations was overly simplistic. Dead end lineages have long been known, such as the Robustus line, that branched off the line that led to us and died off. The ladder-of-progress symbol of constantly improving evolution is an unfortunate side effect of the belief by some that evolution was a guided process with man as the intended end product. Fortunately a scientist is interviewed and sets the record straight:
"That old evolutionary cartoon, while popular with the general public, is just too simple and keeps getting revised, said Bill Kimbel, who praised the latest findings. He is science director of the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University and wasn't part of the Leakey team."
But Borenstein doesn't stop there, and promotes another fallacy of evolution with a quote from study co-author Fred Spoor, a professor of evolutionary anatomy at the University College in London:
"It's the equivalent of finding that your grandmother and great-grandmother were sisters rather than mother-daughter"
Um, no it isn't. This is a variant of the "if we evolved from monkeys, then why are there still monkeys" nonsense. After all, we descended both from our grandmothers and our great grandmothers, so it wouldn't change anything to find they coexisted for a time. I would hope this quote was either somehow taken out of context, or there was some addition information missing from this report that would make it make more sense, because as it stands it looks like a gross misunderstanding of evolutionary theory.
It is no wonder evolutionary theory is so poorly understood by the general public when this is how science is reported.
"Surprising research based on two African fossils suggests our family tree is more like a wayward bush with stubby branches, challenging what had been common thinking on how early humans evolved...it further discredits that iconic illustration of human evolution that begins with a knuckle-dragging ape and ends with a briefcase-carrying man."
Far from being surprising, this is old news to scientists, who have long known that the prefect progression shown in common illustrations was overly simplistic. Dead end lineages have long been known, such as the Robustus line, that branched off the line that led to us and died off. The ladder-of-progress symbol of constantly improving evolution is an unfortunate side effect of the belief by some that evolution was a guided process with man as the intended end product. Fortunately a scientist is interviewed and sets the record straight:
"That old evolutionary cartoon, while popular with the general public, is just too simple and keeps getting revised, said Bill Kimbel, who praised the latest findings. He is science director of the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University and wasn't part of the Leakey team."
But Borenstein doesn't stop there, and promotes another fallacy of evolution with a quote from study co-author Fred Spoor, a professor of evolutionary anatomy at the University College in London:
"It's the equivalent of finding that your grandmother and great-grandmother were sisters rather than mother-daughter"
Um, no it isn't. This is a variant of the "if we evolved from monkeys, then why are there still monkeys" nonsense. After all, we descended both from our grandmothers and our great grandmothers, so it wouldn't change anything to find they coexisted for a time. I would hope this quote was either somehow taken out of context, or there was some addition information missing from this report that would make it make more sense, because as it stands it looks like a gross misunderstanding of evolutionary theory.
It is no wonder evolutionary theory is so poorly understood by the general public when this is how science is reported.
Calling all Homophobes: Gay Mice for You
For all you homophobes out there, check out this article documenting the changes in sexual orientation of mice based on changes in their pheromones.
Mike at Denialism Blog has a nice summary with some more details on the findings. The bottom line is that yet another real-world claim by the theocratic family values people, this time the idea that homosexuality is a choice, turns out to be flat wrong...again.
Mike at Denialism Blog has a nice summary with some more details on the findings. The bottom line is that yet another real-world claim by the theocratic family values people, this time the idea that homosexuality is a choice, turns out to be flat wrong...again.
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