Prof Denied Funds Over Evolution Evidence

radarsat1 writes "The Montreal Gazette today reported that a professor at Montreal's McGill University was refused a $40,000 grant, allegedly because 'he'd failed to provide the panel with ample evidence that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is correct.' Ironically, the grant was for a study into the detrimental effects of intelligent design on Canadian academics and leaders." From the article: "Jennifer Robinson, McGill's associate vice-principal for communications, said the university has asked the SSHRC to review its decision to reject Alters's request for money to study how the rising popularity in the United States of 'intelligent design' - a controversial creationist theory of life - is eroding acceptance of evolutionary science in Canada."

Comments

Re:Que Nelson from the Simpsons:

[TommyBlack]

In other news, a professor was denied a grant to research the potential effect of a meteor striking earth, because he had failed to provide sufficient evidence that the theory of gravity was correct.

Have you heard the gospel?

[Anonymous Coward]

FSMism is the one true belief! Of course he can't prove evolution is correct, any Pastafarian knows how the world (and midgets) truely came to be.

http://www.venganza.org/

Quote from a play nobody else has ever seen

[Marxist Hacker 42]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA! I GET IT! HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA! I think.....- No Man the Barbarian.

Still, this should be easy to rectify, right? All you have to do is send them several books full of the evidence for evolution as it is currently understood- thus proving the point that ID should be banned from Canada.

But that's the problem with the whole debate, isn't it? ID can take the complexity of life and the structure of the universe itself and explain it in terms anybody who has ever been to church can understand. Biology can't. Which is sad.

Re:Quote from a play nobody else has ever seen

[mrscorpio]

ID can take the complexity of life and the structure of the universe itself and explain it in terms anybody who has ever been to church can understand. Biology can't. Which is sad.

No, what's sad is the plethora of churchgoers who apparently can't be bothered with an explanation more complex than "Humans are humans and dogs are dogs because jebus said so."

Religion has always been the solution to questions science couldn't answer (see Greek mythology). Such as it is today, the problem is we have the answers, but a large number of people choose to remain ignorant because to them, what they think they known and what they believe is far more important than the truth.

Re:Quote from a play nobody else has ever seen

[Tackhead]

> > ID can take the complexity of life and the structure of the universe itself and explain it in terms anybody who has ever been to church can understand. Biology can't. Which is sad.
>
> No, what's sad is the plethora of churchgoers who apparently can't be bothered with an explanation more complex than "Humans are humans and dogs are dogs because jebus said so."

Yes, but what's saddest of all is that unlike my ape-descended friends who haven't caught onto the scientific method, the difference between dogs and humans is that dogs learn from their mistakes.

Re:Quote from a play nobody else has ever seen

[mrscorpio]

"Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried."
-- Winston Churchill

Re:Quote from a play nobody else has ever seen

[Daniel Dvorkin]

There's a big difference here. The law is decided by people (and not just lawyers and politicians, at least ideally -- you know, that whole "we the people" thing?) and it says, and means, whatever people decide it says and means. If enough people decide that they don't like the law as it is, it changes. Ultimately, law is nothing but codified opinion.

OTOH, evolution just is. Your belief in it, or lack thereof, makes no difference whatsoever to its reality. And one of the most incredibly frustrating aspects of the evolution vs. creationism argument (and in general, the never-ending struggle between science and pseudoscience) which often makes scientifically-minded sorts come across as arrogant and short-tempered, is that we get really, really tired of dealing with people who just can't seem to get their heads around this distinction.

Re:Quote from a play nobody else has ever seen

[bunratty]

You seem to misunderstand the debate between Darwinists and Creationists. The Darwinists are not saying that Creationists are wrong, or that Intelligent Design did not happen. They are simply saying there's no scientific evidence to support those ideas. Without scientific evidence, Creationism and Intelligent Design are not science and should not be taught in a science classroom.

Likewise, scientists should not insist on Darwinism being taught in churches, and bibles should not have labels about evolution, because those concepts are not religion and should not be taught in a church.

Re:Quote from a play nobody else has ever seen

[Mattcelt]

I hold firmly to the idea that a civilization is only advanced to the point where its average person (or a group of average people) can recreate a concept.

That said, the problem - since the beginning - with Evolution is that fanatics have tried to use it as evidence that there is no God. ID is a social manifestation of Newton's Third Law, where the fanatics on the other side are trying to prove there is.

I have yet to see any evidence whatsoever that ID vs. Evolution is anything but a religious debate. Evolution may be sound scientific principle, and ID may not be - but it doesn't matter a whit, because this debate isn't about science. It's about whether or not there is a God.

This seems a horrendous misapplication of intelligence and faith to me. There should be no debate - Evolution is not inconsistent with the existence of God. If everyone treated it that way, there would be no need for ID.

Re:Quote from a play nobody else has ever seen

[vidarh]

That said, the problem - since the beginning - with Evolution is that fanatics have tried to use it as evidence that there is no God. ID is a social manifestation of Newton's Third Law, where the fanatics on the other side are trying to prove there is.

I can honestly say that I've never discussed religion with anyone who claimed evolution was evidence that there is no God. I'm an atheist myself, and I don't see evolution that way.

HOWEVER, an understanding of evolution for many lessens their belief in god, because it is yet another explanation that lessens the need for the ultimate "catch all" explanation for "unsolved" mysteries, and as such it's an important fight for many of those that strongly believe.

Re:Quote from a play nobody else has ever seen

[flimflammer]

I can state without a shadow of a doubt, it's an absolute fact that I have two testicles.

Re:Quote from a play nobody else has ever seen

[ch-chuck]

Amen (ahem) - Ideally people would realize the two different areas of science/physics and religion/metaphysics, but they're easily confused for reasons including the fact that you can't make a metaphysical point without using a physical analogy. We often say, "they're buying their head in the sand" like an Ostridge, where in fact Ostridges don't *REALLY* do that, but YOU GET MY POINT. Even Jesus used parables, and told people he was using a parable so DONT TAKE IT LITERALLY but we have these literal churchgoers and schoolboard members burying their heads in the sand, so to speak.

Likewise, science can't prove everything, such as why there is anything at all, what is the meaning of life, love, etc which leaves plenty of room for metaphysical beliefs.

Re:Quote from a play nobody else has ever seen

[aichpvee]

Wait a second there, buddy. How is it "fanatics" who are the ones trying to use evolution as proof that there is no god. What proof has there EVER been that there is one? Seems to me that "no god" is the moderate, sensible position and only a fanatic would claim otherwise without extensive proof.

Re:Quote from a play nobody else has ever seen

[Phroggy]

I'm a Creationist, and I think ID is crap. ID has nothing to do with science, it's a philosophy that says life is too complicated to have happened by chance and therefore there must have been supernatural intervention (God, FSM, etc.). I don't really have a problem with someone believing that, but it's not science, and should not be taught in a scientific context in schools.

And yet I do believe that God created the universe and everything in it less than 10,000 years ago. Furthermore, I believe that the search for evidence supporting this hypothesis is scientific, and this is a topic that is appropriate for public education. Learning how to interpret scientific evidence within different presupposed frameworks (i.e. the old-earth/uniformitarian/evolution view vs. the young-earth/catastrophism/Creation view), seeing how the same facts can be made to fit in both models even if you believe one of the models is wrong, is a good exercise, because it can help you recognize bias.

Again, "Intelligent Design" as it is currently being promoted is a load of nonsense.

Re:Quote from a play nobody else has ever seen

[Mastema262003]

This is an interesting but almost completely incorrect point. While evolution itself does not preclude the possibility of the existence of a higher power (read: god, advanced aliens, pantheon, superintelligent AI, etc. . .), science DOES in fact have a great deal to say about the folly of the worship of such an untestable entity. From the small, but non-zero possibility that such an ungrounded belief will cause people to fly airplanes into buildings, strap bombs to themselves, or engage in the mental and physical abuse of gays, to the negative correlation between religion and intelligence, to the positive correlation between religion and the breakdown of society, science has much evidence pointing to religion being a rather horrible proposition to undertake based on no evidence at all. The very notion of science itself is incompatible with religion. Science takes as it's central premise that nothing should escape testing or questioning. Religion immediately places several key, defining aspects out of reach of testing or questioning and does so arbitrarily. For no better reason than that over time, man has become able to account for many of the claims which were once only attributable to god and so slowly god has been removed (by religion) into a thing which was once mighty and powerful, but is now impotent and hidden. When was the last time we had a good miracle in full view of the public? So, while it is true that nothing in science specifically disproves the god hypothesis (primarily because it makes no predictions which can be tested) it does show us a universe which has no need of such an idea for it's existence. Evolution further shows that WE have no need for such a ridiculous construct either. If you choose to believe that the flying spaghetti monster created all things in a spasm of saucy inspiration then that is of course your perogative, deranged though it may be, but the minute you claim that said entity still has ANY effect on the physical world it becomes a proposition which is testable by science and further, it becomes falsifiable by science and to my knowledge, not one single miracle has withstood scientific testing in the past 50 years. So either your god stuck around long enough for us to get our hands on science and then left, or possibly he was a construct of man the entire time. I leave it for you to decide.

Re:Quote from a play nobody else has ever seen

[Thangodin]

ID is part of a strategy called The Wedge, which was leaked in a memo from the Discovery Institute. The Wedge strategy is to undermine the naturalistic approach to understanding the world in favour of a supernaturalistic interpretation. There is a major problem with this: a supernaturalistic world view precludes the practice of science. The chain of cause and effect is broken because at any point one can claim that God intervened and rendered your data meaningless. This is precisely the strategy of pseudo-scientists, frauds, and psychic con-men when they fail any scientific challenge to their claims--they assert that hidden causes of a psychic or supernatural nature intervened to render the tests meaningless.

The battle between ID and Evolution is a defence of science. If creationists intentionally put God in harm's way to advance their cause, then God will bear the brunt of the scientific argument. This happens only because creationists deliberately define God in such a way as to conflict with well established scientific facts--as an Interventionist Creator. They do this with a specific political agenda in mind. The outcome of this for moderate religionists will be one of two defeats. Either their religion will come to be held in ridicule and contempt, or the creationists will win the argument and America will fall into decline and ruin as it loses its scientific and technological competence. The second defeat would be much worse than the first, because then, an external power, probably an atheistic one, will get to sing the tune their descendants dance to.

In the late 60's conservative think tanks came up with the Silent Majority, the moderate bulge which did not take part in the radicalism of the 60's. This in turn became the Moral Majority. A large proportion of the population still sits silently and allows ignorant demagogues to speak for them, even though they do not actually share the view of that extreme fringe. They simply have not taken the time or effort to understand what they really believe, or the consequences of those beliefs. Unfortunately, the vast majority of so-called believers no more understand their faith than they do science.

So, to all those self-proclaimed moderates out there, quit wasting your time arguing with atheists and wake up to what's being said in your name. It's your ass that's going to end up in a sling. Christianity is being hijacked for political purposes, corrupting both politics and religion. There's a great line in Hannah and her Sisters: "If Jesus could hear what was being said in his name, he would never stop throwing up!"

We really don't care what you believe, as long as you don't try to peddle bullshit to children too young and naive to know better. There is such a thing as the truth, and truth happens to be on the side of the evolutionists, with as much certainty as human beings are capable of (and yes, the Bible too is the work of human beings--it has our greasy finger prints all over it.) At one time Christianity meant an allegiance to the truth, which is why so many Christians became scientists--they preferred to get their knowledge first-hand from nature, rather than passed from hand to hand to hand ad nauseum through scripture. If Christianity has not sunk to the depths of invertebrate relativism, prove it!

We're waiting...

Correction

[XorNand]

...rising popularity in the United States of 'intelligent design'

I'd say "formally rising" and now "waning". The ID people have been quietly nursing their wounds since U.S. District Judge Jones, really put them in their place last December. The opinion he wrote was extraordinary lucid and well-reasoned. If anyone here hasn't read it, I would highly recommend it. It is anything but a dry legal document.

Re:Correction

[Dance_Dance_Karnov]

Whatsamatta with you, you say we all have to read it and no link? I have rectified this. http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2005/images/12/20/kitzmille r.pdf

Re:Correction

[Tim Doran]

You're absolutely right, the opinion was a beautiful piece of work and a huge relief to those of us who think ignorance is NOT a desirable state for society.

Unfortunately, the mainstream media feels compelled to provide a "balanced" story including both sides of an issue, even when a little basic research would prove one side utterly wrong. This means ID has been given far more respectful treatment in the press than it has deserved, and gained credibility as a result (not unlike the Swift Boat liars in the last presidential election).

I do think the press has given its head a shake on the topic of ID though - the NYT ran a front-page article on the "missing link" fossil discovery announced today. I suspect 6 months ago they'd have buried the story on page A24 to avoid angering the creationists.

Re:Correction

[hehman]

Don't want to read a 139 page PDF document? Skip to the delicious summary on page 136, including these choice quotes:

The proper application of both the endorsement and Lemon tests to the facts of this case makes it abundantly clear that the Board's ID Policy violates the Establishment Clause. In making this determination, we have addressed the seminal question of whether ID is science. We have concluded that it is not, and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents.
[...]
To be sure, Darwin's theory of evolution is imperfect. However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions.
[...]
The breathtaking inanity of the Board's decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial.

Yay!

[jim_v2000]

"...study how the rising popularity in the United States of 'intelligent design' - a controversial creationist theory of life - is eroding acceptance of evolutionary science in Canada."

$40,000 was saved from being wasted on a useless study. Too bad that doesn't happen more often.

He was on the radio this morning....

[kietscia]

This researcher was on CBC radio this morning and one of the fun things that came out was that by denying his application the funding board simultaneously saved $40,000 and actually proved the central hypothesis of his research; obviously ID is having a detrimental effect.

Full Text of Rejection Needed

[SeanDuggan]

I'm holding opinion until we see what the actual criteria for rejection were. I could see this as a situation where the letter said something along the lines of, "We found that you did not do sufficient work to establish your definition of evolution when surveying the people." The researcher, of course, would like to have a groundswell of earnest defense from reactionaries, so he rephrases it to sound like the government is advocating ID. In all the noise and hubbub, the government cuts its losses and pays him off rather than spend tons (metric tonnes, I'm sure) of money defending themselves.

Rising popularity

[Have Blue]

The popularity of intelligent design is not rising in the US. The volume and rate at which its supporters, a group which remains fairly static, are speaking are rising.

Re:Que Nelson from the Simpsons:

[Citizen of Earth]

"What happens if a big asteroid hits Earth? Judging from realistic simulations involving a sledge hammer and a common laboratory frog, we can assume it will be pretty bad." -- Dave Barry

What controvercy?

[amightywind]

So it looks like a someone fullfilled their fudiciary duty and decided not to write a $40,000 check to a McGill professor to lavishly sponsor a pointless study. And the controvercy is?

I don't get it

[Luscious868]

I'll never understand the intelligent design versus evolution debate. The two seem to me to have nothing to do with one another. Evolution is a valid scientific theory based on physical evidence and intelligent design is more of a philosophy that really can't be proven one way or another. Further, they aren't mutually exclusive. If there is a God, why couldn't he/she/it have used evolution as the means to design life? Clearly, if there is a God that's exactly how he/she/it went about it.

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

You and your like minded friends are wrong about Christianity. Christians do not have to take everything in the Bible literally. Fundamentalist Christians do, but then they end up having to interpret too in order to explain the apparent contradictions in the Bible. They also ignore how the Bible was written and passed down over the centuries. Read "Misquoting Jesus".

Anyway, Time is a dimension of the Universe - the creation. So God, the Creator exists outside Time. Mix in some Chaos theory and deny randomness. Therefore the Creator is omniscient because since nothing is random and time does not exist, everything is known at the point of creation. So, evolution is how we temporal beings experience intelligent design.

Unfortunately, it's hard to reason with fundamentalists or atheists. They both operate on emotions.

Churchill said it already

[vlad_petric]

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter. Winston Churchill

Viva His Noodly Appendage!

[Guysmiley777]

Viva the Midget!

Viva Pirates!

http://www.venganza.org/

Sounds like he's being a suck.

[Lev13than]

The SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada) is not a backwaters school board stacked with religious fundamentalists. It is a mainstream, government-monitored agency that hands out almost $300mm per year of social sciences funding. Only 40% of applications get approved. In this case, it looks like they were justified in rejecting his application. Indeed, it looks like Alters is being a bit of a publicity-hunting suck. From another source:

Eva Schacherl, a spokeswoman for the council, said Wednesday the multidisciplinary committee was not convinced the proposal's scholarly approach was sound or that it would provide objective results on the question.
"I just want to underline that it is not correct to suggest that the funding proposal was not accepted because the council or the committee had doubts about evolution," she said.
"We understand the way the committee's comments were transcribed or written down or summarized could have misled him and we really regret that the note sent to him gave the impression that the committee had doubts about evolution. That was really not what the committee intended."
Schacherl noted the council has funded other research projects on evolution and gave $175,000 to Alters last year for a three-year project on concepts of biological evolution in Islamic society.

In short, just because you have the right idea doesn't mean you automatically get funding for a flawed study.

Re:Sounds like he's being a suck.

[darthlurker]

Have to agree after readong another another article on the same story. The guy was turned down for his study. Not because there isn't ample evidence that evolution is "correct" (whatever the hell that's supposed to mean). But because it wasn't felt objective results could be obtained.

Here's the SSHRC committee's response (from the mentioned article) for his study titled: "Detrimental effects of popularizing anti-evolution's intelligent design theory on Canadian students, teachers, parents, administrators and policymakers."

The committee found that the candidates were qualified. However, it judged the proposal did not adequately substantiate the premise that the popularizing of Intelligent Design Theory had detrimental effects on Canadian students, teachers, parents and policymakers. Nor did the committee consider that there was adequate justification for the assumption in the proposal that the theory of Evolution, and not Intelligent Design theory, was correct. It was not convinced, therefore, that research based on these assumptions would yield objective results. In addition, the committee found that the research plans were insufficiently elaborated to allow for an informed evaluation of their merit. In view of its reservations the committee recommended that no award be made.

Re:Sounds like he's being a suck.

[jheath314]

The line was misinterpretted, plain and simple.

What the line was interpreted to mean:
"We don't think evolution is adequately justified, and don't see what's wrong with intelligent design"

What the line actually means:
"The Professor didn't do a good enough job of backing up *why* evolution is scientific and intelligent design is pseudo-science; as it is his paper really just makes this a tacit assumption. Since this question goes to the heart of the issue investigated by the grant, it is not unreasonable to insist that the difference be explained clearly by the applicant."

IMHO, the Professor is hyping the misinterpretation of the committee's rejection in the hopes of generating an instinctive backlash in secular-minded Canada.

What theory?

[Hard_Code]

Since when is Intelligent Design/Creationism a "theory"? It doesn't even deserve the reputation as theory. Theories are rational, testable and predictive. ID/Creationism is fantasy. Evolution can offer predictions about the natural world. What can ID/Creationism "predict"?

Re:What theory?

[barawn]

What can ID/Creationism "predict"?

Actually, what's often overlooked is that the intelligent design arguments are providing testable and predictable theories.

They're saying it's impossible for certain systems to have arisen by chance. They usually give examples of various complicated biological systems, etc.

That's a falsifiable statement.

Unsurprisingly, the examples given are usually falsified.

Re:I know I'm gonna get flamed but...

[Chris Burke]

Whether Darwinists want to admit it or not, there are gaping holes in the theory of evolution you could drive a truck through. Even Darwin himself admitted this. He freely admitted that evolution could not explain complex organs like the eye.

Fortunately evolutionary science didn't stop with Darwin.

ID vs. Darwin vs. Creation

[DesertWolf0132]

Hold on for a moment while I calm the spasms of laughter...

Ok, first, the study for which he applied for the grant was flawed. ID does not in any way claim that evolution did not happen, only that it may be the method through which an intelligent entity created us. To study the effects of a belief in a socialogical sense one must first understand the real belief, not the view of the uneducated on the topic. ID offers evolution as one of the possible methods of Intelligent Design. I will grant here that much of ID is conjecture and more hypothesis than theory. Creationists of late have been twisting ID to fit their view that nothing evolved but was created. The grant therefore should have studied Creationism and its negative effects on the study of evolution. True ID still allows for the study of evolution and Darwin's theories. It merely attempts to give an explanation of the catalyst for it. Anything that calls itself ID but eliminates evolution is Creationism.

Now before the Creationists and followers of Darwin on this site try to have me drawn and quartered, I personally withhold my opinion. I merely wish to state that parties on all sides of this debate are fond of not taking the time to understand each other's arguments.

Let the flaming by those who don't take the time to read my entire post begin...

Religion is Religion...

[Penguinisto]

...no matter whose altar you worship at.

It's just as easy to turn scientific theory into dogma as it is to accept the words of clergy, no? Either way, it runs counter to science when any scientist refuses to question his own store of theories and facts from time to time.

/P

To the 5-second flamers

[Anonymous Coward]

To all of the flamers out there who are bashing the committee without knowing anything about the Canadian grant system...

This has absolutely nothing to do with a person's religious or scientific views. It has everything to do with the fact that someone applied for a grant that has no justification. He submitted an unprepared request for a grant. period.

In the same way, if I submitted a request for a grant to study "the effect that the knowledge of the theory of gravity in Canada had on the leadership of the United States" it would also be denied. Without having both proof and possible linkage, it's not a valid request.

Bottom line, is that this is nothing more than an otherwise insignificant person trying to get some press. Same as the guy who tried to patent the wheel in australia... Just trying to get some attention, and by the previous comments, it looks like it may have worked.

Another casualty to cultural war

[B. Pascal]

Hello all:

I like to point out that the MAIN issue in the article has been lost due to the North American cultural war between Evolution and Intelligent Design. Sparked by this event, there will be many posts made to debate whether evolution is correct or not. Yet, at the end, these posts will all be irrelevant to the main issue. Here is the summary of the article I read:

"A funding request for an academic study has been denied by a review board, due to, and I quote, 'he(the professor of the study)'d failed to provide the panel with ample evidence that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is correct.'"

Reading the article, it seems that the author has tried to put the issue into the context of an ongoing debate between evolution and intelligent design. That debate is absolutely irrelevant here. What is this article about? It is about the professor of a study not providing enough support in his proposal for funding. The board may very well acknowledge that evolution IS correct, but for the purpose of due academic diligence, the review board decided that NOT ENOUGH evidence has been provided to support "a theory acknowledged to be correct".

Reading this article more in details, the research study in question has little to do with the science of evolution itself. The title of the study is "how the rising popularity in the United States of intelligent design" - a controversial creationist theory of life - is eroding acceptance of evolutionary science in Canada". This is a cultural study: it's about how a controversial theory and the effect it has on the Canadian scientific community. In short, this is a study about people, not about evolution...

Finally, I like to point out that the rejection message was read in front of a public lecture... As a graduate student, I applied for funding and got rejected all the time. Yet, I have never heard of a rejection letter being read in public before... It sounds as if the focus has been shifted, the public roused, and attention redirected to a direction that is, ultimately, irrelevant to the main issue. (picture of many people, flaming torches, and pitch forks in mind...)

Cheers.

B. Pascal.

Re:It seems to me...

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, you stupid fucking dumbass. Science isn't kindergarten sports where everyone gets a cake and a medal no matter where they finish. Sience isn't about being fair to all viewpoints, it's about being correct. Creationism isn't even a coherent theory, it's wild guesses based on a 2000 year old book written by middle-eastern tribesmen. It is not science, and thusly, real universities don't bother with it.

Re:I know I'm gonna get flamed but...

[Oligonicella]

Point by point, oh foolishly self-ignorant one:

Intelligent design, when ... as evolution is.

Not even close. Evolution is a fact. The various hypothesis as to how it functions are layed out in a format that can be examined against the evidence available as to their validity. Furthermore they can make projections, like say, if humans create new carbon-based chemicals, the biota will adjust in time to consume them. Guess what? Nylon ingesting bacteria.

... there are gaping holes in the theory of evolution you could drive a truck through

Mighta helped if you offered one, but I'll make do. Evolution basically states that organisms will change over time. We have literally tons of fossil evidence which explicitly supports this idea. If you have further thoughts, you might at least make them less vague.

He freely admitted that evolution could not explain complex organs like the eye.

Why, oh why do creationists keep trotting out lies like this? Not only did he not say that (provide complete context, not quote snippets), we currently have on this planet various life forms which exhibit the states of the eye's evolution. In fact, we have various life forms which show that the eye is not only capable of being evolved, it is capable of being evolved in a number of ways.

My point here is NOT to advocate ID, or the dismissal of Darwinist theory.

Uh, bullshit. If that were so, you wouldn't have made the false claim about the lack of evidence, for instance.

When you continue to insist you are right about something you can't prove, what you have is not a theory anymore - it's a religion.

Excellent, you've just described ID. Since there is emperical evidence for evolution, arguments against its very existence reek of a religious point of view that holds a book written thousands of years ago as being more correct than one's own eyes.

I personally believe that the answer to this is somewhere in the middle.

Just for your edification, there is no middle ground between goddunnit and the world works with its own mechanisms. Not in any manner that can be examined at least. And that is the fundamental deciet of the ID'rs, that the "theory" of ID can be examined. A noteworthy point is that they are incapable of coming up with a manner with which it can.

But it's just a theory - I could be wrong.

Much like ID, not it in a scientific sense. You are wrong because of your refusal to examine the evidence and frame a logically sound, yet falsifiable hypothesis. No more.

Re:It seems to me...

[curunir]

Why can't more people think like you do? And by think, I mean actually think about it as opposed to just blindly following what they're told by their religion.

What I've never understood about ID is why they believe that God wouldn't be smart enough to use evolution. Compare evolution to what's described in the Bible and evolution is much more "intelligent". It's a system that's capable of adapting to almost any challenge thrown at it without any intervention on the part of God.

Which brings me to what I've always wondered about Christians/Catholics...why do they have such an insistance on believing in a literal interpretation of the Bible? To me, the Bible seems to be more of a historical political document aimed at unifying the Roman empire, rather than an exact historical accounting. As such, the events/stories/wisdom contained within it are delivered in a fashion that facilitates internalizing its messages, lessons, etc. Yet to suggest this to people who are deeply religious usually results in a response equivalent to if you had told them that God does not exist. I've rarely seen anyone capable of separating the bible from their faith in God and Christ.

Can anyone explain why the two are so inexorably linked in most people's minds? Why are most people incapable of believing that there is a God, who created all of us by an ingenious method (evolution) and sent his son to Earth to impart the teachings necessary for us to live together peacefully and with a common morality. That is really the core philosophy of Catholocism/Christianity, not the literal events of the Bible.

(thus endeth the rantings of someone who was raised Christian but could never fully express his faith until he was able to look past the inconsistancies of the bible and recognize that the bible was written by men with agendas and that true faith in God comes from within, not without).

Re:I find it funny

[AlterTick]

No matter. If I'm wrong, nobody loses anything. If I'm right, you lose for eternity. I can't wait to see the stupid look on your faces then. Maybe you can ask a professor to forgive you or something. Or maybe you can sit at the edge of Darwin's grave and ask him.

Ah, the smug self-satisfaction of someone who thinks they've got it all figured out. I can't wait to see the look on your face when you realize that all the evolutionists, atheists, "baby murderers", and godless commies ended up in the same place you did after death, because [god/life/the universe] isn't some petty game of punishment and reward, but rather something much more complicated and beautiful than a fairy tale concoted by mortal theocracies to scare children.

Re:It seems to me...

[oh_my_080980980]

"Which brings me to what I've always wondered about Christians/Catholics...why do they have such an insistance on believing in a literal interpretation of the Bible? To me, the Bible seems to be more of a historical political document aimed at unifying the Roman empire, rather than an exact historical accounting. As such, the events/stories/wisdom contained within it are delivered in a fashion that facilitates internalizing its messages, lessons, etc. Yet to suggest this to people who are deeply religious usually results in a response equivalent to if you had told them that God does not exist. I've rarely seen anyone capable of separating the bible from their faith in God and Christ."

Woah, woah woah. Don't be blaming the Catholics on this one. It's those damn born agains and fundamentalist baptists that spread this stuff.

Leave the Catholics to their Virgin birth story!

FYI Catholics don't follow a literal interpretation of the bible. Hell alot of them don't follow what the pope says.

Go figure. :)

Why SSHRC funding?

[Yaztromo]

A bit of background for those who are not familiar with some of the common academic research funding bodies here in Canada.

SSHRC is for the funding of Social Science and Humanities research, which includes things like literature research. A good friend of mine who is working on her Ph.D. in English has an application in for an SSHRC grant.

NSERC is for the funding of scientific and engineering research.

There are a few critical points to understand about these two funding organizations:. NSERC has way more money than the SSHRC. Scientific and engineering researchers typically have no problems getting the funding they need, whereas social science and humanities researchers can have a really hard time getting anything from the SSHRC. The SSHRC just doesn't get much money, and has to be stingy in doleing it out to ensure they get the best bang for their buck.

As such, it is entirely possible that the reason for the SSHRC denying this grant would be because the grant application was simply incomplete.

From my perspective as someone who has lived in three Provinces (and who has been to all the rest, with the notable exception of Newfoundland), Intelligent Design is a complete and total non-starter here in Canada. If it weren't for /. and exposure to US-based news services, I doubt I'd even have heard about it. There is no political movement here to stop the teaching of evolution in schools, no court cases, nothing. To most Canadians, it's just another of those idiotic ultra-conservative American things that occurs from time to time, and not something the vast majority of Canadians want any part of.

While I personally think this research would be interesting, it is quite possible that the SSHRC has more pressing areas of research to handle, such as the serious social problems in native communities. With only so much money to go around, there are inevitably going to be very worthy projects which get rejected for funding. The trick for a researcher is to look elsewhere for the funding they need to get their research completed and published.

Yaz.

The whole point of ID was to create this debate.

[Chris Burke]

Your viewpoint is common among those Christians who appreciate science and aren't aware of the fundamentalist political motivations for ID. My father, for example, put it in more or less the same terms: "Intelligent Design" just means that evolution occured, and that it occured was God's will. From this view, where science is the "how" and God is the "why", "Intelligent Design" is just putting a name to the concept and shouldn't affect one iota the scientists doing evolution research (whether those scientists are religious or not), because it makes zero new scientific claims.

Of course creating a word for the harmony that can exist between science and religion is not the reason ID was created.

The whole point of Intelligent Design is to be an alternative to evolution, to replace it with a theory that (very) superficially* does not seem to be religious in nature. ID is supposed to discredit evolution, and leave open the possibility of Creationism, and to even allow Creationism (its nature covered by the thin veneer ID offers) to be taught in public schools without violating the 1st Ammendment.

ID was created to destroy the "heretical" teaching of evolution, and as such people with views like yours (and mine, and my father's) are diametrically opposed to the true supporters of ID. It is the thin end of the wedge intended to drive fundamentalism into our schools and "secular" scientific teaching out.

ID is a political movement with political goals, and a rational attempt to reconcile ID's statements with the scientific facts of evolution is contrary to those goals. So while I agree 100% with your view, you must take great care in using "Intelligent Design" to describe it, because you will be misrepresenting yourself.

* ID proponents may tell you that ID does not necessarily mean the Christian God or any other god did it, and maybe it was space aliens. They're lying to conceal ID's religious basis. The whole argument of ID is that something like the human brain could not have developed from natural processes, so some other intelligence must have made the brain. By ID's central hypothesis, that other intelligence could not have arisen from natural processes. Simple induction tells us that however long the sequence of Designers, the original Designer must therefore be supernatural. Everyone intuitively understands this, especially the fundamentalist backers of ID, but they have to pretend not to in order to avoid that annoying Separation of Church and State.

Re:I find it funny

[vidarh]

No matter. If I'm wrong, nobody loses anything. If I'm right, you lose for eternity. I can't wait to see the stupid look on your faces then. Maybe you can ask a professor to forgive you or something. Or maybe you can sit at the edge of Darwin's grave and ask him.

This is called Pascals wager, and it's flawed for a long list of reasons:

• You assume that you believe in the right God. What if the muslims are right? The Jews? The Mormons? Latter day saints? Hindus? Or perhaps you should have believe in the Norse gods, or the gods of some alien race we don't even know about.
• You assume that if there is a God that this God has is true to its word, and isn't a sadist bastard kid who decided to to have some fun with that cool new "make your own universe" kit he bought at the corner.
• You assume that whichever deity you end up in front of will treat you better than someone who doesn't believe (whether or not it's the "right" deity). For what you know being an atheist might be safer - you have no way of correctly estimating the odds of pissing off a deity based on belief in the wrong deity vs. pissing it off based on not believing.
• You assume that whatever "paradise" you assume you might end up in will actually be _your_ idea of something that is better that whatever the alternative might be.

In other words, you're trying to rationalise your belief based on assumptions that you have no basis at all for making.

Personally I take the view that if I'm wrong (I'm an atheist) and I find myself in front of some deity after I die and that deity is unable to accept me for what I am, then that deity is a fascist bastard and certainly isn't worthy of being worshipped - there's no way I am going to be bribed into behaving a certain way to appease some hypothetical oppressive sadist being. I live my life the way I do because I believe it is the right way to live, not looking for rewards.

ID is about Adam and Eve, not God

[SimHacker]

Evolution isn't inconsistent with the existence of God, but it certainly IS inconsistence with the particular set of fairy tales that evangelical Christian religions want to teach in schools.

Intelligent design is not about teaching God in schools, it's about teaching Christian Fairy Tales in school. Anybody who tells you that ID has nothing to do with Adam and Eve is a liar or an idiot. When the Discovery Institute talks to evangelical Christian audiences, they certainly do link the two. It's just when they speak in public that they try to maintain that there is no connection.

Then there are the charlitans who want you to believe "Intelligent Design" has nothing to do with religion or even evolution, and try to divert the conversation by pretending it's about PEOPLE designing things intelligently, so they try to imply the anti-ID people are actually for PEOPLE designing things UNINTELLIGENTLY. That's an intellectually dishonest straw-man argument, and the people who make it know that. They're just afraid to address the real issues because they know they're wrong, but want to defend the ID agenda for their own religious reasons they're afraid to admit in public, because they know they'll lose that argument.

-Don

The Easter Bunny Proves Intelligent Design!

[SimHacker]

The Easter Bunny is the best proof yet of intelligent design! What other explanation is there for rabbits laying painted eggs on Jesus's birthday? Obviously that proves the existence of God, and supports the story of Adam and Eve.

-Don

Re:Fairy Tales

[SimHacker]

There's a big different between telling fairy tales to children, and teaching them as facts, to children and adults.

Is it really that grown-up Creationists actually don't believe in Adam and Eve themselves, but they just want their kids to believe in it just like they believe in Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny? Isn't it cute the things that kids will believe when adults systematically lie to them?

Moulton believes that intelligent design should be taught in schools:

My position on Intelligent Design is that it should be taught in the Engineering Curriculum, so that our engineered products are intelligently designed.

[...]

It would astonish me if you didn't believe in teaching the principle of intelligent design when designing systems that mimicked the dynamics of the real world.

Moulton is being intellectually dishonest and taking a page from the Discovery Institute's play book, by trying to divert the conversation away from the real topic, and pretending to misunderstand the meaning of the words, and constructing a straw-man argument instead.

Moulton, can you answer a straightforward question without pretending to misunderstand and weaseling out of addressing the topic? Do you believe in Creationism or not? Yes, you know what I mean, and no I'm not talking about "creativity", and yes you've already made that "joke" of misunderstanding me twice. If you still can't answer it directly, I'll have good reason to assume that you do believe in Creationism, because of your evasiveness on the subject.

-Don

More precisely

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

It's not just the existence of God that people are arguing for. Christian fundamentalists would be horrified to be told that God exists but doesn't intervene in human affairs, for example.

What's at stake, according to the fears of the ID/creationist crowd, is the specific idea of a God who deliberately created humans as they are and who issued a set of documentation with them which constitutes morality. In other words, it's about the nature of humanity, which they see as distinguished from other animals by a spark of divinity. Chimpanzees, they might say, are amoral -- without resourt to the supernatural, how can we logically require animals 98% similar to chimps in their DNA to obey a code of morals?

Before you can use reason you have to address fears. You could try pointing out that humans were decorating graves and writing theCode of Hammurabi long before the Bible was written and won't suddenly revert to animalism if they abandon the 20th-centruy movement to take the entire Bible literally.

Re:More precisely

[ShakaUVM]

Humans are 90%+ similar to most animals on the planet, IIRC.

However, humans are the only beings capable of meta-examining one's impulses, and choosing among (or denying them). This is the fundamental basis for ethics, and the very real line that separates us from animals. I'm quite sure that someone like a Jane Goodall could have some example of primitive meta-cognitive thinking in apes or dolphins, but nonetheless, I feel my statement holds true.

>>In other words, it's about the nature of humanity, which they see as
>>distinguished from other animals by a spark of divinity.

Some people might call this division between man and animal "a spark of divinity". I don't. You can call it what you will, but the division is actually more real and profound than people who always quote the "we're 99% the same as chimps DNA-wise" would let on. Comparing percentages of DNA being similar is a misleading statistic, by the by. We're very genetically similar to most animals on the planet. The devil is in the details, after all.

I'm a Christian, but I'm also not a fundamentalist. I believe in the primacy of reason, and feel that fundamentalists in general are irrational, and give Christians a bad name. I also find it aggravating that places like Slashdot tend to lump all Christians together under one label.

>>It's not just the existence of God that people are arguing for. Christian
>>fundamentalists would be horrified to be told that God exists but doesn't
>>intervene in human affairs, for example.

Sure, and I disagree with fundamentalists on this point. If they are spared from some natural disaster, they claim it was God that intervened to save them, but if they died, it would be part of his great plan. I think it is contradictory to claim that God would establish a natural order and then routinely violate it. I personally don't believe in fate, though I do thank God for any beneficial things that happen in my life -- why not? If God intervenes, I'd suspect it would be on much more a limited basis than what fundamentalists claim, who say things like "God provided me with my wife". Well... what if she didn't want to be your wife? Does that make God some kind of pimp? No. The notion is completely contrary to free will, self-accountability, and right and wrong.

>>You could try pointing out that humans were decorating graves and writing
>>theCode of Hammurabi long before the Bible was written and won't suddenly
>>revert to animalism if they abandon the 20th-centruy movement to take the
>>entire Bible literally.

20th century movement? Some people consider it simply reactionary on the part of Christians to now treat Genesis as allegory, now that evolution is on the scene. But as far back as the church goes, there are different camps treating the creation story as allegory or fact -- long before the evolution argument ever arrived. St. Augustine considered the creation story as allegory, for example, and he lived around 400 AD. He pointed out that there are two creation stories in the bible, that contradict each other in the exact order of the "days" (they basically go backward).

However, there is a lot to be said for the existence of a Christian church regardless of other factors. Examining the differences in states which are Christian and those that are militantly secular shows a much greater respect for the individual in the Christian states. While most atheists are also humanists, it is only the Christian humanists that seem to really believe in what they are saying. The USSR was established on humanist principles, and, well, produced the biggest mass-murderer of all time, Stalin.

Re:Please tell me

[windowpain]

The Big Bang theory predicts that the early universe was a very hot place and that as it expands, the gas within it cools. Thus the universe should be filled with radiation that is literally the remnant heat left over from the Big Bang, called the "cosmic microwave background radiation", or CMB.

The existence of the CMB radiation was first predicted by George Gamow in 1948, and by Ralph Alpher and Robert Herman in 1950. It was first observed inadvertently in 1965 by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey. The radiation was acting as a source of excess noise in a radio receiver they were building. Coincidentally, researchers at nearby Princeton University, led by Robert Dicke and including Dave Wilkinson of the WMAP science team, were devising an experiment to find the CMB. When they heard about the Bell Labs result they immediately realized that the CMB had been found. The result was a pair of papers in the Physical Review: one by Penzias and Wilson detailing the observations, and one by Dicke, Peebles, Roll, and Wilkinson giving the cosmological interpretation. Penzias and Wilson shared the 1978 Nobel prize in physics for their discovery.

The rest of the story is at NASA's Cosmolology 100 site.

For a fascinating and very readable book-length account read Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe by Simon Singh.