From Wired Magazine, an example of how skeptical views on climate change have now become mainstream enough to earn a level of protection when educators want to explore both sides of the issue. It is unfortunate that Wired magazine chose to label the idea as “anti-science”.
They write:
House Bill 302, as it’s called, states that public school teachers who want to teach “scientific weaknesses” about “controversial scientific topics” including evolution, climate change, human cloning and — ambiguously — “other scientific topics” may do so without fear of reprimand. The legislation was introduced to the New Mexico House of Representatives on Feb. 1 by Republican Rep. Thomas A. Anderson.
Supporters of science education say this and other bills are designed to spook teachers who want to teach legitimate science and protect other teachers who may already be customizing their curricula with anti-science lesson plans.
“These bills say, ‘Oh we’re just protecting the rights of teachers,’ which on the face of it isn’t wrong. But they draw big red circles around topics like evolution and climate change as topics to be wary about,” said Joshua Rosenau, a policy and projects director at the National Center for Science Education. “It suggests this kind of science is controversial, and would protect teachers who want to teach anti-evolution and climate-change-denying lessons in classrooms.”
The bill is one of five already introduced to state legislatures this year. While more than 30 such bills have been introduced since 2004, only Louisiana adopted one as law in 2008.
full story here
Good stuff, Theo Goodwin.
The most sensible posting on this topic that I’ve read; especially liked the following:
I am reminded of an eminent biologist from the People’s Republic of China who gave an address that was critical of Darwin and met with near hostility from his American audience. To paraphrase him, “In China, one cannot criticize the government and in the USA one cannot criticize Darwin.”
It is the categorical nature of Darwinism – in whatever form it takes – that has to be questioned,
What I can’t get my head around is the numbers thrown around for evolution. 50 million, 90 million, 550 million, 50 billion, years. These are meaningless to me. I simply can’t comprehend waht they really mean.
Does anyone else have trouble making sense of such numbers?
Vince Causey says:
February 8, 2011 at 6:11 am
Matt Schilling,
“where did life get the energy it needed during the millions of years it took to slowly devise ATP by the random appearance of stray mutations?”
“An interesting point, although using this as an argument for intelligent design or whatever you want to call it, is the logical fallacy of argumentium ad ignoratum. The argument also suffers from the ‘bootstrap’ problem – if life needed to be bootstrapped into existence because it is impossible for ATP to have evolved randomly, then who bootstrapped the bootstrapper, since it too must be subject to the same rules?”
No, Vince, if you claim that random mutation created ATP, you must explain the source of energy. Otherwise, your claim is incomplete and flawed.
On your second point, the ultimate origins question, that is irrelevant to the existence of Intelligent Design. There is nothing in the formal definition of ID that says that a designer created the physical universe, life, or any particular phenomenon.
Vince Causey says “A natural explanation for ATP cannot be impossible because ATP exists.” That is a religious statement. It is the expression of a desire, not a statement of fact.
Next, he says “the bootstapper” – it – “must be subject to the same rules.” Again, this is a religious statement and wishful thinking. It is also further anecdotal evidence of willful obtuseness – as though Causey was unaware that an author of a novel sits outside of his novel and the painter is other than her painting.
In fact, evolution is based on stray mutations, occurring completely (and rarely) by chance, conferring an advantage to the lucky living mutants carrying them. I mention “living” mutants because life requires energy – harnessed energy applied in intelligent ways to accomplish an ordered set of tasks to arrive at a predetermined goal. Since life already had such a ready supply of energy, there would be no advantage for undertaking the loooong tedious process of developing an entirely new source. And, there certainly would be no advantage in hauling around the large, useless pieces of a half-baked portion of such a system for thousands of millennia.
All the clever posturing and soaring technobabble of evolutionists is meant to misdirect and change the subject: Life on Earth is the exquisite masterpiece of a master craftsman.
The dominant paradigm of all professional programming languages in use today is Object Oriented Programming (OOP). Two of the main pillars of OOP are polymorphism and inheritance. Evidence of these in code is proof of intelligent design (as opposed to sloppy, inefficient, haphazard spaghetti code). The evolutionist sees them in nature and says they are evidence of random naturalism; veritable proofs against intelligent design. The illogic of such thinking is awesome to behold and virtually impossible to overcome.
Life being examined by an evolutionist is like a lovely, talented, charming woman spending hours preparing for a blind date, carefully attending to her outfit and hair and aroma and nails and shoes and purse, until all just so. Finally, she glides gracefully into the view of her date, only to find he is a grunting brute who promptly clobbers her over the head with a club and drags her back to his cave.
Someone once coined a poignant phrase that is incredibly apt for describing the act of displaying all the splendor of life on Earth to an evolutionist. It goes something like this: “Casting pearls before swine.”
Colin says:
February 8, 2011 at 7:01 am
Good stuff, Theo Goodwin.
The most sensible posting on this topic that I’ve read; especially liked the following:
I am reminded of an eminent biologist from the People’s Republic of China who gave an address that was critical of Darwin and met with near hostility from his American audience. To paraphrase him, “In China, one cannot criticize the government and in the USA one cannot criticize Darwin.”
It is the categorical nature of Darwinism – in whatever form it takes – that has to be questioned,
I agree, Colin. Darwinians have the sociological behavior of religious fanatics, ready to burn heretics at the stake. Their beliefs are as weird as their scientific integrity is lacking.
wolfwalker says:
February 8, 2011 at 3:10 am
“I said that multiple radically different genetic codes was an observation that would falsify evolutionary theory. Which it is.”
No. At best it support a theory of multiple independent origins of life i.e. no universal common ancestor but rather some number of common ancestors.
The “theory” of evolution in dispute is that everything we observe in the universe today is the result of a random dance of matter and energy governed by laws of physics which themselves were randomly generated at the ostensible singularity which blossomed into the observable universe.
It is axiomatically presumed that matter preceded mind and there was no intelligent agency acting before or during the singular event at the beginning of time. This presumption is based on faith and faith alone. It is therefore a religious belief every bit as much as the belief in some kind of eternal deity.
There is no “theory” of evolution. There are hypotheses of evolution that have been tested and failed and hypotheses that have yet to be tested. To present an atheistic theory of evolution as fact by authority figures in K-12 public education is a travesty. Teach it as a prevailing but unproven hypothesis or don’t teach it at all. Micro-evolution such as the observed ability of pathogenic bacteria to develop resistance to antibiotics through random mutation and natural selection doesn’t present the same problem. If we stick to the facts and avoid the conjectural extrapolation of the facts i.e. the same mechanism where a bacteria acquires antibiotic resistance can turn a bacteria into a babboon then we’ll be staying within the confines of good science and not venturing into faith-based origin narratives.
Evolution best explains the life we see on this planet, and the fossil record. Is it perfect? No. ID is simply an appeal to a higher authority, for which there is no evidence of existence, therefore it explains nothing except the beliefs of the proponent.
Matt Schilling says:
February 8, 2011 at 4:56 am
I encourage you to review what is known about the universal source of biological energy, the macromolecule ATP, and the complex, integrated, regulated system that produces it, along with the near perfect nanomachine that pumps it out – ATP Synthase, a synchronized pair of rotary motors operating at near 100% efficiency.
For me, the outcome of that review was this: Abiogenesis and macro-evolution are merely the creation myth of the willfully obtuse who refuse to believe the patently obvious because of the implications thereof.
Since ATP, and all that pertains to it, represents a highly evolved system, and since ATP is such a fundamental (and literally vital) building block of life on Earth, where did life get the energy it needed during the millions of years it took to slowly devise ATP by the random appearance of stray mutations? And, if life had a source of energy reliable enough to power it through thousands of millenia as the ATP system slowly rose out of the stew, then why would life waste such a prodigious amount of energy and time developing ATP?
There are a number of different chemical theories regarding the origin of life, that do not rely on Intelligent Design. They are discussed in the following link:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/originoflife.html
According to this article, ATP is not an essential ingredient for the earlier simple life forms:
It is just that in this scenario, the initial metabolism would have been much simpler than today’s metabolism: Among others, energy metabolism could have been replaced by passage of activated building blocks for molecules from the outside environment into the vesicle (in a sense providing a preliminary substitute for modern-day ATP production, a possibility in view of the simple metabolism), and lipid metabolism, building of membrane structure and its regulation during replication would have been replaced by simple vesicles plainly obeying physico-chemical forces.
The people who are pushing the idea that life is impossible without Intelligent Design, in general are not scientists. If they were, they would have studied the extensive literature on the origin of life, and understand that the theory of Irreducible Complexity is not correct. They are religious ideologs.
Kristoffer Haldrup says:
February 7, 2011 at 1:25 pm
Unfortunately Kristoffer, you are right for the most part, threads like this, though fascinating, do not help the climate skeptic cause. However, I have noticed that the posters involved on creationist/intelligent design-type threads are mostly not the usual climate-oriented posters, and, as you say, the level of debate is generally high though I have noticed that some people are prone to attempting to distort what one has said in order to win debating points.
At it’s best, intelligent design seems to have adopted the ideas of evolution theory, except invoking something to give it a crank at the start to get the whole thing going, the ultimate deus ex machina . Of course, the counter to that is “Where did that entity come from?” It’s like the mythical turtles that hold the world stacked one on the other, all the way down…
The creationist is like a baby,clutching his god, screwing his eyes shut to avoid seeing the expanse of time stretching many times farther back than his 6000 years, while the intelligent design aficionado, much more worldly and sophisticated, can hop along the stepping stones crossing the brook of science, but still needs the comfort of the hand of his deity.
Investigation of physics and chemistry related to DNA/RNA will eventually show us the likely process through which life evolved.
People who think AGW is significant and potentially catastrophic tend to imagine humanity is much more important and significant than it really is, much like the attitude that demands the existence of a creator that made this world for us.
Darwinism… a religious creation myth for atheists, agnostics, the irreligious and the intellectual.
Anthony Hughes says:
February 8, 2011 at 8:19 am
Darwinism has nothing to do with “creation.”
Mark
Anthony Hughes says:
February 8, 2011 at 8:19 am
Darwinism… a religious creation myth for atheists, agnostics, the irreligious and the intellectual.
Mark T says:
February 8, 2011 at 8:43 am
Darwinism has nothing to do with “creation.”
My Reply:
That may be true. However the Darwinists cling to it as a religion that gives them ammunition against the culture of Christianity.
Mark
So… is Darwinism a legitimate scientific postulate…
Or is it just a refuge from somebody who had a bad time in Sunday school?
If it’s the latter, well I hope the Darwinist straightens out his conflicts with organized religion.
eadler writes: “According to this article, ATP is not an essential ingredient for the earlier simple life forms”. Well, gee, I guess that settles that. I particularly enjoyed “energy metabolism could have been replaced by…” and “a possibility in view of…”
Yet, the theory of evolution must be able to explain what is, and what “is” is this: The only molecule as pervasive as ATP, and more essential to life on earth than ATP, is DNA. Even that second statement could be disputed. After all, DNA is merely an inert library of encoded information. It is the complex, intertwined, intelligent actions of macromolecules upon DNA that constitutes “life”. And, those exquisitely integrated macromolecules are all energized by ATP.
Explaining the tedious development of an essential, complex object that is fundamental to the existence of the very entity slowly developing it requires something a little more substantial than “could haves” and “possibilities”.
Life on earth is a soaring, whirling dance of nimble nanomachines in the presence of a massively large encoded dataset. No nanomachines, no dance; no go-juice for the nanomachines, no dance; no dance, no life.
I present an evolutionist with the fatally flawed illogic of his pet theory that, in essence, says “That work of art painted itself – after creating the easel on which it sits” and his only recourse is to tell “just so” bed time stories.
“It is axiomatically presumed that matter preceded mind and there was no intelligent agency .” – Dave Springer
It follows from having every compartment of your mind completely shut down by the physical effects of a general anesthetic that “mind” or “consciousness” is a physical process, not some ineffable mystery. Cognitive processes evolved because they benefit the genes that built them. Pain, for example, is cognitive process that orientates an animated organism away from a threat to its integrity.
The irreducibly complicated and unaccountable designer is not the null hypothesis: it is a supernatural plea that has no place in science.
Too bad Khwarizmi hadn’t read about this man prior to his comment at 10:13AM PST Man in ‘coma’ for 23 years was awake all along
Also, “axiomatically presumed” is a fancy way of saying “religious belief”. It has proven to be very a useful phrase for those allergic to the word ‘religion’ in all its variations.
Matt Schilling says:
February 8, 2011 at 10:38 am
“Too bad Khwarizmi hadn’t read about this man prior to his comment at 10:13AM PST “Man in ‘coma’ for 23 years was awake all along
“Also, “axiomatically presumed” is a fancy way of saying “religious belief”. It has proven to be very a useful phrase for those allergic to the word ‘religion’ in all its variations.”
Haha… very apt comment, Matt…
Mac says:
Mooloo:
“Climate sceptics should be careful not to align themselves with the creationists. It makes us looks like cranks.”
You should tell that to the creationists and strongly religious Christians. As groups, they are more likely to be climate skeptics.
Personally, I rather suspect it has something to do with the very strong human drive to believe in SOMETHING. Those who don’t have a religion to satisfy that need find something else (the State, Al Gore, whatever) to fulfill it.
In the end, true objectivity is quite difficult – most of us aren’t even aware we HAVE biases, let alone are aware of what those biases may be.
Khwarizmi ,
If you think you’re just a machine, I’ll take you at your word.
The Declaration of Independence has the text:
“…that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights”,
does that include you? Should you have civil rights? After all, you didn’t have a creator.
Rene Descartes was supposed to have said “I think, therefore I am”.
A religious Darwinist, however, considers mind as an illusion, just electrochemical messages in the brain.
Therefore, the Darwinist should say… I only think I think, therefore I only think I am”.
Tony says:
February 8, 2011 at 11:01 am
“Personally, I rather suspect it has something to do with the very strong human drive to believe in SOMETHING. Those who don’t have a religion to satisfy that need find something else (the State, Al Gore, whatever) to fulfill it.”
Good point, Tony.
They say that those who do not believe in something, are likely to believe in anything.
Anthony H,
I suppose you’re right. After all, I recall hearing Ann Coulter say that the founders never meant for the US to be equal for atheists – it was only equal for “christians”. We atheists aren’t even people, so why bother treating us like we are?
Anthony Watts & mods:
Perhaps I shouldn’t have engaged in this one, so I am most likely equally to blame, but this is really not the sort of debate I’ve come to expect around here. I’m disappointed it has gone in this direction.
I will do my part and bow out now.
Jeff Alberts says:
February 8, 2011 at 8:00 am
“Evolution best explains the life we see on this planet, and the fossil record.”
ID doesn’t dispute “evolution” if you define evolution descent with modification.
It’s the mechanism behind the modification that is in dispute. A mechanism that has been observed – random mutation plus natural selection – is constrained by actual observations. It has never been observed generating novel structures that distinguish kingdom from kingdom, phyla from phyla, class from class, order from order, family from family, and genus from genus. Actual observation of RM+NS generating even novel new species is controversial and probably hasn’t happened in recorded history if we use the biological definition of species where two populations are physically incapable of producing fertile offspring.
The best evidence of the limits of RM+NS is in the well studied prolific organism p.falciparum (malaria parasite) a eukaryote with a smallish 26mbp genome which reproduces in such great numbers (both sexually and asexually) that a single population within one infected human will statistically cycle through every possible single point mutation in the quest for fitness improvement. With over 100 million people infected by it every year the number of opportunities for this organism to evolve through RM+NS is staggeringly high. Every single year there are more individual p.falciparum organisms than the entire number of reptiles and mammals that have ever lived. In all those great number of reproductive events p.falciparum has done just about nothing significant in evolutionary terms. It failed to find a way to survive temperate winters, it failed to develop a means to digest human hemoglobin with the sickle-cell mutation, but it easily managed to acquire resistance to anti-malarial drugs where the resistance required only a single point mutation, it barely over a period of decades managed to acquire resistance to anti-malarials which require two or more specific point mutations, and in those cases where it acquired the resistance it quickly loses the resistance in the absence of the anti-malarials because the required mutations make it less fit than unmodified organisms in the absense of the drugs. Indeed, all the resistance mutations we observe in all human pathogens work this way – they are quickly lost once the selection pressure for them goes away.
This observation of p.falciparum, probably the most studied single organism in history other than humans, represents the largest test of RM+NS’ capacity to produce novel new structures and where, in an order of magnitude more opportunities than reptiles had to produce the novel differences between reptiles and mammals, p.falciparum labored mightily and produced nothing significant – no significant evolutionary change took place at all. Meanwhile the dogmatic Darwinians try to tell me, with a straight face, that with far less opportunity for evolutionary change, reptiles produced all the myriad novel anatomical structures and biochemical pathways that distinguish reptiles from mammals. Sorry, I don’t buy it. It doesn’t even seem plausible to say nothing of probable that RM+NS could have accomplished that.
Great discussion! My 2¢: If they had this proposed New Mexico law in the 1930’s, maybe the eugenisc movement would have been sidetracked.
“Actual observation of RM+NS generating even novel new species is controversial and probably hasn’t happened in recorded history if we use the biological definition of species where two populations are physically incapable of producing fertile offspring.”
Don’t bet on it. You’ll lose.
“p.falciparum labored mightily and produced nothing significant – no significant evolutionary change took place at all. ”
Because, as you yourself point out, it didn’t have to. Evolution requires selective pressure. No selective pressure, no evolutionary change. Obviously Plasmodium falciparum isn’t under any significant pressure to change, because its current form allows it to reproduce quite adequately.
On the other hand, take a lizard from its accustomed habitat and put it somewhere else where it has reason to evolve, to exploit new resources … and waal, waal, fancy that — it evolves.
As for the rest of this thread … [sigh] Eugenics, insults, baseless accusations and ad hominems, and all of them coming from the anti-evolutionists. Booooring. Can’t y’all resist the call of the mud even once?
My parents are my creators.