Paranoia - Ben Stein - Evolution & No Intelligence FOUND

[_Ren]

Moniker,

At 62:30 in that presentation - Stephen Meyer is quoted specifically talking about NOT wanting to teach ID in schools.
That that is 'not' their 'specific aim' - at least at this point.

That appears to be their current thinking 'from the top' - rather than trying to bash ID into schools 'all in one go...'. (Some ID-ers may still be going for that, but it looks like the overall leadership have given up on that - and they're moving on to other approaches...)

Of course we know that it IS their eventual aim - and Miller shows that quite distinctly! But what they are doing is 'repackaging' their approach - yet again.
The proposal thrown at Ohio wasn't called ID. It was 'Critical analysis of evolution'. NO mention of the ID-er - in fact it very specifically stated that the 'Intelligent Designer' is NOT part of their proposal. It was a very specific caveat.

They just want to bash evolution for now (whilst sneaking in some ID textbooks) and see how far they can get with that first.
This first step would NOT hold up ID as a competing theory... They still - obviously - want to get the ID'er officially in there eventually, but I think they are conceding that that is going to have to be a 'later' step.

"Just give evolution a good kicking first, then see where we can go from there..."

EDIT: Go to 105 minutes for Ken (and co.) talking about this themselves...
i.e. the next step...

[_EAllusion]

I do, however, think it has to meet some minimum standard of cogency and be able to achieve a healthy debate among relevant experts.

You don't think the concept of 'Irreducible Complexity' achieve[d] a healthy debate among relevant experts? You're not willing to even give it even that much credit?
Can't such examples as 'the mousetrap', the disassembly of the baterial flagellum and the blood clotting mechanism be fairly strongly linked with 'prodding' from the ID camp?

No. Experts spend a lot of time refuting it because creationism has tremendous social cache, but the idea of irreducibly complexity never was bought by anything resembling a substantial group of biologists. It never will either, because the arguments are terrible and are generally supported because of religious motivations. ID has managed to get one peer-reviewed paper published in a credible journal. It was a review article, awful, and was only published due to the journal's editor violating the journal's editorial pratices. (Richard Sternberg, a central figure in this film by ty way.) It was immediately repuidated by the Journal and roundly criticized by the scientific community. For a board-relevant analogy, it's what "Ancient America Speaks" is to Mesoamerican archeology.

Creationist anti-evolutionism is to legitimate science what holocaust denial is to legitimate WW II history.

Hmmm. Interesting analogy.
Have holocaust deniers ever said that a given (reasonable) piece of evidence, or set of evidences, could prove them wrong, like the ID-ers did with Irreducible Complexity?

Sure. That's basically what they do. Take the The Leuchter report, for instance.

[_Ren]

Experts spend a lot of time refuting it because creationism has tremendous social cache, but the idea of irreducibly complexity never was bought by anything resembling a substantial group of biologists.

You mean it was never bought as 'true', or it was never bought as even a scientifically consistent proposal in the first place?
If you mean it was never bought as true, then of course I completely agree. But otherwise - I'm not so sure...

Many perfectly respectable scientists responded to the claims on Irreducible Complexity's own terms. They didn't claim the approach needed to be 're-worked', or 're-framed'. They just said it was wrong in each case that was proposed, and demonstrated why...

...would you agree that Ken Miller 'bought it' as a 'scientifically consistent proposal'? He 'dismantled' it according to the letter of their own definition.

It never will either

It won't now - no. It's been thoroughly discredited by the evidence, for every instance of an 'Irreducibly complex' structure they ever proposed...

because the arguments are terrible and are generally supported because of religious motivations.

The arguments were 'wrong'. I don't know if I'd call them 'terrible'...

And their motivations have absolutely no bearing on the scientific legitimacy of their proposals.
We do not, and have never, required 'scientists' to be perfectly objective and perfectly free of bias. Mainly because that's impossible. We let the scientific method weed out the rubbish...

ID has managed to get one peer-reviewed paper published in a credible journal. It was a review article, awful, and was only published due to the journal's editor violating the journal's editorial pratices. (Richard Sternberg, a central figure in this film by ty way.) It was immediately repuidated by the Journal and roundly criticized by the scientific community. For a board-relevant analogy, it's what "Ancient America Speaks" is to Mesoamerican archeology.

I'd have to get more familiar with this specific article to reach a conclusion myself, but I can well imagine that it may not have been at an 'acceptable' level... I may well have no argument with the conclusion.

Sure. That's basically what they do. Take the The Leuchter report, for instance.

I'll have to get up to speed with the Leuchter report and get back to you...

[_EAllusion]

...would you agree that Ken Miller 'bought it' as a 'scientifically consistent proposal'? He 'dismantled' it according to the letter of their own definition.

It's an attempt at science. It's not non-science so much as bad science. But, per the previous definition of legitimate science we just talked about, that doesn't make it legitimate. I'm just saying that it is not part of the legitimate debate because it fails to meet minimum standards of cogency and acceptance. For a movement backed by millions of dollars and numerous advocates, having one peer-reviewed article, even if it wasn't snuck in unethically, is pathetic. (ID advocates sometimes try to claim a few others, but they really aren't "ID" papers for reasons that can be discussed if those examples are brought up.) The scientific community isn't debating the merits of ID anymore than historians are debating the merits of holocaust denial.

The arguments were 'wrong'. I don't know if I'd call them 'terrible'...

"What good is half a wing?" arguments have been around for over a century and have been wrong for roughly the same reasons the entire time. The irreducible complexity phase of this argument didn't change much.

And their motivations have absolutely no bearing on the scientific legitimacy of their proposals.
We do not, and have never, required 'scientists' to be perfectly objective and perfectly free of bias. Mainly because that's impossible. We let the scientific method weed out the rubbish...

Their motivations, however, do explain why they stick around and continue to use these bad arguments. It explains why we are talking about things like irreducible complexity at all.

I'd have to get more familiar with this specific article to reach a conclusion myself, but I can well imagine that it may not have been at an 'acceptable' level... I may well have no argument with the conclusion.

You can read the article here:

http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB ... ew&id=2177

You can read a simple, early refutation here:

http://www.pandasthumb.org/pt-archives/000430.html

You can read what Journal had to say about the article here:

The paper by Stephen C. Meyer, "The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories," in vol. 117, no. 2, pp. 213-239 of the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, was published at the discretion of the former editor, Richard v. Sternberg. Contrary to typical editorial practices, the paper was published without review by any associate editor; Sternberg handled the entire review process. The Council, which includes officers, elected councilors, and past presidents, and the associate editors would have deemed the paper inappropriate for the pages of the Proceedings because the subject matter represents such a significant departure from the nearly purely systematic content for which this journal has been known throughout its 122-year history. For the same reason, the journal will not publish a rebuttal to the thesis of the paper, the superiority of intelligent design (ID) over evolution as an explanation of the emergence of Cambrian body-plan diversity. The Council endorses a resolution on ID published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2002/1106id2.shtml), which observes that there is no credible scientific evidence supporting ID as a testable hypothesis to explain the origin of organic diversity. Accordingly, the Meyer paper does not meet the scientific standards of the Proceedings.

We have reviewed and revised editorial policies to ensure that the goals of the Society, as reflected in its journal, are clearly understood by all. Through a web presence (http://www.biolsocwash.org) and improvements in the journal, the Society hopes not only to continue but to increase its service to the world community of systematic biologists.

http://www.biolsocwash.org/id_statement.html

[Guest]

EAllusion,

First, thanks for posting those links. I wanna get a bit more familiar with this specific article that is going to be mentioned in the film before I see it.

I've gotta admit - this is almost certainly me just being overly pedantic. (And it seems pretty clear you're also more familiar with the details...)
When I'm talking about 'legitimate' science, I think I'm more relating to your idea of 'non-science'. I can see what you mean - legitimate science is that which works with the peer review system properly and exposes itself to proper scrutiny etc. Even if IC technically 'counted', they never went about it the right way. I'm totally down with that...
And yes, you're right - the idea shouldn't have lasted any real time at all. And yet we are still hearing about it years on. Yeah - I can see that.

I also agree that Irreducible Complexity doesn't amount to much more than 'What good is half a wing, or an eye'. The essense of it is pretty cheap. The only credit I give it is that it framed that fairly innane idea into something that could be conclusively nailed down as FALSE in very specific examples by someone like Miller.
In short, I like Irreducible Complexity because - in my opinion -it made the problem so obviously 'deflatable' that even those who don't necessarily get the 'What good is half an eye' argument can see it being dismantled 'properly'...


I'd rather just not deny that it was science 'at all'. I'm fine with the 'bad science' conclusion, as long as we are not dismissing it as non-science. Because that - in my opinion - would be going too far...

But I think we pretty much agree here - really To be honest. It's all a matter of finicky, strict definitions and such...

It could also be that I'm trying to be over-generous to ID. That's entirely possible.

I suppose arguing that IC is / was 'legitimate' science could be akin to arguing that a Limerick can technically count as a 'legitimate' bed-time story.
You could say it could technically count as a bed-time story. (Just a really really quick one!)
...but can it technically be a 'legitimate' bed-time story?
Yeah - I fully accept your point. I think that analogy makes it clear to me.

It explains why we are talking about things like irreducible complexity at all.

So are ID-ers (or whatever the hell they want to call themselves now) still actually sticking by the 'Irreducibly complex' argument? I thought it was getting phased out after Dover...

[_asbestosman]

(ID advocates sometimes try to claim a few others, but they really aren't "ID" papers for reasons that can be discussed if those examples are brought up.)

I'm curious about what other papers they claim.

[_Ren]

Hmmm - ok. So I wanna go back to the comment that started all this off and 'revise' my reaction to it:

I see that ID is not just challenging science -- but it is NOT science. You want to take on a scientific theory (fact) then use science to do so.

I'd now say that:

In some cases ID did attempt valid science. And it would be accurate to say that some of what it did does technically 'pass' as science.
But it was always so poorly handled (both technically and in relation to the obvious 'intent'), that attempting to call any of it 'legitimate' science would be a real stretch.
And, overall, ID's claim to be a 'competing theory' was always completely bogus, and an utter scientific lie.

I think I'm happier with that response...
I mean - in truth - it's just one step away from 'You're exactly right' :D (And even that step is pretty pedantic, probably by any body's standards...)

[_Moniker]

Hmmm - ok. So I wanna go back to the comment that started all this off and 'revise' my reaction to it:

I see that ID is not just challenging science -- but it is NOT science. You want to take on a scientific theory (fact) then use science to do so.

I'd now say that:

In some cases ID did attempt valid science. And it would be accurate to say that some of what it did does technically 'pass' as science.
But it was always so poorly handled (both technically and in relation to the obvious 'intent'), that attempting to call any of it 'legitimate' science would be a real stretch.
And, overall, ID's claim to be a 'competing theory' was always completely bogus, and an utter scientific lie.

I think I'm happier with that response...
I mean - in truth - it's just one step away from 'You're exactly right' :D (And even that step is pretty pedantic, probably by any body's standards...)

Isn't life easier when you just agree with me from the get go? ;)

[_Ren]

Isn't life easier when you just agree with me from the get go? ;)

Haha!
...yeah, it really is! I'll bear that in mind next time...

[_EAllusion]

(ID advocates sometimes try to claim a few others, but they really aren't "ID" papers for reasons that can be discussed if those examples are brought up.)

I'm curious about what other papers they claim.

The two main culprits are this one:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1096 ... t=Abstract

And this one:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1534 ... d_RVDocSum