Wesley Elsberry reminds us that the tenth anniversary of the Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District is fast approaching. In his inimitable low-key but hard-hitting style, he writes:
Because religious antievolution since the Epperson v. Arkansas case has mostly adopted the strategy of deception, I see the time since Dover as confirming that as the approach. After Epperson, the proponents of creationism could have used a strategy of cultural resistance via Sunday school and church. Instead, they seized on phrasing in the Epperson decision’s dissenting opinion that of course science of whatever variety could be taught in public school science classrooms, and decided that they would use a subset of the old arguments they used to promote creationism, and claim that those were science. The history of the antievolution movement since then has been a process of iterative cloaking of intent as the courts prove time and again capable of discerning the sham. (‘Sham’ is the phrasing used in the Edwards v. Aguillard decision in 1987.)
Given that view of history in mind, it is easy to see that the application of the deceptive strategy is still the primary focus of the antievolution movement. The intent is to get as many of the old, shabby, awful arguments from creationism mentioned in public school science classrooms as if they had never been refuted.
Given that our legal system has recourse for teaching sectarian religious doctrines, but not for teaching bad science*, this looks to be a process that will continue. ‘Intelligent design’ as a commonly accepted, given the benefit of doubt notion is dead, but the arguments that comprised IDC go on under new names, sowing confusion and mistrust of the scientific endeavor.
*There are some provisions for removing incompetent teachers, but applying them is usually difficult and uncertain of achieving good results.
I remember the events building up to the Dover trial as it coincided with a period of illness and treatment that meant I had plenty of time on my hands to surf the net and, having come across “Intelligent Design” by accident, I was able to follow events and personalities quite closely. Since then, I’ve predicted (wrongly and prematurely) the demise of the movement. That puzzles me. The strategy to get alternative ideas to evolution taught in public schools has pretty much failed. Seems to me that ID proponents need to look at two options. Develop another strategy for bypassing Church-state separation or actually put some effort into developing ID into a genuine scientific hypothesis with entailments and predictions. Otherwise, why go on?
Not in so many words, but he does appear to be hiding in plain sight. On a short leash.
Elizabeth,
I do wish people would stop suggesting that other commenters here might be Joe Gallien. I can’t think of anything more insulting to say about someone else.
Let’s aspire to politeness!
Worse than entropy!
We could also perhaps add Unpredictable.
And it was a failed argument then, too.
Mung,
Entropy has a precise definition, despite some prominent IDCists not understanding it.
Oh, “unpredictable” is great. It does what it says on the tin: nobody can predict it.
What else could it mean?
Patrick is random, by which I mean, unpredictable. I hear he’s leaning towards voting for Ben Carson and denouncing the Dover decision.
Well, Ben Carson is pretty random, I would say.
I think that would make him arbitrary and capricious, which is not the same as random.
Have you heard about the new guns for neurosurgeons campaign?
In other news. If they are old enough for religion, they are old enough for a gun.
Mung,
I’m very consistent. You just need to adjust your model.
Elizabeth,
I believe the British term is “barking mad.”
Neil Rickert,
You left out charming and modest.
Mung,
What happens when I randomly choose one of three boxes?
You win a prize?
Suppose that we were asked to arrange the following in two categories – distance, mass, electric force, entropy, beauty, melody. I think there are the strongest grounds for placing entropy alongside beauty and melody.
– Arthur Eddington (a Quaker?)
Fortune cookie says intersection of random and intentional.
Mung,
Don’t believe everything you read. Here’s the definition of thermodynamic entropy:
Or if you prefer the statistical mechanics version (assuming an isolated system in equilibrium):
Arguably beautiful, but precisely measurable.
And of course very similar to the definition of Shannon Entropy, often regarded by IDists, as ironically a measure of Information content, although of course it’s really a measure of information carrying capacity.
I would argue against some evilutionists regarding information and genomes. I do not think information is applicable to genomes. I don’t think there is any quantifiable relation between gene length or gene count and pheontype or reproductive fitness. I don’t think adding to a coding sequence should be construed as increasing information. I just don’t see it being quantifiable except at a very coarse grained level.
According to evolutionary biology, random, as in random mutation, refers to happenstance, as in accidents, errors and mistakes. Unfortunately there isn’t any objective way to make that determination and there isn’t any way to model such a process producing molecular machinery.
Meyers says flat-out that Shannon is only a measure of information carrying capacity.
Bit like your Intelligent Designer then eh?
In what way is it a failed argument? And in what way is unguided evolution a better argument? Please be specific as epigenetics supports Spetner, as does the works of McClintock and J. Shapiro
Directed evolution can be modeled and the DESIGN has testable entailments. So no, unguided evolution is vacuous whereas directed evolution can at least be modeled.
Nonsense!
The way any argument is better than no argument. Your side doesn’t even have an argument!
Was that link to molecular clocks supposed to refute something that I said? What was it supposed to refute, Alan? Can you actually make a case?
LoL! Nice projection, Alan. Our side has a model and testable entailments whereas your side doesn’t have either.
Not obvious? The individually unpredictable but statistically reliable accumulation of mutations in non-conserved DNA is consilient with other evidence. QED!
Where? Don’t be coy, this could make you famous!
Umm, Alan, that doesn’t show that A) evolution is unguided and B) that unguided evolution can produce molecular machinery.
Go on then.
Go on then, model it.
Can guided evolution produce molecular machinery?
Evolutionary and genetic algorithms model directed evolution, Alan. And counterflow and work are objective criteria used to determine natural from artifact. Also Dr Behe and others have laid down the design criteria. And yours still has nothing.
Whether something is unguided or not can be left as a philosophical question. Unless you are going to claim there is evidence of God’s guiding hand (or foot)?
OMagain,
Grow up already. Evolutionary and genetic algorithms model directed evolution.
Nope. There are poor, bad and better models of evolution or aspects of it. They are all just models of reality.
I’ll agree that it is sometimes easy and sometimes less so to distinguish objects that are man-made from those that are not, similarly for objects produced or modified by other living organisms or processes. The leap is to disembodied designers for which ID advocates have no hypothesis, let alone evidence.
Pretty vague assertion. All I recall Mike Behe saying on the subject is “Poof!”
So archaeology and forensic science are philosophy? Really?
What’s the difference between “evolutionary” and “genetic” algorithms, Frankie? In your own words.
A Response to the Opinion of the Court in Kitzmiller vs Dover Area School District (may have to refresh the page to get the document)
Awesome! Can we see this model and entailments? Clue: ‘not by chance” isn’t a model.
And they are how the designer “did it” then are they?
OMagain,
Oh please please please “front loading”. or “Guidance mechanism”.
Given that you have no evidence that any specific mutation is actually guided, but rather you hold open only the mere possibility that it is in fact guided, then ID is more like philosophy in that it is a position where the truth of the matter cannot be determined one way or the other.
I mean, if you could demonstrate that a given mutation was guided that’d be different. But you can’t. All you can see is that it might not have been random. And that’s insufficient.
In such a computer program I can pull out the “target” for the genetic algorithms. If, as you claim, evolution is actually directed then you will have no trouble pulling out the “target” from the “code”, will you?
Unless of course it’s merely another philosophical assumption with no actual basis in reality that can be demonstrated? I mean, logic dictates that before you make such a claim you’d be doing it on the basis of existing evidence, right?
A GA is a specific type of EA
Pay attention to your own comments, Joe. We were discussing the randomness of individual mutations.
Show us how to model unguided evolution and tell us its entailments so we can compare.
For example?
An example of a GA =
An example of a EA =
You used to write them, right? So you can likely just paste the code right in eh?