1

Joe, you may want to check out the "Open Access Movement." ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Access_movement ) One thing that they seem to stress is putting pre-prints of scientific articles online (either on scientist's personal webpages or through free online journals like arXiv).

2

So we replace peer review journals with an internet pseudo-science orgy. That sounds great for sloppy research and ad hoc theory promotion but provides little comfort to people actually concerned with maintaining the advancement of science. If the evidence and model proposed by Magueijo can withstand the scrutiny that all scientific endevours require then it will be accepted as the predominant theory on the speed of light. Crying foul because people don't accept what one's says blindly wins no points with me.

ID'ers are accused of having bad science not only because they don't publish in any peer reviewed journals, but because their work is so easily dissected even outside the peer review world.

Unlike religion, wishful thinking doesn't make one's scientific theory true. I'd love to live in a world where we have spaceships traveling at thousands of times the speed of light, like in Star Trek. As of now the laws of physics as we know them say they do not. I could perhaps work and try and discover processes that do allow these to work. If I'm successful and scientists revalidate and reverify my results, then I'll be the next Einstein. If on the other hand I just cross my arms and say, "I can't believe there is a maximum speed limit so I think the scientific process is unfair," then I'm going to be listed as a crack pot. As well I should be for exhibiting such behavior in a scientific forum.

This sort of nonsense is why the scientific community within the United States has peaked. We are a nation that want to embrace nice sounding pseudoscience over real science. We want to place scientific theory to a popular vote among people who haven't the slightest degree of competence in forming opinions on the matter and who care not about the actual foundations of a given theory.

3

Time will tell. More and more, though, the Darwinists are looking like a species bound for extinction.

Darwinists went extinct a very long time ago, if they did in fact ever exist. I assume the idea is to identify folks who accept evolution as some kind of rival cult and hence the term "Dariwnist".

There is certainly no such science as “Darwinism” and the use of that term is a dead giveaway that I’m dealing with someone who doesn’t have a clue. Evolution is not a religion and science is not practiced by priests.
Satire: I’m actually more a Modern Synthesist and I’ve been a Heisinbergist for some time. I’m also an ice creamist (Chocolate) and I’ve recently started learning about weatherism. I guess there’s not as much propaganda value in calling me any of those though.

In terms of peer review, every scientist I know agrees the Internet is a great place to flesh out possible ideas. So let’s take advantage of it:

1. What is the scientifically testable theory of IDC and what testable predictions does it make?

2. How does the scientifically testable theory of IDC explain the observed evidence for common descent?

3. What is it precisely that the scientifically testable theory IDC would suggest actually happened? What was designed, when, where, and how?

4. Where can we see examples of natural Intelligent Design of biota in operation today?

Appended: How many peer reviewed journals have rejected the work addressing the above? Please, provide the rejection slips and the original text as IDC apologists have an unpleasant tendency to distort, and at time lie.

4

Mr Mod said: We are a nation that want to embrace nice sounding pseudoscience over real science.

Boy you hit the nail on the head there. The Young Earth Creationism baloney gave rise to the IDC lobby and we're starting to see those same techniques work their way into policy on everything from air pollution to Stem Cells.

5

DS,

Which camp do you fall into--Newtonism or Einsteinism? I mean Newtonism does describe motion pretty well and Einsteinism has its applications too. Is it possible to be a Newtonist and a Einsteinist at the same time? I can't tell. Maybe we should study each of their religions to make a determination as to who has the more accurate scientific theory...I'm sure the "unbiased" ID'ers would love to help us on that one.

6

Boy you hit the nail on the head there.

Just look at the state of our "alternative health" market and the diet/exercise market craze. That can be followed up by the craze for breast and penis enlargment pills. Psuedoscience driven by marketing and human impulse have prevailed in all these areas where people have a direct visual impact. Imagine if these people were supposed to make the informed decision on such notions as: your length shrinks as you move faster as time for you slows down as well, it is possible for two physical particles to occupy the same physical position as long as some of their other states aren't the same and countless other "weird" sounding phenomena that are in fact real but counter intuitive. I can see our science blazing ahead.

This embracing of psuedoscience did help the world once. The Nazi's rejected much of quantum mechanics and relativity because it was developed by Jews. They probably would have had the atomic bomb before we did otherwise.

7

Mod I lean more towards Chemistryism and atheistic natrualist secular physicism.

But I think instead of peer reeview it would work a lot better if we held polls:

Which do you believe explains observed particle interactions the best?
1. Quantum mechanics

2. Particle Elves

3. Blarthogs

4. ___________

8

Moderate: So we replace peer review journals with an internet pseudo-science orgy.

Why do you automatically assume it would lead to sloppy research? How was science able to advance for millennia before the journals became popular?

ID'ers are accused of having bad science not only because they don't publish in any peer reviewed journals, but because their work is so easily dissected even outside the peer review world.

If that is true then ID isn’t a threat and you can safely ignore it.

We want to place scientific theory to a popular vote among people who haven't the slightest degree of competence in forming opinions on the matter and who care not about the actual foundations of a given theory.

It’s the foundation of the theory that is the problem. You don’t even need the “slightest degree of compentence” to see that the theory is based on an impossible premise (that the entire complexity of the biological world arose through blind, undirected processes). When the foundation crumbles the rest naturally fall apart.

DS: There is certainly no such science as “Darwinism” and the use of that term is a dead giveaway that I’m dealing with someone who doesn’t have a clue.

And it a dead giveaway that when people start claiming that “Darwinism” isn’t an applicable term they have no clue what they are talking about. Do you really think that people like Stephen J. Gould, Richard Dawkins, and Daniel Dennett “don’t have a clue”?

1. What is the scientifically testable theory of IDC and what testable predictions does it make?

Point #1 and #3 are too long to answer in a comment. I will dedicate a future post to answering them in more detail.

2. How does the scientifically testable theory of IDC explain the observed evidence for common descent?

You are starting with a question-begging premise – that common descent has occurred.

4. Where can we see examples of natural Intelligent Design of biota in operation today?

Where can we see examples of macroevolution in operation today?

Appended: How many peer reviewed journals have rejected the work addressing the above? Please, provide the rejection slips and the original text as IDC apologists have an unpleasant tendency to distort, and at time lie.
It’s hard to take you seriously when you resort to such ad hominem attacks against scientists who advocate ID. What proof do you have that they have a “tendency” to distort and lie?

9

Why do you automatically assume it would lead to sloppy research? How was science able to advance for millennia before the journals became popular?

There were parallels in past scientific societies. It was not the free for all that the internet is. During these times without the same level of scientific review that we started having in the last few hundred years we had the introduction of more psuedoscience than science. Even history's greatest scientists fell into some of these traps (notably Newton's obsession with alcehmy).

If that is true then ID isn’t a threat and you can safely ignore it.

In a country where over 30% of the people have bought into the Moon Hoax BS, where the majority believe that Jon Edwards really talks to dead relatives and that David Copperfield really sawed himself in half...I'll pass on worrying tha it isn't a "threat." If it was promoting actual science it wouldn't be a threat anyway, it would be welcomed as a path of scientific advancement. Since it falls into the same category as the three I mentioned, it is a threat on scientific integrety.

10

How does the scientifically testable theory of IDC explain the observed evidence for common descent?

You are starting with a question-begging premise – that common descent has occurred.

I'll rephrase the question so you get the gist behind what DS was asking:

2. How does the scientifically testable theory of IDC explain the observed evidence used to validate the theory of common descent?

11

It’s the foundation of the theory that is the problem. You don’t even need the “slightest degree of compentence” to see that the theory is based on an impossible premise (that the entire complexity of the biological world arose through blind, undirected processes).

An argument from incredulity is exactly the point I was making when listing other sciences that fail the intuition test. Isn't it easy to "see" that time moves at the same rate regardless of if you are in a car going 100 mph, an airplane moving 600mph or sitting in your chair at home? Guess what, time isn't moving at the same rate in any of those three cases. Human intuition does not work when exploring all sciences because human intuition is honed by daily experiences. Using your "feels good" test that you apply to evolution we have therefore invalidated the theory of Special Relativity. Shall I go on?

12

It is unfortunate that Origin of Species was not subject to peer review.

13

It is unfortunate that Origin of Species was not subject to peer review.

It's unfortunate that you believe that the Origin of Species was the last document written on the subject of evolution or that there aren't thousands of research articles on the topic published over the last century.

14

One positive development is that there is supposed to be a bill circulating through Congress now that would mandate that taxpayer-funded science that gets published be publically availible without charge to anyone who wants it. I loved the comments on slashdot about it. Typical reaction:

*spits up coffee and gags* "Congress actually doing something that benefits John Q. Citizen and not monied interests?!"

As we all know, the journals were ranting and raving about how it'd make them less profitable and soon big fat checks will be made out to plenty of little Rs and Ds.....

The problem isn't the peer-reviews journal concept, but that it's one of the many institutions that the left took over. I would go so far as to say that it is probably one of the most irrelevant of the leftist victories since the vast majority of science is over the average citizen's head by a wide margin.

Maybe the solution is not teach origin of species at all. Intelligent design cannot be proven, but neither can evolution. I happen to be in favor of ID, but recognize that a coherent, logical basis for it is not something that can taught to most. They just have to figure it out.

There is only one thing that ID people tend to take for granted. Anyone who refuses to believe that there are unknowable things about this universe and what exists beyond it isn't a "secular humanist." They're just a close-minded, damned (probably literally) fool.

15

Joe, Darwinism is simply not a legitimate, current term, for referring to evolutionary biologists or related scientists. [Shrug]

I think the term has historical roots; anachronistic leftovers from a by-gone era in which biologists argued over competing versions or slightly different versions of evolution? I really don’t know.

Today, it's a catch all term used mostly by creationist conmen, or in popular works by creationists and perhaps even by science authors, to collectively refer generally to anything they don't like; from the Big Bang to Communism.

Evolutionary biology today uses a model called the Modern Synthesis. Look it up for crying out loud. Common descent is not “Darwinism”, it’s an easily inferred fact whether you personally like it or not.

Joa said If that is true then ID isn’t a threat and you can safely ignore it.

That's a terrifying display of ignorance. Lysenkoism was bad science and it killed millions of people.

DS: 2. How does the scientifically testable theory of IDC explain the observed evidence for common descent?

Joe: You are starting with a question-begging premise –that common descent has occurred.

Common descent has been confirmed of course and as the reigning champ it is the job of contenders to displace it with evidence and testable predictions which bear out, and work at least as well. Assuming a known fact to be true is not begging the question [wink]. Begging the question is assuming unproven or untestable conclusion[s] usually with a conclusion hidden in the premise.

However if you wish special treatment, how does the as-yet-unstated-testable-theory of IDC explain and unite observed facts such as:
ERV's, LINE's and SINE's, transitional fossils (Foraminfora, cnidarians, cetacea, eumaniraptora, hominidea, carnivore, angiosperms, stromotllites etc, etc), biostratification, nested hierarchies of homologies and taxonomic congruencies, pseudo gene complexes, morphological/anatomical congruencies consistent with observed biostratification and molecular analysis, vestigial and atavistic structures, observed speciation … should I go on for another 50 gigs of space? Or can I just say the observed evidence for common descent?
How about the convergence of millions of discrete facts from every branch of natural historical science which confirms common descent? Anyway, how does IDC explain and unite those facts under one testable coherent framework?
For this is a major shortcoming
in IDC thinking-assuming of course they actually cared what science thinks of their silliness, (which they do not).

The whole thrust of IDC The Political Lobby has little to do with detecting design, for design would not preclude evolution, it's about dislodging common descent/evolution. Its common descent that disturbs people and it’s the ideas of sharing one’s ancestry with animals and ultimately slime that opens the door for emotional manipulation by shysters such as Philip Johnson or Kent Hovind.

To scientifically displace common descent wih Intelligent Design, you need a theory that not only detects design and makes testable predictions, it must also explain the observed evidence for common descent better or at least as well, as common descent does. And all of this needs to be done under one coherent explanatory framework to be taken as a serious contender to evolution.

I’ll look forward to your future posts outlining the testable hypothesis of IDC and hopefully I’ll be able to help you understand why IDC falls far short of any of those requirements.

It’s hard to take you seriously when you resort to such ad hominem attacks against scientists who advocate ID. What proof do you have that they have a “tendency” to distort and lie?

I don’t blame you for being skeptical, but I give you my word Joe I will never, ever, knowingly lie to you about evolution Vs creationism.

When Jonathon Wells implies he was an 'evolutionst' in graduate school until he saw the ‘evidence was so weak’ (Icons of Evolution-Preface), he's lying. He was sent to grad school by Rev Whack-job Moon specifically to attack evolution from the vantage of someone holding an advanced degree and he’s verified this many times in print and in speech.
When Kent Hovind claims he has a real Ph. D, he's lying. It was purchased from a diploma mill run out of a split-level ranch home in Colorado. His thesis has been published on the web, it’s unfinished and quite pitiful.
When Philip Johnson claims Heackal’s recapitulation ideas are routinely taught as scientific fact in modern science classes, he’s lying. When he claims in DoT that there are no transitional fossils, he’s lying.
When Bill Dembski claims that calculating the odds of eu-bactrial flagella coming together all at once by sheer chance represents the sam probability of evolution from a type IIb secretory system, he’s telling a giant whopper. When he claims to have a test for detecting ID-which oddly he won’t explain to anyone in detail and only shows the ‘results’ on objects he wishes to demonstrate are designed, or knows are designed by humans, he’s almost certainly lying.

I could go on for a very long time detailing exactly when and how these clowns lied and why they can’t be trusted farther than you can spit. The more you check yup on these guys, the more disgusting it becomes.

16

Mr. Moderate

It's unfortunate that you believe that the Origin of Species was the last document written on the subject of evolution or that there aren't thousands of research articles on the topic published over the last century.

~DS~

Darwinism is simply not a legitimate, current term, for referring to evolutionary biologists or related scientists. [Shrug]

Maybe we are neo-Darwinists today, but let us spell neo with a very small n! Our neo-Darwinism is very much in the spirit of Darwin himself. ~ Richard Dawkins

17

...and that has what to do with the thousands upon thousands of research documents on the topic after Origin of Species bevets? Oh that's right, nothing.

18

Bevets I noticed you put a great deal of time into your anti-evo page. Miles and miles of text, facts, and comments. Lots of work.

As long as you're going to put in all that effort, why not include the testable theory of Intelligent design/Creationism?
You know...the one the IDCists are berating school boards to teach and accusing science of conspiring to conceal?

19

DS,

I went to Bevets site. I'll have to go back there again later. You and I are familiar with quote mining by IDC proponents. However I've never seen a site that consists of nothing but strung together quotes. It makes for "interesting" reading indeed.

20

DS,

To scientifically displace common descent wih Intelligent Design, you need a theory that not only detects design and makes testable predictions, it must also explain the observed evidence for common descent better or at least as well, as common descent does.

I thought that Evolution (especially the kind of undirected Evolution mandated by Methodological Naturalism) was opposed to Intelligent Design.

Now you're saying that "common descent" is opposed to Intelligent Design.

There are, in fact, IDers who support common descent, but they also insist that evidence for Intelligent Design can be found. I believe Michael Behe is in this camp (I could be mistaken). So I think it's erroneous to say that Intelligent Design "must displace common descent."

21

Ed J, I can make no precise observation about what is, or is not, consistent with a Theory of IDC, because as of now anyway it has not been stated.

Conceptually, Intelligent Design in and of itself would not preclude common descent and evolution anymore than it would preclude geology or chemistry.
Your best bet for a Theory of Intelligent Design would be a Creator who designed a universe which then went on to produce self replicating objects which could change over time. IOW, evolution.

The efforts of the IDC The Political Lobby OTOH seem to clearly anti-evolutionary in nature.

22

Joe, Darwinism is simply not a legitimate, current term, for referring to evolutionary biologists or related scientists. [Shrug]

Then why do Dawkins and Dennett still use the term?

Evolutionary biology today uses a model called the Modern Synthesis. Look it up for crying out loud.

I’m quite familiar with the term “modern synthesis” (neo-Darwinism).

Common descent is not ?Darwinism?, it?s an easily inferred fact whether you personally like it or not.

If you mean that certain species have common ancestors then I agree. If you are claiming that all species derive from a common ancestor then I would have to say that you are stating an unproven assumption.

When Jonathon Wells implies he was an 'evolutionst' in graduate school until he saw the ?evidence was so weak? (Icons of Evolution-Preface), he's lying.

Wells is and “evolutionist”, he just doesn’t subscribe to the Darwinian (or neo-Darwinian) theory. I assume you are referring to this statement he makes in “Icons of Evolution”:

"During my years as a physical science undergraduate and biology graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, I believed almost everything I read in my textbooks. I knew that the books contained a few misprints and minor factual errors, and I was skeptical of philosophical claims that went beyond the evidencee, but I thought that most of what I was being taught was substantially true." [emphasis added]

As Wells makes clear in the book, he had originally thought the data was factual and that it was merely the interpretation that was skewed. What he found were substantial errors, which he documents throughout the book.

He was sent to grad school by Rev Whack-job Moon specifically to attack evolution from the vantage of someone holding an advanced degree and he?s verified this many times in print and in speech.

No, what he was sent to attack, according to his own testimony, was Darwinism, not evolution.

When Kent Hovind claims he has a real Ph. D, he's lying.

Hovind is a YECer, not an advocate of ID and is not even in the same category as Dembski, Behe, et. al.

When Philip Johnson claims Heackal?s recapitulation ideas are routinely taught as scientific fact in modern science classes, he?s lying.

When has Johnson ever claimed that?

When he claims in DoT that there are no transitional fossils, he?s lying.

I’ve read DoT and, if I remember correctly, Johnson admits that there may be some transitional fossils. Do you have evidence that he claims there are no transitionals?

When Bill Dembski claims that calculating the odds of eu-bactrial flagella coming together all at once by sheer chance represents the sam probability of evolution from a type IIb secretory system, he?s telling a giant whopper.

Whoa, hold on a minute. Just because you may disagree with him does not mean he is lying. How do you even know he is wrong?

When he claims to have a test for detecting ID-which oddly he won?t explain to anyone in detail…

Perhaps you should read The Design Inference or Intelligent Design. Both books are detailed explanations for how design is detected.

…and only shows the ?results? on objects he wishes to demonstrate are designed, or knows are designed by humans, he?s almost certainly lying.

He has applied the design inference to the bacterial flagellum and shown that, due to it specified complexity, it had to be designed.

I could go on for a very long time detailing exactly when and how these clowns lied and why they can?t be trusted farther than you can spit. The more you check yup on these guys, the more disgusting it becomes.

Actually, the more I checked up on it the more I found that your claims were misleading or false.

23

Actually, the more I checked up on it the more I found that your claims were misleading or false.

Such as?

24

DS, Moderate, other Evo's,

What do the naturalists like Dawkins, Gould, yourselves believe about the begining of things. The very begining. I recall DS mentioning evolution only deals with what happened with matter FROM the begining (big bang).

But, basically, where did the slime come from, where did the big bang obtain its material to bang from etc.?
Is the universe eternal? Is there a Creator? Or did it appear randomly out of thin air?

Which of these are the naturalists belief (Or another one I most certainly left out)?

Thanks

25

DS,

Such as…Wells was never sent to attack “evolution”, Johnson never claimed that there were no transitional fossils (I’m withholding judgment on the “recapitulation” claim until I see your evidence), Dembski never explained the details for detecting design, etc.

26

Joe: If you mean that certain species have common ancestors then I agree. If you are claiming that all species derive from a common ancestor then I would have to say that you are stating an unproven assumption.

Agreed. We don’t know how interrelated chloroplasts and humans are for example. We can infer with great confidence that humans share common ancestors with apes, monkeys, prosimians, eutherians, mammals, synapsids, tetrapoda, vertebratea, chordate, and right about there it becomes pretty unclear. You could have saved me a lot of time by merely saying this upfront.

Wells-For Wells to whine that he’s arguing against “Darwinism” rather than modern evolutionary biology is beyond duplicitous. While technically this may be a defense that you and I understand, and which he's deluded enough to think he can legitmately hide behind, among the general theistic public he makes no such distinction and appears quite content and well served to let the bait and switch work for him and for his employers who wish to discredit evolution.

Dembski-Since evolution does not work by throwing complicated structures together all at once, and instead works by modifying existing systems, using an all-at-once assumption to show membership in SCI is bogus. To present this as evidence for the design of the flage and evidence against evolution thereof is thus invalid-in fact it's dishonest-and has been pointed out to him many many times. But he's still happily touring the country with the same spiel and lately he's even been hedging his bets on Young Earth[ism]. Incidentally the reason Dembski does not publish this stuff or even submit it to a peer rewviewed journal is becuase he's a tenured Prof at Baylor; and academic fraud gets you fired.

Johnson-Yes I stand in error. You're correct of course and I apologize for failing to outline his nuances.
He did not say transitionals 'don't exist'. The sly old fellow makes the case that they're not compelling evidence for common descent and leaves open the possibility that many of them aren't fakes.
That's not a huge distinction between 'do not exist' and 'not good enough to demonstrate evo' since that's the whole meaning of transitionals fossils in the context of biology.
But I agree Johnson hedges his bets fairly well in a lawyerly way.
I retract my statement that he 'says no transitionals exist' and would like to petition you to consider instead "attempts to discredit transitionals as evidence for evolution while trying to leave open the possibility they exist as physical objects many of which are not fakes". I'll look at my text this evening if you wish and we can discuss what he's stating abuot this and other attacks.

Is this a two way converstion? What ever happened to that testable theory of IDC? Just give us the link to the relevant data and bullet points if you wish.

CDM-I don't know how the universe started or where it came from, if anywhere.

27

Joe, I'm afraid this is yet another case of "a little research would have prevented a lot of mistakes." In this case, the entire argument is falled. The fact that papers are rejected from science journals does not mean that scientists are not open to new ideas. It doesn't even mean that the paper won't eventually be published, even in that journal! There are four general types of rejection: Fix a few things and resubmit, and the action editor will make a decision without sending it out for reviews again; revise and resubmit, and the action editor will send it out to the reviewers again, but it's likely to get published in that journal; make major revisions and resubmit, and if the major problems with the paper are corrected to the reviewers satisfaction, perhaps it will be published in this journal; please take it to some other journal. Almost all papers are rejected by scholarly journals the first time around. This is because every paper needs work. Sometimes, the concepts, statistical methods, or experimental methods aren't explained well enough. Sometimes reviewers want you to do another analysis, or run another experiment. Sometimes they just think there's a literature you should talk about in the paper. Often rejection letters have statements like, "This is very interesting," or, "This is important work," and strong recommendations to resubmit when corrections have been made. To make a long story short, then, the fact that interesting and perhaps profound papers have been rejected means absolutely none of the things that you claim in the rest of the post.

I don't know Magueijo, but he sounds bitter, and while some criticisms of the peer review process are valid (it's political, reviewers are often overly critical of work that conflicts with their own, etc.), one would have to know the quality of Magueijo's work before treating his experience with the peer review process as at all relevant. My suspicion, Joe, is that you are not qualified to asses his work.

The ID movement has a difficult time publishing in large part because they don't do original work (think Dembski's rehashing of old mathematical techniques), they don't have data (think Behe's defenses of his irreducible complexity, which is contradicted, rather than supported by all the available data), or their arguments are simply not up to the journal's standards (this is something both Behe and Dembski seem to have in common). If reviewers dismantle the arguments in a theory paper, they're not going to recommend that it be published.

Just as a side note, notice that Behe's experience, chronicled on a website, is not with the peer-review process, but with the journal editor and the attempt to publish in a special issue.

So, in conclusion, as with previous posts on science, you've shown more that you don't understand what's going on, rather than that there is something wrong with what you are attacking (in this case, peer-reviewed journals). Oh, and the serious online publications are refereed as well. Journals still serve an important purpose, even if people in a subfield tend to know about all the work in that subfield before it's published. There are still people outside of that subfield who will need to consult the literature.

28

Opps I'm sorry Joe. It was Wells who hit hard on Haeckal thing in Icons. Johnson championed the idea when I saw him at a bookstore a few years ago and I may have assumed it was in his book that he was waving around as he spoke.
I don't know that he says that specifically in DoT although he cartianly is happy to say it in person and I wouldn't be surprised if he does have it in DoT. I have the book at home and if you wish I'll go through and chronicle a couple of Johnson whoppers for you.

29

Thanks DS.
A related question, What are all of the rational or plausible possibilities of the begining of the universe? Like the ones I mentioned (Creator, universe is eternal.) Other than these 2 can anyone else add to the list please?
I'd like to get a complete list of the probable/possible explanations to review.

Thanks again.

30

Big bang cosmology says the universe is not eternal but started something like 15 billion years ago. Standard big bang cosmology only tries to resolve universe evolution from Planck time and on, since the laws of physics do not exist between t = 0 and t = ~10^-43 seconds.

31

CDM this is pure speculation on my part. Perhaps others can clarify or contribute to my modest effort:

1. The universe is part of a larger set which progresses ad infinitum.

2. The universe is part of a larger proccess and has a beginning in time.

3. The universe was creaed intentionally by intelligent agents.

4. The universe was created unintentionally, i.e. it's waste, like carbon monoxide from car engines.

5. The universe is the product of an unintelligent process resulting from living organisms of some kind.

6. The universe has always existed in some form or another(This currently appears unlikely)

7. The universe is somehow cyclic in time in a way we do not understand.

8. I'm dreaming all this [wink]

32

Joe Carter wrote

"If you are claiming that all species derive from a common ancestor then I would have to say that you are stating an unproven assumption."

Depends on what you mean by "unproven assumption." The evidence that all life originates from a common ancestor is pretty good, considering the fact that all life on earth uses ribonucleic acid for encoding its genome and proteins and ribosomes for decoding, etc., and to some extent the amino acid sequences of the proteins invovled in the fundamental processes are similar in all organisms.

Here's a genuine unproven assumption for you: I came in my office today and there was a paper on my chair. I assume that Theresa, the office manager put it there. But it could have been Anthony, her assistant, or my secretary. There's an outside chance it was someone else in the office. But if I had a question about the paper, I might rely on my "unproven" assumption and just call Theresa. The only evidence to support my "unproven" assumption is my prior experience -- just about every time I have a paper on my chair, it's because Theresa put it there (I've seen her put things on my chair, I've seen her put things on other people's chairs).

So, relative to the "unproven assumption" re Theresa, the "assumption" that all life derived from a common ancestor is a pretty damn good one, Joe. Why? Because it is the ONLY natural explanation that anyone has proposed which is consistent with scientists' previous observations.

Of course, I am a creationist and I had a question about that paper, I could just sit in my office and gnash my teeth because how could I prove that God did not put it there????? Maybe God was trying to tell me something with the paper. He works in mysterious ways. I suppose I could pray to God for an answer about what the paper means. Too bad I can't bill anyone for that unless I'm a televangelist (which I'm not --but I could be a damn good one if I was willing to stoop that low!)

Or, if I was an IDist, I could analyze the position of the paper on my chair, measure all the angles that the dimensions of the paper form between the dimensions of the seat and the chair's arm: what are the odds of the paper being placed in THAT PARTICULAR POSITION???? Astronomical. Therefore, I could conclude, a mere human could not have set the paper down and let the air currents decide where it was going to land. It must have been guided to rest in that particular spot by a supernatural intelligence, which we have no evidence for but which must certainly exist because what are the odds??!!!! Miracles never cease.

Bottom line again: common descent is only an "unproven assumption" in a world where only events that are videotaped in their entirey, in an uneditable format, are considered "proven".

33

DS,

Your best bet for a Theory of Intelligent Design would be a Creator who designed a universe which then went on to produce self replicating objects which could change over time. IOW, evolution.

Or there may be evidence that indicates a more active and ongoing designing role. I'm not interested in going over what that evidence is because there are those who can do it better than I can, and because it's outside of Joe's implied scope here -- which is, if peer-reviewed journals are a politicized, unscientific mess, is it fair to demand that ID be measured by how often peer-reviewed articles appear about it?

34

LL--What a stupid analogy. While you've seen Theresa (pronounced Ter-ray-za?) deposit countless papers on your desk, nobody has ever seen this presumed "common ancestor". Heck, nobody has even been able to identify a common ancestor for all mammals or lizards, or even all primates.

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if peer-reviewed journals are a politicized, unscientific mess, is it fair to demand that ID be measured by how often peer-reviewed articles appear about it?

Ironically Joe leads off with two supposed cases of modern mainstream scientific principles that were originally rejected because they were outside of science orthodoxy. I don't see how lasers would have fallen into this category since there were theoretically predicted nearly half a century before they were first designed. It is ironic because those theories, which were met with initial resistence, are now widely held and used. That proves that the initial reluctance is overcome with ever mounting data and validation.

If ID'ers want to achieve a similar feat, then they simply have to produce the same level of detail that Hawkings and Maiman did. No one gets a pass on their scientific publishing because something is for or against a popularly held religious belief. All that matters is if the theory stands on its own merits. So far, ID and creationism theory do not.

36

Heck, nobody has even been able to identify a common ancestor for all mammals or lizards, or even all primates.

We do have the genetic divergences that we can measure, along with the viral insertion errors to determine breaks from common ancestors. Tell me, if we hypothetically found something that was considered to be the common ancestor of all mammals, would you then accept the concept of common descent and evolution?

37

Hunt,

There are four general types of rejection...

I think you left out a couple of types of rejection, didn't you?

(5) I don't like you so I'm going to reject your paper;
(6) I don't agree with the implications of your research, so I'm going to reject your paper.

38

Rob Smith writes

"While you've seen Theresa (pronounced Ter-ray-za?) deposit countless papers on your desk, nobody has ever seen this presumed "common ancestor"."

Um, of course not. And I highly doubt anyone ever will see a fossil of this ancestor (or recognize it as such) because it is surely something microscopic, surely very primitive, but other than that ... how would we know.

On the other hand, Rob, we have all seen plants and animals reproduce (the only way which animals come into existence, if humans aren't cloning them). And we all know that the reproduction results in offspring that are not 100% identical. And we all know that changes in phenotype arise primarily from changes in genotype. And we all know that genomes of offspring are inherited from their parents (usually with a few harmless "mutations").

But the point you raise, Rob, while it does not further your argument, certainly lends weight to mine. As I just recited to you, the mechanisms which underlie the reproduction of life have been exhaustively studied. Nobody denies the true the statements in the paragraph preceding this one.

Do you want to know what "no one" has seen, Rob? No one has ANY evidence whatsoever that some mysterious "intelligent designers" exist with the capability of creating all of the earth's life forms from scratch with a snap of a ... [insert organ here -- "assuming" the designer has organs]. The forces necessary to accomplish such a feat are UNKNOWN. There is NO EVIDENCE for such forces or for any entities with such awesome powers. So if you want to talk about "unproved assumptions," let's talk about the assumption that gods exist. THAT is an unproved assumption. Evolution from common descent? Pretty much a fact. It explains what we see on earth and in the fossil record more accurately than "Theresa put the paper on my chair". FAR FAR FAR MORE ACCURATELY.

Get it?

And just to follow up: if I wanted to prove (to a reasonable person) that Theresa put the paper on my chair, there are some obvious ways to go about doing that right? Well, guess what: there are obvious ways of proving common descent. And those ways have been used. And the results are in. And common descent is as good as fact.

You don't have to believe me. Just take a poll of the thousands of biologists who are working and publishing research on the topic every day.

Now, Rob, if you seriously believe that, because Christians say so, scientists are obliged to study the "possibility" that some designers with supernatural powers created all the life on earth from scratch, can you tell me how scientists should go about studying that process? Where should they begin? Should we be dredging the bottom of the ocean and looking for fuel cannisters left by the designers' spaceship? Huh? Step up to the plate, Mr. Skeptic, with your "alternate theories." That is how science is done. .

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Yo Ed, as to your additional theories:

(5) I don't like you so I'm going to reject your paper;
(6) I don't agree with the implications of your research, so I'm going to reject your paper.

Yeah, that could happen and it probably has happened. But you know that if it happened all the time or there was solid evidence that it was happening to one person whose work was perfectly acceptable on its merits, the truth would certainly leak out. It's not in a journal's interest to be playing politics on such a crude level, which is why most of the best journals don't do that.

On the contrary, if you look at some of the biggest political hubbubs relating to publication of articles in journals, they almost all involve articles which WERE PUBLISHED but which turned out to be IRREPRODUCIBLE (i.e., faked) or PLAGIARIZED.

In other words, when push comes to shove, journals typically err on the side of publishing when it comes to a controversial article whose merits are "uncertain" (or whose merits are a subject of debate by the referrees). WHy is that? Because controversy means sales.

The former editor of Nature, John Maddox, was something of an expert at exposing charlatans but came under a lot of heat for it. He was the kind of guy who publish an article by someone like Dembski and then let the scientific community (including Maddox) descend like pitbulls on the fakers. Meanwhile, the chewed-up charlatan would be crying "foul" and wondering why the article was even published if the journal wasn't willing to back it up. And a lot of scientists would be bemoaning the fact that for the typical charlatan, even a retracted and completely trashed paper in a respectable journal would be spun to appear as if the charlatan had actually made a scientific contribution.

One of the best examples was in the late 80s or early 90s when Nature (along with Science, one of the two premier journals in the world for general subject peer-reviewed scientific research) published an article from the Benveniste lab which claimed to provide scientific "proof" of the homeopathic principle -- i.e., that "infinitely" diluted solutions of a substance still retained (somehow, mysteriously) the robust "activity" of that substance even though the odds of even a single molecule of the substance remaining in the solution were astronomically small. To make a long story short, Benveniste was made to look like an absolute fool, his results were not reproducible (you'd know if they had been, because modern chemistry and physics would look completely different), and many editorial pages were spent asking the question, "WHy the hell was that crappy work published in the first place?"

I think Maddox also published a paper Nature in the seventies which purported to document, in a "controlled" environment, the "psychic powers" of Uri Geller. I'll let you guess what happened to that article.

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Larry Lord

The evidence that all life originates from a common ancestor is pretty good, considering the fact that all life on earth uses ribonucleic acid for encoding its genome and proteins and ribosomes for decoding, etc., and to some extent the amino acid sequences of the proteins invovled in the fundamental processes are similar in all organisms.

The evidence that automobiles are manufactured by the same company is pretty good. They all share similar structures, these structures function in similar ways, the specimens all use similar fuel.

Here's a genuine unproven assumption for you: I came in my office today and there was a paper on my chair. I assume that Theresa, the office manager put it there.

Of course, I am a creationist and I had a question about that paper, I could just sit in my office and gnash my teeth because how could I prove that God did not put it there????? Maybe God was trying to tell me something with the paper. He works in mysterious ways.

Theresa left a post it note: 'Larry, I left this form on your chair. You need to return the form to me by Thursday. -- Theresa'

Larry: 'This post it must be a forgery. Theresa wouldn't leave a note'

Genesis 1.1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

2 Timothy 3.16 All Scripture is God-breathed

2 Peter 1.20 Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. 21 For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

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Bevets, our resident lost soul (what happened to Douglas?), writes

"The evidence that automobiles are manufactured by the same company is pretty good. They all share similar structures, these structures function in similar ways, the specimens all use similar fuel."

Bevets is making the third-grader level creationist argument that just because living thing use the same fundamental processes to reproduce, "that doesn't mean they weren't intelligently designed."

But bevets is either too ignorant to understand the difference between living things and non-living objects made by humans (or animals), or he/she just has his/her buried deeply in the sand.

You see, Bevets, I grew up near Janesville, Wisconsin and saw cars being made by humans. They are not living things. Moreover, I can you show things made by man that bear no resemblance whatsoever to cars.

Why don't you show me a living thing that doesn't use ribonucleic acid to encode its genome?

As for the rest of your post, I printed it out to line the cat's litter box. Can we agree to TRY to write a coherent and at least semi-logical argument? Thanks.

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Ed J of course I don't judge ID solely by peer review journals. I rarely read the raw articles. I'm just a weekend warrior and I count on some very brainy friends to help me make sense of a lot of science.
I judge it by reading the books, reading the articles, reading the critiques, and discussing it at length with folks who have a more detailed professional insight into the topic.
There could well be a Creator of this universe who set it up front loaded to bring forth what we observe, or who actively steps in from time-to-time to tweak it. That's not impossible at all.

Currently the evidence is fully consistent with a beginning in space-time for our universe, the formation of a very unique planet (as best we can tell so far anyway, which isn't a lot, but it's something), life arising very quickly after the formation of the earth (a geological instant when viewed from this end of the sequence of events in fact), extreme complexity arising through exquisite proccesses over rivers of time, etc.

All these lines of evidence are fully consistent with a theological and philosophical position of Intelligent Design, and even of Divine Design; it's evidence for Brilliance- provided one grants the Creator the flexibility to use whatever methods He sees fit including natural ones.
Theistic evolution is the best bet going for a fact based position on ID.

But IDC as advocated by The Political Lobby is not just affirmations of design, it's active rejection of evolution. The whole core of IDC The Political Movement is a false dichotomy that by dissing evolutionary biology, or by showing evidence for design, one has negated evolution in favor of some 'other' method.
Yes, Behe has vaguely mentioned that he accepts common descent including humans from earlier primates. But these types of statements are rare, and they seem to be quietly de-emphasized by a Political Movement which does not wish to upset it's ideological base.

Note: I'm sorry if I was an asshole to anyone over the last couple of days. It's not an excuse, but I was in the eastern coast path of Charley and I think I may have been more snappish than I realized from that stress. I wrote it up here:
http://uti.dinggraphics.com/
(Warning: That's an atheist Blog)

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the formation of a very unique planet (as best we can tell so far anyway, which isn't a lot, but it's something)

We are finding that our planetary system is actually rather ordinary. Because of their size we have had a hard time detecting rocky inner planets but in the last few years we have managed to come up with some indirect ones. NASA is planning on launching an observatory within the next few years that will allow for the direct detection of such planets. The bottom line is that a decade ago humans had never seen a planet outside our solar system. Now we have a catelog of dozens of planetary systems that are relatively nearby.

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Well I'm not going to defend Ross's privileged planet idea. I went 'round and 'round with Rusty Loepz on that until I just had to abandon that thread in disgust.
What I'm saying is provided one accepts the 'truth' revealed in the natural world via careful observation and experiment, there can be no conlict between Divine Creation and that set of data. Assuming God isn't a trickster anyway which no one on this Blog seems to espouse.

45

You know, I've been tracking through these comments, and, I have a couple of thoughts of my own that I'd like to add:

First, to DS, and Moderate. Your implication throughout your posts is that because people do not agree with you, they must be unintelligent. I happen to know and have read many Christians who are quite intelligent, and, having done much research themselves, have decided to reject your theories (which, by the way, is what they are... theories - they are NOT fact). This does not make them inherently stupid. It just means that your argument, based upon whatever evidence provided, is simply not persuasive enough. And that leads me to my second point.

You're argument, no matter how much science backs it up, ultimately rests on philosophy, and not science. As of this date, science cannot prove beyond a shadow of a doubt the origins of man, of our planet, and of our universe. You make arguments such as "considering the fact that all life on earth uses ribonucleic acid for encoding its genome and proteins and ribosomes for decoding." In this statement, though, you fail to recognize that you haven't proven the orgin of ribonucleic acid. Are you going to argue that it could not be God who created this matter? What is to say that He hasn't? Did this matter just spring up from nowhere? It simply not pursuasive enough for me and my brothers and sisters in Christ to simply abandon what we believe.

You see, when you tread into the origins of life, you tread into the territory of philosophy, and not science. Hence, you must make a pursuasive philosophical argument, not simply one that is based on cold science, but one that appeals to the human need for hope. My hope is in Christ, because in Christ, I have life, I have hope, I have friendship, and I have a love that will never leave me. In science, I have meaningless exsistance... a "bag of molecules" randomly ordered, and having no purpose. That's just a sad and meaningless existance.

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"You see, when you tread into the origins of life, you tread into the territory of philosophy, and not science."

SO SAYETH EMMAUS.

Yo, Emmaus, listen closely: you don't get to decide what is philosophy and what is science. Anything that can be explained by natural processes and tested accordingly is SCIENCE.

Questions about "God" have nothing whatsoever do with scientists and 99.999% of scientists could care less about "God" or "Gods" or ESP or UFOs or Nessies or Bigfoots or Yetis or "communicating with the dead" or "auras" or palm reading or "seeing into the future."

Do you know why that is? Because no one has ever proposed an explanation for these things that is credible and that doesn't require invoking new laws of nature or discarding the laws scientists have meticulously characterized for the past several centuries (or maybe you didn't notice).

In other words, ESP or UFOs or Nessies or Bigfoots or Yetis or "communicating with the dead" or "auras" or palm reading or "seeing into the future" are easily explainable without invoking any incredible new superatural powers: human beings lie.

Get it? One more time for you:

Human beings lie.

Do you understand? This obvious explanation for the beliefs and "observations" of (yes, I'll say it) scientifically illiterate people is far more powerful than any alternate theory. In fact, this explanation has been proven to be correct many many many many times. Have you not been paying attention?

As to your belief that "Gods" merit scientific consideration, I submit to you the FACT that many scientists around the world are very religious and find no conflict with their beliefs in the scientific explanations for the diversity of life on earth and their beliefs that there is a divine being who "put us here for a reason."

How do they manage to hold these seemingly contradictor beliefs? It's called faith. Look it up in your holy book. You'll see that Jesus said something to the effect that people who accepted him for what he claimed to be without proof were "bleesed." How about that? That's a good thing for people who have faith, isn't it? And it also implies something about people who claim that their beliefs in God are based on logic and evidence, doesn't it? I think so.

In short, 99.99% of scientists aren't nearly as interested in persuading people like YOU to "believe" in evolution (and not in God) as much as they are interested in getting you to understand that their findings about how life on earth evolved have NOTHING TO DO WITH THE VALIDITY OF YOUR DAMN RELIGION SO GET OVER IT ALREADY. People like me are just responding to DUMB Christians (mostly) -- most of whom (like the average American) knows DIDDLY about biology -- who assert that evolutionary biology is "full of holes" and is all a big ruse put over on society by scientists. That is the crap that is being put forth by right wing conservative christian think tanks such as the Discovery Institute and anyone who swallows that garbage is either a True Believer or an uninformed stooge, for the reasons I just gave you. I stand by my assertion that people who trash entire areas of knowledge of which they know virtually NADA are DUMB. Intelligent people know when to shut up and listen.

Consider yourself LUCKY. Presumably you, like me, are on the web trying to LEARN about the world. I just told you something about the world. Go ahead and refute it.

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Joe wrote:

It’s the foundation of the theory that is the problem. You don’t even need the “slightest degree of compentence” to see that the theory is based on an impossible premise (that the entire complexity of the biological world arose through blind, undirected processes).

To which Mr. Moderate responded:

An argument from incredulity is exactly the point I was making when listing other sciences that fail the intuition test. Isn't it easy to "see" that time moves at the same rate regardless of if you are in a car going 100 mph, an airplane moving 600mph or sitting in your chair at home? Guess what, time isn't moving at the same rate in any of those three cases. Human intuition does not work when exploring all sciences because human intuition is honed by daily experiences. Using your "feels good" test that you apply to evolution we have therefore invalidated the theory of Special Relativity. Shall I go on?

No, I think you should go back to the beginning and think about what you said.

What a person believes controls how evidence is evaluated. "Believing is seeing" is quite true. Let me illustrate. If you are a naturalist, then the story of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is just that -- a story. It couldn't possibly have happened the way it was related. On the other hand, if you are a theist then this historical event becomes possible.

So now we come to living things. What we see are incredibly complex systems with high information content. For the naturalist, the only known way this could have happened is through descent with random variation (at least, no other theory is on the table). Evolutionists can't agree on how it happened (gradul vs. punk-eek), but because of their apriori commitment to naturalism, this doesn't matter. It obviously happened. For the theist, common descent with variation is one possibility. Common design is another.

So one question is, "how can we human beings determine design?" We can do it with non-living mechanical systems, although I'm not aware of a mathematical model that can say "this is designed", "that is not". However, such a model would, IMHO, incorporate probability as one of the heuristics. So incredulity isn't out-of-line, even if it's informal at this point -- because there is no rigorous test for this (again, AFAIK).

I am not aware of any evolutionary treatment of this -- common descent is assumed, and the probability arguments are brushed away with "it happened" -- which is glaringly circular.

In a previous incarnation of this neverending love fest, I asked one of the naturalists (Larry Lord?) how he would recognize design in living things. He couldn't answer the question.

Do you have any testable metrics for deciding this question?

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Your implication throughout your posts is that because people do not agree with you, they must be unintelligent. I happen to know and have read many Christians who are quite intelligent

You are misinterpreting what I'm saying. First of all I'll be the first to say that I don't know everything nor do I think that I can fully comprehend everything. Therefore I do not assume that because someone disagrees with me that they are unintelligent. I also don't assume that because someone agrees with me that they are intelligent. Furthermore I'd say 90% of my friends are Christian, and all of my family is. I don't believe they are unintelligent or misinformed for having the Christian faith. I will also say that none of them believe in young earth creationism or intelligent design.

All I ask is for anyone claiming to have a scientific theory to provide the proof--mathematical validation, evidentiary exploration and experimentation. That, unfortunately for the YEC/ID'ers is significantly lacking.

49

Do you have any testable metrics for deciding this question?

I don't think such a metric actually exists. Even those who do believe that it does exist, namely Dembski, haven't been able to come up with a valid mathematical theory for it. If they are able to do so, and it can be independently and repeatably verified (like all other dominant scientific theories today) then I'll change my mind.

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wrf3 writes:

"I asked one of the naturalists (Larry Lord?) how he would recognize design in living things. He couldn't answer the question."

Is that so? Perhaps I asked you to define what you meant by "design" in the context of living things. And then perhaps I mentioned that if I could come up with a generic method for recognizing "design" in living things, I would be doing something that no human being on earth has done. What makes you think that I would do that here, for you, personall, on the Evangelical Outpost? No, if I come up with some prize-winning mathematical alorithm, I will submit it to the appropriate reviewers first.

Of course, I'm not sure why I'd want to start with living things. Why not start with inanimate objects first? At least then I'd have a way to show that my algorithm is capable of distinguishing designed versus non-designed objects accurately. Then I might apply it to the universe as seen in the night sky. Was the night sky designed? And then I might apply it to a nice beach on an uninhabited island. Do you suppose it will turn out to have been designed?

Oh, and please help me, wrf3, since you are so wise: tell me what's the difference between a smarblord and friblet?

Wrf3 also wrote:

"Believing is seeing" is quite true. Let me illustrate. If you are a naturalist, then the story of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is just that -- a story. It couldn't possibly have happened the way it was related. On the other hand, if you are a theist then this historical event becomes possible."

Sure, wrf3. If you are a "theist" than ANYTHING is possible. The moon is made of green cheese, until you touch it, then it turns to moon dust. I "jaunt" home from work like the Tomorrow People used to do on Nicolodeon (you can't prove that I don't). I just died. Now I'm come back to life. While I was gone I talked to God about Hurrican Charlie. He said that was him crying because of the way creationist-spewing Christians have turned the loving sacrifice of his son into a tool for promoting ignorance.

Don't believe me? Prove that I'm lying.

Actually, don't bother. Because you can't. THAT is the difference between religion and science. I used to think this difference was so simple that a ten year old could understand it but I discovered in the past year that an unfortunately large number of adults either cannot digest it or simply refuse to admit it.

Wrf writes

"descent is assumed"

No, it's not "assumed". Read my posts above unless you're unable to pull your head out of the sand. Common descent is, by far, the BEST EXPLANATION FOR THE DATA and that is why scientists believe it. It is not the "only" explanation -- it is the ONLY explanation that WORKS. There is A LOT OF DATA COLLECTED OVER THE PAST CENTURY. The data is CONSISTENT with common descent to the extent that common descent is ACCEPTED as a FACT by 99.999% of biologists. Don't believe me? Just look on PubMed and see how many papers there are claiming that common descent is WRONG versus the papers describing observations which are CONSISTENT with common descent.

If you have a better explanation for the data than common descent, then be my guest. Not even the ID heroes are so foolish and blind to try and argue that life on earth did not evolve from a common ancestor.

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I am not aware of any evolutionary treatment of this -- common descent is assumed, and the probability arguments are brushed away with "it happened" -- which is glaringly circular.

The probability arguments are brushed away today because they have already been addressed. They have been studied and they have been addressed. What are presented by the modern day ID'ers and their YEC brethren are rehashed arguments that have already been refuted or strawman arguments presented out of incredulity (again).

52

LL says Yo, Emmaus, listen closely: you don't get to decide what is philosophy and what is science. Anything that can be explained by natural processes and tested accordingly is SCIENCE.

This is where your assertion of evolution as fact falls flat. I've never seen evolution (by evolution I mean a lower-order lifeforms "giving birth" over time higher-order ones) demonstrated in a lab. Oh sure, we can look at the fossil record and assert that this critter here is the precursor of that critter over there, but these are only assertions, they are not proven. We have also never been able to create living organisms from non-living materials in any lab.

LL then says Questions about "God" have nothing whatsoever do with scientists and 99.999% of scientists could care less about "God" or "Gods" or ESP or UFOs or Nessies or Bigfoots or Yetis or "communicating with the dead" or "auras" or palm reading or "seeing into the future."

I would be interested to see a source here. I imagine that more than 1 in 100,000 scientists (even if we only included only hard sciences like chemistry, physics, and biology as opposed to say psychology) are Christians, let alone all the other world religions. I feel safe in asserting that even among evolutionary biologists more than 1% would assert a belief in some higher power (whether God, Buddha, or Allah, maybe even Zeus or Odin) and 1% or more probably believe in UFO's, Bigfoot, or Yetis.

In my rather limited readings, it looks like life (simple single cell organisms) started on this planet about 3.5 billion years ago. It also looks like the first simple multi-cell organisms appear something less than 2 billion years ago. So for evolution to be true, some non-living compounds came together about 3.5 billions years ago, and through some process that we are ignorant of and unable to duplicate "came alive". Then it took between 1.5 and 2.5 billion years (multi cell organizisms can be conclusively identied in rocks less than 1 billion years old) of evolution for these single cell creatures to organize through completely random processes "evolved" into simple multi-cell organisms. Then in something around a billion years (evolution of most of the creatures we are familiar with occured in the past 500 million year or so), these simple multi-cell organisms where able (again through completely random processes) were able to organize into the incredibly (several orders of magnitude more) complex multi-cell organisms that now populate the Earth. So, it took significantly more time to go from single cell to simple multi-cell, than from (incredibly) simple multi-cell to (incredibly complex) man. I will grant that this is a bit of a simplification, but is it that unreasonable that intelligent (even scientifically literate) people can look at the theories of evolution and find them lacking?

53

"This is where your assertion of evolution as fact falls flat. I've never seen evolution (by evolution I mean a lower-order lifeforms "giving birth" over time higher-order ones) demonstrated in a lab."

So what. Is that your standard? If you haven't seen it demonstrated in a lab, then you refuse to believe it? You must not believe in a whole lot then. Have you heard that most milk sold in today's supermarkets comes from pregnant prostitutes with AIDS? Well, you have now! So I assume you'll be milking your own cows from this point forward because how else can ever be sure? And good god, consider the consequences if you dare to assume that I'm wrong but I turn out to be right. EEEWWWW!!!!!

"We have also never been able to create living organisms from non-living materials in any lab."

Huh? So what? Humans haven't created a canal as vast and beautiful as the Grand Canyon but does that mean that the Colorado River couldn't have carved it out of the earth? You're being silly. 150 years ago people like you were telling scientists and engineers that "man will never fly." Boy, were you ever wrong.

"I feel safe in asserting that even among evolutionary biologists more than 1% would assert a belief in some higher power (whether God, Buddha, or Allah, maybe even Zeus or Odin) and 1% or more probably believe in UFO's, Bigfoot, or Yetis."

Two points, Rob. First, what I meant to say that the 99.99% of scientists could care less about PROVING God's existence or the existence of any of those pseudoscientific icons I mentioned. And I really doubt that more than 1% of scientists believes in UFOs, Bigfoot or Yetis. I hope I am right about that but I could be wrong. For the sake of the future of our country, I hope I am right.

"So, it took significantly more time to go from single cell to simple multi-cell, than from (incredibly) simple multi-cell to (incredibly complex) man. I will grant that this is a bit of a simplification, but is it that unreasonable that intelligent (even scientifically literate) people can look at the theories of evolution and find them lacking? "

Ah, the argument from incredulity again.

Are YOU scientifically literate, Rob? Because let me tell you something: yeast cells and human cells have more in common than yeast cells and bacterial cells. And have you noticed something about bacteria Rob? There are more different kinds of bacteria on earth BY FAR than other type of organisms. Human beings (indeed, mammals) are outliers in the history of life on earth. Bacteria are the beginning and the end. When, in a relatively short period of time, geologically speaking, human beings are extinct, the bacteria will still be here. And they'll still be evolving.

So nothing in your timeline smells funny enough for me to consider abandoning common descent, not when common descent explains so much else.

Geezus, Rob, have you any idea how many recent medical advances were made as a result of research on YEAST CELLS? Why do you think that is? Because so many of our ailments are caused by yeast infections??? HELL NO! It's because yeast and humans turn out to have a lot of similar genes, as was expected by virtue of scientists' observations of the ways in which yeast and human cells grow and divide, the presence of a nuclear envelope, etc.

From down here, it all makes Darn Good Sense, Rob, and I only have a Ph.D. in molecular biology with a few solid evo-devo classes thrown in. When you get to the level of the hard core players like E.O. Wilson or Gould or whoever, sure, those guys will always find something "controversial" to study because they'd get BORED otherwise. The smartest people in science ALWAYS make waves. They can't help themselves.

But here's the "funny" thing about these ID creationists -- other than these Internet chat groups and the PTAs the IDists manage to infiltrate, nobody gives a rat's ass. Scientists could care less about Dembski and Wells and Behe and these other morons. These guys exist in science journals only as footnotes in book reviews where scientists scratch their heads and bemoan the fact that science education is being taken for a ride by a bunch of fakers being funded by a conservative Christian think tank.

So let me ask you, Rob: where do you get your info about evolution from? From scientists? Or from creationist websites like Answers in Genesis. Be honest.

54

Good Lord.

Joe writes

"Darwinism, for example, would have withered away long ago in the open air of honest scrutiny and without an a priori reliance on philosophical naturalism."

Sure Joe. Not only Darwinism, but also every other aspect of life as we know it. Of course, we probably spend a lot more time praying in our caves, kind of like those Taliban guys we tried to eradicate a couple years ago.

"But in the hothouse environment of academic science the flawed theory has been allowed to survive."

What a load of rubbish.

"More and more, though, the Darwinists are looking like a species bound for extinction."

Hahhaah. Sure. How much time do we have, Joe? Five years? Let me know because I figure about the time that "Darwinists" go extinct and are replaced in this country by theologians or charlatans like Dembski, it'll be time to start building my bunker.

"I think without the prestige of the journals, much of the "publish or perish" mindset in the academy would fall away and there would be fewer papers that were written simply for the purposes of career advancement"

Well, a lot of tenured faculty would probably still publish because, hey, some of those guys really like to get up and speak before an audience and brag about their solid contributions to science. And a lot of non-tenured faculty would publish because they would need to show their universities that they are contributing to their fields. And grad students would still publish because they would want to show that they accomplished something when they go to interview for post-docs and faculty positions. And undergrads would still publish their work (if they can) because it's a good way to get into the best grad schools (who have the best equipment, the best profs, and the most money to spend on their students).

Generally speaking, quality is rewarded. I'm sorry that this physicist you cited above has a crab up his butt about peer review. There are definitely some areas of research (DNA sequencing and proteomics) where reasonable arguments have been made that the peer review process slows things down and results in less sharing of knowledge and more intellectual property interference. So I'm not a peer review fundamentalist by any means. No one is. Scientists are free to publish anywhere they want. Websites are fine. But if you want your work to be taken seriously, you devote your life to it, do an **excellent job**, submit the paper to a hardcore, serious journal, and let your peers ravage away at it to their hearts content. Science is a tough career, no doubt about it.

FYI: the number of biologists OVERALL who believe in God is certainly much higher (at least two fold, maybe four or five fold higher) than the number of NAS biologists who believe in God. The NAS biologists are a pretty unique set of mostly old white guys and remember -- the NAS elects its own members into its group so there may be an additional selection bias there.

In any event, I can hardly blame biologists for becoming atheists. Listening to ignorant Christians trash your life's work would certainly inspire me to question whether the religious lifestyle is all it's cracked up to be.

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All commenters who have reviewed papers in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, please raise your hands... Just me?..

Hunt is correct, there are four ways to means by which a manuscript is rejected, although the last one should be be expanded to include "the manuscript is not appropriate for this journal." (I am intimately aware of this one since, one of my current manuscripts has hopscotched to its 3rd journal for this reason.)

Politics can come into play at times as it can in any field, but I submit that more often than not, the peer-review system is rather fair and unbiased with regard to authors and rather strict with regard to data presentation.

When I review a manuscript, I first examine whether the authors prove their hypothesis. If they don't auto-rejection. An example: if the authors state in their introduction that they have discovered that Gene X is expressed in the liver and that it regulates Gene Y and Z, then I will be looking at the data first to determine whther that statemnt is true. Step 2 is to determine whether the experiments performed were appropriate to demonstrate the hypothesis or whether further work is required to lend support to their hypothesis. Maybe they only convinced me 90% by showing that Gene Y is regulated but Gene Z may or may not be... or maybe the data merely demonstrates a correlation and not a direct relationship. If I am satisfied by the proof and the experimental design, I next examine the conclusions.. which is where the authors might start pontificating beyond the scope of what the data demonstrates. Last I examine, the writing and the references. If all these things satisfy me then I will accept the paper unconditionally or with minor revisisons. If the first two criteria fail, depending on how poorly they fail, I'll recommend the different types of rejection outlined by Hunt above.

Now, I'm never the only reviewer on a paper. Usually, journals use 3 reviewers for each paper, sometimes 2 and almost never 1 (the exception being the Journal of Biological Chemistry which publishes weekly an ungodly number of papers and must spread the papers as best it can.) If 1 reviewer doesn't like the paper, but the other reviewers do, the editor goes with the majority recommendation.

It should also be noted that a review is never just an accept or reject comment. Reviews tend to be very lengthy -- the manuscript is often dissected line by line. The reviewer submits a synopsis of the paper demonstrating that s/he understands what the authors were trying to convey, then explains briefly the failures of the paper if any. The final comments include the recommendations from the reviewer outlining the steps need to be taken by the authors to satisfy that one particular reviewer.

I personally review papers for 3 journals. So I'm pretty familiar with the process.

Incidentally, the author always has the option to protest a review. The review process is not necessarily one way. Anyone who has ever submitted a manuscript for review, knows that the authors respond to the reviewer comments, either by changing the manuscript, performing the extra experiment, etc. or by challenging the reviewer by clarifying the author's position or by directly challenging the particular question... e.g. "the reviewer stated we didn't prove that Gene X increased, but we clearly demonstrated that Gene X did increase in Figure 2, etc." All this is done very politely of course, but the peer-review process is not merely a club with outsiders looking in.

In short, when I hear people complain about the peer-review process, I am usually hearing someone who has failed in the scientific process. It is an important process and while slow and frustrating at times, it is the one way by which new data can be analyzed by members of the community in a critical manner. If one fails to get published, then they aren't using the scientific method.

Incidentally, the odds of getting a manuscript accepted are pretty low. One journal that I review for has an acceptance rate of 35% (or thereabouts).

But let me go off topic for a second. What does it matter if God created the universe in one fell swoop 4000 years ago or whether he designed a universe that was governed by laws which resulted in the process of evolution? I'm honestly curious how it is relevant whether man descended from a single-stranded RNA molecule or just appeared. I mean does it change the nature of God? Does it make him any more or less caring? And if so how? I mean if the argument isn't a question of creation but how the creation occured then why does it matter?

56

Chad,

I mean if the argument isn't a question of creation but how the creation occured then why does it matter?

Because both science and truth matter. I don't doubt common descent because I'm a creationist. I doubt it because when I look at the evidence without first putting on the spectacles of naturalism I don't find that theory convincing.

57

Joe,

Then what you are saying, I think, is that in regards to theology, common descent is a moot point. Correct? It's more a question of science and the scientific method.

If it is the latter, then let me just say that the only significance of the argument is how we, as scientists, are able to progress in our research. Common decent is merely a tool that allows me to use mouse and rat models in my studies... to draw parallels between a similar organism. Common descent for me as a scientist, essentially allows me to say this is Gene X in the mouse and Gene X does something Y. Therefore, it is likely that the human Gene X does the same something Y in the human in the same tissue or organ or cell type. It also explains why we see changes in Gene X across species and why subtle differences result in subtle changes in interactions and function.

I think, and I could be wrong here, that you desperately want scientists to care about the relationship between God and his creation with regards to the method of creation, but unfortunately the nature of science doesn't ever ask that question. Period. Personally, I see God's hand in evolution. I see a divine Creator who's plans are far greater than we can imagine and when I am doing experiments and discovering the works of His hand it strengthens my faith. The complexity of His systems, the subtlety of His designs and the way things change are awesome and continue to make him greater in my mind.

I was once asked if I put God in a box. Meaning did I try to define Him by putting limitations on Him. The answer of course is that we all do. But the response to that behavior is to remember that God is bigger than that... no matter what the limitation is. An example would be that God doesn't use evolution because of _______. Well, God is bigger than that, he could use evolution. Will we ever know. I don't know. But when I meet him at the throne, I'll ask Him and you know what, no matter what the answer is, I bet I'll be satisfied because again my faith doesn't hinge upon whether God did or did not design a system of change to create the universe.

Anyway, I was curious if you ever read the two papers I pointed you to from your last post on common descent.

58

Chad said
"If it is the latter, then let me just say that the only significance of the argument is how we, as scientists, are able to progress in our research. Common decent is merely a tool that allows me to use mouse and rat models in my studies... to draw parallels between a similar organism. Common descent for me as a scientist, essentially allows me to say this is Gene X in the mouse and Gene X does something Y. Therefore, it is likely that the human Gene X does the same something Y in the human in the same tissue or organ or cell type. It also explains why we see changes in Gene X across species and why subtle differences result in subtle changes in interactions and function."

So the thing that allows you to progress on your research is not common descent, but merely common genes? Assuming standard chemical and physical laws it is enough to contend that the same gene would perform the same in different organisms.

Of course, you could merely be saying that common descent is used to predict these gene's would exist. Which is interesting in itself, as you cannot really claim this. In effect it is circular (and definitely not always correct).
If similarities are used to designate 2 organisms as closely related, then you cannot use that similarity be a claimed prediction of common descent. You CAN claim that it explains the similarity (Just not that it predicts it), however this leaves you once again with the observation of the similarity being what furthers your research, and not the theory of common descent.

59

Emmaus,

Not to swipe the line of a buddy of mine, but it seems appropriate. There is a big difference between a stupid belief and a stupid person.

To believe in a flat earth for example would be a stupid belief in light of the evidence. But many people believed just that and some still claim to do so today.
To believe in a recent Global Flood in spite of the evidence against it would be a stupid belief. To believe that common descent is invalid despite being informed of the facts would be a stupid belief.
Popele can believe what they wish no matter how stupid it is, last I checked anyway. I have plenty of stupid beilefs. EG: I have an opinion on Health Care costs despite knowing next to nothing about it.
It's one thing to be stupid, it's another to believe in stupid things. And in anycase no one can prevent you from holding stupid beliefs, the question involved in Creationism Vs Evolution is not about your right to be a stubborn believer of mythology over facts, and theories which explain them, it's over who will get to dictate the state of scientific reality to children in our public schools.

60

The peer-review process in my field is similar to the one that Chad described in his. I have never reviewed a paper (there's a joke among scientists that if graduate students reviewed papers, nothing would ever get published... if you've ever known a graduate student, you'll understand why). However, I have observed the referee process up close, with several different reviewers (they each have a distinctive method and style), and I've been reviewed plenty of times. I've been rejected enough to know how that works, too (I've also had papers accepted, including ones that were rejected more than once).

In short, the point of my earlier comment, and what I get out of Chad's, is that Joe's oversimplified representation of the process is what leads him to faulty conclusions about it. Is it perfect? No. Is it political? Sure. Will papers that deserve to be published get rejected by some journals? Definitely, for various reasons. But good ideas won't be kept down. They never have been. If a paper's worth publishing, someone will publish it, and if it's worth following up on, someone will follow up on it. If orthodoxy is challenged by results, at some point, people will take notice. In the end, the system is imperfect, but it's better than just letting people publish whatever they want.

If Intelligent Design researchers someday come up with something worht publishing, it will be published. If intelligent designed theorists someday discover flaws in evolutionary theories, people will take notice. However, they haven't yet, and every time they've thought the've done so, scientists have been able to answer them point for point. If the claims of an article can be shown to be wrong based on what we already know, then no one will publish that article. Until intelligent design comes up with a criticism, or even better, a positive result that isn't debunked immediately by what we already know, it will be published.

61

The last phrase should read, "it will not be published."

62

Chad Wayne

What does it matter if God created the universe in one fell swoop 4000 years ago or whether he designed a universe that was governed by laws which resulted in the process of evolution? I'm honestly curious how it is relevant whether man descended from a single-stranded RNA molecule or just appeared. I mean does it change the nature of God? Does it make him any more or less caring? And if so how? I mean if the argument isn't a question of creation but how the creation occured then why does it matter?

Hermeneutics. If we discount or explain away the original intent of Genesis, where do we stop? and why?

Probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1-11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that (a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience; . . . Or, to put it negatively, the apologetic arguments which suppose the "days" of creation to be long eras of time, the figures of years not to be chronological, and the flood to be a merely local Mesopotamian flood, are not taken seriously by any such professors, as far as I know. ~ James Barr Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford University in England

It was obvious that both the general theory of evolution and its extension to man in particular must meet from the first with the most determined resistance on the part of the Churches. Both were in flagrant contradiction to the Mosaic story of creation, and other Biblical dogmas that were involved in it, and are still taught in our elementary schools. It is creditable to the shrewdness of the theologians and their associates, the metaphysicians, that they at once rejected Darwinism, and made a particularly energetic resistance in their writings to its chief consequence, the descent of man from ape. ~ Ernst Haeckel

Our science of evolution won its greatest triumph when, at the beginning of the twentieth century, its most powerful opponents, the Churches, became reconciled to it , and endeavored to bring their dogmas into line with it. ~ Ernst Haeckel

A widespread theological view now exists saying that God started off the world, props it up and works through laws of nature, very subtly, so subtly that its action is undetectable. But that kind of God is effectively no different to my mind than atheism. To anyone who adopts this view I say, ‘Great, we’re in the same camp; now where do we get our morals if the universe just goes grinding on as it does?’ This kind of God does nothing outside of the laws of nature, gives us no immortality, no foundation for morals, or any of the things that we want from a God and from religion. ~ William Provine

63

DS et al - I believe that you are seeing the tree and missing the forest in my previous post. The larger issue that I was attempting to raise, which has become buried here, is that you have not made a case for the origins of the matter. The evidence for common ancestry, to me, does not appear to be evidence for evolution. I would take that evidence, as a Christian, as evidence that God created man. Just because all/many organisms have common biology, to me, does not prove evolutionary theory.

I was attempting to make a point that you have not made a case for what came first. Where did the materials come from that creatures evolved from? What if