Michael Behe back at it

[steve_bank]

ID in modern college philosophy? While people graduate college without enough basic science to grasp climate change.

Under the growing social paradigms everything is equal and there can be no preference or discrimination.

Not sure what social paradigms you are referring to. I certainly don’t advocate this.

Your not being aware of culture and thecurrent issues is not my problem.

Given my posts in this thread, and in other threads if you have read those posts, do you really think I am unaware of culture and current issues? This is just well-poisoning.

You spoke of “growing social paradigms” that “everything is equal.” I asked you to be specific in what you meant, and you follow up with reference to popular culture and Christianity. I was speaking of pedagogy, not pop culture. If you think there is a paradigm in pedagogy meaning that “everything is equal,” presumably that all ideas are taught equally, then I am asking you to cite specific examples of this in the classroom, not in pop culture. I do not think there is any biology class in the country, except for maybe some places in the deep south, that teaches ID on par with evolutionary biology, or that teach it at all. Those places that do teach it are violating the law and should be identified. If you know of any, name them.

Sa ying ID can be taught as philosophy to me says it all. Exaggerated misplaced sense of fairness. All things and beliefs are equivalent. All cultures are equivalent.

Giving legal stars to ID or intellectual credence by teaching it at a public college or university would open the flood gates of legal equality.

Why not teach Wican or magic crystals. Religious and other groups will sue for equal representation and claim bias.

 

[Keith&Co.]

I personally think that ”teaching” ID in a science class would be the surest way of destroying it. The class would only last about 10 minutes because there would be nothing to teach. Then the vacuity of it would be laid bare.

If it lasted only 10 minutes, they'd blame the teachers for that. If the vacuity were laid bare, that'd also be called the religious prejudices of the teachers and schools.

It'd be letting the Trojan horse inside if they taught this in science classes.

Also, the teachers who support ID would use the opportunity to flog it, not criticize it.

 

[pood]

ID in modern college philosophy? While people graduate college without enough basic science to grasp climate change.

Under the growing social paradigms everything is equal and there can be no preference or discrimination.

Not sure what social paradigms you are referring to. I certainly don’t advocate this.

Your not being aware of culture and thecurrent issues is not my problem.

Given my posts in this thread, and in other threads if you have read those posts, do you really think I am unaware of culture and current issues? This is just well-poisoning.

You spoke of “growing social paradigms” that “everything is equal.” I asked you to be specific in what you meant, and you follow up with reference to popular culture and Christianity. I was speaking of pedagogy, not pop culture. If you think there is a paradigm in pedagogy meaning that “everything is equal,” presumably that all ideas are taught equally, then I am asking you to cite specific examples of this in the classroom, not in pop culture. I do not think there is any biology class in the country, except for maybe some places in the deep south, that teaches ID on par with evolutionary biology, or that teach it at all. Those places that do teach it are violating the law and should be identified. If you know of any, name them.

Sa ying ID can be taught as philosophy to me says it all. Exaggerated misplaced sense of fairness. All things and beliefs are equivalent. All cultures are equivalent.

Giving legal stars to ID or intellectual credence by teaching it at a public college or university would open the flood gates of legal equality.

Why not teach Wican or magic crystals. Religious and other groups will sue for equal representation and claim bias.

Since I never said any of this, please take your strawman elsewhere.

 

[pood]

I did not, of course, say that ID could be taught AS philosophy. I said it could be discussed IN a philosophy of science course — or even in a standard science course, in the appropriate context. When I was a kid in school learning about astronomy, our class covered Ptolemy. I’m sure that’s still done. Is that OK, or does it open the flood gates to geocentrism and give “legal stars” to it?

 

[pood]

My point is that I don’t think you make bad ideas go away by ignoring them or refusing to discuss them. You make them go away, to the extent that’s possible at all, by shining a light on them and pointing out their deficiencies.

 

[Elixir]

Sure, teaching the idea and the dirty history of “intelligent design” could be appropriate in various philosophy classes, just as the god of the Bible and the gods of the Norse and Greek pantheons might be taught in a Religious Studies curriculum.
That doesn’t imply that there is even one shred of validity to ID dogma.

 

[pood]

No, of course it doesn’t imply that. I never said otherwise. I explicitly said the opposite.

 

[Keith&Co.]

My point is that I don’t think you make bad ideas go away by ignoring them or refusing to discuss them. You make them go away, to the extent that’s possible at all, by shining a light on them and pointing out their deficiencies.

I don't think that applies with Creationism/ID, though. It's not just one guy shouting crazy stuff, it's an independent and parallel industry. Whether we shine a light on it or not, it'll continue to prosper. I really think we're better served not giving them a forum or platform that even resembles a scientific framework to present their bullshit.
It lends them undeserved credence and confers a status they will take advantage of.

 

[blastula]

I personally think that ”teaching” ID in a science class would be the surest way of destroying it. The class would only last about 10 minutes because there would be nothing to teach. Then the vacuity of it would be laid bare.

If it lasted only 10 minutes, they'd blame the teachers for that. If the vacuity were laid bare, that'd also be called the religious prejudices of the teachers and schools.

It'd be letting the Trojan horse inside if they taught this in science classes.

Ideally, biology classes covering evolution could explain why creationism/ID fails as science.

But I do wonder whether there would be religious persecution lawsuits for criticizing a religious belief, and whether it would give too easy an opening to those teachers who want to promote it.

 

[pood]

My point is that I don’t think you make bad ideas go away by ignoring them or refusing to discuss them. You make them go away, to the extent that’s possible at all, by shining a light on them and pointing out their deficiencies.

I don't think that applies with Creationism/ID, though. It's not just one guy shouting crazy stuff, it's an independent and parallel industry. Whether we shine a light on it or not, it'll continue to prosper. I really think we're better served not giving them a forum or platform that even resembles a scientific framework to present their bullshit.
It lends them undeserved credence and confers a status they will take advantage of.

You see how insidious all this is, though. I mean, you may be right, but look at it like this: if you DON’T confront it directly, then you have this parallel industry screaming ”COVER-UP!” And in a world of Q-anon, Pizzagate and Trump, you may actually end up driving more people into the ID camp, not less.

When I learned about Ptolemy in astronomy class, I was not inclined to believe that geocentrism was right after all. I was LESS inclined to believe it, because I could understand where it went awry.

 

[pood]

I personally think that ”teaching” ID in a science class would be the surest way of destroying it. The class would only last about 10 minutes because there would be nothing to teach. Then the vacuity of it would be laid bare.

If it lasted only 10 minutes, they'd blame the teachers for that. If the vacuity were laid bare, that'd also be called the religious prejudices of the teachers and schools.

It'd be letting the Trojan horse inside if they taught this in science classes.

Ideally, biology classes covering evolution could explain why creationism/ID fails as science.

But I do wonder whether there would be religious persecution lawsuits for criticizing a religious belief, and whether it would give too easy an opening to those teachers who want to promote it.

Except remember ID advocates claim ID is not religious at all! So they can’t very well make that argument, can they?

 

[Keith&Co.]

My point is that I don’t think you make bad ideas go away by ignoring them or refusing to discuss them. You make them go away, to the extent that’s possible at all, by shining a light on them and pointing out their deficiencies.

I don't think that applies with Creationism/ID, though. It's not just one guy shouting crazy stuff, it's an independent and parallel industry. Whether we shine a light on it or not, it'll continue to prosper. I really think we're better served not giving them a forum or platform that even resembles a scientific framework to present their bullshit.
It lends them undeserved credence and confers a status they will take advantage of.

You see how insidious all this is, though. I mean, you may be right, but look at it like this: if you DON’T confront it directly, then you have this parallel industry screaming ”COVER-UP!” And in a world of Q-anon, Pizzagate and Trump, you may actually end up driving more people into the ID camp, not less.

But if we DO confront it, and prove it's worthless, they will go back to their base and say 'We won but they refuse to admit it.'
NSF has been through this. People have tried to debate, to explain, to educate, and the other side is not acting in good faith.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. So, treat it like any theory. "God proof? Submit it for review."

 

[Keith&Co.]

Except remember ID advocates claim ID is not religious at all! So they can’t very well make that argument, can they?

You'd really think that, wouldn' tyou? But when they bring it to the school board, it's all 'Science! Science! Science!' When the school board rejects it, they scream, 'Tricksy atheists are kicking God out of Schools! You'll rue this day! God will not be denied!'

.....And six months later, they're back, with 'Science, science, science!!!'

 

[pood]

Some years ago I engaged in an online debate with and IDist and it all got down to this flagellum idea. We can stipulate, for the sake of argument, that the flagellum is irreducibly complex, whether it is or not, because the point is irrelevant. Even if it is irreducibly complex, we know such structures can evolve through exaptation.

We don’t, however, know exactly, in stepwise fashion, how the flagellum specifically evolved because we will never have any kind of fossil record of that evolution. My interlocutor jumped all over this, demanding to know exactly how it evolved and contending that if I could not provide this information, then my failure to do so should be construed as evidence for ID.

That’s nonsense, of course, but even that isn’t the point. The point is that once the IDist demands a who-what-when-where-why-how account of the evolution of the flagellum or all other living things, he/she is hoist by his/her own petard. This is because by the IDist’s own reasoning, it is now incumbent upon him to provide the exact same account of who-what-where-when-why-how the intelligent designer is and how the intelligent designer did it. Biologists may not have an exact of account of how the flagellum evolved but it does have an exact account of how a great many other species and structures evolved and it has exapation. The ID advocate his zip, nada, zero. It is hypocritical of the ID advocate to demand that the biologist supply what the ID advocate cannot.

If this example comes up in a biology class — and I have no doubt that it does, because lots of students come from a religious background — the example above, which involves discussing ID in a biology class, can be used successfully to how how ID fails to deliver the goods that it demands of others.

It shows how ID can be raised in a biology class, not to promote it, or even put it on equal footing with evolutionary biology, but to discredit it, and to do so in a tangible, easily understood way.

 

[Keith&Co.]

It shows how ID can be raised in a biology class, not to promote it, or even put it on equal footing with evolutionary biology, but to discredit it, and to do so in a tangible, easily understood way.

For how long, though?
ID/Cism is reactionary. They have no evidence of their own, everything is either poking holes in evolutionary science or discrediting the motives of satanic atheist scientists.
If you find a good solid way to always show up their 'science,' they'll concentrate on an argment or example to defeat exactly that. Whether it makes actual sense or not.
Like above. They claimed it could not have evolved, we said it could, they shifted to challenge that with 'Prove to us that this happened in this way!'
They just keep moving back one step and drawing the line.
Really, there's no gain from granting them a place on the sand or giving them the stick.

 

[pood]

But this sort of approach can work with people who are educable. Obviously no approach will work with those who are dogmatically committed to their ideology.

 

[Keith&Co.]

But this sort of approach can work with people who are educable. Obviously no approach will work with those who are dogmatically committed to their ideology.

But 'this approach' hasn't done much for the last 150 years.
Duane Gish would come to debates. Opponents would prove that something he said was wrong, or that something stated in one of his pamphlets was incorrect. He'd acknowledge the fact on stage.
At the next debate, he'd make the same claims. The same pamphlet would be on sale in the lobby, unaltered.

Behe got spanked, his Irreducible Complexity has failed time after time, he's now flogging 'Deevolution' as evidence of God.

 

[abaddon]

Whatever confrontation needs to happen regarding this, I don't see why it needs to happen in classrooms. The creationists say "teach the controversy". But they do that to get it into classrooms and get more notice - so why give them what they want? It won't be "destroyed" by either science or reason, since it's a political ploy.

It's not something high school or undergrad students should "decide for themselves". If there's a scientific controversy, let professional scientists argue it. Or atheists vs creationists in debate forums.

I'd like to see people better educated in science. But that doesn't mean every little tempest in a teapot needs to be part of that education. Ptolemy is covered briefly in Astronomy classes because it was legitimate science in its day with a huge cultural impact. It's no longer a hot-button issue so it's not a good analogy to present-day creationism.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Creationism by any name is religion. Religion is about personal and group identity, not science, so keep it out of science classrooms.

It's a sure bet that human ignorance is never going to end. It seems silly to agree to teach a version of stupid just because sufficient numbers of people are scoring high on the Dunning Kruger scale. In what scientific classrooms should we teach "the theory" that the earth is flat or about Noah and the magic flood?

 

[Jarhyn]

As to Dover, I think the judge erred in establishing a demarcation criterion for science, by judicial fiat no less, though this not the same thing as having sympathy for ID, which I certainly do not.

I don’t think the court tried to lay down any lines of demarcation. The judge merely determined (correctly IMO) that creationists were lying about “Intelligent Design”, finding that ID, as presented to the court, was just creationism cloaked in pseudoscience.

Behe is an avaricious clown like the rest of them. He started out arguing that mousetraps were “irreducible complex”. When proven false, he went full double-speak, and eventually retreated to claiming that flagella were irreducibly complex. When that too was proven false, he retreated even further, claiming that proteins at viral binding sites were irreducibly complex.
Coming soon: “The behavior of muons is irreducibly complex”
It’s all good as long as the rubes keep buying books and sending money.

Well, infinitely random probabilistic resolutions of events ARE irreducible. It's just not very useful at that point. "These events are governed by probabilistics, not deterministic events, though in large scale they create statistical inevitabilities, ie, deterministic actions."

But mathematicians are WAY ahead of Behe and have well described the shape of these randomized outcomes.