Anti-evolutionist teacher bringing theory to Louisville

[moobu2]

Still spreading ignorance and superstition in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

"LOUISVILLE, Ky. - A mathematician who has questioned tenets of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is basing a teaching campaign concerned with science and theology in Louisville.

William Dembski said he underwent a religious conversion in college.

After Dembski earned a doctorate in mathematics in 1988, he began using statistical methods to argue that Darwin's findings were wrong. He and a handful of other scholars have argued a concept that holds that the universe is so complex, it must have been created by an unspecified guiding force.

The theory became known as "Intelligent Design." Dembski is planning to teach at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he will launch a new Center for Science and Theology this summer."

LINK

[atommom]

1. Just because he's not smart enough to understand the complexity,

that does NOT make it unexplainable. :eyes: Wingnuts.

[Jim__]

11. Exactly. I think its Richard Dawkins who calls these types of proof:

Proof through personal ignorance. I can't imagine how it could have happened, therefore it couldn't have happened.

[KittyWampus]

12. Dembski Isn't A Wingnut. How Sad, You Haven't Read His Work,

have no idea what he actually says and yet trash him.

[CindyDale]

2. Here are some fun quotations on statistics for students in Kentucky

who might be lurking.

http://www.quotegarden.com/statistics.html

[moobu2]

3. To be accurate, Dembski's religious views were countered with a real

scientist in the article, thank goodness, and also, "Dembski has been demoted from a post at Baylor University amid controversy over his work" which at the least he should have been although I believe he should have been fired and ridiculed publicly.


also from the article:
""Intelligent Design "is merely the latest approach by creationists to get Christian fundamentalism taught in schools," said Robert Martin, a professor of biology at Murray State University. Martin wrote "Missing Links: Evolutionary Concepts and Transitions Through Time," and calls Dembski a "smart, gifted writer" but says he offers "no evidence for Intelligent Design to supplant the huge scientific database that supports evolution."

[KittyWampus]

13. Martin's Mischaracterizes Intelligent Design As Creationism. Typical

[roguevalley]

4. idiot. on PBS they had a show on the black death and gene mutation

that PROVES evolution. There was a group of people in the 1600's that survived the plague and their descendents were DNA'd to see why. It appears that a gene mutation occured during the first plague pandemic in the 1300's that gives limited immunity to plague if you inherit from one parent or complete immunity if you inherit from two parents.

It is now being proved to be the same mutation that protects some people from EVER getting AIDS and is going to be a tool to help beat this disease. If people and life were immutable, this gene mutation wouldn't have happened as a response to outside stimuli but it did. He can take his creationism and shove it up his ass.

[progressoid]

9. No, no, no.

You are obviously under the influence of Satan. Those genes didn't mutate by themselves...GOD did it. The plague, AIDS, and even genetically modified wheat...GOD did those too. It's all by design. Intelligent design. In fact it's so intelligent that mere humans (especially godless, liberal humans) can't even grasp it.

[Stunster]

10. Dembski doesn't deny that evolution occurred

Nor does Michael Behe.

If you're going to call people "idiots", it's usually a good idea to represent what they're saying accurately.

[Sufi Marmot]

17. The plaque didn't cause the mutations: Eschew Lamarckism!

If people and life were immutable, this gene mutation wouldn't have happened as a response to outside stimuli but it did. He can take his creationism and shove it up his ass. Just a picky comment about biological causality: The survivors had a preexisting mutation that made them immune to the plague - exposure to the plague didn't cause that mutation. The mutation simply conferred a survivial advantage carriers in the larger population of those people exposed to the plague.

-SM

[CindyDale]

5. I am beginning to think this anti-evolution nonsense

has a lot to do with racism. Scientists are invalidating race as a scientific concept, and some people are unhappy about that. See the following, for example:

http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/Sciences/LifeScience/HumanRaces/BiologyRace/BiologyRace.htm

I also remember reading recently about some new research on the inheritance of skin color, but I can't remember exactly what it said. I think where this research is taking us might disprove the examples creationists are using about race, though, such as the following:

http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-089.htm

You can sort of see where this jackass was going.

[moobu2]

7. Oh exactly!

Evolution is a direct threat to every hatefull thing these people stand for, there is no doubt at all to me.

[KittyWampus]

14. Actually, Intelligent Design Is A Threat To Establishment Science

there is a full blown effort now to discredit ID and all Science which doesn't stay within accepted Materialist boundaries set by the Science Fundies.

Stray from their dogma and you will be smeared and your career ruined.

Tactics are quite similiar to the way GOP operates.

[FM Arouet666]

20. ID is not science

"Science Fundies", "dogma," interesting how you frame the scientific community in religious terms. ID proponents would have you believe that their work is scientific, yet the initial argument is flawed. Using science to establish the existence of god? How can you construct a logical argument within the working parameters set by philosophical naturalism and include the supernatural?

Why have these boundaries? Because this is what works, what has demonstrated the power of science, over philosophy, over religion, over any other method mankind has created to understand and explore the natural world. More importantly, once you start invoking the supernatural, the whole system falls apart.

ID is not a threat to established science, it simply has no part in science. ID is nothing more than neo-creationism, dressed up by fallacious mathematical or scientific arguments.

[doodadem]

6. I'm from Louisville

Southern Baptist Theo Sem is a joke. He'd be laughed out of U of K or U of L.

[Democrat Dragon]

8. I cannot make a comment about this.

because the article does not give a clear defination on what Dembski believes evolution is.

[moobu2]

16. Basicly I dont think he cares about evolution

other than to find logical sounding arguments to discredit it because he's a born again Christian and he knows that evolution is proof that the Bible is a fairy tale.

He basically invented Intelligent Design for that political purpose (to discredit evolution).

He's a fellow with the Discovery Institute which is a right wing Christian propaganda Pseudoscience group who's only purpose is to discredit legitimate science. They publish fake studies and manipulate statistics like propagandists do.


William Dembski said Darwinian evolution is incompatible with intelligent design but then of coarse they aren't finished developing the fake theory so who knows, they may find a way to include Darwinian Evolution yet.


From what I've read of his writings, it's almost as if he's attempting to invent a whole new religion.

[Stunster]

18. Dembski doesn't deny evolution per se

Nor can design theory strictly speaking be said to be anti-evolutionist. This may sound surprising, especially since design theorists tend to dislike the term "evolution," viewing it as a weasel word that serves more to obfuscate than clarify. The reason design theorists dislike the word is not because they repudiate every possible construal of it, but because they regard it as a Protean term which, much like the process it describes, adapts itself too readily to any situation. Although design theorists regard the word "evolution" as assuming too many distinct meanings that are too easily confused, the notion that organisms have changed over time hardly upsets them. Design theory places no limits on the amount of evolutionary change that organisms might have experienced in the course of natural history. Consistent with classical views of creation, design allows for the abrupt emergence of new forms of life. At the same time design is also consistent with the gradual formation of new forms of life from old.

The design theorists' beef is not with evolutionary change per se, but with the claim by Darwinists that all such change is driven by purely naturalistic processes which are devoid of purpose.
http://www.origins.org/articles/dembski_theologn.html

[moobu2]

19. The thing is, fake Christians scientists like that have no credibility

since they pimp their degree for the cause. I mean, he said Darwinian evolution is incompatible with Intelligent Design then he say's something else when it suits his purpose, possibly to not to sound as threatening to real science, who knows. He say's one thing one time and another the next.

The end justifies the means, so he lies when necessary like they all do..

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

15. counteract his teachings

by screening "What the Bleep Do We Know?" Great film on quantum physics, consciousness, and spirituality. Might get this guy wondering about his addictions.....

[FM Arouet666]

21. Just one of many neo-creationists.

William Dembski's book "The Design Inference" is an interesting read for those unfamiliar with the neo-creationist ideas. There are a number of other well educated members of this community. All attempting to use science to prove the existence of god. The neo-creationist manifesto is intelligent design.

A demonstrative quote by Dembski, "propose a theory of creation that puts christians in the strongest possible position to defeat the common enemy of creation, to wit, naturalism."

Science is based on naturalism. Also referred to as philosophical naturalism, materialism or scientism. To remain in the realm of science, you must remain in the realm of the natural world. A no supernatural zone. If you do propose supernatural notions, you are not within science. Period.

ID is not a science, it is based upon the notion that a supernatural force exists and contributed to the formation of the natural world. Impossible to support this argument using methods and arguments based solely within the natural world.