The Fight For Academic Freedom at Ball State University

_{Donald McLaughlin

September 12, 2013

Academic Freedom, Atheism, Darwinism, Education, Evolution, Intelligent Design}

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By now, I’m sure most of you have heard about the academic freedom controversy surrounding Ball State University and the investigation of physics professor, Eric Hedin (pronounced he-deen). Discovery Institute’s Evolution News and Views has published several stories over the past few weeks, most notably this, this, this and this. (Articles on the entire saga can be found here.) Today, the DI launched a new web-page so you can help get the message of academic freedom to the BSU Board of Trustees. If you believe in academic freedom, like I do, then please take a look at the page and add your voice. The kind of treatment foisted upon Prof. Hedin is what you might expect in a totalitarian regime, not an institution of higher learning in the United States of America.

Comments

This is just rich, neo-Darwinists claim purely material processes produced the unfathomed levels of integrated complex functional information we find in life, and yet they have ZERO examples of material processes producing complex functional information, all the while they claim ID is unscientific for daring to hold neo-Darwinists to their claim that material processes can produce complex functional information. Only a Darwinist would think he was sane in making such an argument!.bornagain77_{September 13, 2013
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So unguided evolution doesn't make any predictions. Figures...Joe_{September 13, 2013
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CLAVDIVS:
It’s sad to say, but you seem to be labouring under the mistaken impression that unless I convince you personally of something about bacterial flagella, my point about why ID should not be taught in science class is invalid.
My point is if you cannot demonstrate that your position is scientific then all you have is your childish whining against ID as it is obvious you do not know what science is.
2. Modern evolutionary science is not even slightly affected by the fact that you, Joe, are personally unconvinced by it.
Who is convinced and why? I could ask them a series of questions taht they could not answer wrt their position.
The science that underlies evolutionary biology is of the same standard as any other science relied on in our great institutions of industry, medicine, government and the law.
Liar.Joe_{September 13, 2013
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Elizabeth B Liddle: Give me a falsifiable prediction made by ID.
Seconded. Let's hear a falsifiable prediction involving something that is "best explained by an intelligent cause".CLAVDIVS_{September 13, 2013
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Liizie, YOU give us one prediction borne from unguided evolution. ID predicts, as does archaeology and forensic science, that, if ID is true, we will find signs in nature- ie things that nature, operating freely cannot produce. But anyway- enjoy:
The conclusion that something was designed can be made quite independently of knowledge of the designer. As a matter of procedure, the design must first be apprehended before there can be any further question about the designer. The inference to design can be held with all firmness that is possible in this world, without knowing anything about the designer.—Dr Behe

As a scientific research program, intelligent design investigates the effects of intelligence and not intelligence as such.- Wm. Dembski page 33 of The Design Revolution
Observation: The Universe Question Is the universe the result of intentional design? Prediction: 1) If the universe was the product of a common design then I would expect it to be governed by one (common) set of parameters. 2) If the universe were designed for scientific discovery then I would expect a strong correlation between habitability and measurability. 3) Also if the universe was designed for scientific discovery I would expect it to be comprehensible. Test: 1) Try to determine if the same laws that apply every place on Earth also apply throughout the universe. 2) Try to determine the correlation between habitability and measurability. 3) Try to determine if the universe is comprehensible. Potential falsification: 1) Observe that the universe is chaotic. 2) A- Find a place that is not habitable but offers at least as good of a platform to make scientific discoveries as Earth or B- Find a place that is inhabited but offers a poor platform from which to make scientific discoveries. 3) Observe that we cannot comprehend the universe, meaning A) what applies locally does not apply throughout or B) what applies in one scenario, even locally, cannot be used/ applied in any similar scenario, even locally. Confirmation: 1) Tests conducted all over the globe, on the Moon and in space confirm that the same laws that apply here also apply throughout the universe. 2) All scientific data gathered to date confirm that habitability correlates with measurability. 3) “The most incomprehensible thing about our universe is that it is comprehensible.” Albert Einstein Observation: Living organisms Question Are living organisms the result of intentional design? Prediction: If living organisms were the result of intentional design then I would expect to see that living organisms are (and contain subsystems that are) irreducibly complex and/ or contain complex specified information. IOW I would expect to see an intricacy that is more than just a sum of chemical reactions (endothermic or exothermic). Further I would expect to see command & control- a hierarchy of command & control would be a possibility. Test: Try to deduce the minimal functionality that a living organism. Try to determine if that minimal functionality is irreducibly complex and/or contains complex specified information. Also check to see if any subsystems are irreducibly complex and/ or contain complex specified information. Potential falsification: Observe that living organisms arise from non-living matter via a mixture of commonly-found-in-nature chemicals. Observe that while some systems “appear” to be irreducibly complex it can be demonstrated that they can indeed arise via purely stochastic processes such as culled genetic accidents. Also demonstrate that the apparent command & control can also be explained by endothermic and/or exothermic reactions. Confirmation: Living organisms are irreducibly complex and contain irreducibly complex subsystems. The information required to build and maintain a single-celled organism is both complex and specified. Command & control is observed in single-celled organisms- the bacterial flagellum not only has to be configured correctly, indicating command & control over the assembly process, but it also has to function, indicating command & control over functionality. Conclusion (scientific inference) Both the universe and living organisms are the result of intention design. Any future research can either confirm or refute this premise, which, for the biological side, was summed up in Darwinism, Design and Public Education page 92: 1. High information content (or specified complexity) and irreducible complexity constitute strong indicators or hallmarks of (past) intelligent design. 2. Biological systems have a high information content (or specified complexity) and utilize subsystems that manifest irreducible complexity. 3. Naturalistic mechanisms or undirected causes do not suffice to explain the origin of information (specified complexity) or irreducible complexity. 4. Therefore, intelligent design constitutes the best explanations for the origin of information and irreducible complexity in biological systems.Joe_{September 13, 2013
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Joe @ 22
Hey CLAVDIVS- you forgot something: Or perhaps CLAVDIVS can tell us how to test the claim that a bacterial flagellum evolved via accumulations of genetic accidents. Have at it or admit that your position is total BS.
It's sad to say, but you seem to be labouring under the mistaken impression that unless I convince you personally of something about bacterial flagella, my point about why ID should not be taught in science class is invalid. Preposterous. 1. The evolution of flagella has absolutely nothing to do with why ID is not taught in university science class. 2. Modern evolutionary science is not even slightly affected by the fact that you, Joe, are personally unconvinced by it. The science that underlies evolutionary biology is of the same standard as any other science relied on in our great institutions of industry, medicine, government and the law. You are just a tiny, frightened lonely voice that cannot be heard except by those few souls who, like me, wander occasionally into your gated community. Your opinion of science and evolution are irrelevant.CLAVDIVS_{September 13, 2013
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CLAVDIVS- It is very telling that you are ignoring my challenge to you. And not one scientific society can support unguided evolution. You lose.Joe_{September 13, 2013
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@ 24 See Lee Boman's argument with Dr. Hurd > http://chronicle.com/article/Ball-State-U-Bars-Teaching-of/140777/ {Keep hitting 'load more comments' to last page]equate65_{September 13, 2013
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Joe:
ID makes predictions, it can be tested and potentially falsified.
Give me a falsifiable prediction made by ID.Elizabeth B Liddle_{September 13, 2013
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Joe @ 20
There isn’t any such thing as a “scientific community”.
Yeah, sure, Joe. That's a really convincing argument.
Also there are plenty of scientists who agree with me.
Agree with you about what? If you mean agree with you that intelligent design is science, you're going to have to name an awful lot of scientists to outweigh the opinion of every single scientific society that has spoken on the subject of intelligent design, and says its not science. And a famous court case that found the same thing after weeks of sworn testimony.CLAVDIVS_{September 13, 2013
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bornagain77 @ 19 If ID proponents want ID taught in science class, then they must hypothesise something that is "best explained by an intelligent cause", scientifically test that hypothesis, and publish the results for critical scientific review. None of the material you posted above even comes close to this. That's why ID is not taught in science classes.CLAVDIVS_{September 13, 2013
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Hey CLAVDIVS- you forgot something: Or perhaps CLAVDIVS can tell us how to test the claim that a bacterial flagellum evolved via accumulations of genetic accidents. Have at it or admit that your position is total BS.Joe_{September 13, 2013
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Lizzie:
The reason is simple: to be testable, a hypothesis has to make a prediction, and if the prediction is a poor match to the data, then it will fail. If it is a good one, the hypothesis will be supported.
What predictions are borne from unguided evolution? Heck you have already admitted that unguided evolution is not science. BTW ID makes predictions, it can be tested and potentially falsified.Joe_{September 13, 2013
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CLAVDIVS:
But the opinion that actually matters when it comes to deciding what’s taught in science class is not yours, but the consensus viewpoint of the scientific community.
There isn't any such thing as a "scientific community" Also there are plenty of scientists who agree with me. Also I would love to see this alleged scientific community test unguided evolution. Yet no one can produce any predictions that it makes.Joe_{September 13, 2013
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CLAVDIVS, falsely was the correct word. Reserved but correct! Moreover you are the one who is either naive or ignorant.,, For you yourself provide direct evidence for Intelligent Causation above and beyond what the entire material processes of the universe can do, over the entire history of the universe, every time you write a single sentence! Or do you deny that you are Intelligent? Moreover ID's basis in science is based on the same method of reasoning that Charles Darwin himself used. Stephen Meyer - The Scientific Basis for the Intelligent Design Inference - video http://vimeo.com/32148403 Notes: Book Review - Meyer, Stephen C. Signature in the Cell. New York: HarperCollins, 2009. Excerpt: As early as the 1960s, those who approached the problem of the origin of life from the standpoint of information theory and combinatorics observed that something was terribly amiss. Even if you grant the most generous assumptions: that every elementary particle in the observable universe is a chemical laboratory randomly splicing amino acids into proteins every Planck time for the entire history of the universe, there is a vanishingly small probability that even a single functionally folded protein of 150 amino acids would have been created. Now of course, elementary particles aren't chemical laboratories, nor does peptide synthesis take place where most of the baryonic mass of the universe resides: in stars or interstellar and intergalactic clouds. If you look at the chemistry, it gets even worse—almost indescribably so: the precursor molecules of many of these macromolecular structures cannot form under the same prebiotic conditions—they must be catalysed by enzymes created only by preexisting living cells, and the reactions required to assemble them into the molecules of biology will only go when mediated by other enzymes, assembled in the cell by precisely specified information in the genome. So, it comes down to this: Where did that information come from? The simplest known free living organism (although you may quibble about this, given that it's a parasite) has a genome of 582,970 base pairs, or about one megabit (assuming two bits of information for each nucleotide, of which there are four possibilities). Now, if you go back to the universe of elementary particle Planck time chemical labs and work the numbers, you find that in the finite time our universe has existed, you could have produced about 500 bits of structured, functional information by random search. Yet here we have a minimal information string which is (if you understand combinatorics) so indescribably improbable to have originated by chance that adjectives fail. http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/reading_list/indices/book_726.html To clarify as to how the 500 bit universal limit is found for 'structured, functional information': Dembski's original value for the universal probability bound is 1 in 10^150, 10^80, the number of elementary particles in the observable universe. 10^45, the maximum rate per second at which transitions in physical states can occur. 10^25, a billion times longer than the typical estimated age of the universe in seconds. Thus, 10^150 = 10^80 × 10^45 × 10^25. Hence, this value corresponds to an upper limit on the number of physical events that could possibly have occurred since the big bang. How many bits would that be: Pu = 10-150, so, -log2 Pu = 498.29 bits Call it 500 bits (The 500 bits is further specified as a specific type of information. It is specified as Complex Specified Information by Dembski or as Functional Information by Abel to separate it from merely Ordered Sequence Complexity or Random Sequence Complexity; See Three subsets of sequence complexity) Three subsets of sequence complexity and their relevance to biopolymeric information - Abel, Trevors http://www.tbiomed.com/content/2/1/29 Arguing God from Teleology? (William Dembski) – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGTOQ-fUNMY This short sentence, "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" is calculated by Winston Ewert, in this following video at the 10 minute mark, to contain 1000 bits of algorithmic specified complexity, and thus to exceed the Universal Probability Bound (UPB) of 500 bits set by Dr. Dembski Proposed Information Metric: Conditional Kolmogorov Complexity - Winston Ewert - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fm3mm3ofAYU Here are the slides of preceding video with the calculation of the information content of the preceding 'brown fox' sentence http://www.blythinstitute.org/images/data/attachments/0000/0037/present_info.pdf Moreover, as if all that wasn't bad enough for neo-Darwinists, Quantum entanglement/information, which is not reducible to a 'local', within space-time, matter-energy cause is now found in molecular biology on a massive scale.bornagain77_{September 13, 2013
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bornagain77 @ 16
Oh I get it now, it is not the fact that ID actually does have a falsification criteria, and neo-Darwinism does not have one, that really matters in the end as to what separates science from pseudo-science, but what really matters as to making ID science is what the ‘consensus opinion of the scientific community’ falsely thinks constitutes a scientific theory.
Yep, you got it. Except the word 'falsely'.
Let’s be clear: The work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.
Poor, naive bornagain77. ID is not regarded as science, because it hasn't yet put forward even a lone investigator with an hypothesis of an ID "intelligent cause" that has been tested against the real world.CLAVDIVS_{September 13, 2013
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kairosfocus @ 11
This may indeed be the talking point, but your evident citation of a major and willfully spread misrepresentation without immediate correction calls forth a corrective, given the above. KF
What may indeed be the talking point? What are you referring to?CLAVDIVS_{September 13, 2013
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CLAVDIVS, Oh I get it now, it is not the fact that ID actually does have a falsification criteria, and neo-Darwinism does not have one, that really matters in the end as to what separates science from pseudo-science, but what really matters as to making ID science is what the 'consensus opinion of the scientific community' falsely thinks constitutes a scientific theory. ,,, Let’s be clear: The work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period. (From a lecture delivered by the late Michael Crichton at the California Institute of Technology) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122603134258207975.html?mod=djemEditorialPage also of note: Does Epistemological Naturalism Imply Metaphysical Naturalism? - William Lane Craig - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yNddAh0Txg Is Metaphysical Naturalism Viable? - William Lane Craig - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzS_CQnmoLQbornagain77_{September 13, 2013
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kairosfocus @ 8
At some time, continually mischaracterising a view you oppose becomes willfully continued misrepresenation of something, through speaking what you know or should know is false. That is, willful deceit.
Yes, thank you for the edifying example of insinuating deceitfulness without actually demonstrating anything I said was false. I shall certainly continue to avoid using such misrepresentative rhetoric. My post was about the reason given by the scientific community for why ID should not be taught in science class: namely, ID is not scientifically testable. In this context, I do not care to debate your arcane FSCO/I claims since you have not cared to submit them to the scientific community for critical review. And I do not care to debate your challenge to materalists. I'm not a materialist and neither is the majority of the scientific community. Neither your FSCO/I claim nor your challenge to materialists are even remotely relevant to my point, which was that ID has failed to convince the scientific community that it is science, and thus it is proper and correct that ID be excluded from university science classes. Don't blame me - I'm just the messenger. If you want ID taught in science class, then propose a testable hypothesis, test it, and write up the results for critical scientific review.CLAVDIVS_{September 13, 2013
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KF
Similarly, for just one case, in ten days it will be a full year since I put on the table a still open challenge to proponents of darwinist evolutionary materialism or similar views, to show a good and cogent feature article explanation that adequately demonstrates on good and adequate observational basis, how OOL and origin of body plans is adequately accounted for per chemical evo and through evolutionary mechanisms. In particular, the tree of life needs to be accounted for from the root up.
There will be no such article, KF, for the simple reason that there is no such explanation. Firstly, no scientific model ever claims to "adequately" account for data. There are always gaps between the model and the data. The best we can do is to come closer than competing models. Secondly, we do not even have a working model for OOL that does not leave a substantial number of outstanding problems. There are some promising leads, but not even the scientists involved would claim that they have got anywhere close to a plausible full account yet. Even if they do, we will still lack data with which to test that whether the proposed mechanism is what actually happened.Elizabeth B Liddle_{September 13, 2013
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It's not a "talking point", KF, it's self-evidently true: how do you make a prediction from a theory that could predict anything? And if your theory doesn't make a prediction, how do you test it?Elizabeth B Liddle_{September 13, 2013
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Just to niggle: Lots of "intelligent design" hypotheses are testable. Just, so far, none of those that propose an intelligent designer as the designer of living things. The reason is simple: to be testable, a hypothesis has to make a prediction, and if the prediction is a poor match to the data, then it will fail. If it is a good one, the hypothesis will be supported. The hypothesis of an omnipotent omniscient creator deity could predict anything, and therefore nothing.Elizabeth B Liddle_{September 13, 2013
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Claudius: This may indeed be the talking point, but your evident citation of a major and willfully spread misrepresentation without immediate correction calls forth a corrective, given the above. KFkairosfocus_{September 13, 2013
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Joe @ 7
ID can be tested and potentially falsified.
So you say. But the opinion that actually matters when it comes to deciding what's taught in science class is not yours, but the consensus viewpoint of the scientific community. And the scientific community overwhelmingly disagrees with you that ID is testable science. We know this is not due to philosophical bias, because a majority of scientists believe in God or a higher power. And it's not dogmatic defense of the current paradigms of common descent, variation and natural selection, because ID is fully compatible with those. This leaves us with the logical conclusion that the scientific community rejects ID as science, purely and simply because of the reason actually given by that community: because ID is not testable by the methods of science.CLAVDIVS_{September 13, 2013
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bornagain77 @ 6 Please try to pay attention to what I have said; you seem to find this extremely difficult, but it really isn't.
CLAVDIVS: The reason given why ID is rejected as science is that it proposes no theory that can be tested by the methods of science.
Contrary to your insinuation, this is a true and correct statement. I know that you and a small group of people disagree and believe ID is testable and neo-Darwinism is not. This of course is irrelevant to the question of what should be taught in a university science class. What is relevant is the consensus opinion of the scientific community, which is crystal clear: ID does not propose a scientifically testable hypothesis, so it's not science.CLAVDIVS_{September 13, 2013
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Claudius: At some time, continually mischaracterising a view you oppose becomes willfully continued misrepresenation of something, through speaking what you know or should know is false. That is, willful deceit. You are at that threshold. First, you know or should know that the design inference on observing FSCO/I in its various manifestations is directly falsifiable, by simply demonstrating that FSCO/I -- say, coded data strings such as posts in this thread manifest, or sufficiently long D/RNA strings show also -- in our observation, can and do result from natura acting freely without intelligent guidance or control, by blind chance and mechanical necessity. There are billions of cases observed of such FSCO/I resulting from design, and -- despite many attempted counter examples -- zero of the same from blind chance and mechanical necessity. Similarly, for just one case, in ten days it will be a full year since I put on the table a still open challenge to proponents of darwinist evolutionary materialism or similar views, to show a good and cogent feature article explanation that adequately demonstrates on good and adequate observational basis, how OOL and origin of body plans is adequately accounted for per chemical evo and through evolutionary mechanisms. In particular, the tree of life needs to be accounted for from the root up. If such were to be shown -- and remember, I have promised to host such an article as a full post here at UD -- it would utterly demolish the design theory case for the world of life. There would still be a discussion of cosmological fine tuning (which is highly relevant to what is going on at Ball State U) but there would be an instant collapse of the concept that ID is relevant to the world of cell based life. To date, I have received no serious submissions [Petrushka, I have not heard back from you . . . ], but did take the case of the Wiki articles as a stand in for the empty chair, and the suggested 29 evidences of macro evo from Talk Origins. Neither were impressive. The above are simple, easily accessible facts presented in your presence any number of times. I suggest that if you have any regard for duties of care to truth, accuracy and fairness, you refrain in future from the sort of talking points you just made above. KFkairosfocus_{September 13, 2013
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CLAVDIVS:
The reason given why ID is rejected as science is that it proposes no theory that can be tested by the methods of science.
ID can be tested and potentially falsified. OTOH evolutionism cannot be tested. Or perhaps CLAVDIVS can tell us how to test the claim that a bacterial flagellum evolved via accumulations of genetic accidents.Joe_{September 13, 2013
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CLAVDIVS falsely states:
The reason given why ID is rejected as science is that it proposes no theory that can be tested by the methods of science.
Contrary to CLAVDIVS claim, the fact of the matter is that neo-Darwinism is the theory, not ID, which has no testable falsification criteria within science so as to separate it from pseudo-science:
“nobody to date has yet found a demarcation criterion according to which Darwin can be described as scientific” – Imre Lakatos (November 9, 1922 – February 2, 1974) a philosopher of mathematics and science, quote as stated in 1973 LSE Scientific Method Lecture Oxford University Seeks Mathemagician — May 5th, 2011 by Douglas Axe Excerpt: Grand theories in physics are usually expressed in mathematics. Newton’s mechanics and Einstein’s theory of special relativity are essentially equations. Words are needed only to interpret the terms. Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection has obstinately remained in words since 1859. … http://biologicinstitute.org/2011/05/05/oxford-university-seeks-mathemagician/ “It is our contention that if ‘random’ is given a serious and crucial interpretation from a probabilistic point of view, the randomness postulate is highly implausible and that an adequate scientific theory of evolution must await the discovery and elucidation of new natural laws—physical, physico-chemical, and biological.” Murray Eden, “Inadequacies of Neo-Darwinian Evolution as a Scientific Theory,” Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution, editors Paul S. Moorhead and Martin M. Kaplan, June 1967, p. 109. “On the other hand, I disagree that Darwin’s theory is as `solid as any explanation in science.; Disagree? I regard the claim as preposterous. Quantum electrodynamics is accurate to thirteen or so decimal places; so, too, general relativity. A leaf trembling in the wrong way would suffice to shatter either theory. What can Darwinian theory offer in comparison?” (Berlinski, D., “A Scientific Scandal?: David Berlinski & Critics,” Commentary, July 8, 2003) Macroevolution, microevolution and chemistry: the devil is in the details – Dr. V. J. Torley – February 27, 2013 Excerpt: After all, mathematics, scientific laws and observed processes are supposed to form the basis of all scientific explanation. If none of these provides support for Darwinian macroevolution, then why on earth should we accept it? Indeed, why does macroevolution belong in the province of science at all, if its scientific basis cannot be demonstrated? https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/macroevolution-microevolution-and-chemistry-the-devil-is-in-the-details/
In fact, is so far as math can be applied to specific Darwinian claims through population genetics, it is found that Darwinism is "effectively falsified":
Using Numerical Simulation to Test the Validity of Neo-Darwinian Theory - 2008 Abstract: When any reasonable set of biological parameters are used, Mendel provides overwhelming empirical evidence that all of the “fatal flaws” inherent in evolutionary genetic theory are real. This leaves evolutionary genetic theory effectively falsified—with a degree of certainty which should satisfy any reasonable and open-minded person. http://www.icr.org/i/pdf/technical/Using-Numerical-Simulation-to-Test-the-Validity-of-Neo-Darwinian-Theory.pdf
Whereas ID does not suffer such an embarrassment as to having no rigid falsification criteria within mathematics so as to delineate it as truly scientific and not a pseudo-science:
Evolutionary Informatics Lab – Main Publications http://evoinfo.org/publications/ ,,the empirical falsification criteria of ID is much easier to understand than the math is, and is as such: The Capabilities of Chaos and Complexity: David L. Abel – Null Hypothesis For Information Generation – 2009 Excerpt: To focus the scientific community’s attention on its own tendencies toward overzealous metaphysical imagination bordering on “wish-fulfillment,” we propose the following readily falsifiable null hypothesis, and invite rigorous experimental attempts to falsify it: “Physicodynamics cannot spontaneously traverse The Cybernetic Cut: physicodynamics alone cannot organize itself into formally functional systems requiring algorithmic optimization, computational halting, and circuit integration.” A single exception of non trivial, unaided spontaneous optimization of formal function by truly natural process would falsify this null hypothesis. http://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/10/1/247/pdf Can We Falsify Any Of The Following Null Hypothesis (For Information Generation) 1) Mathematical Logic 2) Algorithmic Optimization 3) Cybernetic Programming 4) Computational Halting 5) Integrated Circuits 6) Organization (e.g. homeostatic optimization far from equilibrium) 7) Material Symbol Systems (e.g. genetics) 8) Any Goal Oriented bona fide system 9) Language 10) Formal function of any kind 11) Utilitarian work http://mdpi.com/1422-0067/10/1/247/ag “Orr maintains that the theory of intelligent design is not falsifiable. He’s wrong. To falsify design theory a scientist need only experimentally demonstrate that a bacterial flagellum, or any other comparably complex system, could arise by natural selection. If that happened I would conclude that neither flagella nor any system of similar or lesser complexity had to have been designed. In short, biochemical design would be neatly disproved.” – Dr Behe in 1997 Michael Behe on Falsifying Intelligent Design – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8jXXJN4o_A
Verse and Music:
1 Thessalonians 5:21 but test everything; hold fast what is good. Alison Krauss - There Is A Reason http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWXNm9b6pKs
bornagain77_{September 13, 2013
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President Jo-Ann Gora explicitly stated intelligent design represents an "important and relevant form of human inquiry that is appropriately studied in literature and social science courses." However, she said, "Intelligent design is overwhelmingly deemed by the scientific community as a religious belief and not a scientific theory. Therefore, intelligent design is not appropriate content for science courses." So the only alleged freedom that has been abridged is the freedom to teach ID as science. How is this supposed to be an issue of academic freedom? The scientific community that rejects ID as science consists of 51% believers in God or a higher power, plus 8% 'don't know' - namely, scientists are not philosophical atheists/materialists by a clear majority. Therefore, the reason ID is rejected as science cannot be because of philosophical bias. Also, ID is perfectly consistent with mainstream scientific views of common descent and the mechanisms of variation and selection, as has been pointed out many times by ID proponents on this site. Therefore, the reason ID is rejected as science cannot be because of conflict with the current scientific paradigm. The reason given why ID is rejected as science is that it proposes no theory that can be tested by the methods of science. This has been pointed out many times. That one may not agree with this reason is neither here nor there when it comes to deciding what should be taught in the science classroom, which should be based on the clear consensus of scientists.CLAVDIVS_{September 13, 2013
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There's been some good attention put on Ball university. If they went public about their censorship rule then holds it to them. In subjects dedicated to the search for truth CENSORSHIP is a slippery doctrine for educational institutions. This canadian has a hunch , a little poking, will get their policy too slippery and escape. Women only recently in history became presidents of higher learning. If this woman got her job without affirmative action/culture sensitive, wink wink, THEN she must hold up the standards of university presidents in right decisionmaking OR be an example of a quiet suspicion that modern universities are not well run and this affects freedom of study and teaching. I say old presidents would of stood by freedom of teaching and loved to take on anyone denying this is a schools purpose. Could there be bigger stakes here then just origin contentions??? A bridge too far??Robert Byers_{September 12, 2013
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