…which is exactly what you’re doing.
Arguing about the meanings of terms when everybody else understands and agrees to the common meanings of those terms is exactly what people mean when they talk say that something is “just semantics.” You are the only one doing that. Everyone else is having a discussion about the actual topic.
John Mace
It was good of you to ask the moderators for a title change for this thread and if they didn’t want to change it, that’s fine with me. (I myself will not ask them. Heck this has almost reached 3 pages now.) The last time I contacted a moderator was to report myself for my duplicate thread.)
Still, this is a great thread and I’m glad someone started it. As everyone knows, I am no fan of Dubya and to me his idea of trying to foist this shit on the American schools typifies his mentality. Something occurs in nature that you don’t feel comfortable with? Invent your own “theory” so that it appeals to your own limited sensibilities. As I’ve said, if this gains ground, what’s to stop someone else from forcing astrology to be taught in our science classrooms? Almost every major newspaper carries an astrology column right? I’d say the majority of Americans believe in astrology and they probably read a horoscope too. Well, since so many people believe in it, then it should be taught as a “viable” alternative to that egg-head, scientificable astronomy.
Yesterday, the Boston Globe posted their editiorial on this matter. It had a one word title - “UNINTELLIGENT”. (Yes it was in all capitals too).
I agree. 100%
Lib: If you want to make a point, please spell it out and tell us what your’re driving at. Your posting style at the moment looks exactly like this, btw.
Oh, a “me too” from Cricetus’ knee monkey. Of course you agree 100%. You’re too dumb to formulate an argument of your own. So far, every post of yours in this thread has been either wrong or meaningless. You’ve all abandoned the argument long ago, mainly because you don’t know how to conduct it. Even Loopy’s own molasses prose is all over the place, from string theory to dark matter. And I don’t blame him. Were I to choose continued engagement in this joke of a thread, that’s probably what I would do. No wonder you’re losing ground to the Creationists in schools. You don’t even understand their arguments. I’m old enough now that I no longer give a shit. Solipsism looks more attractive with every passing day.
Just can’t resist crawling back up that cross, can you Lib?
Your so misunderstood, so smart, and so intellectual. It’s such a shame that no one else is worthy of debating with you. It must be difficult having such a singularly brilliant mind.
You have a split personality on this board, and I’m only directing that at the weird Lib who showed up in this thread. You’re engaging to debate with when you’re being rational. But there is a different Lib that shows up from time to time, and that Lib is nothing more than an annoying prick-- and you know that, too.
:: checks forum ::
Liberal, you pseudo-intellectual prat. You are the only one who’s made this thread a joke. We were trying to have a conversation about a relevent topic. You immediately strayed far off the topic, making vague comments about the value of evolutionary science (which I do not doubt for one second you do not understand) and issued pointless rhetorical challenges.
Why do you have to try to one-up everyone? You’re always trying to prove that you are more liberal than liberals, more conservative than conservatives, more scientific than scientists, and understand falsifiability better than Karl Popper.
It isn’t working. For all your posturing as a man of the world, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything from you that would be mistaken for wisdom from any but the most naive and weak-kneed tyro.
I implore you to please, please, please stop being such an insufferable pill and allow people to make an occasional point about something without trying to prove their intellectual and moral depravity. If, for chrissakes, you could just get over your megolamania, you might be a good guy to have around. Instead, you are an irritation and a noxious presence and a distraction.
As ignorant as Bush is about this subject, it’s a gross exageration to say that he is trying to “foist this shit on the American schools”. He was asked his opinion and he gave it. He also said that he didn’t think the federal gov’t (ie, him and his admistration) should dictate the curriculum of public schools. In fact, I doubt you’d be able to find any evidence that Bush has pushed ID as part of his education policy.
You are making an absurd leap when you start from “Bush says he believes X” and then assert that “Bush is trying to force schools to teach X”.
Oh, cool. Semantics.
The term “Intelligent Design” merely suggests that its proposal includes mention of a designer. It’s up to the interpreter to research if both name and theory (for lack of a better thesaurus) coincide, which they usually do. If not, what’s the point in naming it Intelligent Design if it really constituted of dumb luck?
Your board name also suggests that you may be a liberal of sorts. It’s not a definition of yourself, but it could be a trait of yours. You could have also chosen it at random. By reviewing your posts we can conclude that you are indeed a liberal in a political sense. My first thought in regards to your name was proven right. If you were to conclude that I am, indeed, a hook, you’d be wrong. Similarly, I concluded “Intelligent Design” implies the work of a designer (which is right all by itself) and that the theory deals with this aspect. Looks like I’m right about that, too:
[quote=William S. Harris
and John H. Calvert]
ID proposes nothing more than that life and its diversity
were the product of an intelligence with power to manipulate matter and energy.
[/quote]
This proposition is unfalsifiable. As a conclusion, it creates a logical fallacy (that of argument from ignorance). Usually, “designer” is cloaked as “an intelligent cause” or “intelligent means” by those who endorse Intelligent Design. Certainly, if this intelligence were responsible for what is called a “design”, this intelligence can also be called “designer”.
“Natural selection” implies “a selection by natural means”. These means are “natural processes” that others in this thread, threads linked to this, and Darwin himself have explained far better than I can.
Your playing Scrabble with the terms is pointless and I hope you can see you’re the only one doing that.
They quote Behe himself: “In the absence of any convincing nondesign explanation, we are justified in thinking that real intelligent design was involved in life.” I actually read that NYT op ed they’re quoting from, and re-reading his assertions is certainly still shock-inducing. After all this time, he’s still arguing about “the profound appearance of design”, as if that meant anything to anyone but his ilk. His definition of this “profound appearance” is, of course, irreducible complexity. His primary example: Still the bacterial flegellum. Of old he compared it to a mousetrap: Take a piece out, the whole trap fails, so he said. The whole machine is dependent on all the other parts working in concert together, and hence none of them can have evolved independently of each other without a guiding designer to assemble them to serve their clear purpose. Again, this hearkens back to my “mousetrap from the blender” analogy. Nature doesn’t work that way. Why is it so hard for them to see?
The flagellum been shown quite convincingly to be the result of a history of accretion about simpler building blocks, which didn’t even originally serve a motility function. Once again, just last February, Behe makes the claim: “Some scientists…think the Darwinists’ confidence is unjustified. They note that although natural selection can explain some aspects of biology, there are no research studies indicating that Darwinian processes can make molecular machines of the complexity we find in the cell.”
Well, that’s just bullshit. Behe still refuses to see, even now in 2005, the results of exhaustive research into the function and lineage of the sundry components of the flagellum, dating back well into the early '90s at least. He obviously can’t even acknowledge that the bacterial flagellum, given that it can be disassembled to varying degrees and still show motile function, is not even “irreducibly complex” in the manner in which he claims it is.
He’s still insisting we consider the whole of the present flagellum as if it was a mousetrap. He still wants us to picture all the pieces of a mousetrap arising independently and somehow assembling together into some structure that serves the purpose of being a mousetrap, and is composed of parts each essential to its function. That this scenerio is laden with teleological mischief and totally unrealistic genetics and mechanics has still not dawned on him, apparently. He’s either a deluded fool, or a willful participant in a creationist scam.
Behe is on the Lehrer News Hour today. It’s the 2nd segment, starting about 16 min after the hour.
Thanks for the heads up. Unfortunately, I can see how Behe would be a lot more persuasive to Joe Sixpack than the other guy. I do have to laugh at Behe talking about ID in the classroom as a way to talk about the scientific method and how scientific theories are formed. I agree with him there. ID is the perfect way to introduce those topics and explain why ID is completely unscientific.
I was thinking exactly the same thing. Yeah, let’s teach ID in science class-- as a good example of what isn’t science. The physicist who as debating him (can’t remember the name) pretty much made the same arguments we’ve been maiking here: Put forth an hypothesis, do some experiments, publish in peer review scientific journals, and then we’ll put your stuff in science class. Behe and his supporters want to bypass that process and go directly to the classroom.
Another good article on the flagellum, by Dr. Kenneth Miller of Brown. Rather than being an incredibly thorough and vigilant Geology grad student like Matzke, he’s got all those credentials etc. we can use to argue from authority. Not many people have taken the time to really address the subject and propose a hypothesis, in part as a counter to design, in one massive go like Matzke has. It’s really a textbook-sized area of research, when you start digging into it, though I’m starting to get kind of hooked.
I hope those who are reading see the main reason for providing these cites: To lead one to the many references in peer-reviewed journals that are relevant to the subject.