k wrote:
] ] The buzz phrase most often heard in the institute's
] ] offices is academic freedom. "My hackles go up on the
] ] academic freedom issue," Chapman says. "You should be
] ] allowed in the sciences to ask questions and posit
] ] alternative theories."
]
] [ There's a lot of language in this article about the ID folks
] talking about scientific equanimity, "understanding the full
] range of scientific views", and so on, but nothing I have seen
] points to ID being scientific in any way, shape or form.
]
] Its central tenet is that there are structures in Biology that
] are too complex to be the result of Darwinian selection. They
] then make the fallacy of stating "therefore, there must be an
] intelligent designer." It's a fallacy because the conclusion
] is not logically supported by the assumptions.
]
] And that's not the biggest issue, because science is based on
] repeatable, verifiable experiments. If you have none, then
] you aren't doing science. The statement that one theory is
] wrong, so my theory is right, based on no evidence, is
] definitionaly unscientific.
]
] Even the "evidence" they cite is only, at *best*,
] demonstrative of areas where darwinism fails to completely
] explain a phenomenon. Again though, even assuming is that's
] the case, the failure of one system to explain something is
] insufficient to support the claim of another.
]
] And for the record, that's not to say they're wrong, or
] shouldn't believe whatever they want, but it's just that, a
] belief. And therefore has no place in a discussion about
] teaching science.
]
] Don't get me started on Gilder. He tries to cite newton, but
] neglects to mention that no one threw Newton out because of
] quantum mechanics. And that's his most cogent argument.
]
] The bottom line, as Lawrence Krauss implies, is that
] biologists need to stand up. Forget your fears about lending
] credence to the opposition by engaging them. Dispell any
] implication that evolutionary theory and ID are even close to
] each other in terms of support. They may have couched the
] debate in the lingo of science, but the result will be
] teaching about God and His plan, as defined by the political
] Right wing. Fairness doesn't enter into it. -k]

This is typical of all issues it seems like today, and that is there's nothing but spin and polarization on the issues. Obviously the ideal is somewhere in the middle, where you can contextualize the existance of a Creator (however you may define it) and the mechanics of Darwinism and adaptive process. This gets totally lost in the extremist views of "His plan" and the paranoia of atheism. And smart people do a disservice to the rest of the world by taking sides in these kinds of debates. Why can't our society embrace rationality?

I haven't read the article all the way through yet, but I imagine that there's a case made for the science of product design exhibiting the same behaviors or results as biological process. So which is it? Did we come to be due to design or from biological process? Why not both? Why are they exclusive? If you look at the study of how things react or adapt after being created, there's certainly an environmental impact component of that study. How can they be extricated from each other? Who really cares at this point!?! With what we have before us in terms of opportunities for new knowledge and leaps of understanding, I think it's academic to postulate either/or kinds of questions. That's like asking whether art is expression of conscious thought or just random form while the museum is burning down.

RE: Wired 12.10: The Crusade Against Evolution