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Friday, May 31, 2013

Freedom to Follow the Evidence without Philosophical Restrictions.

Let's look at a recent post on Evolutin News * Views (sic): From Discovering Intelligent Design: Opposition from the Scientific Establishment. As the title suggests, this is an excerpt from one of the books being heavily promoted by the IDiots.

They have a problem. How do the IDiots explain why 99.9% of biologists oppose Intelligent Design Creationism? It's because they all have a materialistic bias that prevents them from following the evidence wherever it may lead. Read this bit ...
ID challenges a reigning scientific paradigm. But as sociologist Steve Fuller says, ID is not anti-science, but rather anti-establishment. ID theorists want more scientific investigation, not less. They simply want the freedom to follow the evidence without harassment or philosophical restrictions.

An ID-based view of science promises to open new avenues of scientific investigation. Without materialist paradigms governing science, perhaps more scientists would have sought function for structures like "junk" DNA and vestigial organs, rather than assuming they were non-functional evolutionary relics.
Let me remind you that the presence of junk DNA in our genome was not anticipated by those who believed in the importance of natural selection. What happened was that the evidence became too substantive to ignore so scientists had to accept the presence of junk DNA in spite of the fact that most of them expected selection to eliminate it.

Now if you insist on believing in an intelligent design paradigm then you simply can't follow the evidence wherever it may lead because junk DNA isn't part of your worldview. In other words, the example used by the IDiots in this post is the exact opposite of the point they are making.

Oops!

Now you know why we call them IDiots.


18 comments :

Jeffrey Shallit said...

"Harassment" = pointing out the lack of evidence, the jumping to conclusions, the bogus mathematics, etc., of ID advocates.

Anonymous said...

Your belief is very strong, but the evidence is lacking... Too bad you are a such a "religious" man....

Diogenes said...

It's true. None of the IDiots can even so much as describe the evidence for Junk DNA because it goes against their religious beliefs.

Consider the recent paper on the bladderwort genome. There are other species in the same genus or its sister genus that have enormously larger genomes.

Would any IDiot support doing an ENCODE-type experiment to tabulate all the biological "activities" in the relatives of the bladderwort with vastly larger genomes? Never. Such research could in principle show that 80% or more of the large-genomed relatives of the bladderwort have chemical activity or "function" by the same pathetic re-definition of "function" utilized by IDiots of the discovery Institute. This would raise the question: if "activity" is the same thing as "function", why can the bladderwort get by with a tiny genome while its relatives have vastly larger ones, with 80% or more of the genome active or "functional" by the IDiot definition?

They'd never support that research-- the IDiots would stand in the laboratory door yelling, "Stop doing research, you atheists!"

Dembski told us what would happen if IDiots were in charge of science labs.

William Dembski: "If I ever became the president of a university (per impossibile), I would dissolve the biology department and divide the faculty with tenure that I couldn’t get rid of into two new departments: those who know engineering and how it applies to biological systems would be assigned to the new “Department of Biological Engineering”; the rest, and that includes the evolutionists, would be consigned to the new “Department of Nature Appreciation” [“Truly Programmable Matter”, William Dembski, UD, January 10, 2007]

The IDiots have been yelling, "Stop doing research, you atheists!" for decades now, mostly ignored, except where they have power over right-wing politicians.

We know what motivates them. Edward Sisson, ID lawyer, explained it.

Edward Sisson: "I submit that it is to promote deference to scientists that the scientific establishment makes and distributes in our schools “Darwin’s acid,” an acid that corrodes the allegiance of students to any other class of truth-pronouncers except scientists. That is the reason they insist that high-school students must learn this theory...so that deference to scientists becomes a foundational assumption of their mental make-up before they are old enough...

This is a serious structural flaw in the conduct of modern science... Preserving the preeminence of a naturalistic, non-intelligent, non-religious explanation for the origin and diversification of life serves the sociological function of privileging the scientific establishment as the group vested by our society with the right to pronounce fundamental truths about the physical world... displacing and keeping in check the religious establishment... which formerly competed effectively for that social role.

In short, acceptance by the public of the truth of unintelligent evolution gives to scientists a greater share of power, prestige, and income that otherwise would go to the religious. The success of the scientific establishment in this debate has enabled it to humiliate the religious..." [“Darwin or Lose” by Edward Sisson, Touchstone, v. 17, issue 6, July/Aug. 2004]

It's about all the "power, prestige, and income that otherwise would go to the religious" that they, the religious, want and think they will get, once they've gotten rid of all the pesky research standing in their way.

Diogenes said...

Cherkavsky: "the evidence is lacking" the IDiot wrote in a comment devoid of evidence.

Anonymous said...

Do you have evidence? Give me one I can't deny and I will become your believer... You don't have it because it all fails at the beginning and continues through the rest of your beliefs... The beginning kills you but you have a lot of faith... blind faith... you must deserve it I think...

Robert Byers said...

Said it before but what biologists think about origins is irrelevant. they don't have any mnore insight then anyone else. That is thier subject, biology, deals with biological life before our eyes. Akk biologists do is look at living things and so their parts and mechanisms.
Yet the origin of biology or the origin of important but unobserved change in biology has nothing to do with biologists save those who study the subject. A biologist is like the driver of a car and not the mechanic.
In fact there is no or very little contribution by biologists to origin subjects. There is nothing in present biology suggesting its origins.
This is why evolutionary biology must lean on lines of reasoning and fossils/geology to mahe hypothesis about origins.
At best biologists know a little about biology before our eyes here.
Why should they know about its origins? Only a few get paid to seriously study that and possibly not the sharpest cips off the block as of today.

Mikkel Rumraket Rasmussen said...

Right, okay.. gotcha. Thank you for your participation, we all must submit to this onslaught of clear thought. Praise Allah!

Mikkel Rumraket Rasmussen said...

Well, if you start with the conclusion that the evidence leads to The Intelligent Designer(god), then following it "wherever it leads" is guaranteed to get you where you want to go.

This [the intelligent design movement] isn’t really, and never has been, a debate about science, it’s about religion and philosophy.” - Phillip Johnson, World Magazine, 30 November 1996

My thesis is that all disciplines find their completion in Christ and cannot be properly understood apart from Christ.” - William Dembski, ‘Intelligent Design’, p 206

Larry Moran said...

Said it before but what biologists think about origins is irrelevant. they don't have any mnore insight then anyone else.

Do you honestly believe this or are you just trying to look like an IDiot?

In fact there is no or very little contribution by biologists to origin subjects. There is nothing in present biology suggesting its origins.

This is the sort of thing I expect from a twelve-year-old creationist who has never studied biology. How old are you?

The whole truth said...

"and that includes the evolutionists, would be consigned to the new “Department of Nature Appreciation”"

So dumbski, like other IDiots, thinks that "evolutionists" don't appreciate nature, and that must include all of the religious people who are "evolutionists" (accept that evolution occurs). And what happened to "ID is NOT anti-evolution."?

"a greater share of power, prestige, and income that otherwise would go to the religious."

Obviously sisson doesn't care about the parts of the bible that tell people to be humble and meek, and these parts too:

"It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven." Mark 10:25 and Matthew 19:24

"If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." Matthew 19:21

John Pieret said...

Give me one I can't deny and I will become your believer

Which is, of course, your problem. You are looking for "proof texts." No one piece of evidence convinces scientists of the truth of evolution. It is multiple lines of evidence over disparate fields that all agree that convinces them. And that evidence resides in the secret places called libraries.

But like Don McLeroy , if we started to trot some of them out or, at least, point you to towards them, you'd say it wasn't enough and, besides, you don't have enough time to read all that.

It remains true: Evolution has been proven beyond all reasonable doubt. It just has not been proven beyond unreasonable doubt.

SRM said...

This appears to be Robert Byers' extended version of Ken Ham's question "Were you there?".

There are no facts to be discerned of this universe but for those that are obscurely and vaguely expounded in a book of ancient writings (and not just any book of ancient writings, mind you).

RBH said...

Diogenes wrote

Such research could in principle show that 80% or more of the large-genomed relatives of the bladderwort have chemical activity or "function" by the same pathetic re-definition of "function" utilized by IDiots of the discovery Institute.

Erm, that pathetic redefinition was perpetrated by the publicity hungry author(s) of reports on the ENCODE project. The IDiots, of course, have picked it up and run like deer with it.

nmanning said...

Hi Bob - do YOU have any bit of evidence for Intelligent design that I can't deny? Because if you do, I'll join you.

Robert Byers said...

Mr moran.
I stressed the difference between biologists who study actual biology and those who study the origins of the actual biology.
Its a different species of study and a different species of researcher.
So I mean there is little contribution by the biologist UNLESS he's actually investigating origin concepts in biology.
biology and biologists therefore are irrelevant to origin subjects save for a chosen few.
So scoring their opinions on evolution is no more relevant then plumbers.
Biology is not origin biology.
Understanding or figuring out how present processes and structures of libing biology works has nothing to do with the concept of mutations affecting biology for evolutionary change.
I think I made a common and good creationist point here.

Larry Moran said...

The average biologist knows a great deal more about the origin of life than the average person. Biologists know infinitely more about possible origin scenarios than the typical IDiot.

yogesh said...

It remains true: Evolution has been proven beyond all reasonable doubt. It just has not been proven beyond unreasonable doubt. http://uk.superiorpapers.com/essays.html

yogesh said...

Which is, of course, your problem. You are looking for "proof texts." No one piece of evidence convinces scientists of the truth of evolution. http://uk.superiorpapers.com/essays.html