Friday, February 27, 2009

Arguments XX -- Scientific support for ID?

This is hilarious. Over on Topix a poster put this little missive forth:

There are 786 on ID related themes and I do not have the time to go through every one to see which include ID research.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&term=intelligent%20design%20creationism&log

So, according to them, there are 786 papers on ID related themes. OK, click the link and you see 8 . . . 8 whole papers. But if you look at each one you will find they are an ID related theme, but they are all anti-ID. LOL . .so sure he couldn't be bothered to look at all 8, but he claimed almost 100 times as many and none of them, NONE of them support his ID stance.

In case you are interested, here are the titles and the links description of each one.

Darwin, Dover, 'Intelligent Design' and textbooks.
ID ('intelligent design') is not science, but a form of creationism; both are very different from the simple theological proposition that a divine Creator is responsible for the natural patterns and processes of the Universe. Its current version maintains that a 'Designer' must intervene miraculously to accomplish certain natural scientific events. The verdict in the 2005 case Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover School District, et al. (in Harrisburg, PA, U.S.A.) was a landmark of American jurisprudence that prohibited the teaching of ID as science, identified it as religiously based, and forbade long-refuted 'criticisms of evolution' from introduction into public school classes. Much of the science of the trial was based on biochemistry; biochemists and other scientists have several important opportunities to improve scientific literacy and science education in American public schools ('state schools') by working with teachers, curriculum developers and textbook writers.
You say you want an evolution? A role for scientists in science education.
We conducted a national survey of likely U.S. voters to examine acceptance of evolution, attitudes toward science and scientists, and opportunities for promoting science education. Most respondents accepted that life evolved, many accepted that it evolved through natural processes, and more favored teaching evolution than creationism or intelligent design in science classes. The majority ranked developing medicines and curing diseases as the most important contributions of science to society, and they found promoting understanding of evolutionary science's contribution to medicine to be a convincing reason to teach evolution. Respondents viewed scientists, teachers, and medical professionals favorably, and most were interested in hearing from these groups about science, including evolution. These data suggest that the scientific community has an important role to play in encouraging public support for science education.
The threat from creationism to the rational teaching of biology.
Most biologists outside the USA and a few other countries, like Australia and Canada, are under the impression that the threat to the teaching of biology represented by creationism does not concern them directly. This is unfortunately no longer true: the recent growth of creationism, especially in its pseudo-scientific manifestation known as "intelligent design", has been obvious in several countries of Western Europe, especially the UK, Germany and Poland, and it is beginning to be noticeable in Brazil, and maybe elsewhere in Latin America. The problem is complicated by the fact that there are not just two possibilities, evolution and creationism, because creationism comes in various incompatible varieties. Turkey is now a major source of creationist propaganda outside the USA, and is especially significant in relation to its influence on Muslim populations in Europe. The time for biologists to address the creationist threat is now.
Biological design in science classrooms.
Although evolutionary biology is replete with explanations for complex biological structures, scientists concerned about evolution education have been forced to confront "intelligent design" (ID), which rejects a natural origin for biological complexity. The content of ID is a subset of the claims made by the older "creation science" movement. Both creationist views contend that highly complex biological adaptations and even organisms categorically cannot result from natural causes but require a supernatural creative agent. Historically, ID arose from efforts to produce a form of creationism that would be less vulnerable to legal challenges and that would not overtly rely upon biblical literalism. Scientists do not use ID to explain nature, but because it has support from outside the scientific community, ID is nonetheless contributing substantially to a long-standing assault on the integrity of science education.
What is wrong with intelligent design?
This article reviews two standard criticisms of creationism/intelligent design (ID)): it is unfalsifiable, and it is refuted by the many imperfect adaptations found in nature. Problems with both criticisms are discussed. A conception of testability is described that avoids the defects in Karl Popper's falsifiability criterion. Although ID comes in multiple forms, which call for different criticisms, it emerges that ID fails to constitute a serious alternative to evolutionary theory.
FASEB opposes using science classes to teach intelligent design, creationism, and other non-scientific beliefs.
[This one didn't have a description, but I think you can tell by the title which side it supports!]
Creationism and evolution: it's the American way.
The recent ruling in the Kitzmiller v. Dover court case that intelligent design is a form of religion and cannot be taught alongside evolution in science classes in US public schools garnered worldwide attention. But why is the antievolution movement so powerful in the United States?
Creationism and intelligent design.
Creationism, the rejection of evolution in favor of supernatural design, comes in many varieties besides the common young-earth Genesis version. Creationist attacks on science education have been evolving in the last few years through the alliance of different varieties. Instead of calls to teach "creation science," one now finds lobbying for "intelligent design" (ID). Guided by the Discovery Institute's "Wedge strategy," the ID movement aims to overturn evolution and what it sees as a pernicious materialist worldview and to renew a theistic foundation to Western culture, in which human beings are recognized as being created in the image of God. Common ID arguments involving scientific naturalism, "irreducible complexity," "complex specified information," and "icons of evolution," have been thoroughly examined and refuted. Nevertheless, from Kansas to Ohio to the U.S. Congress, ID continues lobbying to teach the controversy, and scientists need to be ready to defend good evolution education.
I think my favorite one is "What's wrong with Intelligent Design?" Oh you gotta love the moxie of these people . .not very bright, but big cojones!

2 comments:

  1. When I do the search for just intelligent design without creationism I currently get 779 results which is close to their number that search engine fluctuation could explain it. They may therefore have made both searches and then linked to the wrong one. Note that if one searches on pubmed for "intelligent design" in quotation marks one still gets 101 hits. While many of these hits are simply not connected (talking about intelligent design of artificial body parts for example), others are actual mentions of ID. For example we have "Onward, Christian penguins: wildlife film and the image of scientific authority." Stud Hist Philos Biol Biomed Sci. 2008 Sep;39(3):273-9. Epub 2008 Aug 23. This one seems to be talking about the use of March of the Penguins as ID propaganda and then uses that as a jumping off point to talk about the proper role of nature documentaries in educating the public about science. That's about the most neutral to ID I can fine. There are other mentions of ID in this search, but they are all negative or at best clinically neutral.

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  2. I agree Joshua. I was only commenting on the link the original poster put forth claiming almost 800 ID articles. I have yet to find anything peer-reviewed that actually supports ID. I know the DI, and their pet lab The Biologic Institute, claim there are peer-reviewed articles supported ID, but at best the articles do not mention it and it is only their [the DI] twisted interpretation of the purpose of the article that makes a tenuous connection.
    The DI is the same group who LIED to the Ohio State School Board about ID support in science. This is the same group who supposedly had over 700 signatures of Doctoral scientists who disagreed with Evolution on scientific grounds -- yet we only learn that not only are the 700 not all Doctoral scientists, that not all are scientists, and that the grounds for disagreement has nothing to do with science.
    I get so tired of the Lies, that I have to point them out when I see them!

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