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Ben Stein's 'Expelled' - Evolution, Academia and Conformity
eldavojohn writes "Painting the current scientific community as just as bad as the Spanish Inquisition, an extended trailer of Ben Stein's "Expelled" has a lot of people (at least that I know) talking. It looks like his movie plans to encourage people to speak out if they believe intelligent design or creationism to be correct. In the trailer he even warns you that if you are a scientist you may lose your job by watching 'Expelled.' Backlash to the movie has started popping up and this may force the creationism/evolutionist debate to a whole new level across the big screen and the internet."
adholden points out a site called Expelled Exposed, which asserts that 'Expelled' "is simply an anti-science propaganda film aimed at creating controversy where none exists, while promoting poor science education that can and will severely handicap American students."
to Expelled, a movie full of ad hominems, half truths, non sequiturs and promoting ignorance!
Hey! Look a Distraction!
There was a debate? When?
Oh, right, in America. Oh you silly Americans. I guess the age of the American Empire is truly over. You're hell bent on driving your population into the next Christian Dark Age, while China is preparing to whip your ass. Good luck with that.
If evolution or non-creationism is correct, and by having a dialogue people are convinced of this fact...then what is the problem? After watching the extended trailer that is the feeling I came away with. Ben's point is that discussion is not being permitted in academia, and in fact the opposite is happening, it is being suppressed.
Isn't one of the points of the movie that while scientists espouse neutrality, lack of bias, objectivity, etc. that they are not actually following it?
(Disclaimer --> haven't seen the movie or any trailers, the above was a genuine question for anyone who has actually seen the movie, and not an attempt to troll. Also the question should not imply that I agree with or disagree with the movie. It really is JUST a question.)
He's missing the issue. The truth is, I believe some form of "intelligent design." But whether or not I believe it or a billion people believe it is irrelevant. Intelligent design, as has been discussed here and elsewhere, ad infinitum, it's NOT SCIENCE and should not be taught as science or as an alternative to evolution.
On the other hand, if they want to teach it in a Religious Studies type class, I'm all for it. Go for it. That's precisely where it belongs.
Meh... As long as both are prefixed with "theory of", who cares?
Um... because evolution can be observed, and any rational mind can understand the mechanisms by which it works, and the magic-man-in-the-sky "theory" make no provision for testing, cannot be evaluated as anything other than wishful thinking, and teaches kids not to engage in critical thinking.
Your willingness to tolerate creationism in school as long as they call it a theory is actually worse than the delusions of the people who put it forward in the first place, because - by themselves - they come across as ignorant loons. You're giving them credibility.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Unfortunately, a lot of people don't understand the distinction, and people like Dawkins don't help. Many religious types treat 'discounting an argument for god(s)' the same as 'advancing an argument against god(s)', and go ballistic. But it's important to note the difference. There's still room to believe in god(s) even if you accept the ridiculously overwhelming evidence that evolution happened and is happening. (I don't believe in god(s), FWIW, but many people do.)
Stein and his ilk really remind me of the worst features of Ned Flanders sometimes. "Well, I say there are some things we don't want to know! Important things!"
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
BTW, the reason that evolution can be talked about in school and ID should not is that evolution is science, and can change as new information is acquired. Evolution is not based on any traditional truth. It is based on observation, and it's connection to the holy, if any, is only incidental. OTOH, ID is based on a specific group creation myth, and promoting ID is like promoting religion, something the US government should not do. If we want a survey of creation myths, that is such a large topic that it needs a course all of it's own, and many would support such course, except, I suspect, those that want to teach ID, as such seem often afraid of competing knowledge, perhaps because the truth will set you free,
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
As a European person a question pops into my mind a lot lately
"why is the US going backwards in the last decade? who is gaining from this dumbing down of the population??"
Remember if intelligent design is correct then it can be explained, demonstrated and then analysed further. Until then it is as much a waste of time as it is trying to work out how much flour Flying Spagetti Monster is made up of.
If this were really happening, what would you think?
Isn't it ironic that a whole generation of religious folks are doing nothing more than routing their kids into a backwater. Suspicion of science just means their children will distrust science and math and be shuttled, therefore, into a legion of burger flippers. Teaching your kids that Intelligent Design is the right answer is as close to child abuse as I can imagine.
Because the evidence for evolution is overwhelming?
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
Let's assume the Earth is only a few thousand years old. Where did the oil come from? Was it created in the ground with the rest of the Earth? If so, is there a way to predict where it might be found? Or perhaps it really did form from plankton (with a few plants and dinosaurs), but about 10,000 times faster than any chemist believes it could? Any way you look at it, a young Earth and a Flood would imply some very interesting scientific questions to ask, some interesting (and potentially extremely valuable) research programs to start. How come nobody's actually pursuing such research programs?
Why don't creationists put together an investment fund, where people pay in and the stake is used as venture capital for things like oil and mineral rights? If "Flood geology" is really a better theory, then it should make better predictions about where raw materials are than standard geology does. The profits from such a venture could pay for a lot of evangelism. Why isn't anyone doing this?
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
They ignore you because you obviously don't know what you're talking about.
Then they mock you because you expect to be taken seriously without putting in the work to become informed.
Then they fight you, because you won't go away until you've had your fight, and ingrained in your thinking, so deeply you don't know it's there, is the notion that might makes right.
Then you win, because there are so many ignorant, lazy, belligerent people that sooner later sensible people, who want to get something accomplished with their lives, will sooner or later give up on picking sense out of your nonsense.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
There's so much I would like to say here, and I rather doubt that I'll get it all said, but I'll make a stab at it. In the first place, I haven't seen the movie, so can't really comment on Stein's take. However, I have looked at the "sociology" of the Evolution/Intelligent Design/Creationism debate a fair amount, and what I see disturbs me from all sides. One major concern I have is the elevation of Darwinian natural selection as a means of species creation to an unrealistic importance. I just don't see why it's so important in and of itself. One could certainly be a competent physician, for example, and not believe in Darwinism (or neo-Darwinism). It seems to me that one could even be a quite competent practitioner of any of the biological sciences (other than the various sorts of paleontology) without necessarily agreeing with Darwinism. Yet, we are constantly told that a failure to teach Darwinism at the high school level will destroy science education as we know it and result in a US population that is hopelessly ignorant of all science, etc. etc. I just don't buy it. Bluntly, I can scarcely think of a job where a belief in Darwinism is necessary. On the other hand, we have school systems that literally teach absolutely no information science, computer science, etc. etc., and people graduating from college who literally don't know the different between a byte and a gigabyte. It's hard for me to see why this ONE THING is so vitally important, when it has virtually no practical application and there are scientific topics with enormous practical application that go untaught. Could the real problem be social or (speak softly now) political? It seems to me that that is exactly the case. The extraordinary efforts put forth by various scientific bodies to defend Darwinism from all criticism strike me as a knee-jerk reaction to a knee-jerk fear that the Scope's trial will happen all over again. This isn't about science--it's about continuing the Enlightenment project of supplanting all sources of Meaning (capitalization intended) with Scientific Meaning. That doesn't mean that I think that Darwinism is wrong. I actually think that it's as right as you're going to get within the boundaries that it sets itself. But I certainly don't think that the loss of Darwinism would destroy American education or anything along those lines. So ... people... GET A GRIP.
My $0.02.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Uh... because there is exactly zero evidence supporting other theories? Because other theories are largely unscientific, untestable, and not falsifiable? Because creationists still don't understand that evidence against one theory do NOT automatically equate to support for an alternate theory*? Because evidence from every branch of science, from astronomy to chemistry to geology to physics to zoology all support the currently accepted theory? You know, those sorts of things kind of tend to make people really, really tired of dealing with folks like Ben Stein, who remain obstinately and willfully ignorant.
(*e.g., if this fruit is not an orange, that does not mean it is automatically an apple... heck, could be a kumquat, for all you know).
... is the closing of minds
ideas are dangerous to closed minds.
80 years ago the "establishment" was opposed to teaching the theory of evolution - now the "establishment" doesn't want to discuss the possibility that evolution is "bad" science.
I also like the fact that the "enlightened pro-evolution" people are usually the ones resorting to argumentum ad hominem...
It ain't what they call you. It's what you answer to. http://mylyceum.us/
During the whole montage he's writing something over and over on the blackboard and it comes out to be something like "I will NOT question Darwinian Evolution." He interviews scientists and editors who have lost their jobs for printing/writing papers that claim our DNA has a 'code' with information that could not have happened in nature.
Disclaimer, I read a lot of Darwin/Dawkins/Gould so I'm pretty biased here
I think that even though it's 'a waste of time,' it's bad to write these people off or fire them. I'm sure there's sound criticism against these papers and authors but Ben Stein isn't showing that in his movie if there is.
If you have friends who believe in Creationism, respect them and provide for them sound arguments against it. It may be a waste of time to you but it's complete snobbery to write them off. Ben Stein is correct that you may lose friends if you watch that movie and become polarized by it--don't let that happen!
Like a Michael Moore movie, objectivity is raped, killed, gutted and donned over a rich man's face who then can safely tell you what to think.
My work here is dung.
Don't be silly... The Bible's measurement of those "Seas" was exactly correct: to one significant digit. I know a lot of fundamentalists althought I'm not one (I'm a part-time pastor), yet I don't know ANYONE who believes pi is exactly equal to 3. Everyone recognizes that that is just not the point of the Bible. It's like what I've always said: "I don't believe in the sort of {Bible,God} that the skeptics don't believe in, either." Stop beating up on straw men.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Because I can find lots of stories that make me I am glad the crazies here don't express their religion by bombing people... like , in, uh wonderfully enlightened Europe.
/. that this qualifies as a story. I guess a few editors need to get their brownie points with the insecure techie crowd... the one that needs to vilify anyone with belief and the willingness to express it. (plus its also good fodder for anti-Bush people who claim some hair brained connection to him however tenous)
Really, do you guys not get the news we do? Burning cars in France, oh I know, the PC word is immigrants. Killing of writers in Europe because they dared to write about someone's god?
What you have here in America is exaggeration. Look at it this way, if its brought up over and over and made to look silly it probably is. The haters need something to jump up and down about to make themselves feel superior and these ID people are a great target. The ID people are not a great percentage, just a convenient target.
It says even more for
mod to me to hell if you like, but it is true that it takes a big does of exaggeration to make ID people out as a representative of America or religious America.
Bring out the haters, this thread should have lots of them.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I don't agree with this. Ben Stein's opinions aren't worthless because he's not a scientist - they're wrong because they just don't have the necessary support.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Chaos != Free Will. You said yourself (basically) that it will react in a certain way, given certain input. Just because it is too wildly changing does not mean it is not predictable; we just haven't the computing power, nor information, to make such predictions.
Of course, the same could be argued for human free will.
Are we using the same definition of bias? Having a strong opinion is not bias, if it is a sound conclusion of the evidence. Bias is starting with the conclusion and selectively gathering the evidence to support it.
In order for something to be a theory, it must be testable and falsifiable. "My invisible friend did it" is *not* a theory.
And the whole point of the academic system, peer review, having your director check what you publish & most importantly reproduction of results, aim to keep personal bias in check.
After all your not going to spend 5/10 years working on something you think might be wrong.
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
I always find these discussions interesting. The fun thing about it is, there is no way to be 100% sure. Yes, geological and biological evidence points (a lot) towards evolution. The Bible says 7 days. You have some Christians that believe that is a literal translation, and some that reference "a day is like unto a thousand years to God" and vice versa - so those 7 days could be millions of years. The problem comes down to - to many believers put God into a box, and try to limit his abilities by their own understandings of the universe. On the flip side, how can you scientifically test that God exists, and there for that He Created? If you could, that would negate Faith by it's own definition. Which basically is what this comes down to for each individual who actually cares about ID vs Evolution..... Either you have faith in God, and believe in 7 days, or I.D,.... or, you have faith that I.D. or Creation is not a possiblity, or can't exist because Science can't prove it. This debate will never be put to rest because of it's nature.
The above comments are not guaranteed to make sense to anyone other than the author...
Just because the "establishment" does not want to discuss totally futile nonsense like the squaring of a circle or perpetuum mobiles, this does not mean they have closed minds. Its is just extremely boring and a useless waste of time to go through the same nonsense over and over again.
Creationims is nonsense. It adds nothing to scientific insight. Theism is useless. It adds nothing to scientific insight.
Yes, scientists can be very closed minded and stubborn and even stupid. And "the scientific community" can falsely disregard insights and new ideas for a while. That has happened and still happens all the time.
But creationism is so fundamentally wrong and nonsensical in so many ways that the contrary can be said: somebody actively supporting anything that so fundamentally goes against all scientific rational thinking disqualifies him- or herself as a scientist.
A physicist building a perpetuum mobile should get fired. A biologist teaching creationism or ID should get fired on similar grounds.
I'll bite.
Over tens of millions of years don't you think that lots of quirky things have happened on this planet? The soup theory is one of many; basically they are all theorising potential answers.
You have just espoused that "logic" says something that no evidence exists for, did it?
Genius.
And how is that "much more logical" than combining chemicals, electricity, high and low temperatures, over billions of years, happening to produce spontaneous life? Have you seen animals that live next to undersea vents?
I think that scientists are well aware of the God argument. Many believe in God. But I don't think most scientists find there research stimulating if the only answer they are 'allowed' to give is "God Knows"?
If God exists please post me some lab reproducible examples.
so what underlies an otherwise intelligent religious person to resist evolution?
we need to confront the real underlying psychological issue here: faith in humanity
religious folk view something like evolution as a path to meaninglessness, nihilism, cynicism. your typical secular humanist expresses their faith in mankind directly: there is no conflict between evolution and being positive about mankind's future
but religious folk's minds don't work like that. for a religious person, their faith in humanity is indirect. it is tied up in symbols and code words, like god. god is really just a psychological manifestation of an abstract concept: an ideal man, what humanity strives for, progress
and around an idea like god, you get all of these related mythologies that again, are really just props for retaining and reaffirming and indirect positivistic faith in society and mankind
so what really divides the secular humanists and the religious folk are those with no faith in mankind. when you look at something like evolution, and you consider your traditional religious symbology that enforces your faith, you are confronted with a crisis. and you look at some of the nihilism in the world. not the atheists who believe in mankind, but the cynical, empty, boorish loud kind of atheist who sees no meaning in life, and you react to that. and so you react to evolution: it seems to be a path to this sort of empty faithless indolent nihilism
in other words, the negative reaction to evolution by otherwise intelligent religious folk is really a reaction against the idea of meaningless in life
this is the psychological issue which underlies the rejection of evolution by otherwise intelligent religious folk. and so the real way you defeat their resistance is by criticizing faithless nihilism. those who use evolution as a story about how mankind is meaningless, pointless: you attack and reject them
you talk about evolution, AND you talk about faith in humanity and you talk about evolution as reinforcing meaning, not destroying it. and in such a way, you draw down the resistance of intelligent religious folks to evolution, by demonstrating to them that evolution is not a threat to the idea of faith, that plenty of secular humanists with faith in mankind can also beleive in evolution, without some sort of psychological dissonance
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Evolution is based in science. It has evidence and is discovered/researched by way of scientific means. People who believe the scientific method can accurately be used to discover and research things can go so far as to say that they believe in them because science supports it.
ID is based on religion and tradition. It does not come from evidence or from any application of science as we define science. It's presented as an alternate explanation evidenced by religious texts and motivations. People who believe in God or religion and believe what their respective religion tells them to believe about creationism or ID can go so far as to say they believe in ID or creationism because their religion supports it.
The real conflict with evolution versus ID is that ID proponents want ID taught in science class. That would be akin to Darwinism and evolution being taught in a psychology or theology class. It's just out of place. Most reasonable people I know on both sides of this can accept that there's a difference between philosophy and science and that they don't need to be mixed and that one is free to take their own beliefs from one, the other, or some combination of both.
The issue I take with this movie is not that it presents ID and/or creationism, but that it makes those who believe in it out to be the victim of oppression because "you can't talk about that in science class" and because the scientific community will shun you for teaching it. Truthfully, the scientific community only wants to make sure it's not presented as science because it devalues work they take seriously. And Ben Stein is using/abusing his reputation for being a very intelligent person convince religious folks that they are being oppressed, so they'll lash out against anyone who says that ID and creationism shouldn't be taught in science class. Everyone's free to believe what they want, but school is not the place for misrepresenting the beliefs of some or even many people as the result of scientific research.
And finally based on all I've said above about my perspective, my reply to you is that Ben Stein is out to make money and nothing else. If he really believes as you say, then he could have skipped this movie. Of course, evolution is not a "answer for why life exists and why the universe works that way that it does" or anything like that. I watched the preview; it was very clearly edited with a single goal in mind: to victimize those who have religious beliefs counter to accepted scientific theory. He is not pointing out that universities don't allow dissenting views. I can't imagine there exists a university without theology or psychology classes to discuss creationism and ID very thoroughly. The failure here is not for professors to teach ID or creationism, but for science professors to validate any education based on ID or creationism with scientific evidence.
-N
I've nothing to say here...
Because creationists refuse to accept facts they make fairly poor candidates for any position that requires actual thought, but they make excellent manual laborers. My daughter plans on a career in physics and she said that she would consider allowing them to tend her garden or trim her hedges so long as they didn't actually speak to her.
The problem is, scientists are NOT objective. They are highly biased. They do work to shut down anyone with a dissenting opinion. The study of Climate Change is BIG money in the scientific community. If it were discredited, then millions of dollars of grant money to study it would dry up. Ben Stein just happened to use a movie to bring this to light. He is pulling a Michael Moore.
The Pope also has nothing to do with Europe, he is not a European leader of any country, he is the head of a international church whose headquarters happen to be in this continent.
And as another 'European' I have to say the discussion is something you won't really see here, maybe not even because everyone accepts evolution, but mostly because religion is something private. People don't really try to convince people of their religious views. Maybe a cultural difference?
he's a rebel. He's stickn' it to the establishment by conforming to an establishment... He's a tricky one. Thank GOD for people like him that compel us to think inside the box.
BTW on his game show "Win Ben Stein's Money" I recall him doing poorly on the SCIENCE and SPACE categories.
Okay. Thanks for providing a great example of BAD SCIENCE.
I am skeptical about evolution. The thing is that right now the majority of evidence is that evolution is real and explains a lot about how life has changed over the history of the planet.
I am skeptical about creationism. So far every talk I have listened to on creationism has had more error in science than I can shake a stick at.
If you are not skeptical then it isn't science. If you are not open to the possibility that you are wrong then it isn't science.
As far as global climate change from human CO2 production. Yes I am very skeptical. I don't think they have nearly enough data to prove it. The way the climate change faithful keep saying this or that disaster or storm was caused by global warming really doesn't help. Snow in Bagdad this winter and record cold and snow in many places this winter also are interesting data points.
Heck I am even for cutting CO2 production just in case because frankly as the old saying goes "It can't hurt".
But the people that claim that Man made global warming is a proven fact are also spouting off bad science.
Being skeptical is a good thing and good science.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
By extension, do we have free will? Given certain input, much people becomes predictable...
Of Code And Men
I will illustrate your point, with an example I saw on CNN:
But you don't really illustrate the point - the OP was talking about scientists, and you illustrated the point with a story about a journalist and an environmental activist.
Oh - and can you pls link to the CNN article?
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
"Intelligent Design" fails to meet the basic definition of a scientific idea: its proponents do not present testable hypotheses and do not provide evidence for their views that can be verified or duplicated by subsequent researchers."
Darwin noted the variations of animals. And stated that if his theory was correct we should find transitional forms.
If Intelligent Design were true, we'd see similarities and patterns in the design of a variety of species. Even similar design patterns in the genetic code and make-up across a variety of species on various levels.
There you have it. And it's testable and discoverable. It may require further analysis beyond our current level of understanding. However, the same can be said true of Darwin's theory. So now you have it. The Scientific Theory of Intelligent Design
***
I've often heard staunch atheists/evolutionists use the above argument. And i think it is one of the most absurd. Furthermore, if you refuse any dialog, you do not allow people to postulate their theory or the requirements.
It's like a dictator censoring western websites and then at the same time arguing that there is no interest in those websites as evidenced by the lack of visits from his nation.
***
"Evolutionary theory (all of which have been answered)"
Really, well, I think it's interesting that numerous species cited as transitional forms later fail the test often turning out to be contemporaries.
In the second place, the Biblical case against homosexuality is a lot more than "out-of-context Leviticus quotes." The Bible consistently rejects homosexuality, in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
it's supposed to be observed over millions of years
No, it can be observed hour by hour. If you'd like to do a little test, we can expose you to all sorts of little life forms that used to be easy to kill with simple anti-biotics, but which - in some cases, only months later - are now genetically different, and have adapted to survive that treatment. As those bacteria (and in some cases, parasites) reproduce, there are observable mutations involved. Some of those mutations result in an altered version of the critter that happens to tolerate things that might kill those versions that mutated in a different way. If the chief cause of end-of-the-line death in strains of bacteria happens to be anti-biotics, then we're watching that life form, via simple natural selection, adapt its way around that threat. If you don't have the patience to learn how to look at the longer-term histories of species, and can't muster the simple common sense to see how that would impact more complex organisms over time, then just ask any doctor to explain it to you. Hopefully, for your sake, that won't be in the context of actually having such an infection - because, unlike even just a few short years ago, when such bacteria didn't exist, it's getting very hard to kill them without also killing you. Just like everywhere else in nature, a new pressure must be brought to bear on a species that has evolved (rapidly, in this case) to overcome an older pressure.
Let's not tolerate creationism but at least consider intelligent design
They are the same thing - both suggest the hand of an all-powerful imaginary magic super being with a sick sense of humor.
If you look at the genetic code, the similarities the re-use of design patterns
Don't you see? Of course commonly useful bits of DNA are commonly found. The stuff that works, at the basic level of providing for things like nerve growth, or respiration, or enzyme production, doesn't need to be evolved away from... mutations that shut down things like that tend to kill the offspring, and thus don't get passed along. The stuff that works, stays, and stuff that works better becomes more prominent through simple natural selection. If your ability to live long enough to reproduce depended on your ability to sprint to the nearest tree to avoid being eaten, then a mutation in your DNA that happens to produce a fractionally greater dose of adrenaline when you sense danger will give you an advantage over your brother, who might have a different, but less (for the circumstancecs) useful mutation. Guess who passes along the DNA after the predatory animals have come through your part of the woods? Mr. Faster Tree Climber. It might be a hundred generations before something even slightly as useful crops up again in that particular part of your clan's DNA, but as long as it's an advantage, it gets passed down the line. If its a liability (say, it also happens to increase your sensitivty to the sun, and thus causes early cancer), then it dies off. Of course, you know all of this. You're just invested, for social reasons, in the mythology side of things, and it's awkward for you to admit it.
In truth, I think scientists are afraid. They're afraid that if they admit there are aspects and evidence of design that they will be condoning creation as a whole rather than the simple design aspect.
No, they're just afraid of an entire new generation of kids growing up thinking that supersition, and belief if supernatural cause and effect might endanger our culture's ability to produce rational thinkers. You know, the sort of rationality that allowed us to build the systems over which you're reading this message, right now. You're proposing that we embrace a world view more or less like that which fueled the Dark Ages, or which applauded the burning alive of women, as witches, who knew that willow bark contains aspirin or who gave birth on the wrong day of the week, when it happened to rain really hard an
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Actually... it's much more likely that they don't know what "theory" means.
"Having a strong opinion is not bias, if it is a sound conclusion of the evidence. Bias is starting with the conclusion and selectively gathering the evidence to support it."
It is also the filtering of evidence and interpretation of evidence so as to favor one's viewpoint. Quite common in our science today.
So if I provide just a single example of when a group of scientists did change their mind, does that make this balanced?
Also, does my example need to also be from ages past, or would your prefer something reasonably modern?
"This isn't a problem. Einstein, for example, was a fierce opponent of quantum mechanics -- the 'spooky action at a distance' doesn't fit with c as a speed limit."
Very true...
And recently, we've begun to discover much regarding our concept of c and light, etc. Ironically, I've been open to this for nearly 20 yrs. Thanks to a preacher who also happened to be quite fond of computers and physics introducing me to some early studies of scientists questioning these precepts.
However, discussion with others (ie: science professors) on this matter was dismissive. Now, it's becoming common discussion.
"But the fact is that one of the primary goals of just about every scientist is to challenge or overturn the conventional wisdom."
Nothing wrong with that...
"And to so in a way that is observable and disprovable."
I'd say a lot of it is not observable or disprovable, perhaps insightful. Theories such as infinitely expanding and collapsing universe, universes. And various other ideas often taught have serious lacks on disprovability. But there is no issue in teaching or discussing these in class.
"A scientist who who has never been wrong, or who doesn't appreciate being proven wrong, is a poor scientist indeed."
Well, a scientist who has never been wrong...either isn't a scientist or is a darn good one. That said, the general point of your statement I quite agree with.
"This creationist doctrine, whatever term proponents choose to call it, is fundamentally non-scientific -- even anti-science."
This is where I disagree. First off, I think that hypothesis and tests can be cited for intelligent design. I think statements to the nature of discovery of design patterns across species and various levels is just one good prediction for testing. No worse than Darwin's proposition that transitional forms should exist.
"If a theory can't produce hypotheses, can't be tested, can't be disproven, and can't make predictions, then it's not a theory and certainly not science."
Many things that fall in this category are taught in the science classrooms of public school....with no qualms.
It's not uncommon for European christians, even very conservative christians, to favour progressive social and environmental politics. Although they do tend to discourage abortion, euthanasia and homosexuality (unlike progressive christians who think that's your own business), and a few even refuse to have their kids vaccinated. Even now, the new Pope is visiting us and basically calling everyone a bunch of heathens, and telling us we need to return to Catholicism. Not terribly progressive, if you ask me. But even he (or the Catholic Chruch in general, at least) has accepted the theory of evolution and quite a lot of other well-established scientific theories as our most accurate knowledge of nature so far.
The reason they don't get published is because their work isn't science. That's the problem with ID as a scientific hypothesis -- there's no way to test it.
IDers present stupid arguments, and then complain they are being persecuted by scientists. Apparently, idiots hate it when you call them idiots.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
If Philosophy were lumbered with ID, I can see three potential ways to include it in the Cambridge syllabus (which is the one I took).
1) A short article about it could be used in a first year discussion group alongside Hume's 'On Miracles'.
2) It could be mentioned tangentially when studying Hume's 'Dialogues of Natural Religion' and the contemporary philosophers who defend Cleanthes.
However, against 1 and 2, serious metaphysics hasn't much interest in ID per se. There are hardly any arguments in support of it that haven't been around since the 1600s, and they've all been criticised to death.
What is new is the fact that abductive reasoning is being promoted as science even when the thing abduced (and its properties) are undiscoverable/unverifiable by empirical means. (Compare abductive reasoning that posits the existence of a planet because of unexpected movements in other celestial bodies.) So perhaps the question is:
3) What properties should a theory have in order to be usefully called a scientific theory, and what are the wider consequences for science if ID-like theories are admitted? (e.g. what new sort of explanations could you legitimately give to existing phenomena if ID-like reasoning were acceptable? Are those explanations worth having?)
To wit, it's not ID itself that's interesting, but whether or not relaxing the requirements of scientific methodology in this way is damaging to science as a mode of inquiry.
JPSS
This isn't a problem as long as you restrict God solely to the metaphysical, which is what most religious scientists do. (This is, I think, the effective stance of Catholicism.) If you don't use religion to make disprovable statements about reality, they're quite compatible.
Actually, there is a good bit of symmetry here. I often say that the Intelligent Design(ID) people admire how the Man Made Climate Change (MMCC) people have pushed their cause. If you believe in the scientific method you have no problems with anyone challenging a theory. In fact, you'd welcome it because it either disproves the theory or makes it more accurate.
Evolution has advanced in it's "completeness" as a theory because of many challenges made to it over the years, and those challenges have helped science immensely. Just because a theory is wideley accepted however, does not mean that it is correct. Prior to Plate Tectonics being widely accepted it was scorned and rejected by leading scientists who had careers built on "old science." This incidentally what the subject line of this post refers to: subduction is one continental shelf sliding under another, and orogeny is mountain building (of course since this is /. let me point out IANAG).
Yet because the heart of Geophysics is still physics, these great scientists were able to accept challenges and look at the new theory and say "yes -- this fits better." And that's what's awesome (and to me holy) about SCIENCE. You can challenge ANY assertion, and if your model is better, it will persuade people. I'm sure some physicist can help me out and show how the theory of gravity has changed massively since Newton -- even though a lay person would say "yeah, I get gravity."
So here's where Expelled and ID fall down -- we KNOW their theory. What is being taught in schools about evolution is mostly demonstrable. We can show evolution in anti-biotic resistant strains of bacteria, that directly impacts humans and health. ID is being taught in the appropriate places -- houses of worship -- where challenges are heresy. Yet in teaching SCIENCE in schools we want to teach that every assertion CAN be challenged and should be observable. That's what science is -- an attempt to understand the universe through observation and experimentation. If someone wants to challenge something in science and can bring legitimate observations to the table, they should be welcomed for the CRITICAL (pun intended) role they play in the process. ID has to reject the scientific method, science always looks for challenges to make the model more accurate -- but ID is by definition perfectly accurate already, and cannot be challenged.
I support everything the MMCC people want as an end result -- I'd like to see us embrace alternative energy, stop burning fossil fuels and generally be more conscious of the impact we have on the planet. I also think that there is a real harm being done to science when people with legitimate complaints about the SCIENCE of MMCC are treated as pariahs. Although I tend to think that MMCC is real, and there is certainly no harm in proceeding to curb our carbon emissions, I welcome the legimate claims of people who think that solar cycles are responsible, or that this period is not particularly warm on a geological chart of temperatures. These are legitimate scientific ideas based on observation and empirical data. MMCC as a theory will gain much more respect when it embraces challenges, instead of treating them in the same way ID treats challenges -- by throwing the scientific method under a bus. On the other hand, if the MMCC people do succeed in making challenges to their "science" become heresy, the ID people will be sure to take notes in how that happened.
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm
Oh, gee, maybe if you do some research in the field of evolutionary biology, you may see that they in fact DO acknowledge their weak points, and they ARE studying them, to solve it. The problem with ID/Creationism, is that it prevents critical thinking. "Tell me, Bob, why are our vegetable fields not reacting right to this fertilizer you invented?" "Oh, God did it. I took some manure, prayed over it, and then when I did tests, I kept only the test that proved my prayed-over manure works better than regular manure!" "Bob, you're fired." ID/Creationism is NOT science. Anything that prevents proper, critical thought, is not science. Besides, your analogy is flawed. The right theory to go with special relativity is Quantum Mechanics, since it explains what happens when Special Relativity does not apply(which is on the micro-scale. Special Rel. applies on the macro scale). String Theory is still just a hypothesis with a bunch of math behind it. Go read http://www.talkorigins.org/ before you talk about something you don't understand.
I was about to say the exact same thing!
Any journalist who would delete one his/her paragraphs just because of pressure from some activist group doesn't deserve to have the job.
Since when is news reporting supposed to be about changing the facts to please special interest groups?
First, if you accept that God exists then he created time so saying he 'waited' to create our observable universe is nonsense. Second, if creating the simplest of life was by chance WHY can we not reproduce it or even one of its 'ancestors'(which mysteriously have never been found). Lastly, the earth was formed 4.5 billion years ago, yet there is evidence of life 3.5 billion years ago. This even further constricts the life sprang from nothing hypothesis. You want to play the 'everything is defined by science' game until it doesn't suit you. PS. Fun fact: There are three elements in physics time, matter and energy. These are the first three things mentioned in Genesis chapter 1.
I was educated in a system that was left over from the socialists that ruled my country in the past.
I know that lots of people hated their guts, we did too, but one smart thing they did was - teach sound science in schools. There are some young religious groups emerging this last decade but they are all being laughed at just because people are well educated and know better than to believe nonsense.
Those ID folks trust the same source that said the earth was flat and the sun went around the moon. Just how many time does science need to prove the religious establishment and the bible wrong before it's clear to everybody that the good book is just an allegory at best and fairy tales at worst.
I am not saying that people shouldn't have faith of believe whatever they want to believe, but ask yourself if you want to have your sick child taken care of in a modern hospital by doctors that practice scientifically based medicine, or go to the church and light candles and prey that god takes care of it?
Religion is a white lie that helps people accept the difficulties in life, it makes them feel good for a moment, feel that they do have someone to turn to, no matter what they did or what they expect.
It helps them accept the problems, not solve them.
That's where reason, hard work and usualy science and proven knowledge comes in.
... and any scientist who actually showed in a brilliant scientific tour de force why human-mediated climate change was not and could not happen would receive fame, the offer of many lucrative tenured posts and probably a Nobel prize. There are tremendous benefits in science if you can be the first to over-throw the orthodoxy in a scientifically rigorous manner.
No one has ever seriously advocated the earth is flat? There's some papal writing you might want to check for that one. A literal reading does require it (Matthew 4:8, Daniel 4:10-11, Job 38:13, Job 37:3) but let's use another example. What about that the earth circles the sun (heliocentric model)? A literal reading of the Bible requires a geocentric viewpoint. See Joshua 10:12-13, Ecclesiastes 1:5, 1 Chronicles 16:30, Psalms 93:1, Psalms 19:4-6, etc etc.
Scientists were persecuted for putting forth a heliocentric model despite scientific proof. Indeed, there are those who still advocate a geocentric viewpoint. People got over it. In every developed part of the world except the US, evolution is not controversial; their people got over it Its time we did the same. Evolution is fact.
Fine; disregarding the PI=3 thing, and any discussion of homosexuality in the Bible, the ID debate still boils down to taking the Bible (specifically the origin of man) literally versus taking it as an allegory. I still see strict literalists arguing that the universe was created in exactly 144 hours, six thousand years ago. I see people swearing that the Earth literally ceased rotating for a day in Joshua 10:13, and that all humanity except Noah and his wife were obliterated in the Great Flood (thus making every one of us their descendants and incredibly incestuous to boot).
Heck, you get the argument that all humanity on Earth began from Adam and Eve, despite the fact that Cain is marked by God so that any man who finds him will kill him on sight (Genesis 4:15), leaves to settle in the Land of Nod, and in the very next verse (Genesis 4:17) he "knew his wife". His wife? Where the heck did a wife come from? Were Adam and Eve especially bizz-ay? Did God go around randomly creating other humans, and if so, why aren't they written about in Genesis? You'd think the dawn of the human race was important enough that God would make sure to include a heck of a lot more detail.
My point is that you can't decide that some parts of the Bible are to be taken literally, and others are not -- never mind the fact that what we consider "the Bible" today has been translated and retranslated, by people both benign and malicious. One can argue that every single translator was somehow imbued with the Holy Spirit in the same manner as the original authors and thus produced an infallible translation... but that opens a whole new can of worms, as we have dozens of translations of the Bible right now that occasionally contradict one another.
And if you aren't going to be super literal about the origin of man... then there's no argument. It's all semantics. God could easily have designed the Big Bang and the formation of the cosmos and the evolution of life to work out exactly as it has.
In fact, that makes far more sense to me; why would He create this complex universe with its incredible mesh of physical laws, only to break them with miracles and supernatural occurrences? I'd think He'd work within the confines of what He had created.
I don't.
Before we start our discussion would you be so kind to state with a few rational arguments why your idea of 'Jesus Christ the savior' deserves more attention from me than the flying spaghetti monster?
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
At this point claiming Jesus never existed is just ridiculous. There's more evidence corroborating his existence and many of the things he did than there is for a lot of other historic people from the same time period. Yet, because they aren't nearly as controversial, everyone's perfectly happy to assume that he didn't exist and they did. (Example evidence link so save me from typing all of it here)
What's so bad about Jesus anyway? Oh no! He paid for your sins and wants to take you to heaven when you die. That *is* bad! I've never seen an atheist get pissed off about Buddha or something. I'm just curious what all the hate is about.
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
Actually, I'd say free will can be predictable. If you throw a stick and your dog chases it, you did not make your dog chase it, but you know it will. Scale it up and make it more complex for humans. You can always choose not to chase the stick... But then we know you're gonna do that too... :) I think the "free" part just implies that the choice is there.
I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
Place blame is what is wrong. Unless Bolivia has never used fossil fuels they are every bit as responsible.
Compared to the risk cutting CO2 seems like the low risk option. The simple truth is unless India and China start cutting it really doesn't matter what the US and the EU does at this point.
But that is a matter of opinion since I don't have the hard data to back it up.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I still have not been told why Creation and Evolution can't both be true. For the people that say that evolution dosen't happen onpe your eyes, species including humans are constantly changing to adapt to their surroundings. the bible dosent say that one day there was nothing, and the next everything was here (well it does metaphoricaly, but also says it not really a day). Eveything else in nature follows the rules or physics and chemistry, so why wouldn't God follow the same rules in creation, in the form of Evolution. I think it fits perfectly. God said let there be light --> Big bang, Created Heaven and Earth --> Earth formed in just the right spot, Created Man --> Evolurtion. As there is no proof for Creation (just faith), and there is a lot of evidance pointing towards evolutions, There is clearly something there. I don't see why people cant make this connection as easily as I did when I was 10.
Actually, that was a scientist, Galileo, who didn't have the math to explain elliptical orbits and fudged his data. Since even the idea that planets moved around the sun was very unpopular at the time, and Galileo didn't have any peers, the peer review process didn't actually exist to check his work. When Newton shot this down, nobody complained.
Kuhn has been exaggerated, and even his original claims do not fit the history of science well. Scientists tend to be conservative, and wait for strong evidence in support of a new theory so that they don't get taken in by the fringe. What Kuhn does not mention, of course, is that fringe theories that are just dead wrong outnumber valid theories a hundred to one, strongly justifying this approach (ID is an example of the far lunatic fringe.) His story of multiple Copernican Revolutions is also wrong. A Copernican Revolution occurs when a valid scientific theory arrives which brings a solid foundation to further research. There is at most one in each scientific field of research--examples include the original work of Copernicus (which became the basis for Galileo, Newton, and eventually Einstein), Darwin's theory of evolution, plate tectonics, and DNA. Prior to these advances the field is a chaotic mash of data with no means of organization, only guesswork. Einstein's work was not a Copernican revolution, but a refinement of existing physics into the very large and small scales. He did not prove Newton wrong.
What makes Kuhn so popular is the narrative of the lone genius who, in David and Goliath fashion, takes on the powerful and corrupt empire to change the world. According to this narrative, science is just a majority opinion defended by political maneuvering. This is utter bullshit. The fastest way to win a Nobel prize and establish your career is to prove other scientists wrong--but for that, you need evidence. ID doesn't have any. Not a single scrap. ID isn't a scientific theory, but a well financed marketing campaign masquerading as one, presenting this narrative and a soggy heap of postmodernist drivel to encourage and exploit ignorance.
Your mind is squeezed by a blast of pain!
The whole scientific process is an accumulation of knowledge over many generations. Because so much of our accumulated knowledge was established in the distant past, we need the process as a way to establish or maintain its viability as a part of the model of the world. Even when accumulation of knowledge spans a single lifetime, we still need the process in order to ensure we haven't gravitated to the answers we "like", but that we've actually come up with a sensible model for the world and that it has, so far, continued to be reliable.
How it works is we find a mystery in the world and attempt to explain it - then we attempt to work out, if that explanation really is true, then what else must also be true? And so we come up with tests... "If combustion is a process of release of Phlogiston, then there must be no material which gains weight as it burns" or "If our calculations about the orbital path of this planet is correct, then on this date at this time, the planet will be observed at this position." As test results come in, the results lend support to the theory, suggest the need for refinement, or else contradict it completely - in any case, so long as the process is properly followed and the results well documented, our total knowledge of the world has increased.
The reason why useful scientific ideas must be disprovable is because if they weren't, we would have no means of establishing the idea's reliability. You can use an untested idea to attempt to model the world in the hope that this model will provide you with some useful information - like playing a hunch, sometimes it does pay off - but to bring that idea to the point where you can rely upon it you must be able to test it.
The reason why I limited my answer to "in certain contexts" is this: I do not deny the value of discussion of creation in a philosophical context, only in a scientific one. Philosophy, like science, attempts to use logic to make reasoned assumptions about the world - but unlike science it does not limit itself to what can be measured or tested in physical terms. It is the proper venue for discussing the possibility of creation as the origin of life. Science deals with data, and the ongoing process of attempting to understand that data. As such, the assumptions made can't stray too far beyond the minimal assumptions possible from the data.
Creation theory and Intelligent Design are not only impossible to disprove (for the same reason it'd be impossible to disprove, for instance, the idea that we're in "The Matrix") but it's very difficult to base any meaningful understanding of the world upon them. Do you accept that the world was "created"? If so, how does that help you to understand how it was created? Intelligent Design claims that its idea could be a viable model for understanding biology - if one assumes things were "designed" then one can attempt to understand what the designer had in mind... But how can one hope to understand the thought processes of an unknown creator? And it's hard to see how that assumption could serve you better than the more conservative assumption that "there is some logical basis to how biology works" - and yet it can serve you worse, by leading you astray...
Bow-ties are cool.
Someday's Slashdot mods... you.
Briefly...
There is some evidence that the people who wrote the bible wrote what they knew to be true (so they were credible witnesses as far as it goes since many of the verifiable parts of their stories check out).
There is some evidence that the supernatural stuff about jesus was already rumbling around that area in several other countries attached to several other dieties.
There is some evidence that some of the books of the bible were not written by one person.
There is some evidence that some books of the bible were suppressed by the early church.
There is a lot of credible evidence that modern christians are anti-truth because they ignore vast mounds of physical evidence because it contradicts genesis. They have been caught lying and suppressing the truth. They are not acting christ like.. or even disciple like. They do not value the truth. They do not respect honest seekers of truth.
Why the hostility? Well as a non-believer, I had people trying to ram religion down my throat for most of my life-- it generated a lot of hostility on my part. I just wanted to be left alone to live my life.
Could christianty be true? Sure. Could several other religions be true? yes. Did the followers of failed religious believe them to be true? absolutely. Would some of them have died for their faiths. absolutely.
"Going to heaven" is very different than most people think. If your entire personality ceases to exist and only an animating spirit/soul sans personality goes to heaven, then most people would view that as the same as death. So most people really don't believe christianity anyway... they engage in a mental kung-fu and think that if some part of them survives completely sans their personality then that's okay... heck, let me clone their bloody cells and keep those alive forever-- would that be immortal life? Christianity is always portrayed in the media as if the people's personality survives.
There is only hearsay evidence that he "paid" for sins. John Smith has a great little religion going based on hearsay information too. Do you believe his religion?
Still. the moderation was probably unfair. That's life.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
"And how can you say that current life's ancestors haven't been found? What is the fossil record then?" I said the ancestors of E Coli and other simpler organisms. If these precursors were hardy enough to survive and change into everything else, wouldn't there be more record of their existence? Yes I believe a billion years is far too short to construct something even as complex as E Coli by random chance with the ability to survive, reproduce and adapt. Dawkins agrees, btw. Obvious fact: The theory of relativity wouldn't have been of great value 5-6000 years ago, genius. The point you missed is that its there in the first chapter and verse. 1. Heat 2. Slime 3. ????? 4. Life
"Evolution" is as much a law as the first law of thermodynamics, and the laws of thermodynamics are theories in exactly the same way as evolution is. And anyone who spends any time in science knows this. It's all a work in progress. Do you know what evolutionary biologists do? They poke holes in evolution! They spend their whole time finding weaknesses, writing them up, discussing them, and trying to find better theories. That's science. By swallowing what the film says, you're giving the creationists - who have been rehashing the same arguments since the 1980s with no modification - a free ride.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Chaotic (in the mathematical sense) in no way implies non-deterministic. Just because step N+1 is completely determined from step N doesn't mean that you can predict where you will end up after a couple of hundred steps. It's not a question of finding "hidden" rules to make chaotic systems predictable. The point about chaotic systems is that even if you do know the rules they're not predictable (beyond the short term).
Essentially, neither chaos nor non-determinism seems to help with the problem of free will. We don't like to think our actions are completely predetermined, but I for one wouldn't consider it much of an improvement to learn that there's a purely random component to my actions too.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
Welcome to America, 2008. Deceit and a lack of ethics raise concerns among people who post comments on blogs and news sites, but not necessarily among a majority of people who vote and write letters to their legislatures. We've arrived in an era in which there are two truths: right-wing truth and left-wing truth. You can pick either. Each has its own dedicated news and opinion services dedicated to it, so regardless of which one you pick, you can safely pretend the other doesn't exist until a talking head points out how silly the other side looks.
Here's the catch: most of the emotional advantages are firmly on the side of right-wing truth. Think of what feels good and it's true. America is the best country on earth, and everything we do is therefore moral. Oil production will never peak. The environment will take care of itself regardless of what we do, because it was put there for us by God. What industry lobbyists say about the climate is more correct than what most scientists say, because the scientists are communists. Human beings are special: not a type of animal that evolved along with other animals, but higher beings on a pedestal above animals.
See? Emotionally the right wing is far more satisfying. If you pick right-wing truth, there's no need to apply any scrutiny to it, and it provides a mirror of left wing truth in every respect, aside from a lack of creditability its adherents don't seem to miss.
Sorry, had to do that.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
It is convenient to be able to lump everyone into one category. If you support the elimination of Social Security, then you must be opposed to scientific progress. Convenient, but entirely false, and by doing so, you are rejecting those who actually hold some of these ideas on grounded principles. You miss out on those principles, and are basically left to accept what two corrupt political parties decide should be the definition of "liberal" and "conservative".
For example, it is possible to reject both religion and the New Deal reforms if you hold rationality and independence as cardinal virtues.
Stalin changed the course of human history. So did Alexander the Great. As did Socrates. Mohammad changed the world. And so did this guy who became the Buddah. Consider that the vast majority of humans on planet earth do not believe in that humble man who changed the Roman Empire(I'm not sure how thats such a large deal, Caesar changed Rome as well). I find it silly to say that Christ changed the Roman Empire, Atila the Hun torn down the Roman empire which had a far greater affect upon the western world and ushered the dark ages. It takes a narrow view to see the changes brought about by just one man and refuse to see that he is but one part of a much much larger tapestry which is human history, which is a smaller part, infinitesimally smaller part, of the history of the universe.
Ben Stein's Expelled trailer presents itself as an advocate for free speech for academics who are being ostracized for their belief in, or even the slightest hint of, Intelligent Design. In that regard he free to say what he wants and I support his right to do so no matter how stupid what he or the others say is.
Of course I also have the freedom of speech to say what I want and what he says in his movie trailer and other video clips I've seen of him is, well to be kind, stupid.
As someone said, he misses the point that theology belongs in it's own space and not in the academic world of science.
As we all know, but not all like, science requires evidence. So while the "mud" might have gotten a kick start with lightening to produce fully functional 747's it's just a hypothesis at this point how lift got started. Once we can create life with mud and lightening in a lab ourselves we'll have definitive proof about one way that life can get started - there could be others, such as life starting in outer space in asteroids, possibly with the energy of a collision, or the warmth from the sun during a close flyby. In any event science considers these potential hypotheses that require evidence before they can be considered a potentially valid theory.
Ben Stein shows his preference, in fact he doesn't hide it at all, when he states that he used to believe in God at the beginning of his life. Well he still does believe in God although he doesn't directly say so. It's a media manipulation technique since he makes one consider the possibly that he changed his mind but then he never delivers on that and instead makes himself out to be a crusader for an injustice.
It is an injustice to call someone's (many someone's) ideas stupid? Should a stupid idea and the person who purveys them not be called what they are? Should the intelligent among the human species not call it like they see it? Isn't that an attempt by Ben Stein to prevent free speech?
Also, his use of the Richard Dawkin's quotes are likely taken out of context. They are effectively used to impune all scientists who communicate the lack Intelligent Design in Intelligent Design.
In his trailer Ben Stein makes the statement that Darwin is a dangerous idea however he doesn't follow through with what he means by that. Of course, to people like Ben Stein, Glenn Beck, Jerry Falwell, the Pope, and other god fearing people, Darwin's ideas are dangerous since the notions of evolution and natural selection might just leave them without any god - and that would destabilize their world view beyond their ability to function normally in everyday life. Oh wait, it sounds like it has as stupid is as stupid does.
Yes, Ben Stein, you can question the authority of Darwin's ideas all you want, however, don't go crying by making a whimpering movie about being expelled when those with some actual intelligence counter question the intelligence of your questions as well as their underlying premises. When the underlying premises of the so called "questions of Darwin's authority" is a supernatural notion such as God you'll have to answer questions yourself about the bigger holes supporting that hypothesis.
Here's a question for you Ben: who created your intelligent designer? Maybe the intelligent designer evolved from lightening stuck mud to create the entire universe where we find ourselves? If so where did the mud come from that created the designer?
For someone who claims that some ideas, such illegal immigration to the USA, are too complex for you (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHbdMbSLfb4) you've sure made up your mind about the first cause of God, something which has zero evidence for it. It seems to me that illegal immigration is a much simpler concept to solve by many orders of magnitude than how the universe got started assuming of course that it ever had a beginning. (A beginning to the universe might not make sense to us mere humans as time *may not* have existed before the universe began).
Stupid ideas are just th
QUOTE "Why the hostility? Well as a non-believer, I had people trying to ram religion down my throat for most of my life-- it generated a lot of hostility on my part. I just wanted to be left alone to live my life."
Well my story is just the opposite. All my life I've heard people "preaching" about evolution because some guy with glasses and a lab coat told them so. Personally I just cannot take "the leap of faith" about the origins of life ; it seems so incredibly unlikely
that one day a cell just "plopped" into existence with the ability to procreate, and then against all odds survived everything the galaxy will throwed at it for 6 billion years.
Is it not perfectly sane to refuse a theory that has no PROOF about it's vital premises ?
Nitpick: a chaotic system is one where no leve of detail is insignificant. In order to make predictions arbitrarily far into the future, you have to know the state of the system arbitrarily accurately. However, quantum mechanics forbid you from knowing the state beyond a certain accuracy; consequently, a sufficiently chaotic system is impossible to predict arbitrarily far into the future, and no amount of computing power can change that.
Not that any of this has anything to do with free will. That particular hornet's nest results from trying to apply a philosophical concept into particle physics. That said philosophical concept is ill-defined to begin with certainly doesn't help.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Any example of how scientists "had it wrong" at one point in history implicitly provides support for the power of science to get things right. By citing such examples you are attempting to illustrate the failings of science by appealing to more accurate scientific knowledge--a logical contradiction. If science fails so easily, how has it produced the successes that illustrates the failure?
The power of science is not that scientists are individually superior humans. They are obviously subject to the same failings as anyone else. The power of science is that the system of group organization compensates and corrects over time for the failings of the individuals. Thus today we know that orbits are elliptical.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Crap, Greeks knew the Earth was round and could measure its circumference to within 10% (Eratosthenes). Scientists kept this knowledge alive, or tried to, unlike the Christians who liked to burn down libraries and people for that matter. There's a reason why the Christian dominated times were called The Dark Ages. It's the Bible where we get the phrase four corners of the Earth. I love how ignorant of history fundamentalists are. Or are you just stupid?
"People get very confused about free will, because they believe it must be somehow seperated from the brain. But the brain _is_ the mind, and vice versa."
That's rather presumptuous of you. I don't think it's a point of "confusion". The majority of people dispute (directly or implicitly) the mind-brain identity theory. Both Christianity and Islam have some concept of an "afterlife" and once you start talking about souls and spirits that transcend the physical body, the "free will" discussion is completely philosophical.
Let me get this first bit out of the way. I love science, and evolution works - heck, without an evolutionary nothing in my field of study (biology) makes any sense at all. So yeah, I'm biased. But I still would like to share my views on intelligent design, so I quit lurking as AC and made an account for this post.
Anyway, let's talk about irreducible complexity. These are supposed phenomena that have occurred in science (biology in these cases) that have caused some folks to say, "Well, I can't possibly imagine how that would have come about through evolution, so this must disprove evolution - Aha! A creator!" Time and time again such "irreducibly complex" structures have arisen (and later been reduced), so that most arguments now center around the difficulty evolution would have making the first cells. I mean that's it, we have mountains of evidence for evolution in everything else, so ID boils down to observing tiny, marvelously complex things and using those observations to support a Designer.
It's been discussed here already that such a stance on a discovery would necessarily end further inquiry, and as such is particularly detrimental to scientific investigation, but what does it say about the Designer? To me, this results in what I call a small god. So you believe in an all-powerful creator who set in motion the cosmos and caused the Earth to produce life, but early on this Designer got careless or lazy, and fudged a few of the details. How is that an attractive idea? You've got a Designer who set up the universe flawlessly - except for a little bit where his evolutionary process couldn't quite cut it making I don't know, flagella or something*, so he just stuck it in there himself and called it a day. I'd much rather believe in a creator who actually made everything run smoothly on its own, who had so much foresight and cleverness that all he had to do was configure an infinitely small point of matter properly, such that it exploded into the wonderful universe we have today. To me, this is a much more attractive, larger god than the one that produces irreducible complexities. And who knows, maybe the Big Bang itself isn't irreducibly complex, as I've represented it. But the point is that we won't know if we dismiss things as irreducible and preclude scientific inquiry.
Along with the lack of qualities that describe a good scientific theory, this small-minded approach lies at the heart of my problem with ID. Just because we know how the Earth works doesn't make it any less amazing - in fact, I would argue that it makes it even more impressive. I know how plate tectonics creates mountains, but mountains are still beautiful to behold, and I feel the same way about the infinite complexity of life.
However, I will grant that it IS perfectly sane (though not necessarily correct) for a layperson to refuse to accept a scientific theory when he or she does not understand or trust the evidence.
Life would be easier if I had the source code.
Don't apologize for the snark; it's actually a very valid question. There are examples of filtering and interpreting evidence so as to favor a given viewpoint in the publishing of even ostensibly peer-reviewed scientific papers, but these examples are nearly always driven by money, not by ideology: a pharmaceutical company or an oil company or a tobacco company funds research on a new drug or on climate change or on smoking, and darned if that research doesn't support the company's position.
However, the idea that there's an irrational, conspiratorial bias against challenges to the theory of evolution is, to be very polite, dubious. Researchers who cast serious doubt on evolutionary theory using the scientific method, producing results that were consistent and repeatable, would surely get a whole lot of flak at first -- but they'd eventually be given Nobel prizes. That's the kind of thing that makes careers. The kind of thing that destroys careers is making extraordinary claims that fall apart under testing -- or, as in the case of intelligent design, making extraordinary claims that can't be tested at all.
In a lot of ways, ID uses the same "logic" as any classic conspiracy theory: searching the "accepted truth" for any (apparently) unexplained gaps and shrieking Ah-HA! This disproves it all! Trying to fight these theories is a tedious and dispiriting proposition; you often have to try to bring your opponent up to speed on knowledge they'd need to have (and accept) to examine the evidence critically, and they're far from a receptive audience. And even if you manage that, there's going to be another "gap" they can find. And another. And if you have to eventually try and explain that data which isn't accounted by the theory is not the same as predicting a specific outcome which turns out to be wrong? Good luck with that.
personality ceases to exist and only an animating spirit/soul sans personality
goes to heaven, then most people would view that as the same as death. So most
people really don't believe christianity anyway... they engage in a mental
kung-fu and think that if some part of them survives completely sans their
personality then that's okay... heck, let me clone their bloody cells and keep
those alive forever-- would that be immortal life? Christianity is always
portrayed in the media as if the people's personality survives.
Your conclusions match those of orthodox Christians. As Paul puts it, "If
Christ be not risen, our faith is in vain." That is why the resurrection of
the body is a key Christian doctrine. Without that, the whole thing is
rather pointless.
At the time of Christ, Greek philosophy put a lot of stock in "ideals" (think
Plato's cave). Hence, many early Christians rejected the resurrection of
the body in favor of the more Greek idea of losing all that messy matter,
leaving only the ideal essence. Some went so far as to claim that Jesus
didn't actually exist physically, but was only an illusion to show us the
ideal. These were called "Gnostics", and much of the new testament is aimed at refuting their ideas. As John says in his first epistle, "That which our eyes
have seen, our ears have heard, and our hands have handled...".
So the media depiction of "Christianity" is actually Gnosticism - and I am
always shocked by how many Church members are actually Gnostics. But
orthodox Christianity promises a resurrection of the body (and Christ
is called the "first fruits" of that resurrection), *and* a new heavens
and a new *earth*. I.e. life after death is supposed to have trees, animals,
flowers, hugs, etc. For modern Christians, it implies a new universe.
There are some strange aspects mentioned. For instance,
Jesus says that "in the resurrection, they are neither married nor
given in marriage". Which could either mean no sex, or sex no longer morally
limited by marriage, or something even better than sex. Another strange
mention: "there shall be no more sea". That one dismays me more than
the no marriage - I love the ocean. I can only hope that the Designer knows
what He's doing...
1 It doesn't matter who thought of it first or why... That doesn't make it any less or more credible.
2 If I told a lie would it be any less of a lie if millions believed me? Or for that matter wether I tell it now or a long time ago?
3 Same argument... The amount of people that take some guys existence for granted without any proof doesn't give the idea more credibility.
Interestingly both Jesus and the FSM (may his meatballs be ever spicy!) are well documented but you choose to believe a parody to have equal weight to an historic person. Delusional ever?
On that topic... besides that one book those christians keep talking about.... could you show me some actual evidence that he is an actual historic person and not just a mythical figure?
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You need to know Stein's background to see what he's after. Although a conservative, he's also an exceedingly intelligent iconoclast aiming to reveal problem behavior where it's typically not admitted.
His purpose in Expelled is not to promote creationism, either in and of itself or in comparison to evolution. His intention is to point out that SOME OF the scientific community is participating in the same sort of hair-on-fire hysteria as the most vocal creationists. While the latter are widely know and fairly expected to employ this as a tactic, or just emotionalism, the scientific community "should" be above it, but isn't.
He rightly shows that the "evolution/creationist debate" isn't. He shows that it is instead a construct. Creationists claim it in order to put their ideas on equal footing with science, and science unwittingly helps them when some of its members react to what they expect rather than what's actually being said. His movie is a case study in precisely this, both within itself and as a social phenomenon, and you can bet your ass this is exactly what he intended.
It's easy to poke holes in the highly vocal creationists' stance, and quite popular to do so. It's more difficult to poke holes in their scientific counterparts, and supremely unpopular if you assume his intention is to promote creationism. Promoting creationism is his tool, exposing intellectual bigotry is his intention, and before the movie even premiers, he is succeeding admirably.
If one isn't convinced, consider the fact that he's targeting only those that overreact to the situation. For the most part both religious and scientific adherents (and those who hold to both) coexist and even discuss their viewpoints without any acrimony or "debate". They see no contradiction because the two thought systems are orthagonal -- entirely independent and incomparable. It's those in science who can't grasp this due to perceived peer pressure or fear that overreact and so unwittingly lend credence to that which they oppose by the sheer act of opposing it.
And keep in mind that although the movie pokes at one side, that doesn't mean he considers the other side to be right. He's going after the one target too few have the balls to attack. My money says that when it's died down, he'll make a statement that he has no intention of supporting creationism, only that he intended to do what I've described above.
The movie is a masterful piece of agitprop (agitating propoganda). It gets its targets to react wildly to it as though it were their traditional perceived enemy, while its true intent to show that those targets are themselves reacting wildly when they, as the supposed intellectuals, should be reacting with due consideration, if at all. And at this point it doesn't matter if the movie even comes out; it's already done exactly what Stein wants it to.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Because what it looks like to me is that they're saying that in science journals, you should only publish solid science. And that when universities hire science professors, they should get ones doing good scientific work. And of course, that it's not worth wasting time on pseudoscience.
In my mind, that's not censorship; it's professional responsibility. If they spent all their time jawing with people who had wacky ideas and little to no proof, they'd be up to their ears no just in creationists, but psychics, crystal healers, UFO believers, ghost hunters, Loch Ness Monster proponents, astrologists, iridiologists, and people with perpetual motion machines and 250 MPG carburetors.
As a taxpayer, I'm paying scientists to get serious science done. That includes shutting the office door on kooks.
Clue yourself. I've yet to hear a single liberal claim that women and men are identical, and I've never heard progressive tax plans justified by a silly "wealth redistribution" argument. I think biodiesel is an awful fuel strategy that only makes food more expensive (and it's a policy pushed far more heavily by the right wing than by the left - our current biodiesel mess has been touted by President Bush as an "accomplishment" for years).
Personally I don't subscribe to any of the fallacies that you listed, and I'd wager that most liberals don't match the convenient template you've set up for them. But feel free to poke the straw man all you'd like.
"plans to encourage people to speak out if they believe intelligent design or creationism to be correct."
Let's stop and think about this for a minute. Why should joe average speak out about what he BELIEVES? Does it really matter and should it influence policy or ultimately, science??
Let's look at it this way: Say NASA is planning to launch a manned rocket somewhere. We don't know how gravity works, but we have lots of theories around it based on what we can measure and extrapolate from this. Now, we could hit up the average joe and joan on the street and get some sort of "what do YOU believe the trajectory should be" to get this rocket into space safely, but we don't. And the average J would agree that it's best to leave that kind of stuff to the scientists who know what the fuck they are doing!
This idiotic evolution controversy is the same damn thing. Fuck the bible, trust the scientists and let them do their damn jobs!!!!
I'll grant that you're paraphrasing from this book from memory, but I can tell you that these are all tired creationist arguments that have been thrashed, again and again, and that can easily be debunked by anybody with a bit of biological knowledge.
First, your comment is self-contradictory. You first claim that "Different combinations are formed, not different genes," and then you state "mutations are the only known means by which new genetic material becomes available for evolution." When a mutation occurs in a gene, then a new gene has been created. It may not be a very useful mutation, and it may not be maintained, but it is undeniably new. Further, if you accept common descent, it should be obvious that you and I have genes that, say, hamsters do not. Hell, corn has got about three times as many genes as you or I--are you still claiming recombination is the only difference?
Next, mutation is far more complex than you make it out to be--not the kind of complex whereby a single changed nucleotide in a key geen turns a fruit fly into a blue whale, but the kind of complex that has the potential to introduce all sorts of variation. Changes in regulatory elements, for example, can leave most of the genes unchanged and still have major consequences for the organism's development. A simple example of this is the mutation that causes fruit flies to sprout legs where there antennae should be--granted, not much of an improvement, but it should suggest to you the power of mutation in changing living things.
Lastly, the concept of transitional forms is sticky for a lot of reasons. For one, by definition you'd expect them to be fairly short lived (once an organism starts to develop a useful trait, we'd expect selection to drive it pretty quickly toward a stable phenotype). Next, as you're probably aware, the fossil record is terribly fragmented--even in Darwin's time he wrote that there would probably never be thorough fossil evidence for descent. And finally, 'species' is a fairly digital concept: we see an animal (or its fossils) and we stick it into one category or another. But life forms are analog--there ought to be a whole series of 'transitional species' that show the progression from A to B, but rather than trying to classify them all separately, they often get lumped in on one side or another. So the argument that there are no transitional forms is specious, because A) we have found some, and B) the entire concept is fairly ill-defined and based on a fragmentary record.
So again, I recognize that you're probably not giving a fair accounting of the book, but if those are his most compelling arguments, then he probably ought to sit in on a few college bio classes before he does any more writing.
Attempting to provide alternate explanations without testable hypotheses are not good science. Just so we're clear, every single testable hypothesis produced by creationist scientists has been refuted by experiment. NOBODY has ever demonstrated that information can come from *any* other source than a mind. Um, maybe not to your liking, or to your narrow definition of "information" and "mind". DNA is simply code triplets for amino acids. It could conceivably be called information, but in reality it's just a simple chemical isomorphism. Further. it has been shown experimentally that bacteria can easily re-evolve the lactase enzyme when that gene is removed.
A subtle but nuanced result of Godel's Incompleteness theorem is that what you call "minds" are no more powerful than sufficiently advanced computer programs. Creationists have produced zero evidence, beyond philosophical musings, that a mind needs anything to function other than the neural activity in the brain, and the fact that brain damage can effectively destroy a mind lends HUGE weight to the theory that a physical brain contains everything necessary to produce minds.
Further, it is quite easy to write computer programs that readily "discover" new information in mounds of raw data. This is called data mining. And spare me the creationist rhetoric about "who wrote the computer program" -- computer programs are NOT biological organisms, though it is known by computer scientists that selection over incremental changes to computer algorithms can produce more complex, adapted algorithms.
No, there is ZERO reason to even suggest that information can only be produced supernaturally. The hypothesis itself is totally unfalsifiable because we have no way of even knowing that the supernatural exists, let alone making absolutist truth-claims about it. This is pseudoscience of the worst kind.
And please stop using the term "evolutionist" if you want to be taken seriously. It's a baseless framing device used by creationists in order to try and place it on an "even keel" with creationism.
Life would be easier if I had the source code.
Actually, the turtles hypothesis is more valid (from a scientific perspective) than Creationism. You see, you could launch satellites, confirm the spherical nature of the planet, and observe there is no turtle anywhere in sight - the theory is falsifiable.
Not so with creationism or its equally dubious cousin intelligent design. There is no way to demonstrate them to be false, making them deficient.
"SCIENCE is not about BELIEF" -- bullshit it isn't, it's a construct for understanding implemented by imperfect people; and people with sometimes imperfect information.
Science is about the persuit of truth through observation and testing. Religion is about persuit of truth through being told what the truth is. "Belief" is what parents mean when they say "because" in response to their children's questions of "why?" If science is "belief" then there is no truth. I "believe" that I am a person. I "believe" that there is a car parked in the garage. I can't "know" that there is a car in my garage because I'm not in the garage to observe it. Even if I was looking at it, my senses are flawed, so I have to "believe" them. When you use "belief" as you have, the word has no meaning. Or, more accurately, it has all meanings and everything is "belief." That makes a cute trick for attacking others, but for actually having a discussion makes it pretty much impossible.
Learn to love Alaska
It seems to me that most responses posted here fail to address the central premise of the movie. I think the premise is this: it appears that many scientists have a legitimate fear of losing or have already lost their employment because they are proponents of Intelligent Design, i.e. they have observed that many things in nature appear to be designed.
The central point is not whether:
1. Some things in nature actually are designed.
2. Who or what that designer may be.
3. Evolution may also be responsible for all or part of the formation of the natural world and our universe.
All of these points are ancillary. The film is meant to document the discrimination, fear, and prejudice present in scientific academia. That this point is missed in the forum posts above disheartens me, and I wish I could say that it also surprises me, but it does not. How easily we miss the simple point of something when there are other topics surrounding it that light a fire underneath us. I would hope that we all strongly agree with free speech, tolerance, and choice, regardless of what we may think about the beliefs of those being discriminated against. I will assume we all agree with this statement and will move on to the secondary issues which appear to be the main topic of interest.
I don't believe any Intelligent Design advocate would disagree with evolution (specifically microevolution) as a scientific fact. In fact I know that many ID proponents believe in macroevolution as well. For example Michael Behe, the author of Darwin's Black Box (which is famous for popularizing the premise of ID) is a macroevolutionist.
Many scientists have made the point that apparent design in nature and macroevolution are not always exclusive views. In other words, they feel they have the privilege of observing a world which was formed by the mechanism of evolution and the occasional direct work of some kind of intelligence. In this view, that same intelligence is responsible for designing the process of evolution as well and lets it do the job it was intended to.
Something else that seems to often be misunderstood is the claim that Intelligent Design is the same thing as creationism. I will only note that there are many who believe in ID but disavow conventional creationism, and there are many creationists who disagree with the conclusions of the ID movement (based largely on their belief that the earth is very young). Those who believe that they are the same are only aware of the surface of these subjects, or may simply hope that ID will just as easily meet the same demise that creationism so easily met. Either way they are not in a good position to intelligently criticize ID (or creationism, for that matter.)
Another error that I see many people make is equating ID to what they commonly term "the watchmaker argument". The real argument they are referring to is the classic Teleological Argument, which happened to receive a breath of life from William Paley's watchmaker analogy about 200 years ago. The argument itself, however, was articulated about 1,000 years before Paley by Plato himself and Aristotle after him, and has benefited from a long list of reworkings and clarifications, as well as much criticism. To quote the "watchmaker argument" at all in this context subtely reveals an ignorance of the subject, similar to how a creationist might think Darwin's evolutionary arguments are sole focus of scientific thought. In any case, we should certainly not dismiss ID so abruptly because the "watchmaker" aspect of the Teleological Argument has had popular critics over the years, because ID and the watchmaker argument are not the same. It is a different argument that appears similar to those who have not learned enough about each to be able to understand how they truly differ.
From what I have read, the scientists being discriminated against haven't even made ID part of their curriculum or classroom discussions, though I am