Is Michael Behe a Revolutionary Scientist? I Don't Think That Word Means What The DI Thinks It Means!

The Discovery Institute (DI) has a fun, but very misleading post.  The title says a great deal: "Charles Darwin, Michael Behe — Two Revolutionary Scientists"  Really, comparing the relatively unknown -- outside of Lehigh University and Intelligent Design circles -- with someone who truly revolutionized Science.

Michael Behe is one of the few actual scientists on the staff at the Discovery Institute.  He likes to write books and even testified during the Dover Trial -- where he got torn to shreds.  You can read the transcripts for yourself, but when:

• Behe had to redefine science to claim his ideas are scientific.
• When presented with over 50 books and articles refuting his ideas, Behe claimed that it was not enough.
• Did not do any of the scientific work to support his ideas, nor did he know of anyone else who was doing such work.

You get the point?  Behe might be one of the few actual scientists at the DI, but he does them little good other than as a rallying cry.  How many times has the DI pointed to him claiming that "See we have scientists too!"  And yet does Lehigh even let him teach his ideas as part of his biology classes?  This is part of The Lehigh Biology Department's Statement on Evolution and Intelligent Design:

"The department faculty, then, are unequivocal in their support of evolutionary theory, which has its roots in the seminal work of Charles Darwin and has been supported by findings accumulated over 140 years. The sole dissenter from this position, Prof. Michael Behe, is a well-known proponent of "intelligent design." While we respect Prof. Behe's right to express his views, they are his alone and are in no way endorsed by the department. It is our collective position that intelligent design has no basis in science, has not been tested experimentally, and should not be regarded as scientific."

So even Lehigh treats Behe's irreducible complexity idea as nothing more than his opinion and not scientifically valid.  OK, so let's look at the post and see if they say anything new.  Sure doesn't look like it.  Oh look, a quote-mine:

" “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” "

This is a very common issue with Creationists.  They love this quote  from Charles Darwin and frequently screw it up.  How you might ask?   By itself it makes it sound like Darwin himself is doubting his own theory . . . but they drop the very next line:

"But I can find out no such case."

Certainly changes the context of the quote, doesn't it?  When you read the whole quote, including the line they like to drop, you realize that isn't so.  Darwin isn't express doubt at all.  So I guess the next question is "Has anyone found such a case to be true?"

Obviously the answer is 'No!'  Behe's own 'work' has been torn apart on numerous occasions.  But the DI is offering a 'list of essays' that claim Behe's idea of 'Irreducible Complexity' has not been refuted.  Take a look at that list and you might see something more than a little suspicious.  Did you see it?

Let me repeat something I said earlier when I first mentioned Michael Behe, I called him:

"relatively unknown, outside of Lehigh University and Intelligent Design circles "

Look at the authors of all those essays, do the names look familiar?  Yes,  members of the DI and proponents of ID one and all:

• Michael Behe himself, which shouldn't be a surprise.  He's a DI Senior Fellow.
• little casey luskin, (lawyer) who spent the Dover Trial handing out pamphlets.  He was never a Fellow, but he working in the PR department before departing the DI.
• Wild Bill Dembski (philosopher and mathematician), who has since broken away from the DI, another Senior Fellow at the DI.
• The infamous Paul Nelson (philosopher ), each April 7th is called  Paul Nelson Day, the anniversary of Nelson’s so far unfulfilled promise to provide a detailed exposition of “ontogenetic depth.”, a promise he made in 2003.  Paul's a 'fellow' according to Wikipedia.
• Bruce Chapman (journalist and politician), one of the founders of the DI
• Stephen C. Meyer (philosophy and historian),  another founder and currently one of the directors of the DI

Yes, we can see for yourself that outside his little circle of friends, none of whom are actual scientists, there isn't anything to support Michael Behe's ideas . . . and yet the DI wants to put him on the same pedestal as Darwin?

Let me give you the first part of the Lehigh's Statement now:

"The faculty in the Department of Biological Sciences is committed to the highest standards of scientific integrity and academic function. This commitment carries with it unwavering support for academic freedom and the free exchange of ideas. It also demands the utmost respect for the scientific method, integrity in the conduct of research, and recognition that the validity of any scientific model comes only as a result of rational hypothesis testing, sound experimentation, and findings that can be replicated by others."

 I underlined part of the last line to illustrate the difference between Behe and Darwin.  Which one of them has defined scientifically valid theories that is a result of rational hypothesis testing, sound experimentation, and whose findings have been replicated by hundreds, if not thousands, of other scientists?  I'll give you one guess and his initials are not 'MB'.

And There is Still Nothing Religious about Intelligent Design

I decided to quit numbering these, because there have been too many posts exploring the religious nature of the Discovery Institute (DI) and Intelligent Design (ID).  Instead of numbering, I am simply going to continue reminding folks about the those religious underpinnings.

This time around the DI is hawking someone else's book.  Little davey 'klingy' klinghoffer wrote this post: "Scott Turner’s Purpose and Desire — An Important New Voice in the Evolution Debate".  Before getting into the post, I was wondering who Scott Turner is and whether or not he is actually a 'new voice' in the cultural debate between religion and science.

So, I hit my usual sources and found that while Scott might be new to klingy, he's not new to this debate. Like klingy, Wikipedia also mentioned Scott's last book "The Tinkerer's Accomplice, How Design Emerges from Life Itself" and the Harvard University Press Catalog says a few interesting things:

"Physiologist Scott Turner argues eloquently and convincingly that the apparent design we see in the living world only makes sense when we add to Darwin’s towering achievement the dimension that much modern molecular biology has left on the gene-splicing floor: the dynamic interaction between living organisms and their environment. Only when we add environmental physiology to natural selection can we begin to understand the beautiful fit between the form life takes and how life works."

It also mentioned something klingy seemed to ignore, Scott's last book was in 2010.  Now I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound very new to me.  But that's only one issue with the above quote.  I have to ask, how did Darwin, and subsequent researchers, left 'the dynamic interaction between living organisms and their environment' on the cutting room floor?  Doesn't the very idea of Natural Selection get driven by how an allele affects the survival/reproductive opportunity within the environment?  How environmental changes affect evolution within a population?  The environment is, and always has been, a key factor in the study of evolution.

Here is where I start to suspect Scott's leanings.  By wording it this way, he seems to think there has to be a guide, a map, an . . . dare I say it . . . an intelligence, behind it all.  Instead of the environment causing natural selection, there is some sort of symbiosis between the environment and the population that drives evolution.  Ah, yes, from Scott's Wikipedia page we can see he is a proponent of the Gaia Hypothesis, something not very well supported by science.

OK, let see what klingy has to say.  He starts off with this little tarnished gem:

"The crisis of evolutionary biology is spoken of openly here and by scientists who are professed advocates of intelligent design."

'Crisis'? Really?  I understanding klingy wishing it was a crisis, but he's overstating things by a ton.  We don't have a crisis because within evolutionary biology, this barely a blip on the screen.  The debate is cultural, not scientific.  For years science pretty much ignored it until groups like the DI started threatening science education with their marketing and politicking.  If you remember the landmark lawsuits (Kitzmiller v Dover Area School District, Selman v. Cobb County School District, Edwards v. Aguillard, McLean v. Arkansas, Lemon v. Kurtzman, Scopes Trial) were all focused on education, not science.  What does that tell you?  It tells me that we aren't talking about a crisis here.

OK, next up, klingy says:

"The latest biologist to come out swinging at Darwinism, Turner is not an ID proponent. He teaches at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry."

However, is Scott a biologist?  His own website says:

"I am a physiologist by training, but with a deep interest in the interface of physiology with evolution, ecology and adaptation." (SUNY: Bio)

I am not knocking Scott, I just wish klingy would stop mis-representing people. By referring to Scott as a biologist, you assume a much stronger background in biology.  Physiology is a branch of biology, but it's only a small part.  Here is the definition of Physiology:

"the branch of biology dealing with the functions and activities of living organisms and  their parts, including all physical and chemical processes." (dictionary.com)

Now contrast it with the definition of biology from the same source:

"the science of life or living matter in all its forms and phenomena, especially with reference to origin, growth, reproduction, structure,and behavior." (dictionary.com)

See some significant differences, don't you?  When you look at Scott's curricula vitae, you can call him Dr. Turner, he is a Doctor of Philosophy. not biology . . . but klingy calls him a biologist.  What I wish he would do is his homework and honestly represent folks!  This is a habit of the DI, do you remember some of the other times they mis-represented the facts:

• When they mis-represented a publication list to the Ohio State School Board as support for Intelligent Design -- which was not true.
• They collected signatures on a petition supposedly supporting ID as well, but they didn't list the current affiliations (as is the standard), but listed the signers most prestigious affiliation, even inflating a few to make them sound even better.  They also hid the affiliation of signers who worked for various religious organizations -- including those who worked for the DI itself.
• A couple of last things with the petition, they originally called all the signers 'PhDs', but that wasn't true.  Not all had their doctorates and also less than 25% were even working in biology
• When the DI announced a new member of the team, they mentioned her education, but conveniently forget to mention her religious background. (Heather Zeigler)
• Just like klingy here calling Scott a 'new voice', one of klingy buddies referred two commenters about his book as not previously known advocates of ID -- which was not true either. (Skell and Nevin)

So we know klingy is using one of the comment tactics of the DI -- the misrepresentation of the facts . . . or as I was taught to call it -- lying, even lying by omission is still lying.  Next klingy quotes the preface of Scott's book -- and it shows Scott is making the same mistake that the rest of the ID proponents do.  Here, read this:

"Instead of a frank acknowledgment of purposefulness, intentionality, intelligence, and design, we refer to “apparent” design, “apparent” intentionality, “apparent” intelligence."

Now, has anyone -- anywhere -- in the past 150+ years provided any actual scientific evidence for purposefulness, intentionality, intelligence, or design?  Without such evidence, all you have is the appearance of those things.  Science is all about accuracy and when all you have is the appearance, you do not make frank acknowledgements!

The whole modern intelligent design movement started with the assumption that the appearance of design was the same as the actuality of design.  This assumption is used to not only in an effort to tear down actual science, but to push a religious agenda that is not shared by the majority of the world.  But since that movement started, no one had offered anything other than conjecture and wishful thinking to support that assumption.  Scott appears to be making that same assumption.  That might work well for philosophy, but when it comes to hard sciences, like biology, assumptions do not cut it.

So, what do we have . . . is someone who is not new to the cultural debate, whose credentials are mis-represented by the DI and someone who shares the same assumption that the appearance is the same as the fact.  So nothing new at all, just another one who drank the kool-aid and ignored the lack of substance.  I may read his book, but only if it shows up in the religious section of the local library.  

Oh yea, did I forget to mention Scott's new book is being published by Harper-One -- which, as we have pointed out before, is the religious imprint of Harper-Collins.  So if I see the book, it will most likely be in the religious section of the library or bookstore.

Intelligent Design Summed Up in One Line

A quickie little post today from the Discovery Institute's little davey 'klingy' klinghoffer: "Stenophlebia amphitrite, a Stunningly Gorgeous Dragonfly from the Upper Jurassic":

"When you see something like that, a creature that is so transparently a work of art, how in the world do you jump to evolutionary explanations dependent exclusively on blind churning?"

What he is talking about is a fossil dragonfly, and to be honest, it is gorgeous.  Take a look:

Yes, that's terrific, but is this all you need to toss away real science and climb on one of the multitude of religions?  I don't think so.

When I read something like this, it simply shows me not only how little the talking heads from the DI know about actual evolutionary theory, but how insistent they are that everyone should also know even less than they do.  I have a few issues:

1. The world's biologists didn't 'jump' to anything.  Questions about a deity doing this stuff have been around since the first person made such a claim.  It took decades, if not centuries, to formulate explanations that actually meets the evidence.  It wasn't a 'jump'.  Darwin didn't wake up one day and say 'Eureka, God is Dead!', as much as you like to portray him having done so.
2. Where in evolutionary theory is 'blind churning'?  That's a strawman explanation of evolution the DI would like everyone to believe.  It goes with the 'tornado in the junkyard' and many other discredited analogies of evolutionary theory.
3. 'Work of art'?  So, opinion is now replacing facts?  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, right?  It is a gorgeous fossil of a creature that evolved a long time ago and whose descendants will soon be appearing in my neighborhood, but calling it 'art' in no way negates the evolution behind it.

Fossils such as this don't make people turn away from real science, I believe it supports it.  Look at all the evidence of paleontology, it's one of the areas of study that had people questioning religious explanations well before Darwin.  Look at the discoveries, read about how people were looking for answers as to when did those discoveries live, why have they disappeared, why are they so similar to many modern forms.  These are just a few of the questions that tarted with fossil discoveries and has grown into the discipline of Paleontology.

Look at the evidence linking current forms with those of the past.  Do we have a perfect line from one to another, no we do not, scientists readily admit that.  But each new find changes how we look at the past.  We are learning new things all the time, it's exciting!  Nothing we have learned has negated the overarching theory of Evolution, nothing!

The Discovery Institute would like you to join their religion.  Don't think, just appreciate the beauty but don't look any deeper.  God forbid [pun intended] you engage your brain and think about where this fossil came from, when it lived, how it might be related to current forms.  It seems to the DI that thinking will reduce your appreciation for the beauty of the fossil itself.  They can't possibly imagine someone can find something so beautiful and not fall on their knees to pay homage to one deity or another.  

Well, they are wrong . . . but what else it new!

The Paucity of Design 'Theory'

Paucity is not a word I use often, I had to double-check the spelling to make sure I had it right.  For those of you who also don't often use, or even see 'Paucity', here is the definition:

"the presence of something only in small or insufficient quantities or amounts" (Google: Paucity)

The reason I bring this up is a post from the Discovery Institute's Evolution 'news' and Views (EnV) website.  It's by a Howard Glicksman, and according to Howard, he saw Doug Axe's 'Design Intuition' in action.

For those of you not terribly familiar with Axe and his 'Design Intuition', Axe is one of the directors over at the Biologic Institute, which is the DI's in-house Lab tasked to prove the scientific validity of Intelligent Design.  I can see why you might not be too familiar with Doug or his lab, since they have been extremely quiet on the subject after firing one of their original directors for mentioning the purpose of the lab in public.  Doug's 'Design Institution' has been one of the latest tactics from the DI, trying to sell people on the idea that their intuition on any subject is as valuable as scientific investigation.

Since empirical studies have shown that intuition is basically a 50-50 crapshoot of being correct on concept and nothing on details.  Think about it, you intuitively 'know' something is correct.  You have no actual support, no validation, no understanding of why it is correct, you just 'feel' it's correct.  So now what?  Do you think engineers who build building and bridges do so with intuition?  Do you think intuition keeps airplanes in the sky or your car moving on the road?  Show me where 'intuition', which is fancy way of saying 'an opinion', does anything in the real world? 

I have found intuition to be less than reliable, as you might guess.  Personally, I have had two primary careers, one involving electronic equipment and the other writing computer programs.  I have repaired hundreds of electronic components and written easily hundreds of thousands of lines of computer code and I cannot tell you how often intuition has failed me.  When faced with a problem, frequently under a time crunch, you try and rely on your intuition to make that quick fix.  What I have experienced is that no matter time-crunch or not, intuition doesn't work very well, not even 50-50.

What actually works is not my intuition, but by stepping back and thinking about the problem, tracing through the code logic to determine what the problem is and then forming a fix.  In other words following a methodology, what we usually call a problem-solving methodology.  It takes longer than an intuitive "Oh I know what's wrong, change this", but the percentage of success is considerably higher than waiting for that intuitive lightening to strike.  I've had a number of problem where I would still be scratching my head because I received no intuitive idea at all.  I had to go through the methodology to fix my problem.

So, according to Doug, I should be right more often than I am wrong when my intuition tells me a particular fix would work.  In fact, according to Doug, my intuition should not just be right more often, but the overwhelming majority of the time my intuition should win out.  It doesn't!  Does that make me a bad electronics technician or computer programmer?  Well, my employers haven't thought so.  Even today I make my living writing code, and I don't often try and rely on my 'feelings' about a potential fix.

OK, why am I torturing you like this, well Howard's post, "A Son Realizes the Irrepressible Truth", is sort of interesting, from a decidedly lack of detail way.  Apparently Howard is a doctor and in discussing a patient's heart issues with the patient's son, the son suddenly exclaimed "What a beautiful design!", discussing certain human body related issues.  Howard, upon hearing the magic word 'design' immediately declared it a success for Doug's idea of Design Intuition.  Really?  So now that the son seems to grasp that the human . . . wait, let me quote the things Howard claims to have told him:

" . . . anatomy of the heart  . . . the cardiovascular system,  . . . heart fails . . . how water is either inside or outside the cell . . . hydrostatic and osmotic pressure  . . . lymphatics"

So, now that the son has this amazing grasp, I guess he's ready do perform heart surgery?  If you think that's extreme, how about letting the son prescribe your medication?  Why not, he has an intuitive grasp of the biology involved, doesn't he?  You mean he's not ready to develop the next great heart medication or develop the next incredible surgical breakthrough?  Why not?  It seems obvious to me.  I do not believe Howard relies on his intuition to diagnose and treat -- after all he went to medical school, didn't he?  I bet there were no classes on 'intuition', but plenty on biology including evolution.

Here's the thing, has the patient's son supported his intuition?  No, not in the least.  What he offered was 'an opinion'.  In fact it's the same opinion offered for Intelligent Design proponents over and over again.  To paraphrase: 'I see what looks like design to me, so therefore it must have been designed.'  Yet has any of the DI talking heads, or any other ID proponent offered anything other than opinion?  No, which is why they are trying to elevate such exclamations of 'design' to the level of scientific investigation, because they seem to have nothing else.  Now you can see the tie in to 'paucity'.

Sorry, Howard.  You didn't get a medical degree based on your intuition, and while ID proponent MD's like to claim evolution has nothing to do with the practice of medicine, if you were honest you might recognize where many of the medicines and treatments came from and the role evolution, common ancestry, comparative anatomy played in the development of what you learned in medical school.  Intuition, no, I prefer a doctor who relies on much more than their feelings.  I have to know, do you go to a doctor who practices what you are trying to preach here?

Here's a hint, you drive into the small town with only two barbershops.  You need a haircut and you check out the first shop, the barber has unkempt hair, looking like it was chopped rather than cut.  The second shop has a barber with a perfect haircut.  Which do you go to?  I know, logic problems aren't your forte, but take a stab . . . if you need a hint think about it from this angle, since the town only has two barbers, who do you think did the other barber's hair?

'Everything' Does Not Equal 'Anything', unless you are the Discovery Institute

Enough politics, it's been leaving such a nasty taste in my mouth! I have to turn to something much more entertaining, the Discovery Institute (DI) saying foolish things . . . again.  A post over on their Evolution 'news' and Views (EnV) site: "Evolutionists Could Learn a Thing from Dark Matter Physics".  The DI posted, Jonathan Witt, is someone I don't recall commenting about before.  So new blood!  I guess the regular posters were off doing something important, maybe they are working for  . . . wait I said no politics.

OK, so Johnny keyed in on one quote from Johns Hopkins physicist Simeon Bird:

"When you don't know what something is, you have to consider everything,"  

So the rest of the article is pretty much a whine that if Biologists had the same philosophy, then they should consider Intelligent Design.  I disagree!  Look at the list Johnny himself quoted from Bird:

• Big black holes
• Baby black holes
• Electromagnetically neutral particles so tiny they normally sail right through the empty spaces in atoms like a space ship sailing through our mostly empty solar system
• Ultra-tiny particles tucked away in roly-poly dimensions that curve around themselves.

Bird himself labeled these as pretty wild ideas . . . but did Bird really mean 'everything'?  I don't think so.  Look at the list, do you see them considering any religious propositions?  Come on Johnny, where is the Creation Physics?  I don't see it, does anyone else?

In other words, when Bird said 'everything' he was still framing his everything to include scientific ideas, not actually everything!  Saying 'everything' isn't the same thing as saying 'anything', now is it? 

However; I do believe biologists have considered Intelligent Design -- and they have rejected it for a number of reasons.  One being that it's not science, not matter how many lab coats you try and hide it under.  It's a religious proposition and therefore not a serious contender.  There's a list of other reasons to reject it, including that its own proponents are either unwilling or unable to do the scientific leg work to support it as anything but conjecture and wishful thinking.  

Johnny, if you think it hasn't been considered, you might do a little Googling and see how many actual biologists have rejected it, how many have commented on the various publications from the DI pointing out their many mathematical, scientific, and even philosophical errors and how a Federal Judge determined it to be not science.

If you were new to the DI, you might fall into the trap that they have a couple of in-house biologists who disagree.  They might even quickly waive their 'Dissent from Darwin' petition under your nose.  You might actually try and do more than pay lip service when it comes to critical thinking, I doubt you will, but I can hope . . . especially if you were a newcomer.  But since you are a 'Senior Fellow' at the DI, I doubt you will trouble yourself.

So, bottom line here, Johnny from the DI seems to be grasping at straws and playing word games.  A physicist uses the word 'everything' to include some pretty wild scientific ideas and the DI tried to stretch it to include their favorite religion.  The 'word games' fits into the DI's tactics of deceit and also because Johnny is not a scientist, his Ph.D. is in English and Literary Theory.  Word games from an English major . . . makes more sense than anything in the article itself.

Design v. Intelligent Design, two different things

The Discovery Institute seems to have a language problem, or maybe an issue with defining terms.  I recall an old joke about how the United States and Great Britain, two countries separated by a common language.  I think there is a new divide between the Discovery Institute and the rest of the world.  For a while now I have commented how the DI likes to claim that when there is something intelligently designed, be it a car or a mousetrap, the DI likes to lay claim that it's Intelligent Design 'theory' in action. (Intelligent Design vs intelligent design).

Well they are now doing the same thing for the word 'design'. Take a look: "Michael Behe's Challenge -- Past, Present, and Future".  In the referenced papers they do mention the word 'design' a number of times and that seems to give the DI cause to celebrate yet 'another' example of their Intelligent Design 'theory' in action.  And since the authors didn't discuss evolution, obviously the DI is winning the battle for the souls of the world.  Here's a quote that struck me:

"While these Japanese researchers do not mention Behe or his conclusions, their work underscores the case for irreducible complex molecular machines as prima facie evidence for intelligent design. Nowhere do they credit evolution for the motors of the cell"

However . . . and you just knew there had to be a however . . .

• Were either of the two papers about the evolution of the structures being replicated?  No!
• Did either paper cite any of the multitude of Intelligent Design articles or books?  No!

Do you see where I am going?  At no time did the papers discuss evolution because the purpose of the papers were not about evolution, they were basically announcements about two teams artificially creating structures that mimic the function of cilia (nose hairs are an example of cilia).  Now cilia are fascinating things, tiny hairs that actually move material along a pathway in a specific direction.  You can read the abstracts for yourself (Artificial cilia as autonomous nanoactuators: Design of a gradient self-oscillating polymer brush with controlled unidirectional motion and From Biological Cilia to Artificial Flow Sensors: Biomimetic Soft Polymer Nanosensors with High Sensing Performance).  To be honest, little made sense to me after the first line or two because the technical details came fast and furious.  But what I read was two groups built objects that mimic the functioning of human cilia.

How many times in the past has human engineering mimicked something from nature?  Too many to count, right?  So, what we actually have here is another example of intelligence being used to create something  . . . and the DI then come along, well after the fact, claiming that since these were smart people doing smart things, they must have been using Intelligent Design 'theory' and since they didn't discuss the evolution of cilia, we win!

Anyone else's BS meter pegging?  You know my Chilton's Manual for my car didn't go into the evolution of the automobile, so therefore Intelligent Design 'theory' wins?  My Java programming language manual doesn't go into the development of computers since the 1940's, so therefore computers haven't evolved since then . . . obviously.  The papers didn't discuss evolution because it is immaterial to the stated purpose of the papers, but the DI doesn't see it that way.  They prefer to spin it as some weird success for Behe's irreducible complexity and then, by extension, a validation for their whole reason for existing.

However, wouldn't you think someone using the DI's idea of Intelligent Design 'theory' go to the source and reference it in their papers?  That would make sense, now that would be a victory for the DI and actual validation.  So, why didn't they?  I would have to think that the obvious answer is the best one.  That religious claptrap published by the DI simply doesn't apply.  If you want, check out the 30 papers cited in the first and the 48 papers cited in the second and you won't find any reference to the DI's pseudo-scientific publications.

I'm sure the DI will spin that as something caused by their constant whine of some massive prejudice ID proponents face in the world of science -- one often claimed but never substantiated.  The simpler answer isn't some deeply hidden multi-national, multi-cultural conspiracy, but that their idea of Intelligent Design simply does not apply.  Unlike the DI's stable of writers, lawyers, and philosophers, these are actual scientists who seem to apply only things that supported and furthered their research. That's a more honest answer than any spin from the DI, but that's not what you hear from them!

One last comment and then I will go to do something a bit more useful.  If the biology of cilia are so supportive of Intelligent Design, who in the DI's limited sphere of influence is doing the actual scientific work to make that connection?  Instead they prefer to quote a 20-year old book by Michael Behe that was thoroughly dismantled years ago -- as if it is still relevant.

Don't worry, DI, I am sure you can build another green-screen 'lab' and one of your talking heads can present your lack of findings to the world.

Another Computer to Intelligent Design Analogy, as Effective as All the Others

For years the Discovery Institute has been using the analogy of DNA being like a computer code as one of their varied rationalizations for Intelligent Design.  Like any analogy, it only goes so far because DNA isn't a code, but a physical molecule whose structure we analogize (is that even a word?) to make it easier for us to explain and understand.  Today, little davey 'klingy' klinghoffer took it a further step with his post: "Intelligent Design and the Computer Analogy".  I guess I should say Douglas Axe did it, and klingy is doing his usual parroting.  He starts off with this:

"Imagine if computer science allowed researchers to consider the physical components of computers but not the "ideas" that drive them, imparted by their designers. Douglas Axe, author of Undeniable: How Biology Confirms Our Intuition That Life Is Designed, poses that instructive question in a brief video conversation."

I'm not totally sure where he is going with this, because the physical design of computers has to be taken into account, by the people who designed the computers.  In fact the programmers who develop the programs rarely have to take the computer hardware into account, or else multiple languages wouldn't work across multiple types of computers.  On the computer I am using at the moment I have programmed BASIC, Visual BASIC, Java, C, C++, SQL, JavaScript, Cold Fusion, Pascal, to name a few.

Computer programs are all about the 'ideas' because very few people write code that directly interacts with the processors themselves.  Computer programs are written in languages that are understandable by humans, but not directly understood by a computer.  What a computer understands is something called binary, which . . . when you boil it down to the basics . . . represents voltages at various points withing the computer processor.  The processor is built in such a way that voltages set a certain way at a specific connection result other voltages set a certain way at other connection points.  The folks who designed the processor set that up so this voltage at this point does this.  Our programs are high-level extensions of that, the designers tells us what it is, and we . . . the programmers . . . assign meaning as we see fit.  So this is a pretty poor analogy to biology, no real surprise there.

If that sounds like a good analogy for the Christian God, oh I'm sorry, I mean the DI's intelligent designer, it misses me completely.  Little klingy's article continues:

"Most of evolutionary biology is limited by just such a stricture: consider the physical aspect of living creatures without probing the ideas -- the purposeful, immaterial design -- that we embody in physical form. In biology, you may not weigh the evidence for design, otherwise you're damned as a creationist!"

I think, as usual, klingy and Axe are putting the cart before the horse.  Where is the evidence for design?  Seriously, I am asking.  What has the DI presented that supports evidence for design?  So far nothing but conjecture and wishful thinking.  And yet the DI wants biologists to weigh the evidence for design?  How can they?  There is nothing to weigh, is there?  Until folks like Axe, klingy, and the entire DI get off their collective asses and do the work to support ID, there isn't anything for a biologist.

You might disagree, but take a look at what the DI purports as evidence.  Religious and philosophical articles and books without a lick of scientific evidence.  They are long on talk and short on work!  What they are doing is demanding biologists do the work they are supposed to be doing.  Suppose a scientist did that, what do you think would happen?  It's called unemployment, as least as a real scientist.  The DI might have an opening, after all several high profile ID'ers have departed in recent years.

It's not that evolutionary biologists get damned for probing design, it's that people like Axe and klingy have yet to support their contention of design.  Without such support, probing it is a waste of time and resources.  College professors who are supposed to be teaching science deserve to be held accountable if they decide to teach pseudoscience in it's place!  That's not being damned for probing design, it's being damned for not carrying out their responsibilities.  If a Math teacher decided to teach Numerology or an Astronomy taught Astrology , no one would question their being held responsible.  But because ID is a form a Creationism, are we supposed to give a special license to teachers who abdicate their responsibilities?  I, and many others, say no!

His final line:

"Yet this in a nutshell is the field of evolutionary biology."

What this is, folks, is a strawman.  Little davey tries to tell us that biology is flat and boring because design isn't part of the curriculum.  I will continue to say design doesn't belong in the curriculum until you folks [the DI] do the work to actually support it.  There is a methodology to performing science, and it doesn't include treating unsupported religious philosophies as if they are science just to justify your personal religious beliefs.

Honesty From the NCSE brings out the Foolishness in the DI, but then most things do, don't they?

Do these guys even read articles before responding to them?  I'm talking about the Discovery Institute (DI), of course.  It's somewhat funny.  I read a lot of articles and blogs and am always looking for something that peaks my interest to blog about.  As I look back over my own posts I do see two very common targets, The DI and Answers in Genesis (AiG).  For a few minutes I thought maybe I was targeting them too often and that I was missing other, more interesting, things.  Then they come along and say something so incredibly foolish that I just can't help posting about it.

Case in point "Sleepless in Oakland" is a response to an National Center for Science Education post "The Big Bang is Giving Me Big Headaches".  I really suggest you read the NCSE post before diving into the idiocy of Donald McLaughlin's response.

Reading through the NCSE post was interesting.  It wasn't a precise about the Big Bang, but more a description of Minda Berbeco's emotional reaction to learning more about the Big Bang.  She recognizes that answering many scientific questions isn't about the data, but about dealing with misconceptions that have become rooted in people's emotions.  As she says:

"Although data is powerful, most often the conflicts teachers experience have nothing to do with evidence."

Anyone who has wandered the web and read and responded to some of the wild things being said about such topics as Evolution, The Big Bang, and Climate Change has experienced this first hand.  Here is a very recent example.  I have a Facebook page.  I don't use it for too much but just the other day I saw a Facebook post from the DI from the First of Feb:

It was a link to their self-conducted poll that we talked about in "A New 'Poll' conducted by the DI says what the DI says, what a surprise!"  Well to be honest when I saw the post I nearly just ignored it, but out of curiosity I wanted to see if anyone responded to it.  I was pretty shocked at the responses.  The very first reply I saw was this one:

"Alyson Miller Hi, I'm a biology teacher who teaches a LOT of evolution to a LOT of bright kids - so far, I haven't seen a single piece of quantifiable evidence against the facts supporting Darwin's Theory. Please show me one. Remember - I teach science, so it's got to be a measurable piece of evidence from the natural world, not the supernatural world. :-)"

I wasn't surprised reading her post, it made perfect sense to me. How often we hear the cry to teach both sides, but then no one seems to be able to find things contrary to evolution that are measurable.  It's usually conjecture and wishful thinking that they invest in emotionally.  Often people complain about teaching both sides of a topic as some level of 'fairness', but when the two sides are obviously not dealing with the same context, covering both in order to be 'fair' is actually completely artificial. It was something we previously discussed several times, including "Is it really fair? and Arguments IX - Should students learn arguments for and against Evolution?"

What did surprise me were many of the responses to her comment.  Here are a few:

Benjamin Parker Lori, then you are doing your students a disservice because you are teaching them PSEUDOscience. Evolution is a fraud. There's absolutely no facts or evidence to support it. Any idiot can look at two fossils and FANTASIZE ancestry but that is NOT evidence but pure speculation, lies or wishful thinking.

Michael Norten Do you teach junk science out of ignorance or rebellion?
Lori Bourque Where is the missing link? Why are there still apes? Why do 2 planets revolve counter. clockwise? Who was the master designer? Evolution has a lot of missing data..I opt opt for the heavenly designer....God the father of all creation

Benjamin Parker Evolution IS a religion which is why you evos steadfastly defend it despite the utter lack of evidence to support it. That's why even after being shown all the evidence shown AGAINST it ever occurring, you evos STILL cling to your evolutionary FAITH. That's called brainwashing.

Kenneth Davis Sorry Alyson but the facts you're referring to have only been connected to evolutionary theory with speculation. For example no observed evidence has shown that natural selection changed an organism from one distinctive type to another. In other words, all the bacteria and fruit flies that have ever mutated still remained bacteria and fruit flies and never any new organism. Nat. selection was built into each organism for adaptation but not with any possibility of becoming a new creature. The transitions are totally nonexistent.

Lori Bourque Doug I beg to differ there is mounds of evidence..literal physical and spiritual..what do you think is happening now it is the final battle and it was written thousands of years ago and it is unfolding before our eyes God knew the end from the beginning! This is the final battle

Mory Von Werner I always go back to first life. As of yet no one can explain how a putative first life could start. As you know, the first life would have to been incredibly complex --- thousands, if not millions of amino acid structural, functional tertiary and chiral machines. This Protobiont would necessarily have DNA information storage, and the information able to be read by RNA and move on to the Ribosome for building. All this had to fall together by chance in roiling seas, the chirality thing is off the charts impossible! But there's more! It needs a phospholipid cell wall to protect the functioning cell machinery. So, you need DNA to make a Cell wall, but DNA would not form in a perfect environment, much less the open roiling seas it was purported to have formed---no cell wall. And, not just here, but on billions of plantets--- thus, starting life all over this universe. The whole thing is dead in the water if abiogenisis is not possible (and it's not)

That's just a small sample of the well over 100 responses her single comment received.  Just look at some of the misconceptions people have stated, clearly they have little knowledge of the subject, or I should say subjects.  A total misunderstanding of Evolutionary Theory is about the only way to explain comments like 

• "Evolution is a fraud. There's absolutely no facts or evidence to support it. "
•  "Evolution IS a religion "
• "Missing Link . . ."
• "For example no observed evidence has shown that natural selection changed an organism from one distinctive type to another."
• "The whole thing is dead in the water if abiogenisis is not possible (and it's not)"

What has happened to basic science education?  If you keep reading, it gets even worse.  The most common mistakes made by many of the posters reveals not only a lack of knowledge about evolution, but a totally dogmatic view of any potential alternative, regardless of its lack of scientific support!  

Today's Non-Sequitur is a particularly good one to illustrate these points.  I am posting the image here because many of the comic strip sites remove the images after a while.  I got it here. 

Now McLaughlin is a new name to me, so I decided to check him out just a little before even reading his response.  Here is part of his short bio from the DI:

"Donald McLaughlin joined Discovery Institute in August 2013, as a Development Officer and Regional Representative in the upper Midwest and Northeast regions. His areas of responsibility include cultivating and stewarding major gifts, and planned giving. Donald has had a successful career in development, including 8 years as a Regional Director of Advancement for Prison Fellowship Ministries, 2 years as National Director of Major Gifts for Teen Mania Ministries and 5 years as Regional Director of Advancement for Taylor University."(DI bio)

Now before getting into anything else, please note the following:  Prison Fellowship Ministries, Teen Mania Ministries, and Taylor University (a Christian liberal arts college in Indiana).  I just have to say this, for an organization that keeps trying to distance themselves from any religious connections, this is the type of person you hire?  Seriously?  Who was the past new employee I commented about?  Oh yes, Heather Zeigler.  Do you remember her?  I don't know if she still works there, but when they announced her hiring they tried to hide her religious education and affiliations. (So there is nothing religious about Intelligent Design? Part II)

So just what is McLaughlin's job?  Is he their resident expert on the Big Bang?  On Biology?  On Cosmology?  No, he's their 'Development Officer and Regional Representative in the upper Midwest and Northeast' who seems to be responsible for asking for and collecting donations.  Which obviously qualifies him to defend anything said about the Big Bang and the emotional impact such topics might cause in people!  I guess with little casey luskin's departure, they needed a new second-stringer to pinch hit for the big boys who are still crying over the UMC debacle (The Discovery Institute (DI) Doesn't get Invited to the Really Good Parties, The United Methodists Explain their Denial of the DI, and the DI disagrees . . . Surprise, Surprise!, and The Discovery Institute has named their 'Censor of the Year' for 2016).

So what did little casey's replacement have to say? Not much! He tried to defend the indefensible concerning the DI's poorly-named academic freedom bills, something else we've discussed often (Are Academic Freedom Laws Anti-Science?).  Then he pretty much misrepresents what Minda said in an effort to twist things around . . . in other words typical DI spin.

Here is the one that really cracked me up.  He quotes Sir Arthur Eddington:

"The notion of a beginning is repugnant to me ... I simply do not believe that the present order of things started off with a bang. ... The expanding Universe is preposterous ... incredible ... it leaves me cold." 

So here is an Astronomer who passed away in 1944, who exemplified support for the Steady State Universe concept that was replaced years later by the Big Bang Theory with the advent of such supporting evidence as the cosmic microwave background radiation.  Couldn't find anyone more recent?  Donnie not only used him to justify the DI's religious beliefs, but he then postulates about Sir Arthur's sleeping issues.  

OK, that's enough of that.  Time to close this thing out, and Donnie's closing is pretty funny:

"For someone who has staked her professional career on that insistence that intelligent design is illusory, I see why that would lead to some sleepless nights."

No!  Minda has staked her professional career on science and scientific methodology.  Intelligent Design provides hours of humor, not sleepless nights.  But I guess there is no scientific subject that would give you any sleep trouble.  After all, Donnie, all you need to do is keep passing a collection plate.  Don't worry, as long as there are churches, you'll be employed!

Denyse O'Leary is certainly not allergic to Strawmen

Denyse O'Leary, the recently prolific mouthpiece for the Discovery Institute, tries her hand at 'explaining' a few things, but she certainly does Charles Darwin a disservice.  What she does is build several straw-men, proceeds to demolish them and then pats herself on the back with a conclusion based on her demolition.  Funny how it works.  Make an unrealistic claim, destroy it, the declare victory.  You know, how did she make it through school anyway?  Oh wait, she's some sort of journalist.  OK, that makes more sense.  Someone at the DI tells her to write up something, and I guess she gets creative writing credit from the powers-that-be.  Her post is "Natural Selection: Could It Be the Single Greatest Idea Ever Invented?" is an example, although she needs to work on her creative writing skills.  I was always taught that even creative writing requires a modicum of credibility to be successful.

Here is her opening paragraph:

"Information, according to Darwin's idea (natural selection), can exist without intelligence. Nature produces intelligent designs, just because some life forms survive and others don't. That's it. That's all it takes. How odd that no one noticed."

First of all, Darwin did not mention information, certainly not how she puts it.  The whole 'information argument' is nothing more than one of the many smokescreens put out by Intelligent Design proponents.  Check out the Talk Origins site for more on this particular inanity.  As for the rest of this, Nature does not 'produce' designs, and claiming that they are 'intelligent designs' is pretty foolish.  By using the word 'design', it assumes something not in evidence.  At best the phrase should be 'nature produces the appearance of design', but that would require a level of honesty also not in evidence.

Now, the second sentence shows mainly that little Denyse doesn't really understand evolution very well.  To paraphrase for brevity:  'some life forms survive and others do not'.  If she understood the actual theory she would know that survival is a result, but not of evolution -- the Theory of Evolution (TOE) doesn't determine survival, it discusses and explains populations and alleles within a population.  Some of those alleles aid in survival and reproductive opportunity, others do not, and still other are benign on the subject.  Survival isn't determined by the TOE and painting it as such gives Denyse a target to shoot at, no matter how unrealistic it might be.

And as for no one noticing, if she was talking about 'Natural Selection', someone apparently did.  His name was Charles Darwin.  If she was commenting that no one noticed 'intelligent designs', it's hard to notice what only exists in the wishful thinking of certain stripes of theists, like Denyse.  Throughout history the appearance of design was noticed, and noticed well before Darwin ever walked the Earth.

Next straw-man:

"That distinction can prove relevant if one thinks civil liberties matter. Many of us live in countries where the invocation of a supreme being is a basis for civil liberties (though those liberties may not extend to mosquitoes)."

Civil liberties are based in law, not the invocation of one deity or another.  Now I know various theists like to think their particular religion is the basis for so many things, but most legal systems draw from many sources.  If a Christian wants to point to the 10 Commandments, they really should look more at the historical source for those, as opposed to the stories.  But then, most theists rarely like the look past the stories, I think they are too afraid they might learn something.  So claiming that civil liberties are based on invocations of one deity of another is just another straw-man.

Here's my personal favorite:

"Darwin's theory of evolution (natural selection acting on random mutations) is a cultural icon, like the Big Bang, or e=mc². One needn't know anything specific about any of these ideas. Indeed, media professionals can be passionately devoted to Darwinism without knowing anything about it at all.
That makes sense. Professed loyalty to Darwin is an admission to good parties. And Darwinism's relationship to modern warfare and eugenics is drowned out by cultural support."

Did little Denyse forget that it is not Darwin's Theory of Evolution (TOE).  I know, I know, I have mentioned it before, but vilifying a man is so much easier than refuting a scientific theory, especially when you and your group never seems to produce anything scientific.  Vilifying a man makes it  so much more personal.  If Denyse was serious about damaging the TOE, she might do the science that could over . . . Oh wait, we are talking about the DI here, what was I saying, plus Denyse is a journalist.

Now, Since when is any scientific theory a cultural icon?  Darwin might be considered one, but the scientific Theory of Evolution is not.  Oh, we all know how much the DI wishes it was so.  Cultural icons come and go, but scientific theories are not so easily dismissed.  As for 'professing' such helps get you invited to good parties, how foolishly dismissive can Denyse get?  Really?  Good parties?  Is that the best she has?  So now we know the real reason the folks at the Discovery Institute refuse to accept the Theory of Evolution.  It's not their religious beliefs as we all thought and even as they explained in their own documentation.  They are blaming not 'believing' in Darwin is the reason they never got to go to the 'good' parties.  Denyse, and the rest of your ID'iots, might look for other reasons you never got invited . . . but then self-examination is harder than rationalization, isn't it.

Little Denyse also needs a history lesson.  Only the DI, and other Creationist groups, are claiming Evolution's relationship to modern warfare and eugenics.  People who actually study this stuff, unlike the DI, know better.  I think she's been reading Michael Flannery (DI fellow who purports to be a historian).  Apparently Flannery is a good a historian as Denyse is a journalist.

Here is her definition of the TOE:

"Here it is: Information can be created without intelligence. That is, natural selection acting on random mutation explains the order of life we see all around us. What can't survive won't, and that explains how very complex life forms and structures -- including the human mind -- get built up.
True: Things that can't survive don't. But why would that fact alone drive nature to produce anything as simple as a kitten, let alone a math genius?"

Once again, with feeling, the TOE does not address 'information' and claiming that it can be defined as 'Information being created without intelligence' is mostly a whole lot of drivel.  Part of evolutionary theory, I will emphasis 'part', is Natural Selection.  Another part is Random Mutation, but little journalist-wanna-be Denyse is leaving out one hell of a lot of what the theory actually says.  But then how can she whine about it, if she actually understood it, she couldn't keep her job at the DI.

As for her play for cuteness, using a picture of a cute and cuddly kitten.  Kittens are not simple.  Have you seen the genome for a cat?  Obviously Denyse hasn't, 20,285 genes, and we humans share something like 90% of them, oh, and Denyse, that includes math geniuses.

Little Denyse does say one sentence that I have to agree with:

"Ideas have consequences."

Yes, ideas have consequences.  Darwin's ideas, and those who have expanded on his ideas, have opened up the biological world in a way that has led to places undreamed of in Darwin's day.  Evolution impacts us all, in food production, medicine, ecology and the environment, just to name a few.  Pretty impressive set of results/consequences!  The Discovery Institute's ideas have consequences as well . . . and their results are listed where exactly?

Discovery Institute upset that Darwin didn't have a Crystal Ball

I came across this phrase on a recent pot at the Discovery Institute's Evolution News and View "Life Continues to Ignore What Evolution Experts Say" and it made me do a little thinking.  I have previously said that the DI seems to live in a time bubble ("Sorry Darwin, it isn't your Evolution anymore? Are you kidding?") and have tried to narrow any arguments about evolution to about 1861 when Darwin originally published.  This article is a prime example.  Look at the author's continual use of the phrases 'Darwinian' and 'Non-Darwinian'.  Since she is speaking of parts of Evolution that also weren't covered by Stephen Jay Gould, why isn't she calling is 'Non-Gouldian Biology'? 

Since 1861 there have been many changes to the Theory of Evolution (TOE).  Often I've tried to remind people that the TOE isn't a single theory, but a large collection of theories, including (but not limited to) Natural Selection, Mutation, Gene Drift, Punctuated Equilibrium . . ..  Each theory brings clarity to the whole.  Biology includes the TOE, of which part is Natural Selection.

At no time do real scientists equate all of biology to just what Darwin contributed, not even any 'lay hearers' (see the quote below) who stayed awake in Jr High Biology class.  So Denyse builds a straw-man about contemporary biological knowledge and then seeks to demolish it.  In no way does that diminishes Darwin's contributions, but it shows that DI arguments always seemed to be aimed at Darwin, regardless of whether or not the critique is applicable.  Here is an example:

"One motif recurs: Darwinian evolution -- which most lay hearers assume to be "evolution" period -- assumes that evolution is vertical: Organisms take their form from genes inherited with slight modifications from their ancestors through their parents. And these slight changes add up gradually over time to immense and profound changes.
Non-Darwinian biology studies mechanisms for evolution that don't really work that way, including horizontal gene transfer and epigenetic change."

So, Denyse is complaining that in 1861 Darwin didn't foresee horizontal gene transfer or epigenetic change.  Does Denyse, in her apparently finite wisdom, remark that genetics started small with a paper that came out 4 years after Darwin published?  Did she completely ignore that the work of Gregor Mendel had been set aside and not re-discovered until the early 20th century?  I'm a little surprised that she isn't also complaining that Darwin didn't know the structure of DNA (1953).  Instead she picks on gene transfer (1968) and epigenetics (1942).  (Note: both gene transfer and epigenetics are older than that, but those years relate to the work Denyse is talking about and the impact on modern biology) See what I mean?  Biology has changed greatly in the last century and a half, but the DI is still whining about Darwin, what Darwin did, and especially what Darwin didn't know.  I guess she expects Darwin to have had a crystal ball?  She, and her bosses, can't seem to join the rest of us in the 21st century without finding some way to take a dig at Darwin.  Childish, isn't it?

In the real world, no one studies 'Darwinian' Biology, or 'Darwinian' Evolution, it's Biology and Evolution.  They keep making this artificial distinction just so they can take cheap shots.  Darwin's work is a part of the whole, an important part to be sure, not one that should be trivialized like this.  What I find funny is that who is doing all this work on gene transfer and epigenetics?  Those fellows at the DI?  No, it's real scientists doing actual science, not armchair Creationists who keep trying to market that they aren't Creationists!  All the DI can do is try and put an anti-science spin on everything they touch.

What if people stopped believing in Darwin?

Ann Gauger, you know the lady with the non-existent lab over at the Biologic Institute, posted something totally ridiculous:  "What If People Stopped Believing in Darwin?"

First the obvious, people do not 'believe' in Darwin, any more than they 'believe' in gravity.  What people do is accept the explanations from real scientists when it comes to explaining phenomena like Evolution and Gravity.  There is a world of difference between belief and acceptance of an explanation.  I do understand why Ann, and her cohorts at the Discovery Institute, have trouble understanding the difference, they demand faith with no supporting evidence.  But that's the obvious critique.  Let's have some fun.

First off, let us remember who Ann works for, the Biologics Institute, which is the pet apologetic 'lab' of the Discovery Institute (DI).  When you factor that in, you know she's not talking about evolution being out of the picture, but her religious alternative being the only game in town.   That being said, it certainly changes the picture, because everyone knows how open-minded and accepting theists can be, right?

One of her comments was a real corker:

"Biology students might feel free to express their opinions on origins."

Since when does having a religious explanation for anything make people feel free to express their opinions?  Annie's point is that because of Darwin students don't feel free to offer their opinion.  Of course that's not the whole truth, because I have yet to be in a classroom where student's didn't raise their opinion.  One of my students read this blog and wanted to discuss in class -- and I teach Information Technology!  What I think Ann means is that theists do not feel free to raise their non-scientific objections to evolution in science class.  If Ann had said that I would heartily agree.  Raising a religious objection to actual science IN science class is a waste of time and deserves to be shut down.  I did shut down my student by explaining that Life's Origins aren't an appropriate topic during Java Programming.  When he persisted, I invited him to comment on the blog or discuss it after class.  He chickened out and did neither.  But that's the point, Creationism is not science and other than a brief historical perspective, doesn't belong in science class.

Let me give you a for-instance.  Suppose you are a member of a church-going family who for years went to the same church as many of your neighbors, you are involved in church activities, and lived in the area and raised your family there.  Then you get more than a little annoyed when a cross gets burned in your son's arm by his science teacher and you dare to question it.  Not only that, but you learn that the 'science' teacher in question isn't teaching science, but his very evangelical view of science.  You have the audacity to complain.  What happens?

Well according to Ann, you should have been welcomed, your opinions and questioning should be encouraged, and all Christians are nothing but polite and accepting people, right?

However the reality seems a bit different, as an article about the family who dared raise questions about John Freshwater in Mt Vernon Oh:

"We've gotten phone calls, things in the mail, anonymous letters. They send scriptures and how you should raise your children, implying we're not raising our children correctly. Everywhere we go I feel like people know it's us so they don't talk to us or they will say things. Even in church." Eventually it was too much for the Dennis family. They moved 35 miles away."

This isn't an isolated instance, do you recall the Dover Trial, or shall we call it by it's usual name:  "Tammy Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al".  What happened to Tammy Kitzmiller and her family?  More examples of welcoming, openness, and acceptance?  No, she and her daughters received hate mail, accusations of being atheists, her children confronted, confrontations in restaurants and in the street.

Sure, religion does nothing but open people's minds and hearts! Maybe other religions do, but apparently not Christianity. In a review of Lauri Lebo's excellent book "Devil in Dover" from the Aetiology blog:

" . . .that even most of the biology teachers at Dover were church-going Christians, yet they were ostracized and bad-mouthed by those supporting the school board’s anti-evolution stance–rejected and slandered by Christians who seemingly had no problem attacking fellow believers."

I have to repeat this phrase:  " . . .no problem attacking fellow believers".  Sure, Ann, dismissing Darwin makes everything sunny and bright.  Really?  As you can see I find it hard to believe that if somehow Darwin disappeared overnight, so much would change for the better.  Look at all the people living under repressive religious regimes.  Are you going to tell me Christianity would be different?  Was it in the past?  Tell me when?  Show me an example!

More from Ann:

"The world would see a new flush of academic freedom."

Since when does religion encourage academic freedom?  Seriously, I am asking.  How many professors and teachers have gotten in trouble for teaching evolution?  Too many to count, like John Scopes, Pamela Hensley, Tom Oord, Gary Scott, Stacy Mendrick . . ..  The impact was directly on them teaching evolution.  They did their job and got in trouble.  People forget that the textbook John Scopes was using included evolution or that Pamela Hensley and Stacy Mendrick were well regarded teachers who were teaching the required elements of their courses.  The list is quite long, and not always at a parochial school, but public schools as well usually due to parental pressure,  So this is how religion improves academic freedom?

Now aside from the marketing campaign by the DI, how many teachers got in trouble for teaching Creationism/ID?  While the DI likes to trot out people like Caroline Coker, John Freshwater, and Guillermo Gonzales, the real story is a little different.  These people were hired to perform a job, usually to teach science.  However they made a personal decision that their religious beliefs precluded them from performing their job.  And when they get held accountable, they whined about religious discrimination and the DI trots them out as victims.  I don't see them as victims.  They took the job under false pretenses -- I see them as liars.  Of course Freshwater did more than just fail in his job, but that's another story.

Now I would like to believe that I wouldn't accept a job that conflicted with my belief set so strongly I couldn't do it.  I would be honest about it rather than say one thing and then perform another.  But that's just me and how I was raised.  I guess that level of honesty isn't needed when you are lying in the cause of your religion.  You could ask kennie ham, but he does the same sort of stuff.


Of course she had to try and drag in 'Academic Freedom', which anyone with a functioning brain knows that's not what the Discovery Institute is interested in.  It's just another tactic to try and wedge their way into the classroom.  Their idea of academic freedom means to be able to teach their religion as if it were science and to remove real science from the classroom.  Don't blame me, it's their stated goal:  to replace science with a more theistic-ally friendly version.  It's again like little kennie ham who's idea of religious freedom is to be free to believe how he wants and force others to believe as he [kennie] wants as well.  Not very open-minded and accepting.

One last thing and then I will go back to ignoring most of annie's posts.  Here final comment:

 "That's why they say scientific revolutions happen one funeral at a time." 

Really, so scientific theories get replaced when the author or supporters die off?  Apparently that hasn't worked for Darwin and the Theory of Evolution at all, has it?  It didn't work for Alfred Wegener, whose theory of Continental Drift didn't get confirmed until 20 or 30 years after his death.  I wonder if she expecting the next generation of scientists to knock Darwin to the curb and instill her organization's pet ideas?  Maybe that does explain why they [the DI, annie, wild bill and the lot], don't bother doing science and only marketing and public relations in their efforts to damage science education.

I wonder where annie expects to next breakthroughs in vaccines, medical treatments, and new technologies to come from?  Divine intervention?  Yea, like that has worked real well so far.  Let's ask Ian, Neil, Matthew, Austin, Amy, Robyn, Andrew, Harrison, Nancy, Dennis, Arrian, Zachery, Troy, Shauntay, and Rhett.  Oh, wait you can't.  They all died because some people, often their theist parents, believed prayer beats out medical care.  Not a great track record.

Kirk Pt IV: Scientism!

Kirk's back in his series on how bad science is and why we should just trust in God and forget all this thinking.  I mean where does thinking really lead you?  I guess curing disease, flying, the Internet would have all happened anyway if we had only given up on science and stayed on our knees, right?

Today's topic has the usual philosophical bent, and one he tries to broadly brush all of science in the worst possible way, "The Corrupting Influence of Scientism" is his latest and I think the most entertaining of his posts to date.

First of all what is 'Scientism', and the truth is no one really knows.  Here is a copy from Wikipedia on the many dictionary definitions of Scientism [I numbered them for easier reference]:

1. The use of the style, assumptions, techniques, and other attributes typically displayed by scientists.
2. Methods and attitudes typical of or attributed to the natural scientist.
3. An exaggerated trust in the efficacy of the methods of natural science applied to all areas of investigation, as in philosophy, the social sciences, and the humanities.
4. The use of scientific or pseudoscientific language.
5. The contention that the social sciences, such as economics and sociology, are only properly sciences when they abide by the somewhat stricter interpretation of scientific method used by the natural sciences, and that otherwise they are not truly sciences.
6. "A term applied (freq. in a derogatory manner) to a belief in the omnipotence of scientific knowledge and techniques; also to the view that the methods of study appropriate to physical science can replace those used in other fields such as philosophy and, esp., human behaviour and the social sciences."
7. "1. The collection of attitudes and practices considered typical of scientists. 2. The belief that the investigative methods of the physical sciences are applicable or justifiable in all fields of inquiry.

When Kirk uses the term, he is using the 6th definition.  When he says 'Scientism' he is certainly using it in the most derogatory way possible.  This is another post that supports the DI tactic of "Teaching People to Mistrust Science".  The real question is Kirk's definition of 'Scientism' a significant problem?

Wait a minute, Kirk seems to change his definition of 'Scientism'?  In his very first post of this series of his "Should We Have Faith in Science?" he defined scientism as  . . . here, let me quote him:

"As a scientist, I am increasingly appalled and even shocked at what passes for science. It has become a mix of good science, bad science, creative story-telling, science fiction, scientism (atheism dressed up as science), citation-bias, huge media announcements followed by quiet retractions, massaging the data, exaggeration for funding purposes, and outright fraud all rolled up together. In some disciplines, the problem has become so rampant that the "good science" part is drowning in a mess of everything else."

I added the bolding and underlining so you can more easily pick out his comment.  So, in his first in the series, he defines 'scientism' as 'atheism', yet in this post, he changes to definition a bit. . . here, let me quote this definition from his current post:

"Scientism is the belief that science is the best and only trustworthy method to discover truth. Supernatural explanations are a priori ruled out. The result is atheism dressed up as science."

Oh, so now Kirk's problem of 'scientism' is not allowing supernatural explanations in science.  Things are taking a very different turn, isn't it?  Instead of addressing a belief in the omnipotence of scientific knowledge, refusing to allow supernatural explanations is the key to Kirk's complaint, no matter how he tries to dress it up.  Not sure I have things right, here's another quote from Kirk:

"Scientism lobotomizes the quest for knowledge by turning a blind eye to God and the supernatural."

So this whole discussion of 'Scientism' is nothing but a smokescreen Kirk used to hide his religious motivation, let's examine the root of his prejudice.  Don't worry, I'll return to the smokescreen later, but first a few words about why allowing supernatural explanations might be a problem.  While I could get into all sorts of things like philosophical and methodological naturalism, I want to focus on something much simpler and state categorically:  "I will support the inclusion of supernatural explanations in science when  supernatural explanations work!"  I know, if Kirk or his friends at the DI read this, they might quote-mine part of this line and use it to paint me as a theist who wants my science to include the supernatural, wouldn't that be fun!

But seriously, think about it, do supernatural explanations work?  While people like to claim the power of prayer, is it reliable?  Is it repeatable?  Is it even predictable?  Is any supernatural explanation, whether it is ghosts, parapsychology, or Creationism/Intelligent Design useful or even usable?  In a word, No!  If you cannot use it, what good is it in explaining the world around you?  Other than a warm feeling when you think the world aligns with some personal philosophy, it doesn't seem to produce any tangible results!

Look at how successful science is, and has been! Would science be as successful with the inclusion of the supernatural?  Hmmm, let's not forget how long did the supernatural did dominate our explanations of the world around us?  How successful were those explanations?  Not very!  Would expanding the definition of science to include the supernatural actually offer any realistic benefit, other than a warm feeling to people who believe in the supernatural?  That's exactly what Kirk is talking about.  Just like Michael Behe testified about during the Dover Trial.  While he [Behe] tap-danced around it in a variety of ways, in a nutshell he testified that to include Intelligent Design in science, the very definition of a scientific theory would have to be widened to the point where Astrology also being admitted.  That's pretty much what Kirk is asking for here, isn't he?  Scientism = Atheism, so let's add in religion and make science better!  But will it?  Sure doesn't have as good a track record as actual science!

I've asked this question before, but now I would to direct it to Kirk.  Kirk, do you actually put fuel in the fuel tank of your car?  Why do you do that?  You know why, and I know why, it's because of the science -- real usable, predictable, and repeatable science minus any supernatural explanations.  While you might pray when the needle gets close to 'E', it's the activity of putting more fuel in your tank that allows you to continue driving.  If you want to prove to supernatural explanations are just as reliable as natural ones, hop in your car and see how far you get on prayer!

Now, for fun, let's look at Kirk's smokescreen.  But not as defined by Kirk, but let's use definition #3:  "An exaggerated trust in the efficacy of the methods of natural science applied to all areas of investigation, as in philosophy, the social sciences, and the humanities."  Can this be a problem?


It certainly can be!  I'm the first to admit, and I have said it time and time again, scientists are human beings and they are subject to all the perils and foibles that come with being human.  In other words, sometimes they screw up.  The over-application of any philosophy or prejudice can certainly impact any endeavor, even science.  But as I have also said time and time again, science has methodologies that help deal with the possibility to such prejudices affecting outcomes.  In fact now that I think about it, didn't I already discuss this in addressing one of Kirk's earlier posts?  Yes, here it is:

"What's interesting about Science is that is a self-correcting activity.  Think about it, science works, the explanations match the available evidence and when they can no longer do that, they get discarded.  That's the concept of being self-correcting.  When it doesn't work it gets kicked to the curb.  The road to an accepted scientific theory is littered with ideas and explanations that failed at some point.  Some of the possible reasons include Kirk's little diatribe.  When scientists are guilty of anything Kirk doesn't seem to like, their ideas end up among the discarded.  There is a level of actual scientific support required before ideas move forward, something ID proponents can't seem to reach."

So, another question for Kirk.  If we allow supernatural explanations in science, what are the methodologies to determine the success or failure of a supernatural explanation?   I didn't see anything in your post addressing this?  Did I miss something?  While you are a little entertaining, I have seen a common thread in your posts.  You like to whine, but have you offered one suggestion to improve science and scientific methodology?  Letting in the supernatural might give you a warm feeling, but will it improve science?

One last point, and one of my pet peeves, as you probably know.  Why is Kirk trying to throw religion into science and yet the DI, who are posting Kirk's mental meanderings, still insisting there is nothing religious about it?  I know, it should be glue by now, but until the DI comes clean about their motivations, I'll keep beating that dead horse!