Intelligent Design advocates admit they have not read the standards.

[Imperialism Inc.]

A couple blog entries on the whole Kansas evolution fiasco.
What could be a better metaphor for the ID crowd in general than a group of experts who admit they have not read the currently proposed, majority approved, science standards but testify in the hearing that they believe the minority standards are better.

http://www.pandasthumb.org/pt-archives/001013.html
The dog ate my homework
--snip--
Then, out of the blue, under a withering cross-examination by Science Coalition attorney Pedro Irigonegaray the hearing room was electrified by Edward Peltzer’s admission that he had not read the science standards draft written by the pro-evolution majority of curriculum committee. Peltzer, a Scripps Institution oceanographer and intelligent design witness was flown in from California to share his expert evaluation of the competing science standards drafts, and is currently enjoying the hospitality of Kansas taxpayers.

As the day wore on, each witness in turn was forced to fess up – to an increasingly scornful Irigonegaray — that they too hadn’t bothered to read the majority draft before giving their testimony. This despite the fact that each had earlier testified – in response to questions from intelligent design attorney John Calvert – that the minority draft was superior to the pro-science majority draft.

“I’ve not read it word for word myself,” confessed board member Kathy Martin in an ill-fated attempt to salvage the credibility of the witnesses.

As groans erupted through the hearing room in response to Martin’s admission – and AP reporter Josh Funk ran for the exit to phone the story in – a new feeling that the intelligent design showcase was turning into a failure began to seep into the room

http://redstaterabble.blogspot.com/
The Score Card So Far
During cross-examination, Science Coalition attorney Pedro Irigonegaray has forced each intelligent design witness to go on record about their opinion on the age of the earth, common descent, and whether human beings have evolved from pre-hominids.

So far, not one witness has said they believe the evidence supports a belief that all living things share a common ancestor or that they believe that human have evolved from pre-hominids.

This is interesting because one of the hero's of ID is Michael Behe. He is the author of Darwin's Black Box where he describes the much ID touted "irreducible complexity" argument. Here is what Behe has to say about common descent (i'm sorry but I forget what web page I grabbed these quotes from, but most of it is from his book so you can find them there):

"For the record, I have no reason to doubt that the universe is the billions of years old that physicists say it is. Further, I find the idea of common descent (that all organisms share a common ancestor) fairly convincing, and have no particular reason to doubt it. (p. 5 Darwin's Black Box)

“I believe the evidence strongly supports common descent.” (p.176 Darwin's Black Box)

“I dispute the mechanism of natural selection, not common descent.” (in Reply to My Critics, Biology and Philosophy 16, p697, 2001.)


Darwin’s Black Box, Reviewed by Kenneth R. Miller
(as published in Creation / Evolution Volume 16: pp, 36-40 <1996>)

Perhaps the single most stunning thing about Darwin’s Black Box, Michael Behe’s “Biochemical Challenge to Evolution,” is the amount of territory that its author concedes to Darwinism. As tempted as they might be to pick up this book in their own defense, “scientific creationists” should think twice about enlisting an ally who has concluded that the Earth is several billion years old, that evolutionary biology has had “much success in accounting for the patterns of life we see around us (1),” that evolution accounts for the appearance of new organisms including antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and who is convinced that all organisms share a “common ancestor.” In plain language, this means that Michael Behe and I share an evolutionary view of the natural history of the Earth and the meaning of the fossil record; namely, that present-day organisms have been produced by a process of descent with modification from their ancient ancestors. Behe is clear, firm, and consistent on this point. For example, when Michael and I engaged in debate at the 1995 meeting of the American Scientific Affiliation, I argued that the 100% match of DNA sequences in the pseudogene region of beta-globin was proof that humans and gorillas shared a recent common ancestor. To my surprise, Behe said that he shared that view, and had no problem with the notion of common ancestry. Creationists who believe that Behe is on their side should proceed with caution - he states very clearly that evolution can produce new species, and that human beings are one of those species.

--

I just find it amusing that these people don't even know what their own guys say, let alone what the theory of evolution says. Anyway, continuing with the 2nd blog entry.

yesterday, cracks began to emerge in that consensus as one witness Bryan Leonard, a high school biology teacher from Ohio, categorically refused to answer, and two others, Daniel Ely and John Sanford said the earth might be less than 10 thousand years old.

"Less than 100 thousand years old," said Sanford. "Conceivably less than 10 thousand years old."

Ahhh. Letting their true nuttiness shine through.

[etherealtruth]

1. I remain astounded that this "debate" is going on ...

How much time, money, effort... is going into this? Where else in the world can well accepted scientific FACTS be challenged by religious dogma?

Edit: grammar

[Pepperbelly]

5. I think that both the creationists and the darwinists have misread ...

the scientific situation egregiously in this debate.

The common assumption is that because some of the adherents to ID are Bible-believing fundamentalists, there are critics of evolution who actually find scientific anomolies that have caused them to seek an alternative to evolution being a product of randomness. Some of the critics are atheists, agnostics, non-practicing this or that. Some are religious.

I listened to the discussion this morning on C-SPAN between Peter Folger of the American Geophysical Union and Mark Ryland from the Discovery institute. Ryland did say one thing that did catch my attention in a big way. He asserted that the paradigm of the scintific community is observe, evaluate, etc to explain phenomona with natural world explanation rather than observe, evaluate, etc. and following it to where ever the data led.

I do sense that there is a substantial number of people critical of the scientific community who are not fundamentalists but are rather critics of a failure to investigate whether other explanations fit data better than current hypothesis. Even peer-review doesn't do this.

[etherealtruth]

6. Criticism of the scientific community ...

... certainly has foundation in some instances. The debate here is really not about the "science" --- the areas in which there is actual scientific debate are not those that would be taught at the K-12 levels. It really is about the introduction of creationist dogma into public school curriculum.

As you know the courts are not where scientific debate occurs --- will a judge be able to decide what the scientific facts are and which are more valid?

[Pepperbelly]

11. Actually ...

my point was that is not precisely the point because there are camps at work other than the fundamentalists and are doing so out of intellectual honesty rather than adherence to dogma.

I think the conflict between the non-fundamentalist critics and the scientific establishment lies here, in this snippet:

The principle change here is to replace a naturalistic definition of science with a traditional definition. The current definition of science is intended to reflect a concept called methodological naturalism, which irrefutably assumes that cause-and-effect laws (as of physics and chemistry) are adequate to account for all phenomena and that teleological or design conceptions of nature are invalid. Although called a “method of science,” the effect of its use is
to limit inquiry (and permissible explanations) and thus to promote the philosophy of Naturalism. In effect, this “method” is actually a doctrine because its key tenets or “assumptions” are not refutable and are not generally disclosed. Whether or not intended, the effect of this construct is to cause students to accept as true its unstated premise. This can be reasonably expected to lead one to believe in the naturalistic philosophy that life and its diversity is the result of an unguided, purposeless natural process. This is both scientifically and Constitutionally problematic.

http://www.kansasscience2005.com/Proposed%20Revision%20to%20Draft%202%20KS%20Sci%20Stds.pdf

Discussion that doesn't address this issue misses the mark of relevency.

[etherealtruth]

13. Help me understand why this is the appropriate forum for this...

...(this court). I am not being sarcastic ... I am looking for more understanding. Why is this argument appropriate at this level?

I AM of the belief that "that life and its diversity is the result of an unguided, purposeless natural process" is accurate.

While I understand that it is not only Christian fundamentalists that disagree ----I am also firmly of the belief that THIS argument is a political one, motivated by personal belief systems (religion) and that the goal is to open the door to dogma being taught along side science.

This IS not a debate that arose from the scientific community seeking clarification---it came aspects of "the community" at large seeking alternative explanations that fit into their personal belief systems ...

Help me understand why this argument is appropriate to this forum (court), the actual issues are far larger than changes in one districts curriculum ----this is note the same as changing the way algebra is presented...

[Imperialism Inc.]

15. Honestly, if you think that is what these people are after

you are fooling yourself. Just take a glance above at the blog entries and it should be clear enough that they are not following the data at all. They don't even know what the data is.
Also, just because one guy said something on a radio show doesn't make it true. Scientists do follow wherever the data goes. Just look at modern physics. Why were physicists not afraid to follow the data to where it led them , even though it is non-intuitive and required a reevaluation of their assumptions about the natural world?
If you are looking for answers the 'why' questions, for stuff that can't ever be answered by observing the world we live in then you want philosophy or religion (2 doors down ... on the left ;-) ). But, lets not encumber science with those other disciplines. And, let's not teach kids that making stuff up to fit preconceived notions that are believed despite the evidence is somehow on par with observing what is actually there and how it works.

[Pepperbelly]

17. have you ...

read the standards?

I have no problem with the majority standards. The minority standards are not such that the learning of science would be compromised in my view. I am uncertain if they are needed but looking at what is writen in the contrasting reports is egregious in neither case.

[Imperialism Inc.]

18. Yes I have.

It is subtle in some places, outrageous in others. The goal is quite clear. Undermine the teaching of evolution at every step. Allow and require teachers to plant seeds of doubt. Suggest that evolution doesn't adequately explain the data. Single out evolution for special doubt. In some case the revisions suggest telling outright falsehoods such as "life cannot be adequately explained by chance interactions of physics and chemistry". There is no such evidence that it can't be or isn't. In fact, in the diversity and change of life over time (a.k.a evolution), it is extremely successful. There is no need for ID whatsoever. Does ID explain why within a few years of developing cancer, the cancer cells evolve "pumps" that pump out the drugs and make the cancer cells immune to the drugs? Does ID explain how bacteria have evolved immunity to powerful anti-biotics? in one case it took it 30 years to do so and changed no less than 5 proteins in the cell wall to do so (basically revamped the entire cell wall).

This distinction of "naturalistic" is red herring. Science studies the real world, not the imagination of mankind. I would love to hear an explanation of how they plan to do science without data from the natural world. Again, if they want that go to a philosophy class, though to be honest they probably won't have a lot of luck there either. Philosophy has abandoned the technique of just making stuff up with no tests against the real world long ago as well. What they are really suggesting is that we simply stop looking. Throw up our hands and say "god did it". Now, if evolution was a stagnant field of study and nothing much was being learned for a few hundred years or something, then maybe it would be time to throw up our hands and stop studying it. That, of course, is no where near the case.

Edit: Another falsehood that I alluded to but did not flesh out is that evolution is a theory and not fact. There might have been a time when that was the case, however, as the examples I gave on cancer cells and drug resistant bacteria show quite clearly that is no longer the case. Evolution has been observed within the human life span many times now. That changes it in those case from a theory to a fact. In other words, instead of being a theoretical construct that explains the data it is the data itself!! They watch it with their own eyes!! (OK their own instruments). Cells that once had no drug pumps and no genes to make drug pumps evolve them over a matter of years!!

[Pepperbelly]

19. I truly do not ...

believe that I anywhere suggested that anyone should make stuff up. In your treatise, I am unable to distinguish what you intended as criticisms of the minority report in Kansas vs. what you intended as criticism of my post citing the report for consideration.

I would plant seeds of doubt across every science. And history.

No field is iummune from my doubting ass.

[Imperialism Inc.]

20. I'm talking about the proposed standards that you asked about.

They do mention the "naturalistic" viewpoint thing you talked about so maybe that is a link between the two. However, I was discussing the revisions and not your post.

I really don't see how to describe doing science without data, other calling it "making it up". I mean what does one go by? How does one proceed?

Actually I see that now http://redstaterabble.blogspot.com/ has a link up to the proposed revisions. Take a look a them. Like I said you will likely find some of them to be harmless but others make their intentions quite clear. That is , they wish to undermine the teaching of evolution at every chance (with no good reason to do so). You will see the outright falsehoods I pointed out as well.

There is also a good entry on "Methodological Naturalism" at that blog now. He apparently interviewed a Dept of Philosophy professor about "Methodological Naturalism" and he explains why it is a red herring. "This is false," says Glymour, "methodological naturalism doesn't rule out data, it only rules out certain hypotheses -- supernatural hypotheses -- such as intelligent design because they are untestable." That is basically what I was getting at. The data to be explained is the same for both groups and it comes from the natural world, period. As he points out what they want to do is start adding non-falsifiable hypotheses to the world of science. What good does that do us? How does that advance knowledge? It doesn't. It stops it dead in its tracks. One essentially can now just make stuff up because it is ok if there is no way to prove or disprove it. In short, it is not science anymore at all.

[Pepperbelly]

21. I don't think they suggested data from ...

somewhere else.

I think that the position was the HYPOTHESIS, not the data.

And because Glymour doesn't see how anything outside of naturalistic explanations can be tested, doesn't mean that there is no way.

See the eggs for a look at that notion.

http://noosphere.princeton.edu/

I do not see how gathering data in this fashion is anything other than scientific. And everyone is free to hypothesize how they wish about it with equal access to the data.

They could well be onto something.

[Imperialism Inc.]

23. A hypothesis or theory based on naturalistic data

will ALWAYS be naturalistic. That is basically by definition. Which was exactly my point. The data MUST come from the natural world. If the hypothesis does not come from the natural world and has no observable effects in the natural world, then it cannot be falsified and data cannot be collected. If it cannot be falsified and data cannot be collected then you cannot study the thing, because there is no set of data that can be found to prove or disprove it. It is a tautology. It is true because it is true with no room for further study.

I hesitate to mention it , but the noosphere has been debunked on here many times. They are basically working backward. They find a spike and then look for an event that they can label significant. Since spikes occur quite regularly it isn't very hard to do, and the process of labeling events significant is completely subjective. But all of that is beside the point. If they developed a theory and mechanisms based on data from the natural world and it held up, then that theory would then be a part of the natural world not the supernatural world.

Edit: and, as long as the theory can be falsified there is nothing wrong with it being considered and studied as science.

[Pepperbelly]

24. I guess it will depend upon what one considers natural ...

And the debunking provided at DU is of questionable value. It truly is.

Perhaps Princeton is fucked up. I doubt it. But the data is there. A good bit of theoretical underpinning is developing. It will either pan out or it won't.

If you want to see someone jump the gun, say something bad about the Big Bang theory.

Yikes.

:evilgrin:

[Imperialism Inc.]

25. Well I actually got most of my debunking on it from

slashdot and a couple science blogs but maybe there is something to it I don't know.

With , ID however, there is basically nothing. They have no successes so far. They can't even tell us what a designed object would look like as opposed to an evolved one. That is a pretty big failure and disqualifies it from being taught as of yet. The problem is , if we go by an intuitive understanding of what designed might mean the data is pretty strongly against it. Broken genes in entire lines of mammals and other lineages. Duplicate genes that appear to be from common known types of DNA replication errors. Sub-optimally engineered organs that appear to have come from an organ used for something else originally (thus resulting in the sub optimal "design"). So clearly, the common sense definition can't be used. It isn't that they haven't tried. They have, but have so far failed every time.

Then when I see stuff like I posted above, especially the second blog entry, it seems pretty clear that these so called experts don't even know the field they are giving an opinion on. I mean, there is a reason even Behe acknowledges common descent. The evidence is simply overwhelming and comes from several fields of study. The fossil record, field studies of living species, medical and lab studies, embryology, and some of the most powerful evidence from modern genetics and gene sequencing. Isn't it pretty clear when they all deny common descent and some even argue for a young earth where they are coming from? What their intentions are? And exactly how uninformed they are on the subject? Do we really want these people having a green light to introduce their unsupported and even unsupportable ideas in the classroom?

I have a kid who wants to be a doctor. We have some of these same problems here in Ohio. It makes me sick when I think about it. There was a guy here the other night telling us all how evolution was different from other science. It didn't make predictions and wasn't based on the same methods etc. He essentially seemed to think that it was just some idea someone thought up and was still around because of ... I don't know... dogma?

I don't see how specifically singling out evolution for special doubt is going to help these kids. It is going to produce more guys like the one I just mentioned. Teach the scientific method in first year general science or at the beginning of each year. But when you single out certain ideas the kids are going to get the wrong idea. They are going to think, "Hey, they must be repeating that now because this particular theory isn't on as solid ground as the others." Nothing could be further from the truth. Evolution has just as much if not more evidence in its favor.

As far as the big bang goes, though it is a solid theory, there is a much higher chance that some of the fundamentals in that theory will be overturned than there is that the fundamentals of evolution (common descent and the role of genes and natural selection) will be overturned.

[Hugin]

7. Good point... (Recommended thread BTW)

Yes, there are camps within the scientific community
which have questions or differing views to the mechanisms
of change.

However, most of them have some sort of proof to support
their views.

Creationism is, however, only an argument. It lacks any
sort of rigor in it's investigation relying instead on
the age old assertion, "Things are the way they are because
I said so... So, shut up and pray."

[MuseRider]

2. Pedro for President!

Just making a small joke here. Pedro is a good friend of mine and if anyone can change the situation here he can. Hard to do when the board had already made up its mind and just wanted I suppose to spend a ton of our money and get their words out into the public a little more.

[izzybeans]

3. I knew all it would take was demonstrating that these

folks don't do their homework. The fact that Kansas had to search as far as CAlifornia to dig up a nitwit oceanographer to support intelligent design should be explanatory itself. But add the fact that this guy just doesn't care to follow a general ethical principle in his own profession (master the literature on your subject of expertise) provides some butter to the already warm ID biscuits. Thankfully somebody is devouring their nonsense and spitting it back on the floor.

Thank you Pedro!

[msongs]

4. christian taliban strikes again - the new dark ages are coming eom

[aka-chmeee]

8. Makes me so proud to be from Kansas nt

[Hugin]

9. It's okay...

You've got a world class paleontologist there.

I've been reading his website... Fascinating!

http://www.oceansofkansas.com

WELCOME TO DU AKA!

[Hugin]

10. These are the kinds of details readers of DU need to be aware of...

:kick:


So, those on DU can do their homework.

[JNelson6563]

12. Who needs standards??

They've got their god on their side! It is "ok" to lie, cheat, steal and kill if it's for the glory of their god. It's righteous even. Do you think for this debate they would suddenly employ standards?

Nevermind being surprised this "debate" is taking place, I'm surprised people expected any kind of honesty or single standards to come into the picture.

Julie

[KittyWampus]

14. The Jerks In Kansas Are "Zell Miller" ID Proponents With An Agenda

that coincides with the Fundies and Creationists.

They do NOT speak for ALL theorists and scientists nor do they even begin to represent ID accurately.

If only the American Scientific Establishment would ADMIT the one or two points that are correct in ID.

They could then drive a wedge and regain control of the issue and MOVE SCIENTIFIC THEORY FORWARD.

[Imperialism Inc.]

16. As soon as they come up with a valid point then

I'll agree with you. Until then keep it out of the science classes.
Maybe they could start with defining what designed means in a rigorous way. So far they have not been able to do so.

[Taxloss]

22. I'm surprised they're aware there ARE standards,

considering the baselessness of their wacky fundamentalist dogma.