Do Creationists Understand How Science Works? Apparently Not! (Part II)

Yet another example of trying to take one of the strengths of Science and claiming that it as a Negative.  As I've said many times, and as evidenced by scientific advances time and time again, science doesn't stand still.  As we learn more and more, we adjust the scientific theories, the explanations of what we are learning, in order to better explain the world around us.  Think of any field and think about the changes from 100 years ago, or 50, or 25, hell even just 5 years ago.  We learn, we adjust.  Nothing is carved in stone!  That's one of the main strengths of science and scientific methodology.

But of course any change, small or large, is portrayed by the Discovery Institute as proof that science doesn't work. In this post "Another Day, Another “Rewrite” on Human Origins", you can see it in the title, without bothering the read the article itself.  Here's the closing paragraph:

"The more that experts on human evolution know about our origins, the less they seem to actually understand. Given evolutionary presuppositions, the direction of research and learning is not from lesser to greater clarity, but just the opposite. The result is, as Scientific American more candidly puts it, a “mess” (“Ancient Fossils from Morocco Mess Up Modern Human Origins”). If that is the case, maybe the problem is with the presuppositions."

First off, I have to ask  . . . which is it?  Is the scientific community hidebound, parochial, and too steeped in their own righteousness to examine mew ideas . . . or, as the DI claims here, so open to new ideas that we really don't know anything?

Think about it, how many times has the DI whined and complained because 'Big Science' doesn't let anyone play because they have it all sewn up?  That was one of the messages from that abortion "Expelled:  No Intelligence Allowed!", it's also been a constant theme from the DI as they portray themselves as champions of science because they are willing to consider all ideas, including their religious ones.  Yet as real science learns more and more, we change our explanations pretty often.  

So which is it?  Are we too locked into 'presuppositions' or too close-minded because no one outside of very specific religious circles gives Intelligent Design serious consideration.  You sure can't tell from reading posts, books, and articles from the DI.  

The DI also seems to have a problem with English.  Here is the definition of 'presupposition' :

"a thing tacitly assumed beforehand at the beginning of a line of argument or course of action." (Google: Presupposition)

Is a scientific theory a 'Presupposition'?  That's where the typical word games of the DI try and take us.  Theories are explanations based on the current state of our understanding AND are subject to change.  There is no 'tacit assumption', if that were so they would never change.  But . . . when you look at the explanations offered by religion, what changes there?  Don't Creationists 'presuppose' answers before even examining the question?  Isn't that exactly what the DI is guilty of, presupposing an intelligent cause for no other reason than they believe it to be so.  They offer no evidence other than their presupposition.

So, science is bad because it changes, yet religion is good because it doesn't change . . . yet religious answers to scientific questions are worthless whereas scientific answers actually work.  So there you have it folks, if you don't want to change, join a religion.  But when you hit the switch for your TV things might not work well because the high priests at the power plants are busy praying instead of learning how to run the place.

Do Creationists Understand How Science Works? Apparently Not!

Apparently not. One of the Discovery Institute (DI) talking heads has a new book out, and in a 'video conversation' he claims that "Fossil Finds Only Confuse Human Origins".

But my issue is more serious than that bit of misleading labeling -- I mean 'video conversation'?  Just what is 'conversational' about the video?.  His words characterized my issue:

"The problem with such fossil finds is that they never provide the lasting clarity about human origins . . ."

Now, for years the DI has been claiming that science is too hidebound, that is they are too resistant to new idea . . . specifically Intelligent Design.  Think it through, did you see the DI supported 'Expelled' pseudo-mockumentary?  Their moniker of 'Big Science' to try and create this feeling that there is some huge secret monolithic organization controlling scientific thought.  How about the DI developed 'academic freedom bills' which have nothing to do with academic freedom, but are designed to cast doubt on actual science without offering a viable alternative.

And yet here we have Wells whining that new discoveries only confuse things and that:

" . . . each discovery complicates matters even more than they were complicated before."

This particular post from none-other-than little davey 'klingy' klinghoffer, closes with:

"If Darwinian theory accurately characterized the history of life and satisfactorily identified the engines of biological evolution, it would provide more clarity as time went by, not less. Don’t you think?"

Actually when I read this I saw a common theme (e.g.: Teaching People to Mistrust Science and If You Don't Know It All, Then You Don't Know Anything . . . Really? are a couple of examples that I've commented on it before). That if science cannot answer every question to an absolute degree of certainty, it should be tossed aside.  That's garbage, plain and ordinary garbage.  It's not even the creative kind of garbage we've all come to expect form the DI.

One of science's strengths is its ability to change as we learn new things.  I've said it before, scientific theories are like snapshots in time.  They are the best explanation we have today based on our current state of knowledge.  Tomorrow, as we learn more, we not only have the ability to adjust our thinking and theories, but we have the desire to do so.  If this were not the case, we would still be living in caves -- if we dared set foot in a cave in the first place.

I can see it now, a group of neanderthals standing in the rain, looking at a cave.  The ones with more forethought are trying to move into the cave and out of the rain.  But there is always at least one in the group who wants to stand out in the rain, because they don't know everything about the cave to begin with.  It might be wet inside, there might be an animal in it, it might even be dark -- or the ultimate whine 'the spirits might not like it'.  There's always at least one who refuses to even look inside the cave to get a better understanding.  Who needs understanding when you think you already have the answers!

Science is a process, and Wells' comments further convince me that the DI doesn't understand the process or how it works.  If they understood the process, they wouldn't say such foolish things.  And if they understood how the process worked, they wouldn't whine so often about not being taken seriously -- they would know why no one takes them seriously.  But admitting such would dry up their funding from religious sources, which is nearly all of their funding.  I mean if anyone was after actual scientific results, the DI is the last place they would go asking questions.

I do have a question for klingy and Wells . . . which is it?  Is science so locked into its dogma that it cannot evaluate new ideas . . . or do new ideas only confuse and complicate things?  So which is it?  I have a suggestion.  It's not that science is closed to new ideas, what they are closed to is religion and pseudo-science masquerading as if was actual science.  If Wells thinks new knowledge confuses things, I can understand that -- after all how much change does a Creationist ever admit too!

So There is Nothing Religious About Intelligent Design (Part VII)

Press release announcing a talk by the Discovery Institute's Stephen C. Meyer, you know the one that writes those philosophy books they try and pass off as science.  Now it seems to me that if Meyer and his cohorts were actually trying to distinguish themselves from their religious underpinnings they might  . . . oh I don't know . . . maybe talk to audiences that aren't just as inherently religious as they are?  But that's just me, I guess.  I have discussed this a bit (here, here, here, here, here, and here)

This talk at at Trinity Classical Academy, which is defined by their own website as:

Their Mission: "  The Mission of Trinity Classical Academy is to offer a challenging education grounded in the Christian faith and the Classical tradition to produce young men and women of virtue, wisdom, purpose, and courage."

Their Statement of Faith have nine statements including:

"We believe the Bible to be the only inerrant, authoritative Word of God."

 Of course the press release says all sorts of nice things about Meyer.  It does say a few hilarious things [My comments in braces and italics]

• ". . .Meyer will share his vast knowledge of the evidence-based scientific theory that certain features of living systems can only be explained by an intelligent cause" [So I guess you have to already be a believer before he will share his vast knowledge.  How long have we been asking for any actual science when it comes to ID and none can be found.]
• ". . .Meyer was best known was an Aug. 2004 controversial review essay in the Smithsonian Institution-affiliated peer-reviewed biology journal Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington." [Better known as the Sternberg Peer Review Controversy, but they forgot to mention to results of the controversy and how the journal repudiated the article.  I wonder why?  I guess it would be less than flattering to bring up that particular abject failure.]
• "In 2008, he appeared with Ben Stein in the theatrical-released documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed." [Yes, he appeared, but do they discuss how that particular mockumentary was received?  No, too embarrassing, but you can read an interesting review here, it's nothing for Meyer to brag about!]

I really have no argument if any school wants Meyer to come and talk.  I just wish his talk would be framed is such a way to place it within context.  Passing it off as science is inappropriate.  It is , at best, philosophy and theology.  He'll be preaching to a captive audience and reinforcing the religious aspects of Intelligent Design.  Guess I really can't complain about that.  After all the more he has talks like this, the harder it is for them to sell any distinction between ID and Creationism.

Are supporters of Evolution concealing information?

How many times have we heard of the huge conspiracy that Creationism/Intelligent Design are being held back by 'Big Science'.  I remember comments along those line in Ben Stein's abortion "No Intelligence Allowed", I've seen comment after comments online in posts in too many places to list.  Just yesterday I posted about an article on Uncommon Descent that was quite explicit in it's accusation. . . well, here, you read it:

"Darwin’s followers have spent so much time stamping out dissent, they haven’t noticed the looming pile of contrary evidence, let alone done much to address it."(Creationists know more about Evolution?)

Now, when asked for examples of this 'stamping out of dissent', I have yet to get a credible answer from anyone.  Most often you get the stories of Guillermo Gonzales, John Freshwater, or Richard Sternberg . . . of course anyone familiar with any of those cases know they weren't silenced in any form.  Just as a reminder, Gonzalez was denied tenure for failing in his responsibilities, Freshwater was fired for abusing students AND teaching religion instead of science, and the infamous Sternberg Peer Review Controversy.   I hear about the Discovery Institute whining about not being able to be published in credible science journals, but are they actually submitting to those journals? If they were, why would they have to put forth their own journal? 

In any event, I have yet to see any credible evidence that Scientists are trying to silence anything about Creationism/Intelligent Design.  Oh yes, they are trying to keep it from being taught as a scientific theory in science class, just like they would argue against tarot cards and astrology.  But any credible examples or trying to stamp out dissent?  Not a one!

However, is the opposite true?  Here is what happened just this evening:

I have mentioned before that I get news alerts from Google about a number of subjects that I am interested in.  This evening I received this alert:

The link in the article was to: https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message2635793/pg1&ct=ga&cd=CAEYACoTNzUzODM3MDc0OTczNDk0OTg0ODIaYWQ4NjM4ZTJlYTNjYThmYjpjb206ZW46VVM&usg=AFQjCNHINvUHW0ybI4IU01K6ue-7p7CF9A

I clicked on the link and got a page that surprised me.  I was tempted to post a copy of the page, but that would violate the terms of use for that particular website.  So, just let me say when I clicked I ended up at a site that called itself  'Godlike Productions' with a message that said: "Sorry, that message is no longer in the database."

My first instinct was to think the link from Google was bad.  But then I looked at the site.  "Godlike Productions" and decided to dig a touch deeper.  So, I did what anyone would do and did a search on the site for Kenneth Miller.  I figured that should get me to the right place.  The search returned no results.  Hmmmm!

Hmm, now I am more than a little suspicious.  I'm familiar with the Google Alerts after using them for years and found them to be very reliable.  So, just out of curiosity, I search for 'Intelligent Design', still hopeful of  finding the original post, but my hope was much less than my first search effort.  There were a bunch of data returned from that search, but funny, all of it looked like it was favorable to Intelligent Design. Imagine that!

OK, let's recap.  Scientists get accused all the time of suppressing Creationism and Intelligent Design and yet when a website called 'Godlike Productions' apparently published a comment critical to ID and a link to a video by Dr. Kenneth Miller . . .and after a brief period of time, albeit long enough to get picked up by one of Google searches, it disappears completely.  

Anyone else find that more than amusing?  I guess the real question should be does anyone else find this surprising?  I would love to hear some feedback on that!

What's wrong with being 'Right'?

Over the past few years of blogging and commenting on the political anti-evolution sentiments I've come across a great many people who seem to think a number of . . . well erroneous things about this country. One of the most common is how this country is based on Christianity, and how that seems to rationalize some pretty bizarre behavior. Here is a quote I would like folks like kennie ham and others who are currently supporting the Christian Right. To folks who listen to right-wing pundits like Bill O'Rielly and Rush Limbaugh, or think Ann Coulter has anything useful to say. Right-wing conservative pandering politicians should pay attention as well.

"The national government will maintain and defend the foundations on which the power of our nation rests. It will offer strong protection to Christianity as the very basis of our collective morality.

Today Christians stand at the head of our country. We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit. We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theatre, and in the press - in short, we want to burn out the poison of immorality which has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of liberal excess during recent years."

They are the words of Adolf Hitler from the address he gave after coming to power in Germany (from "My New Order, The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, 1922-1939", Vol. 1, pp. 871-872, Oxford University Press, London, 1942).

Does the source of the quote surprise you? Now you can try and rationalize this away all you want. But my real target for this post are those people who keep trying to tie Darwin to Hitler and Nazi eugenics. The next time that stupid little thought occurs to you, come back and re-read this one and remember just what Hitler was all about! You cannot justify tying a scientific concept for your own political purposes, remember you need to more than just make an unsupported claim. When you fail, like David Klinghoffer, Ben Stein, and Kennie Ham, you cast more doubt on your own belief systems because of your transparent attack.

Expelled Exposed

I know, I know, I thought I was done with any comments about the Ben Stein mockumentary, but a link was brought to my attention that I just had to pass on. It's the NCSE "Expelled Exposed Playlist". It lists 4 videos about how Expelled is not a documentary at all, but anti-science propaganda aimed at creating the appearance of controversy where there is none.

Enjoy!

I will try and stop more posts about Expelled, but sometimes I just can't help myself :-)

Exploring Our Matrix: Partial Knowledge, Totally Dangerous

Exploring Our Matrix: Partial Knowlege, Totally Dangerous
I've been wrestling with a post on representations and misrepresentations of Darwin's theory for a while now. I mean Darwin catches a ton of flack for things that he never did, said, or caused. For example the whole Darwin = Nazi connection little bennie stein turned into a very inaccurate mockumentary, or how quickly completely unsupportable arguments get passed around as if they were [pardon the pun] gospel. I mean how many times has someone asked about Evolution violating the laws of physics, tornadoes in junkyards, or the ridiculous 'odds' argument. While I have danced around the edges of it, Dr. James McGrath hit the nail on the head in his Exploring Our Matrix blog post "Partial Knowledge, Total Dangerous".

I know I tend to get a bit verbose, I mean why use one word when 10 will do. Call it my Brooklyn upbringing, or the fact they sent me to 4 years of HS English which is just to get us able to communicate with the rest of the country. But whatever the reason I stand in awe of folks who can take a very complex idea and boil it down to its barest essentials and present it in an easy to understand post. Needless to say I am impressed! You have to click over and read his post. Here are just a few teasers to whet your appetite:

Darwin is rightly getting a lot of attention at the present, but we should not neglect the legacy of misuse of Darwin's theory.

. . . people have appealed to Darwin's powerful insight to justify all sorts of contrasting viewpoints: Communism and unbridled Capitalism, abandonment of religion and belief in our spiritual evolution, racism and the inevitability of progress.

Such views don't require Darwin's theory of evolution, and if they appeal to it as justification, it is but another sign of the ignorance of those making the appeal.

The only force that seems to be universally corrosive is to appeal to scientific theories in illegitimate ways to justify our instinctive and emotional responses, our ideologies, biases and bigotries, and to give them a veneer of certainty and objectivity.

OK, if those snippets don't drive you over there I have no idea what will! I've linked over to his blog a number of times, and even if this is your first time, I think you will understand why I do! Clear, concise, not only easy to understand, but intelligently written. You never walk away from one of his posts scratching your head on where he stands!

If you don't know who the Professor is, he is an Associate Professor of Religion at Butler University, Indianapolis, Indiana. His blog should be on your regular reading list, as it certainly is on mine. Remember the name, "Exploring Our Matrix".

Expelled: and Quote Mining

Like most intelligent and educated people in the world, I have not bought a copy of little Bennie Stein's mockumentary "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed". I have seen it ad blogged about it here and here. I also briefly discussed an example of Quote Mining as part of the film here. However the producers and distributors went one better. Apparently they really think the American Public is completely stupid! Because now included with each DVD is a book, well it's been described as more like a pamphlet.

Here is a review of the little collection of quote-mines from the blog of Joshua Zelinsky. His blog is one I am adding to my lists. It's called Religion, Sets, and Politics 's blog on three things that you can't talk about in polite company. His post, called Expelled and Quote Mines is a terrific read. He dives into why people quote-mine and caught what might be a fallacy on my part. I always seem to assume a quote-miner is being dishonest, but I guess it is possible that they are just victims of poor reading comprehension . . . but I refuse to believe anything coming out of the Discovery Institute is accidental. Their quote-mining is too deliberate to be anything other than dishonesty.

More on Quote Mining

Interesting Blog post over on Palladium-Item, Mining for Quotes, by RationalPortion.

The most interesting part is how to tell if you are reading quote-mined nuggets:

1. Is the quote being used in a way that incriminates the source of the quote? (i.e. An outspoken supporter of 2nd Amendment rights being quoted as saying something against gun ownership)
2. The usage of an ellipsis in the middle of the quote (i.e. "Despite what researchers learned of the links between cancer and smoking ... cancer was not caused by cigarette smoking alone.")
3. "Broken quotes" -- quotes which are split into smaller pieces and arranged like Frankenstein's monster, held together with narrative. (i.e. Senator Clinton said that she supports "withdrawing from Iraq" as quickly as possible because "Iran is a dangerous threat to be reckoned with.")
4. Poor or absent citation of source. Attributing the quote to someone by name, but not specifying the specific source of the quote.

Excellent rules of thumb for those of us constantly battling anyone who quote mines, especially those who quote-mine out of context. If you find me violating any of these, please bring it to my attention. Now I'm going to have to go back through all my blog posts and see if i missed linking to the original source!

Basic bottom line stuff, because I tend to be a bottom-line kind of guy. Just because someone puts quotes around it doesn't mean it's actually a valid quote and it doesn't mean they are using within the context of the source. So I mean this, don't even take my word for it! When I, or anyone else quote someone, go to the source material and check it out for yourself! Read the quote in context, read what the Author was trying to get across, get a handle on the meaning and intentions of the words -- then you will have reached an understanding.

And of course when you catch someone quote-mining, call them on it! Don't let them get away with it!

Scientific American Top 10!

OK, I know I said I was posting my last word on the Ben Stein abortion "Expelled:", but I can't resist this one. Scientific American listed their Top 10 Readers' Choice stories for the year, and slipping into 4th place are "Six Things in Expelled That Ben Stein Doesn't Want You to Know." A couple I have already mentioned, like the criminal mis-quote of Charles Darwin and the staging of his 'speeches'. But I certainly enjoyed the recap of a few of the problems in the mockumentary:

1) Expelled quotes Charles Darwin selectively to connect his ideas to eugenics and the Holocaust.

2) Ben Stein's speech to a crowded auditorium in the film was a setup.

3) Scientists in the film thought they were being interviewed for a different movie.

4) The ID-sympathetic researcher whom the film paints as having lost his job at the Smithsonian Institution was never an employee there.

5) Science does not reject religious or "design-based" explanations because of dogmatic atheism.

6) Many evolutionary biologists are religious and many religious people accept evolution.

The final word on Expelled: The Mockumentary

Roger Ebert, film critic, reviewed Ben Stein's "Expelled: . . ." and you have to read it for yourself:

Win Ben Stein's Mind

Now I will admit I don't always agree with Mr. Ebert, I mean "12 Monkeys" and "13 King's", but often I find his reviews interesting and insightful. Today my hat is off to this absolutely scathing review of Stein's foolish film. It dives into areas I would have never thought to look. He turns over rocks that only someone in the movie industry would think to turn over. I am humbled at his review and also laughed through much of it. But not his closing comment. No one could have said it better!

"It is not difficult for me to describe how you made me feel by exploiting the deaths of millions of Jews in support of your argument for a peripheral Christian belief. It fills me with contempt."

Quote Mining

Outstanding post by GumbyTheCat, another blogger sincerely interested in preserving and improving science education. His topic is one that seems to plague evolution supporters in the Blogsphere and places like Topix, and that is "Quote Mining."

We've all seen it, quotes from popular figures taken out of context. I know I mentioned when I posted a review of Expelled that I was not happy with the way they used what was portrayed as a quote from Charles Darwin. Gumby caught that one as well. I said I would be posting more on it after seeing the movie again, but I have yet to do so. Gumby got it down, so here it is:

Ben Stein quoted Charles Darwin:

With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. Hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.

Made it sound like Charles Darwin was supporting and encouraging Eugenics. But let's place the whole quote in context. The parts Ben Stein used are in bold.

With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed. The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil.

This should be criminal! By pulling only particular pieces of a quote they completely changed the meaning and used it to justify the most absurd part of their mockumentary, where Ben Stein blamed the Holocaust on Charles Darwin. But read the actual quote and you will realize that nothing can be further form the truth. BTW, even The Anti-Defamation League has disagreed with Little Benny and called what he did a form of Holocaust Denial!

Sadly this is a common tactic, as we could see by the recent election. So I am going to borrow one more piece from Gumby and reiterate his final comment here:

The next time someone throws you a quote in support of their argument, never take it at face value. Take the time to Google or otherwise research it, and sometimes you'll find out that the quote has purposely been totally taken out of context. And if that indeed turns out to be the case, don't hesitate to publicly embarrass the person who tried unsuccessfully to pull a fast one on you. It's fun!

Please feel free to post your favorite examples of quote-mines here.

Addendum, I have been quote-mined :-)

A Topix troll named 'wilson' tried to explain evolution by using a completely blind chance mechanism. Kinda like using a tossing a dice with several million facets. Well he used part of my response to make it sound like I completely disagree with chance having any role in Evolution.

His quote-mine from nearly a month ago:

"Random Mutation is not based on chance, Natural Selection is not based on chance, Sexual Selection is not based on chance, Genetic drift is not based on chance, allotropic speciation is not based on chance ... and the list goes on."

However in context, here is what I was answering to, and what I actually responded with:


Wilson wrote:

Baloney! I don't "have the evolutionary view!"
You expect me to believe that? You have absolutely no way of proving it.
Molecular biologist James Watson called our brain “the most complex thing we have yet discovered in our universe.” And neurologist Richard Restak said:“Nowhere in the known universe is there anything even remotely resembling it.”
A scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said:“Today’s computers are not even close to a 4-year-old human in their ability to see, talk, move, or use common sense.... It has been estimated that the information processing capacity of even the most powerful supercomputer is equal to the nervous system of a snail—a tiny fraction of the power available to the supercomputer inside [your] skull.”
http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/...
Your conviction is that all of this came about just by chance, and now you have my challenge to prove it.
Wilson.

And my original response:

Still bobbing and weaving I see. But you let in too many blows.

One more time, with feeling. No one, but a poorly educated rabid creationalist, claims that the human brain came about by chance. NO ONE in evolutionary circles. Evolution is not a toss of the dice! How many times do people have to explain it to you. But then you get caught in yet another corner of your own building and fall back on arguments already dismantled.

Random Mutation is not based on chance, Natural Selection is not based on chance, Sexual Selection is not based on chance, Genetic drift is not based on chance, allotropic speciation is not based on chance ... and the list goes on.

It's your incredible poor understanding of evolution and the theory of evolution that gets revealed every time you make comments like this.

Just today wilson posts this:

Hohio,
You said that chance does not play a role in mutations, or something to that effect.
Remember this:
IF NOT BY CHANCE, THEN BY DESIGN
You said:
"Random Mutation is not based on chance, Natural Selection is not based on chance, Sexual Selection is not based on chance, Genetic drift is not based on chance, allotropic speciation is not based on chance ... and the list goes on."
Well, check this out, Hohio:
“We call these events [mutations] ACCIDENTAL; we say they are random occurrences. And since they constitute the only possible source of modification in the genetic text, itself the sole repository of the organism's hereditary structures, it necessarily follows that CHANCE ALONE is at the source of every innovation, of all creation in the biosphere. PURE CHANCE, absolutely free but BLIND, at the very root of the stupendous edifice of evolution: this central concept of modern biology is no longer one among other possible or even conceivable hypotheses. It is today the SOLE conceivable hypothesis, the only one that squares with observed and tested fact. AND NOTHING WARRANTS THE SUPPOSITION - OR THE HOPE - THAT ON THIS SCORE OUR POSITION IS LIKELY EVER TO BE REVISED.”(Jacques Monod)
Hohio, tell me that Monod was wrong! If not by chance in nature, then how? By design?
Wilson

And here, just for grins is my response:

The context I was responding to was that your description of evolution as completely arbitrary chance wasn't the right one. You were treating evolution like a completely random toss of a dice with several million facets -- which is WRONG.

That even random mutation follows the laws of molecular binding and particle physics, so it is not based on chance, that many of the combinations of DNA cannot happen. Natural Selection is certainly not a chance driven change, since the selection is based on environment ... the list goes on. Try reading the context of my post rather than quote-mine me. I have said it many times, read for comprehension, not quote-mines.

Never once did I deny that chance has a role, but no evolutionary mechanism is based on chance. I had any number of other posts showing that while chance does play a role, it is not the role people like wilson ascribe to it. There is a great deal within evolution and evolutionary theory that do not have a component of chance at all. But wilson dismisses all of them either because he is

• Un-educated and actually believes all of evolution is based on chance
• Dishonest because he knows it's not and tries to make it seem like it is to add unsupported validity to his comments
• A troll who is just after an emotional response.
• Or all of the above :-)
  

Expelled -- Bribery? Phony or real?

When I first heard this I was hoping it was phony, but so far no rebuttals from the Ben Stein or Expelled camp, so now I am not so sure.

In this and several other articles the producers of "Expelled" are bribing fundamentalist Christian churches and schools in order to drive up attendance. Read for yourself "Producers of Expelled trying to bribe Christian schools into encouraging, bribing or forcing their students to see their movie", "ID rakes it in and gets a rake in the face", and ""Joel's Army" group bribes churches to raise attendance figures for creationist film".

Many films offer all sorts of deals to specific demographics in order to get people to pay to see their film, but this should border on illegal! Take a look:

Your school will be awarded a donation based upon the number of ticket stubs you turn in (see submission instructions in FAQ section). That structure is as follows:

0-99 ticket stubs submitted = $5 per ticket stub
100-299 ticket stubs submitted = $1,000 donated to your school
300-499 ticket stubs submitted = $2,500 donated to your school
500 ticket stubs submitted = $5,000 donated to your school
Each school across the nation will be competing for the top honor of submitting the most ticket stubs with that school having their $5,000 donation matched for a total donation of $10,000!

Now if I were an enterprising school I would go to the theater and ask for the stubs and submit them to get a check. But it goes further, take at look at "getExpelled.com"

What is the Expelled Challenge?

To engage Christian schools and home school groups to get as many students, parents, and faculty from their school/group out to see Ben Stein’s new movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (opening in theaters April 2008).

Here are some suggestions as to how to do that:

Organize a school field trip and invite parents to attend as well.

Offer extra credit to your students to go on their own time.

What is the reward?

The reward is two-fold. First, your students will encounter firsthand the debate between Intelligent Design and evolution, and also the importance of knowing what you believe and standing firm in what you believe. Second, by collecting the ticket stubs from your students, faculty, staff and parents, you could be eligible to win a $10,000 donation.

Each school/home group that registers through the link below and submits their ticket stubs will be eligible for a donation as funds permit, but the school that submits the most ticket stubs will win a donation of $10,000!

Please click on the link at the bottom of this page to register your school to take the Expelled Challenge and tell us how many ticket stubs you think your school will submit. Registering is very important as only schools who register will be eligible for donated funds. Please note, if funds are available, they will be given according to the order in which the schools are registered. Deadline for registering is March 28, 2008.

I really hope this is phony, but so far no one has rebutted it. Hollywood should weigh in!