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The Groupthink Syndrome

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Read the following and ask yourself which side in the ID vs. Darwinism debate exhibits the groupthink syndrome:

The groupthink syndrome: Review of the major symptoms
Source: http://www.swans.com/library/art9/xxx099.html

In order to test generalization about the conditions that increase the chances of groupthink, we must operationalize the concept of groupthink by describing the symptoms to which it refers. Eight main symptoms run through the case studies of historic fiascoes. Each symptom can be identified by a variety of indicators, derived from historical records, observer’s accounts of conversations, and participants’ memoirs. The eight symptoms of groupthink are:

1. an illusion of invulnerability, shared by most or all the members, which creates excessive optimism and encourages taking extreme risks;

2. collective efforts to rationalize in order to discount warnings which might lead the members to reconsider their assumptions before they recommit themselves to their past policy decisions;

3. an unquestioned belief in the group’s inherent morality, inclining the members to ignore the ethical or moral consequences of their decisions;

4. stereotyped views of enemy leaders as too evil to warrant genuine attempts to negotiate, or as too weak and stupid to counter whatever risky attempts are made to defeat their purposes;

5. direct pressure on any member who expresses strong arguments against any of the group’s stereotypes, illusions, or commitments, making clear that this type of dissent is contrary to what is expected of all loyal members;

6. self-censorship of deviations from the apparent group consensus, reflecting each member’s inclination to minimize to himself the importance of his doubts and counterarguments;

7. a shared illusion of unanimity concerning judgments conforming to the majority view (partly resulting from self-censorship of deviations, augmented by the false assumption that silence means consent);

8. the emergence of self-appointed mindguards – members who protect the group from adverse information that might shatter their shared complacency about the effectiveness and morality of their decisions.

When a policy-making group displays most or all of these symptoms, the members perform their collective tasks ineffectively and are likely to fail to attain their collective objectives. Although concurrence-seeking may contribute to maintaining morale after a defeat and to muddling through a crisis when prospects for a successful outcome look bleak, these positive effects are generally outweighed by the poor quality of the group’s decision-making. My assumption is that the more frequently a group displays the symptoms, the worse will be the quality of its decisions. Even when some symptoms are absent, the others may be so pronounced that we can predict all the unfortunate consequences of groupthink.

Comments
As if CSI was the only tool in the ID toolset... For your two examples: 1. I would start by asking what is the environment and the composition of the boulder. The simple description of the scenario doesn't offer the evidence required to make a firm design inference. If this boulder is located on a road in a mountainous region where rockslides are not unheard of then step 1 of the EF would conclude that the law in question is simply gravity. Yes, a false negative is generated but that's not unexpected. If instead this boulder is composed of granite and the country road is located along the mostly flat and sandy beaches of FL then the answer for step 1 of the EF would be no. I'm not a geologist but I've yet to run into natural formations of granite in Florida that could conceivably roll free...never mind for hundreds of miles on a mostly flat surface. And if this boulder had emerged from the earth due to geological processes one would surely find evidence for that event nearby. Or perhaps this "boulder" is in fact a meteor...but again evidence for such an impact would be found nearby. One could conceivably posit a chance occurence where by which an airplane or a truck lost its cargo and the boulder came to rest in the middle of the country lane. A design inference doesn't take place in a void so one could ask around to see if such an event had taken place. A boulder large enough to block an entire road would surely be missed by its owners. Now for the final step of the EF. As noted the "the position and “function” of the boulder are certainly specified"...if only loosely, I might add. We're also assuming that all evidence of this boulder's transportation has been erased so we're left to consider just the object, its environment, and its circumstances. So we now consider any plausible probability distribution that might account for the boulder in the country lane. But wait, what about the UPB? The EF is a net. Things that are designed will occasionally slip past the net. We would "prefer" that the net catch more than it does, omitting nothing due to design. But given the ability of design to mimic unintelligent causes and the possibility of our own ignorance passing over things that are designed, this problem cannot be fixed. Nevertheless, we want to be very sure that whatever the net does catch includes ONLY what we intend it to catch, to wit, things that are designed. So even in a scenario with a granite boulder in flat, sandy FL there "might" not be 500 informational bits and ID "might" produce another false negative. I say "might" because I'd first want a trained mathematician do the calculations. I'd also state any conclusion as being more tentative than usual considering additional facts about the case might come to light. 2. As for scenario two, you answered the question yourself. Again, a design inference doesn't take place in a void and the fact that "shapes are “specified” by the hydrogen bonding capabilities inherent in the “natural” shape of water molecules" would be taken into account. The question would be answered in step 1 of the EF.Patrick
October 19, 2006
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Allen MacNeil: Until then, it’s all airy speculation… I would agree with that. That is is ALL airy speculation, even evolutionary biology and especially common descent. I am also sure that anyone can fail to understand "No Free Lunch" and "The Design Inference". However given the materialistic alternative to ID is "sheer-dumb-luck", sooner or later people, ie the general population, will start to realize that all objections to ID are nothing more than philosphical whinings. As for "unambiguously" well with science you give it your best shot with the knowledge/ data available. Then future research can/will either confirm or refute the initial inference. And BTW ball point pens and flashlights are just as "natural" as a bacterium or a maple tree. That is they exist in nature. And although we can say with confidence that neither ball point pens nor flashlights were produced by nature (acting freely) we have no idea how a bacterium nor a maple tree was originally produced- by nature operating freely or by intentional design.Joseph
October 18, 2006
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In comment #86 mike1962 states: "There is lots and lots of hard evidence that intelligence agents can create CSI. There is none for NDE mechanisms. Therefore, so far, ID is the best explanation for the CSI in found in bio-forms." This is precisely where our seminar this summer at Cornell reached an impass. After reading and analyzing Dr. Dembski's Design Inference and other papers updating his mathematical analysis of CSI, we concluded that, although his ideas were intriguing, there didn't seem to be any way of actually applying them to an analysis of either unambiguously design objects, such as a ballpoint pen or a flashlight, and a "natural" object, such as a bacterium or a maple tree, in such a way as to clearly distinguish whether the object is the result of purposeful design or not. For exampe, consider the following two examples: (1) a large boulder placed by a human in the middle of a country lane in order to block traffic in the lane (2) the sum total of all of the snowflakes at the top of Mount Blanc The first object (the boulder in the lane) is unambiguously the result of purposeful design, yet its complexity (according to Dembski's mathematics) would identify it otherwise. By contrast, the staggering complexity of the crystalline forms contained in all the snowflakes is beyond computation, yet no one that I know of would argue that they were the result of purposeful design. Furthermore, "specification" doesn't solve the problem, as the position and "function" of the boulder are certainly specified, yet according to the mathematics of Dembski's CSI they would not so qualify. And, folk wisdom to contrary, given a sufficiently large number of snowflakes, the probability that more than one of them will exhibit virtually identical crystalline structures is pretty high (i.e. their shapes are "specified" by the hydrogen bonding capabilities inherent in the "natural" shape of water molecules), and yet once again no one that I know of would argue that such immense complexity was the result of purposeful design, "specified" or not. In other words, Dr. Dembski's mathematical models amount to interesting philosophical speculations, without any empirical application that we can infer. Simply "doing the math" isn't what is going on, here: when one compares the results of an actual experiment with the predicted outcome, to determine if the results are "significant" evidence in favor of one's hypothesis, one is actually doing science. However, deriving a mathematical model that has no real basis in actual practice nor any application to hypothesis testing isn't doing science at all. ID will be ready to take its place among the other sciences when a person schooled in its mathematical methods can unambiguously determine that the boulder in the lane is the result of purposeful design, but the collective crystalline structure snowflakes on Mount Blanc are not. Until then, it's all airy speculation...Allen_MacNeill
October 18, 2006
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Well Mike1962, Houdin can type a response but we both know he can substantiate what he responded with. His response is a typical bluff and a poor one at that.Joseph
October 18, 2006
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Houdin: "[Specified complexity and irreducible complexity are produced by Darwinian evolution.]" I can demonstrate all day long CSI made by intelligent agents. Can you do the same for NDE? Conjecture doesn't count as a demonstration. Houdin: "3) Naturalistic mechanisms or undirected causes do not suffice to explain the origin of information (specified complexity) or irreducible complexity. [Science says they do.]" No. Darwinian "science" merely conjectures that they do. There is lots and lots of hard evidence that intelligence agents can create CSI. There is none for NDE mechanisms. Therefore, so far, ID is the best explanation for the CSI in found in bio-forms.mike1962
October 18, 2006
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Joseph says [my comments in brackets] 1)High information content (or specified complexity) and irreducible complexity constitute strong indicators or hallmarks of (past) intelligent design. [Specified complexity and irreducible complexity are produced by Darwinian evolution.] 2) Biological systems have a high information content (or specified complexity) and utilize subsystems that manifest irreducible complexity. [Agreed] 3) Naturalistic mechanisms or undirected causes do not suffice to explain the origin of information (specified complexity) or irreducible complexity. [Science says they do. If ID says otherwise, please show us some evidence to support this claim.] 4) Therefore, intelligent design constitutes the best explanations for the origin of information and irreducible complexity in biological systems. Therefore we have two competing claims. One claim is that a designer is responsible for the specified complexity we find in living organisms. The other theory says that variation and natural selection is responsible. We can show you the second theory at work. ID has no examples of the Designer at work.]Houdin
October 18, 2006
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Just in case people are wondering, I deleted two overtly hostile comments, one from an ID proponent and one from a Darwinist who are regular contributers. I'm not going to name names...but both of you know who you are. Play nice.Patrick
October 17, 2006
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Dr. MacNiell, Based upon the above post, would it be right to say that you disagree with Gould--and Talk Origins, for that matter--when he famously said that evolution is a scientific fact in the sense that it is "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent?" Just curious. Dave (See this link for the source of the quote: http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_fact-and-theory.html)Dave Carlson
October 17, 2006
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In comment #77. idnet.com.au asked: "Would you agree with Ernst Mayr that evolution is a fact?" As much as I admired Ernst Mayr when he was alive ( met and talked with him when he lectured here at Cornell), and as much as I respect and honor his legacy as a giant in the field of evolutionary biology, I must respectfully disagree with him on this point: Evolution, like gravitation, is a theory, not a fact. Facts are what we observe, either directly or with observational aids (such as microscopes, ultracentrifuges, flourescent DNA probes, etc.). By themselves, facts are meaningless. Theories are the generalizations that we infer from facts, generalizations that help us look for more facts, which can then be used to infer yet more generalizations. At the risk of "talking down" to the readers on this list, consider the following: I have never tasted an apple before (you may assume that I am a former resident of Arrakis, newly arrived on Terra). I am handed a green apple and (being a person of enlarged curiosity) I taste it; I discover it is sour. What can I conclude from this observation? Clearly, I cannot conclude that "green apples are sour" because I have only a single "fact" upon which to base this generalization. This is what is known in science as "anecdotal evidence" and is the reason why, fascinating as such anecdotes may be (I remember one about a fellow named Lazarus, for example), they absolutely, positively are not part of what anyone would think of as "science." So, out of curiosity, I taste another green apple; it too is sour. I taste another and another, and each is sour. Now what can I conclude about green apples (i.e. about them as a "class" or "category")? I can now tentatively conclude that "green apples are sour." Is this generalization about green apples a "fact?" No, it's an inference, and like all inferences based on inductive reasoning, it's necessarily (indeed irreducibly) tentative. Remember, I haven't yet tasted a Grannie Smith - if I do, and I discover it's sweet, what must I do with my inferred generalization? Modify it, of course: if I taste several Grannie Smith apples and all of them are sweet, then I can conclude that "all green apples, except Grannie Smith apples, are sour; Grannie Smith apples are sweet." This, in a nutshell, is the difference and the relationship between "facts" (i.e. individual observations) and "theories" (i.e. generalizations arrived at by inductive inference). To sum up: NO THEORIES ARE FACTS (and vice versa, OC), and to assert the contrary is to mistake fundamentally different logical categories.Allen_MacNeill
October 17, 2006
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As perhaps the best example of this process, I invited Hannah Maxson (founder and president of the Cornell IDEA Club) to be a full participant in the evolution/design seminar I facilitated that past summer.
And if anyone missed the UD posts on that: https://uncommondescent.com/index.php/archives/1362 https://uncommondescent.com/index.php/archives/1320Patrick
October 17, 2006
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Allen MacNeil (from his second link in comment 74): I believe that the primary reason that there is essentially no empirical research being done to either validate or falsify ID theory is that ID theory in general does not consist of positive hypotheses that can be empirically tested. How can you say that and also say "This is why I have spent years reading and analyzing the published works of ID theorists "? ID is based on three premises and the inference that follows (DeWolf et al., "Darwinism, Design and Public Education", pg. 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. As anyone can see the first two are positive premises. Allen MacNeil: As many have pointed out, Behe’s concept of “irreducible complexity” is based almost entirely on ignorance and lack of information, rather than on “first principles” (i.e. on theoretical formulations that lead to the conclusion that the evolution of “irreducibly complex” objects or processes are impossible). This too is false:
“Thus, Behe concludes on the basis of our knowledge of present cause-and-effect relationships (in accord with the standard uniformitarian method employed in the historical sciences) that the molecular machines and complex systems we observe in cells can be best explained as the result of an intelligent cause. In brief, molecular motors appear designed because they were designed” Pg. 72 of "Darwinism, Design and Public Education"
Also imagination is nice but sooner or later one needs actual data for support. And once again IC does NOT argue against "evolution". It is an argument against a particular mechanism- that of the blind watchmaker. That you post such nonsense and also say that you have read and analyzed ID is a direct contradiction. Or perhaps you need better reading comprehension skills. Reality demonstrates that BOTH concepts- IC and CSI can be tested against their existing definitions. Reality also demonstrates both can also be falsified by demonstrating intelligence is not required for the origin of either. It should also be noted that scientists have at least tried to falsify IC:
]“Coyne’s conclusion that design is unfalsifiable, however, seems to be at odds with the arguments of other reviewers of my book. Clearly, Russell Doolittle (Doolittle 1997), Kenneth Miller (Miller 1999), and others have advanced scientific arguments aimed at falsifying ID. (See my articles on blood clotting and the “acid test” on this web site.) If the results with knock-out mice (Bugge et al. 1996) had been as Doolittle first thought, or if Barry Hall’s work (Hall 1999) had indeed shown what Miller implied, then they correctly believed my claims about irreducible complexity would have suffered quite a blow. And since my claim for intelligent design requires that no unintelligent process be sufficient to produce such irreducibly complex systems, then the plausibility of ID would suffer enormously. Other scientists, including those on the National Academy of Science’s Steering Committee on Science and Creationism, in commenting on my book have also pointed to physical evidence (such as the similar structures of hemoglobin and myoglobin) which they think shows that irreducibly complex biochemical systems can be produced by natural selection: “However, structures and processes that are claimed to be ‘irreducibly’ complex typically are not on closer inspection.” (National Academy of Sciences 1999, p. 22) Now, one can’t have it both ways. One can’t say both that ID is unfalsifiable (or untestable) and that there is evidence against it. Either it is unfalsifiable and floats serenely beyond experimental reproach, or it can be criticized on the basis of our observations and is therefore testable. The fact that critical reviewers advance scientific arguments against ID (whether successfully or not) shows that intelligent design is indeed falsifiable. In fact, my argument for intelligent design is open to direct experimental rebuttal. Here is a thought experiment that makes the point clear. In Darwin’s Black Box (Behe 1996) I claimed that the bacterial flagellum was irreducibly complex and so required deliberate intelligent design. The flip side of this claim is that the flagellum can’t be produced by natural selection acting on random mutation, or any other unintelligent process. To falsify such a claim, a scientist could go into the laboratory, place a bacterial species lacking a flagellum under some selective pressure (for mobility, say), grow it for ten thousand generations, and see if a flagellum--or any equally complex system--was produced. If that happened, my claims would be neatly disproven. How about Professor Coyne’s concern that, if one system were shown to be the result of natural selection, proponents of ID could just claim that some other system was designed? I think the objection has little force. If natural selection were shown to be capable of producing a system of a certain degree of complexity, then the assumption would be that it could produce any other system of an equal or lesser degree of complexity. If Coyne demonstrated that the flagellum (which requires approximately forty gene products) could be produced by selection, I would be rather foolish to then assert that the blood clotting system (which consists of about twenty proteins) required intelligent design.”
Living organisms encompass both IC and CSI. Therefore by demonstrating living organisms can arise from non-living matter without the aid of an intelligence would TKO ID as Dr Behe's criteria would have been met.Joseph
October 17, 2006
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Allen MacNeil: That said, there is one very strong piece of evidence in favor of a monophyletic origin of all current forms of life: the universality of the genetic code. Really? I use the same data to infer a common design. Allen MacNeil: So what? Darwin didn’t speculate on any of this, but rather “started in the middle” and proposed a testable hypothesis for decent with modification and the mechanisms by which it occurs (i.e. natural and sexual selection). The only "testable hypothesis for decent with modification" is that I can trace my ancestry back X generations. We canNOT test the premise that cetaceans "evolved" from land animals or that land animals "evolved" from fish. We can assume that premise and then set out to find what we consider to be confirming evidence but that is not scientific.Joseph
October 17, 2006
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“And from what I am hearing no one uses the NDE for biological research.” Allen MacNeil: This statement could only be made by someone who has literally no idea of what biologists in general, and evolutionary biologists in particular do. Gee Allen, we have Dr Skell telling us the same thing that I posted:
Darwinian evolution – whatever its other virtues – does not provide a fruitful heuristic in experimental biology. This becomes especially clear when we compare it with a heuristic framework such as the atomic model, which opens up structural chemistry and leads to advances in the synthesis of a multitude of new molecules of practical benefit.None of this demonstrates that Darwinism is false. It does, however, mean that the claim that it is the cornerstone of modern experimental biology will be met with quiet skepticism from a growing number of scientists in fields where theories actually do serve as cornerstones for tangible breakthroughs.
See Why do we invoke Darwin? Allen MacNeil: At the very least, consider the fact that it is literally impossible for one person (who wishes to occasionally eat and sleep) to keep up with the explosion of publications in scientific journals on all of the details of evolutionary biology. As John Davison once posted: "'Of course evolution is the cornerstone of biology. That does not mean the Darwinian version of the process has any validity." Allen MacNeil: In other words, the quotation I cited above is equivalent to saying that physicists no longer use the principles of Newtonian mechanics and gravitional theory to do physics and cosmology, or that chemists no longer use atomic theory to do chemistry. Most likely because when you read "NDE" you truncate it to just "E", which isn't correct. Allen MacNeil: It strikes a person who actually knows about the current state of the sciences as laughably absurd, and so grotesquely misinformed as to be either the result of willful blindness on the part of its author, or a testimony to abject failure on the part of our educational system. Or perhaps it is you who is confusing what was posted with what you wanted to read. That would be my guess. Allen MacNeil: This is why I have spent years reading and analyzing the published works of ID theorists (and why I assigned them in my seminar this summer, along with equivalent readings by EBers). All I ask is that, for the sake of reasoned debate, you folks do the same. I have and will stand by my statement until someone demonstrates that NDE leads to a "fruitful heuristic in experimental biology".Joseph
October 17, 2006
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Dr MacNeill writes "rather than there being a single common ancestor to all current living organisms, there may have been many." Do you believe that life spontaneously generated on many occasions? What is the evidence that life can spontaneously generate even once? Richard Dawkins believs that life had a lucky start. Do you believe life had many lucky starts? "Is evolutionary theory therefore “true?” No, of course not. I can’t emphasize this enough: NO SCIENTIFIC THEORY IS “TRUE”, at least not “true” in the sense that most people use that word. " Would you agree with Ernst Mayr that evolution is a fact?idnet.com.au
October 17, 2006
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In comment 57, Tribune7 asked: "Do you believe that all life came from a single ancestor via naturalistic means and that this has been established beyond argument?" No; I side with evolutionary biologists Ford Doolittle, Lynn Margulis, and Stephen J. Gould (among others) in inferring that life itself may be massively polyphyletic: that rather than there being a single common ancestor to all current living organisms, there may have been many. The extent of lateral genetic transfer among prokaryotes makes it almost impossible to reconstruct a phylogeny with a single root, and the lack of genetic evidence for either a single or multiple origin of life may be permanent, as all living organisms are the result of four billion years of phylogenetic evolution, and no fossils preserve any genetic evidence of the origin of life. That said, there is one very strong piece of evidence in favor of a monophyletic origin of all current forms of life: the universality of the genetic code. However, I believe that it is still an open question whether the code is arbitrary (and therefore strong evidence for homology) or necessary (and therefore strong evidence for convergence, despite multiple origins). It may very well be the case that, in the early stages of the origin of the genetic code, there were multiple codes (and multiple ways of translating it), but that over time one code and one translation mechanism (the "universal" one that we observe today) replaced all other alternatives. Given the fact that molecules don't fossilize, and the rocks that might contain such fossils have already been subducted into oblivion anyway, it seems problematic at the present time to assert that one or the other hypothesis is "true." Indeed, I strongly suspect that we will never have a definitive answer to this question. So what? Darwin didn't speculate on any of this, but rather "started in the middle" and proposed a testable hypothesis for decent with modification and the mechanisms by which it occurs (i.e. natural and sexual selection). After a century and a half of intensive biological research, no other hypothesis has generated anything close to the same amount of confirmatory evidence, and so we continue to investigate the world around us using Darwin's original insights. Is evolutionary theory therefore "true?" No, of course not. I can't emphasize this enough: NO SCIENTIFIC THEORY IS "TRUE", at least not "true" in the sense that most people use that word. On the contrary, it's the most useful and productive "guess" we have at the present, and until new evidence is discovered that unambiguously falsifies it, we will continue to use it as the underlying basis for nearly all of the science of biology.Allen_MacNeill
October 16, 2006
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As an example of the total misunderstanding of what evolutionary biology is about, consider this statement: "And from what I am hearing no one uses the NDE for biological research." This statement could only be made by someone who has literally no idea of what biologists in general, and evolutionary biologists in particular do. At the very least, consider the fact that it is literally impossible for one person (who wishes to occasionally eat and sleep) to keep up with the explosion of publications in scientific journals on all of the details of evolutionary biology. I can't possibly keep up with all of the books being published on the subject, and the number of journal articles numbers in the thousands every month (indeed, almost every week). In other words, the quotation I cited above is equivalent to saying that physicists no longer use the principles of Newtonian mechanics and gravitional theory to do physics and cosmology, or that chemists no longer use atomic theory to do chemistry. It strikes a person who actually knows about the current state of the sciences as laughably absurd, and so grotesquely misinformed as to be either the result of willful blindness on the part of its author, or a testimony to abject failure on the part of our educational system. We cannot possibly come to any kind of clarity on any of these subjects unless we all make a conscientious effort to educate ourselves about the content of our loyal adversaries' intellectual armamentarium. This is why I have spent years reading and analyzing the published works of ID theorists (and why I assigned them in my seminar this summer, along with equivalent readings by EBers). All I ask is that, for the sake of reasoned debate, you folks do the same.Allen_MacNeill
October 16, 2006
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My primary motivation for posting on UD is that there appears to me to be an extraordinary misperception of what constitutes evolutionary biology among the majority of the people posting and commenting at this site. Very basic concepts in biology, such as the operation of homeotic genes or the relationship between nucleotide sequences and homology, are so wildly misunderstood by so many people posting to this site that it doesn't surprise me in the least that we usually talk at cross purposes. So, in a nutshell, I can't escape the motivation that first led me to becoming an academic and teacher in the first place: to try to make some sense out of reality, and to help others make the same kind of sense. As perhaps the best example of this process, I invited Hannah Maxson (founder and president of the Cornell IDEA Club) to be a full participant in the evolution/design seminar I facilitated that past summer. Our groud rules were simple and straightforward: we were at all times to respect each other as persons and to therefore treat each other as intelligent and conscientious scholars, interested only in the pursuit of intellectual clarity and logical argument, wherever that pursuit might lead. You can read about what we concluded here: http://evolutionanddesign.blogsome.com/2006/08/04/the-course-is-over-but-the-conversation-continues/ and here: http://www.geocities.com/lclane2/macneill.html I firmly believe that the way to better understanding is through engagement, principled debate, and logical argument, supported at all times by empirical evidence. That's what "community of scholars" and "the life of the mind" are all about, isn't it? What a dreary and uninteresting world it would be if we all agreed on everything...Allen_MacNeill
October 16, 2006
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Professor MacNeill, why are you here? Posting on UD? I am very curious to know a complete and honest answer.Michaels7
October 16, 2006
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Chris Nyland: From what I am hearing people are expanding ID into a theory and using it to do research. And from what I am hearing no one uses the NDE for biological research. So does that mean we should take it out of the curriculum?Joseph
October 16, 2006
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"Knowing how something develops will not tell us what makes it what it is." "The “main thesis of the book”? You mean besides revisiting “hopeful monsters” and further popularizing evolutionary nonsense?" The book specifically rejects hopeful mosters several times. "How is this legitimate if Big Science is actively and aggressively suppressing alternative theories using large amounts of U.S. taxpayer money? Was Darwinian evolution “accepted science” 100 years ago? If not, then should skeptics have worked to destroy proponents of Darwin’s ideas?" "My point exactly Russ. Darwinism is the mainstream today, but if NDE groups had their way- nde would have never had a chance, because we could have all just said- ‘golly, the mainstream consensus is special creation- we will not allow any question of it…we will ban Darwinism.’" And they would have had every right to be concerned if Darwin and Wallace had tried to get their theories taught in schools before convinving the scientific community, but they didn't. Stopping ID from getting taught in schools hardly counts as suppresing alternative theories. From what I am hearing people are expanding ID into a theory and using it to do research. When that happens we can properly discuss whether or not scientists are supressing science.Chris Hyland
October 16, 2006
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J said: "And we should be able to expect more from a Cornell professor. The economist Murray Rothbard gives groupthink in the social sciences a good verbal caning here. The physical sciences, however, are protected from the frailties of humanity by a Magical Force Field.Jaz
October 16, 2006
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My point exactly Russ. Darwinism is the mainstream today, but if NDE groups had their way- nde would have never had a chance, because we could have all just said- 'golly, the mainstream consensus is special creation- we will not allow any question of it...we will ban Darwinism.' They owe their pet theory to questioning the consensus, but then their double standard demands that they attack ID because it's not mainstream, thus it's clearly bogus. I guess I'll agree with them. That means that since special creation was consensus for most of the history of science- it must be correct. :) Afterall- TRUE science is clearly what the NAS says it is, and special creation was the accepted paradigm first!JasonTheGreek
October 16, 2006
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Chris Hyland wrote: "The argument isn’t so much about government and education it is that the science curriculum should be based on accepted science. " How is this legitimate if Big Science is actively and aggressively suppressing alternative theories using large amounts of U.S. taxpayer money? Was Darwinian evolution "accepted science" 100 years ago? If not, then should skeptics have worked to destroy proponents of Darwin's ideas?russ
October 16, 2006
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“The “problem” is no one, I repeat NO ONE. knows what holds the information for “mouse eye” nor “fly eye”. The best we can do is to control the development of said eyes, not the type of eye. Got it.” Chris Hyland: I understand what your getting at, and although theres a lot we don’t know I don’t think we’re completely clueless. The day we know the entire developmental cycle in terms of genes, a lot of developmental biologists are going to have to find a new research area. Knowing how something develops will not tell us what makes it what it is. And I, for one, am very hopeful scientists will unravel that mystery. Then we may be able to actually test the premise of common descent beyond I am the child of my parents and their parents before them. “It shows the forms are finite and therefore refutes “endless forms”.” Chris Hyland: Fair enough, but it doesn’t affect the main thesis of the book. The "main thesis of the book"? You mean besides revisiting "hopeful monsters" and further popularizing evolutionary nonsense? ;) Chris Hyland: It does add an interesting aspect to the problem though which is addressed by Wallace Arthur in ‘Biased Embryos and Evolution’. Thanks for the tip. I haven't read that one.Joseph
October 16, 2006
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Allen said: "… I have changed my mind about how I believe nature works many times since beginning to study it, and expect that this will happen again as more evidence is presented. This is what a scientist does, and so the list of characteristics heading this post quite literally is antithetical to both the spirit and practice of science as I understand it. " This represents what I think is a fairly common view: lots of debate and discussion about _how_ macroevolution may have happened, but if you have the effrontery to question _if_ macroevolution happened, you end up like Richard Sternberg. In such cases, it’s hard to see how #5 in the original list doesn’t directly apply. I’d say getting summarily sacked counts as “direct pressure.”SteveB
October 16, 2006
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Zero You’re comment got caught in the spam filter, and it ended up here (cutting room floor) when I approved it. I’m not quite sure why at the moment.–Crandaddy *************************** Crandaddy, now all my posts are being pulled. Am I banned? Zero Your comments are being moderated. We discourage commenters from being excessively theological. Religion tends to be a sensitve topic for many people, and it strays from the general theme of this blog.--CrandaddyZero
October 16, 2006
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Note the words “the study of…” As for the intent and purpose of the designer, the authors of “The Privileged Planet”, one purpose of the universe was for scientific discovery. Comment by Joseph — October 16, 2006 @ 6:47 am **************************** Yes, Joseph, I agree.That's the reason the IDOL, (Intelligent Designer Of Life ) gave us eyes. BlessingsZero
October 16, 2006
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"I wonder if you suggested that criticism of Darwinism and neo Darwinism be part of the biology curriculum in the UK and the US how long you would last in your postion." I dont think any of the ideas that Allen suggested are particularly controversial. "I’ve always been uneasy with my fellow liberals who express an inordinate fondness for government acting as parent, teacher, piggy bank, etc. In my view, socialism, run amok, is the most dangerous of situations." The argument isn't so much about government and education it is that the science curriculum should be based on accepted science. "I just love it when naturalists say that the universe is meaningless! They say it so innocently–as if they’re clueless to the disasterous consequences it carries with it." Most people who think the universe is meaningless don't think their lives are meaningless. "The “problem” is no one, I repeat NO ONE. knows what holds the information for “mouse eye” nor “fly eye”. The best we can do is to control the development of said eyes, not the type of eye. Got it." I understand what your getting at, and although theres a lot we don't know I don't think we're completely clueless. The day we know the entire developmental cycle in terms of genes, a lot of developmental biologists are going to have to find a new research area. "It shows the forms are finite and therefore refutes “endless forms”." Fair enough, but it doesn't affect the main thesis of the book. It does add an interesting aspect to the problem though which is addressed by Wallace Arthur in 'Biased Embryos and Evolution'.Chris Hyland
October 16, 2006
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“For example we can take a gene from a mouse that controls eye development, stick in a fly genome lacking that gene and the subsequent fly emerges with fly eyes, not mouse eyes.” Chris Hyland: Depending on the gene Im not sure what the problem is here. Surely it just means that downstream the same gene initiates eye development in both species. The "problem" is no one, I repeat NO ONE. knows what holds the information for "mouse eye" nor "fly eye". The best we can do is to control the development of said eyes, not the type of eye. Got it. “As for “endless forms…”- real science seems to have refuted that:” Chris Hyland: Doesn’t that just explain some aspects of convergence. I don’t see how it refutes evo-devo. It shows the forms are finite and therefore refutes "endless forms". ----------------------------------------------------------- To seek: ID is about the DETECTION AND UNDERSTANDING of the design in question. As Wm. Dembski puts it:
Intelligent Design is the study of patterns in nature that are best explained as the result of intelligence.
Note the words "the study of..." As for the intent and purpose of the designer, the authors of "The Privileged Planet", one purpose of the universe was for scientific discovery.Joseph
October 16, 2006
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Allen MacNeill: Your diatribe against "anti-evolution groups" here makes you appear disingenuous or ignorant. You really should know better. And we should be able to expect more from a Cornell professor.j
October 16, 2006
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