The Discovery Institute's Denyse O'Leary is at it again, claiming that it's not Darwin's world. This is nothing more than a classic straw-man argument. For those of you not sure of what that means, it's when you build a nonsensical argument, destroy it, and then claim some sort of victory. Sorta like pseudo-voodoo, which explains Denyse perfectly.
Her latest whine "Natural Genetic Engineering? Natural Popcorn? Or Something More Important?" over on the DI's Evolution News and Views site, or is that Views and News? Since they rarely report any actual news without putting their own spin, it's hard to tell the difference between the 'news' and the 'views'. I wonder if Denyse also writes for Fox Pseudo-News? Anyway, she's busy trying to marginalize Darwin once again by naming a few of the things we have hard the temerity to learn since Darwin first published. Her straw-man is pretty obvious. She's trying to marginalize Darwin as a key figure in the history of Biology. She's not the only one at the DI trying this foolish tactic. How often have various DI talking heads posted about Darwin being the root of Racism or how Darwin caused WWII. All an effort to marginalize Darwin so they can try and slide their own pseudo-scientific ideas into a perceived vacuum.
Yes, Denyse, since 1861 the science of Biology has moved well ahead of where Darwin was. Charles Darwin and Natural Selection is at least one chapter in any decent biology text (I would recommend 'Biology' by Ken Miller and Joe Levine), but it's not the only chapter. It's one piece of many pieces, a key piece, but not the only piece.
Have you ever assembled a puzzle, for example one of those 1000 piece puzzles of the intricately colored garden. You tend to work at it for hours and hours and at some point you find one particular piece and suddenly a large part of the puzzle comes together. That's what Charles Darwin did. He didn't finish the puzzle, but he found a piece that brought meaning to many other pieces. Since then a great many pieces have been added by other scientists. Unlike a puzzle, when it comes to science, you have no idea how many pieces there are or what the finished product will look like.
Since Darwin's day there are a number of things we have learned. First of all, there are a hell of a lot more than 1000 pieces in Biology. We also learned that for every piece we do find, it seems to expand the puzzle as new knowledge not only answers some questions but tends to cause more questions to be asked. Perfectly fitting pieces are pretty rare, most pieces start out quite provisionally (hypotheses) as as support builds they fit better and better (theories).
To continue the puzzle analogy, what Denyse, and her masters at the Discovery Institute, have been trying to do is remove Darwin's piece, or pieces, in hopes that the rest of the puzzle will simply collapse. What they have found that removing a piece isn't as simple as claiming it no longer fits, or trying to paint Darwin into roles that do not apply -- they have to be able to back that up . . . which they have failed repeatedly. And Denyse, pointing out things that have been learned since Darwin does not diminish Darwin's contributions in any way.
One of the things they fail to understand is that their desire to remove Darwin's piece and substitute one of their own is not workable without their piece's ability to fit as precisely as Darwin's does today. To date, their piece is like a broken tinker toy connector and they are trying to force it to fit into a 1000 piece puzzle of a garden scene. Forcing it with school boards and politicians doesn't work, not that they will ever admit that. What they are missing is science. Biology has changed a lot in 150+ years, Intelligent Design arguments have not changed much since William Paley's famous use of the Watchmaker analogy. Maybe Denyse will make more sense next time, but I expect her to meet my already low expectations.
Wednesday, September 16, 2015
DI's Denyse O'Leary sounds puzzled!
Sunday, September 7, 2014
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:
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!
Monday, April 13, 2009
Two Drivers of the Evolution Debate
Here is an article of a talk given by Ken Miller, "Brown University professor breaks down evolution debate". If you aren't familiar with Dr. Miller, I would be surprised. Not only has he been publishing books, maintains a very interesting website (Ken Miller's Evolution Page), and testified at the Dover trial, but he's been taking on ID proponents for years. One of the things Dr. Miller is known for is that he is a Christian and accepts a more theistic answer to the whole 'why we are here' question. He does not attribute specific actions to a deity when it comes to biology, but seems to have no trouble with God in the mix, so to speak.
Two particular statements in this talk stood out to me, one I know I have spoken about here in my blog on numerous occasions, the other I'm not sure how well I've talked on it. Dr. Miller describes two things that are used to drive people away from science and evolution. The first is the one I have talked on ad infinitum, "intentional distortion of the facts".
How many times have folks pointed out to others that they are mischaracterizing evolutionary theory. That the things they are saying simply aren't true. Everything from mis-stating the second law of thermodynamics, quoting out of context about a supposed dearth of transitional fossils, and over-emphasizing the role of randomness in Random Mutation. These things either show a lack of education on the part of the person who uttered them, or a deliberate distortion of the truth. When it comes from folks like William Dembski, Michael Behe, Casey Luskin, and others form the Discovery institute, I have to put it in the 'deliberate' column. These are not uneducated people, yet they say things specifically designed to distort other's understanding of evolution. When they come from people like Ann Coulter and Ken Ham, I do put it down as a very poor education and understanding of evolutionary theory -- although I think there is a lot of deliberate misleading there as well.
The second driver of this debate is one used over and over again by the Discovery Institute and others, simply put 'fear'.
"The "fear of evolution itself," or the argument that evolution takes away all significance for humans because they become just a product of chance, is the second weapon, he [Ken Miller] said."This is an emotional argument that causes some religious people to campaign against evolution, and science, not because they think it is in error, but they think that supporting such an idea is against their religious beliefs. This is an incredible manipulation of people! Creating and maintaining this artificial dichotomy, taking advantage of someone religious beliefs in such a way should be criminal!
Looking at both of these two drivers, a deliberate campaign of mis-information and using the fear of something demonstrates to me that anyone listening to these arguments needs to get the facts! Don't be mislead and don't fear something you don't truly understand. If you want to disagree with Evolution, first learn what evolution is really about. It will also go a long way in combating any fear over science and how it impacts your belief. If people did this, i think we would see a drop in the number of so-called academic freedom legislation, a significant drop in donations to the Discovery Institute, and a nice drop in attendance at Ken Ham's Folly (The Creation Museum of Kentucky). I can't see anything wrong with any of that!
The article had one other quote from Dr. Miller, some very good words:
"A material science devoted to the study of nature need not be hostile to religious faith, nor must such faith be hostile to science,"
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