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The Shame of Ben Stein, Intelligent Designer
Ben Stein, yes, the Ben Stein in Ferris Bueller's Day Off and yes, the Ben Stein of Comedy Central's "Win Ben Stein's Money" is the host/interviewer for an intelligent design documentary entitled, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. One tagline asserts, "Big Science has expelled smart new ideas from the classroom." The "new idea" is the old argument from design for the existence of God.
Expelled basically asserts that science is intolerant of brave scientists who question Darwinian orthodoxy on the evolution of life. They lose their jobs, don't get grants, and so forth. Anyway, the New York Times is running an article today in which various supporters of Darwinian evolution claimed to have been hoodwinked into participating in the documentary.
Now it's not nice for journalists and documentarians to mislead interviewees, but it happens all the time. When journalists mislead they generally do it by not telling interviewees everything they know. The seductive aspects of reporting were controversially discussed in Janet Malcolm's famous essay, "The Journalist and the Murderer". Now people like Richard Dawkins and Eugenie C. Scott, who were both interviewed for the movie, are highly media savvy and should not be surprised by this booking technique.
In any case, I'm sure the evolutionary biologists didn't say anything they didn't believe. The real shame of Expelled is that a prominent public personality like Ben Stein would enthusiastically participate in this project. According to the Times Stein:
...said in a telephone interview that he accepted the producers’ invitation to participate in the film not because he disavows the theory of evolution — he said there was a “very high likelihood” that Darwin was on to something — but because he does not accept that evolution alone can explain life on earth.
He said he also believed the theory of evolution leads to racism and ultimately genocide, an idea common among creationist thinkers. If it were up to him, he said, the film would be called “From Darwin to Hitler.”
Stein's Hitler remark is reminescent of the comment by fundamentalist Rev. John Roach Straton in the run-up to the Scopes trial that "Monkey men means monkey morals."
If Stein were genuinely intellectually curious about the "debate" over intelligent design, he would do well to read Judge John Jones' decision in Kitzmuller v. Dover in which the judge found it unconstitutional to teach intelligent design in public school science classes. Why? Because it is a religious belief, not a scientific theory.
Whole New York Times story here.
Some of my observations about ID and the Dover decision here.
Edward|9.27.07 @ 2:36PM|#
Amazing. I always thought Ben Stein was smart and sophisticated. You never know.
|9.27.07 @ 2:41PM|#
Edward:
Ditto. I met him at a FEE event in Vegas one year. He seemed
pleasant and fairly sharp, with no hint of this kind of
irrationality on the surface. Blech.
Now I'm glad thoreau took some of his money.
K.|9.27.07 @ 2:45PM|#
They lose their jobs, don't get grants, and so
forth.
How surprising. People who suck at doing science losing their
scientific jobs and not getting grants.
K.|9.27.07 @ 2:46PM|#
Amazing. I always thought Ben Stein was smart and
sophisticated. You never know.
I just lost respect for him too.
But then, you can know a lot about economics/personal
finances/acting/etc and not know much about science.
|9.27.07 @ 2:47PM|#
"Monkey men means monkey morals."
I am trying to figure out how any aspect of this statement is
negative. Can someone help me out here?
|9.27.07 @ 2:48PM|#
He was a Nixon and Ford speechwriter and has had political writing gigs since the early '90's.
SIV|9.27.07 @ 2:48PM|#
Stein dismissed monetary policy as a cause of inflation and
equal weighted Keynesian bs as an explanation in the Sun NYTS. He
was shilling for interest rate cuts.
I find that more troubling than his views on eveolution.
thoreau|9.27.07 @ 2:48PM|#
I'm just disappointed that I only took $850 of his money. I should have taken all $5000.
|9.27.07 @ 2:50PM|#
The notion that there may have been some sort of creator is not inherently stupid. But it is also not scientific, or anything close to it. Stein really ought to know that.
|9.27.07 @ 2:52PM|#
Reality: Stein...
(No answer)
Reality: Stein...
Simone: Um, he's sick. My best friend's sister's boyfriend's
brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's
going with a girl who saw Stein lose any ounce of sanity at 31
Flavors last night. I guess it's pretty serious.
Reality: Thank you Simone.
Simone: No problem whatsoever.
SIV|9.27.07 @ 2:54PM|#
he would do well to read Judge John Jones' decision in
Kitzmuller v. Dover in which the judge found it unconstitutional to
teach intelligent design in public school science classes. Why?
Because it is a religious belief, not a scientific
theory.
Talk about "appeal to authority" I'm supposed to let some Judge
tell me what is science and what is religon? This is a libertarian
blog ain't it? Judges might prefer the WoDs or a centrally planned
economy (I think many do on both counts)
|9.27.07 @ 2:57PM|#
I don't know anything about intelligent design theory, but I bet
90% of the problems people have with Darwin, et al, could be solved
by having scientists behave a little more honestly.
The honest answer is that we really don't know shit. Evolution
theory is undoubtedly correct in some aspects, but it isn't perfect
and doesn't yet explain everything. If scientists would stop being
so arrogant and just admit what they don't know, people probably
wouldn't be so defensive...
The thing is, when scientists talk to each other, they talk about
all the cool stuff they don't know. When they talk to the public
they are loathe to admit that there's anything they don't know.
|9.27.07 @ 3:01PM|#
"Monkey men means monkey morals."
I am trying to figure out how any aspect of this statement is
negative. Can someone help me out here?
Don't you get it? The guy who said that was a creationist nutjob?
So anything he said can;t be given careful consideration or a
reasoned review...and as for Stein, well if he thinks he is so
smart as to question that which has been concluded by smarter men
then he, well, then he must be one of those fundie morons too.
Science! Now with twice the certainty!
(and I actually think evolution is prolly the best explanation we
have for that which we can explain)
Dave B.|9.27.07 @ 3:01PM|#
SIV -
An appeal to authority would sound like "intelligent design is
religion, a judge even said so." An appeal to reason sounds more
like "read this convincing argument that supports my views." You
can't dismiss something just because an authority figure says it
anymore than you can trust it just because an authority figure says
it.
QSL|9.27.07 @ 3:02PM|#
Let me just preface things by saying that I believe in both
Darwinian evolution and the notion that there's indeed a
universal "intelligent realm" behind these things that lives in
harmony with the science, as proposed by the likes of Gerald
Schroeder, et al.
Now having said that, Stein is wrong on this one. I'd applaud him
if he wanted to write books or speak in private forums about the
subject, but the ID proponents need to realize that the more they
try to horn into the public school classrooms, the more scorn they
shall receive (and rightly so).
|9.27.07 @ 3:04PM|#
Were there ever any questions regarding Occam's Razor on "Win Ben Stein's Money"?
Dave B.|9.27.07 @ 3:06PM|#
As far as the "monkey men means monkey morals" statement goes, its negative because its supposed to mean that if evolution is true, all morality goes out the window. How can someone whe claims that evolution implies that murder is ok not be a jackass?
|9.27.07 @ 3:06PM|#
We evolved into what we are now due to pcilocybin containing
mushrooms, ancient culutres that worshipped the goddess. Mother
earth. check out the book food of the gods by Terrence Mckenna
(deceased). A radical history of plants, drugs and human evolution.
It SHOULD probably be the modern guideline for evolutionary
thinking. All humanity has it's roots in indigenous cultures, and
they were the shamans. Our fall from grace, the garden of eden, all
symbolic of the ancient times when the higher power had a baby with
mother earth. Don't beleive it? Eat magic mushrooms!
Read food of the gods. Dear god i hope this message gets to someone
with true intelligence and isn't brushed off by the ego driven,
dominant men. Let go of any concept of god or evolution you have.
It is false. So is mine, but at least I'm open minded!
shecky|9.27.07 @ 3:06PM|#
Stein has been writing whacko stuff for a while now. Last time I read him was on WND. Should have been a clue.
|9.27.07 @ 3:08PM|#
Oh, Ralphy. Who is this "we" who doesn't know shit? You got a
mouse in your pocket? Biologists know a great deal about the
development of life on Earth, and the evidence all points to
evolution by natural selection.
I don't know of a single scientist who claims it "explains
everything" -- it doesn't, for example, explain why you and Ben
Stein are such hacks. Like all of science, the theory of evolution
is incomplete, and it is revised constantly as new evidence arises
and old evidence is re-evaluated. But there is no longer any reason
to doubt the basic premise of evolution by natural selection.
Fools like Ben Stein reject scientific evidence not because of the
arrogance you so ridiculously ascribe to scientists, but because
they don't like what that evidence has to say about their
superstitions.
|9.27.07 @ 3:09PM|#
On the one hand, he graduated first in his class at Yale Law, on the other hand, he publicly accused Bob Woodward of fabricating the existence of Deep Throat. So, we have an incredibly smart guy who gets a wrong idea in his head and won't let it go.
|9.27.07 @ 3:11PM|#
pinko:
Monkey men means monkey morals.
Perhaps the good reverend was worried about the
sexual exuberance of the bonobos. ;-)
SIV: Read the judge's opinion not because he's a judge, but because
he cites some scientific evidence that you might find
persuasive.
|9.27.07 @ 3:12PM|#
The problem with intelligent design is that its proponents
practice massive intellectual dishonesty. They are searching for
questions to support the answer they already have. Working
backwards from the answer is one of the easiest things in the
world. You can exclude any evidence that doesn't fit your axiom
based solely on the fact that it does not fit your
axiom.
(And any scientist who did this I would also call a bullshit
artist.)
BG,
Occam's Razor fails when you have an axiom like "God exists." If
the explanation with fewest assumptions always contains the "God
existence" assumption, then any mystery can be solved by "God did
it / must have wanted it that way."
|9.27.07 @ 3:14PM|#
Ben Stein has been a shameless partisan hack for years. He says
whatever the Republican Noise Machine tells him to say.
You think it's a coincidence that his preferred title "From
Darwin to Hitler." is exactly the same as an actual
documentary that came out this month denouncing evolution?
|9.27.07 @ 3:14PM|#
How can someone whe claims that evolution implies that
murder is ok not be a jackass?
Because then he would be a jackass man...and everyone who has seen
2001 knows there were no jackasses in that movie.
|9.27.07 @ 3:14PM|#
Ralphy
There is a vast distance between saying that evolutionary theory is
incomplete and saying that a religious belief is an equivalently
valid hypothesis.
One of the reasons that scientists do not like to discuss problems
in evolutionary theory with non-scientists is that non-scientists
interpret disagreeing over details as disagreeing over
basics.
The fundamentalists love to sieze on things like the purported*
split between the "gradualists" and the advocates of "punctuated
equilibrium" as some sort of proof that the disputants have a
problem with evolution itself.
*I say "purported" because it was clear to anyone who read Gould's
comments on Punctuated Equilibrium that what he referred to as
"sudden change" still took thousands of generation. The change was
"sudden" only because it was relatively brief when compared to the
interval between such changes.
|9.27.07 @ 3:15PM|#
Kyle
Can you explain/clarify your thesis in a way that makes it easier
for me to understand what you're getting at?
Or do I just have to take magic mushrooms, at which point it will
all make perfect sense? (If thats the case, I'll consider doing so.
And even if its not, I'll consider doing so just for fun.)
|9.27.07 @ 3:16PM|#
Ben is not a conservative. He donated $2,000.00 to Al
Franken.
It is a little bit scary. Reagan showed early signs of Alzheimers
in 1987, Bush, both of them, have shown brian degneration while in
office, Buckley believs Hillary would govern as a moderate because
she used to be a Goldwater girl.
Does everybody go nuts when they get older?
Looks like it.
Dave Woycechowsky|9.27.07 @ 3:17PM|#
How can someone whe claims that evolution implies that
murder is ok not be a jackass?
1. I don't think the claim is that evolution implies that murder is
okay.
2. I think the claim is that if evolution explained everthing then
murder would be okay, but murder is not okay so evolution does not
explain everything.
3. Ralphy nails it.
|9.27.07 @ 3:18PM|#
Ben Stein's did not do this because he's too dumb or too
scientifically illiterate to know better. He most certainly is
not.
He did this because he was told that only nasty liberal Democrats
deny Intelligent Design, and he falls for that trick every single
time.
|9.27.07 @ 3:21PM|#
If you wanted to, you could go to the National Review Online web
page, and browse the numerous political pieces he has written for
them over the years.
Yeah, THAT National Review. But he's not a conservative, despite
his oft-stated views, because he donated to the political campaign
of a friend he knows from his acting career.
|9.27.07 @ 3:21PM|#
Ok! In the smallest dose, magic mushrooms increase eyesight by 10%, that is in modern man. Second dosage, anything over a gram, will make you more sexually active. In the largest dosage is the profound visionary expereience. Symbols, language, halucinations. Now, monkey man can see better, he can hunt more, he can eat more, he can have more monkey kids! Ancient hindu's drank a mystical drink called soma, it is my contention that it was mushroom tea, with honey and milk. Hindus hold the cow as a sacred animal, magic mushrooms grow in cow dung. Domestication of caddle arose at the same period as mushroom use. The list goes on, eat the mushroom man! Connect to the collective overmind of the universe, the spores from mushrooms can travel through space wiuthout dying!!!!
stephen the goldberger|9.27.07 @ 3:27PM|#
Stein clearly is terrorifed of Eugenics, and believes that Darwinism is responsible. What a tool.
|9.27.07 @ 3:29PM|#
Is Kyle really tros? Or do they just party together?
More importantly, how much psylocibin would Ben Stein have to do
before he recants?
|9.27.07 @ 3:31PM|#
Darwin and Mendel's work did kinda lead to eugenics, but the theory of relativity brought us the fucking atom bomb and we're not still using newtonian mechanics are we? Science is frequently wrong (and that shakes out eventually), but it's never Wrong
|9.27.07 @ 3:31PM|#
I'm with joe--Stein's no liberal.
I'm in the unfortunate position of having to send a stepson to a
private high school that is teaching him Creationism. I don't mind
him growing up with religion so much, but this anti-science
nonsense is distressing. I've told him flat out that the school is
wrong, and that the ID position means that cosmology, biology,
geology, and a number of other sciences are wrong, despite
mountains of proof to the contrary, but I'm not sure that I'm
winning this battle. It's particularly frustrating because he has
some ambition to be an engineer.
We have valid reasons for sending him to this school, but the
anti-science indoctrination is the hardest part to swallow. For
people with strong religious beliefs, you'd think the evidence of
the universe itself would be more compelling than some words
written by people long ago. Or not so long ago in some
instances.
|9.27.07 @ 3:38PM|#
he does not accept that evolution alone can explain life on
earth
ARGH! No self-respecting scientist says it does!
Why can't people separate the origin of life from the origin of
species? Is the concept so difficult?
Oh, if only there were an easy way to explain the RNA world to
laymen.
UM|9.27.07 @ 3:40PM|#
Kyle, not sure if you're serious or not, but any of the crap from Carl Ruck or Terence McKenna is just that: crap. It's an even more one-size-fits-all argument than anything H&R commenters conceive of as religion and it has even less proof...
|9.27.07 @ 3:40PM|#
Democrats must be in favor of eye redness, also.
If Democrats were objectively pro-eye redness, they'd get a lot
more libertarian votes.
Wait, what was I JUST saying?
|9.27.07 @ 3:41PM|#
BG,
Occam's Razor fails when you have an axiom like "God exists." If the explanation with fewest assumptions always contains the "God existence" assumption, then any mystery can be solved by "God did it / must have wanted it that way."
I wouldn't say that Occam's Razor fails; but that people who reason
the way you describe are failing to use it (or at least failing to
use it correctly).
Evolutoin by natural selection explains the diversity of complex
life forms in terms of processes and entities which have been
observed and scientifically corroborated. We
don't need to have axioms like "DNA exists" or "genetic material,
and often accompanying traits, are passed on to an organism's
offspring". We know these things exist/happen based on data from
observation and experimentation.
For contrast purposes, imagine someone with an axiom like:
"highly-intelligent aliens from other planets exist on earth".
Imagine this person trying to explain events and phenomena by
saying the aliens did it/wanted it that way. And suppose there are
entities which have been demonstrated to exist (unlike the
hypothetical aliens); which can explain those events and phenomena.
Its clear that the person advocating the Alien Causation Hypothesis
would be violating/failing to apply Occam's Razor.
|9.27.07 @ 3:42PM|#
It gets worse. He had a brief opportunity to pick his own position. He chose theistic evolution, which I thought was fine. All that really means, apparently, is that he believes in a creator but accepts evolution, etc. His teacher--this is his science teacher, mind you--said "Great, but please keep an open mind." An open mind about the Creationist dogma, of course. I almost lost it when I read that comment. Why they won't accept the world as it obviously exists is beyond me.
|9.27.07 @ 3:43PM|#
...if evolution explained everthing then murder would be okay...
Good luck supporting that claim.
kyle|9.27.07 @ 3:49PM|#
UM, have you ever eaten mushrooms? Have you ever danced in a drum circle ecstatically with no control over your body? Have you ever had a profound mystical experience of any kind? Those theories are all encumbosing because they preach one-ness with the earth, something you've probably never felt.
Shannon Love|9.27.07 @ 3:51PM|#
I think a lot of the resistance to evolutionary explanations to
the origins of life springs from the adoption of non-Darwinian
evolutionary theories by Communist and Fascist. I'm a committed
Darwinist myself but objectively if one looks at the broad sweep of
political ideologies in the 20th century, there is a powerful
correlation between the degree to which a philosophy adopted some
materialistic evolutionary explanation and the likelihood its
adherents would go a killing spree.
Much as I hate to admit it, I think Ben maybe onto something when
he said, "Monkey men, monkey morals." Many people have used
evolutionary theory as a means to undermine adherence to
traditional religions in many cultures but they have not managed to
replace it with a moral framework that functions as well as the
religious one did.
It would certainly help matters if people on the secular Left
weren't such blithering hypocrites about the entire matter. For
them, anyone who doesn't accept a materialistic explanation for
life is a religiously deluded moron but any one who believes
natural selection is the mechanism of evolution is a fascist.
A pox on both their houses.
|9.27.07 @ 3:51PM|#
Kyle
If you're thesis is that consumption of psycoactive mushrooms was
common in many ancient socities, and that such consumption
influenced the way belief systems and cultural practices developed,
I find that fairly plausible.
But when you start talking about grandiose things like "the
collective overmind of the universe", I feel the need to refer you
to my comments on Occam's Razor.
|9.27.07 @ 4:07PM|#
Jake
we're not still using newtonian mechanics are we?
Actually, we do use Newtonian mechanics all the time. It is
perfectly valid for non-relativistic velocities and masses.
I realize I am nit-picking here, but I think that the
Newton/Einstein analogy is not a good one in this situation. Modern
geology, astronomy and evolution are absolutely incompatible with
Biblical literalism. Einstein refined some special cases of
Newton's work, but did not invalidate it.
|9.27.07 @ 4:09PM|#
"there is a powerful correlation between the degree to which a
philosophy adopted some materialistic evolutionary explanation and
the likelihood its adherents would go a killing spree"
I've found that to be the case with religions that promote
intolerance of other people. Look at all the wars that have been
fought throughout history in the name of religion.
|9.27.07 @ 4:14PM|#
BG, we are not in disagreement. I was only using "fails" in the
sense of "if you feed faulty data into Occam's Razor you get faulty
results." Any construct built to guide reason can be corrupted by
the injection of faith at any point in its calculation.
Or, to give it a snarky spin "2+2=5 if you just believe hard
enough."
Timothy|9.27.07 @ 4:17PM|#
Well at least Mr. Stein isn't one of the secret designers of secret designs.
|9.27.07 @ 4:18PM|#
kyle is either intentionally or unintentionally the funniest commenter in recent memory. I defy anyone to challenge me on this point.
|9.27.07 @ 4:21PM|#
"Occam's Razor fails when you have an axiom like "God exists."
If the explanation with fewest assumptions always contains the "God
existence" assumption, then any mystery can be solved by "God did
it / must have wanted it that way."
You are still left with the question of how did God do it? Does he
have hands with which to work? Does he have a physical brain with
which to think? Saying God created it solves nothing.
Syloson of Samos|9.27.07 @ 4:21PM|#
Humans butchering each other in the hundreds of thousands didn't start after Darwin published the Origin of Species in 1859. Indeed, it didn't even take the advent of secular ideologies to achieve that: the fact that 250,000 to 300,000 English, Scots, Welsh and Irish died in the British Civil War or that another 500,000 died in the German Peasants War (both religious conflicts in significant part) ought to tell us that.
Syloson of Samos|9.27.07 @ 4:25PM|#
Shannon Love,
So do "religious men equal religious morals?" Are the religious
inherently more good or more moral (whatever the heck that means)
than the secular? I really don't think so.
Anyway, whatever one might say of the influence of Darwinism on
Nazi ideology, Nazi ideology was suffused with all manner of
mystical and religious influences. Which why things like the
magical blood of Nazi marytrs existed.
Syloson of Samos|9.27.07 @ 4:36PM|#
Shannon Love,
I'm a committed Darwinist myself but objectively if one looks
at the broad sweep of political ideologies in the 20th century,
there is a powerful correlation between the degree to which a
philosophy adopted some materialistic evolutionary explanation and
the likelihood its adherents would go a killing spree.
If I look over the broad sweep of human history I see millions upon
millions of human beings killed over the nature of their religious
beliefs. Uncompromising, unitary, etc. visions of the world seem to
be the issue, not whether they are religious, materialistic, etc.
not.
|9.27.07 @ 4:38PM|#
Evolution doesn't explain why I can't find my car keys in the
morning. It also can't explain why bats seem so creepy. Therfore
its wrong.
The ID/creationist debate doesn't get much more sophisticated than
that.
Shannon Love|9.27.07 @ 4:38PM|#
Rattlesnake,
Look at all the wars that have been fought throughout history
in the name of religion.
That's a common concept but I don't think it bears up under close
scrutiny. The idea that "religion" causes war presumes that because
people with religious beliefs use their religions to justify their
wars, the wars would not have occurred except for the religion. I
don't think that really holds water upon closer examination. I
think in most cases that reverses causality. I think people want to
fight wars and then use religion to justify their actions. Had
there been atheistic cultures in medieval times I think they would
have fought just as many wars, They would have simply justified
them differently.
Besides, the political track record on explicitly anti-religious
regimes is not good, starting with the French revolution and going
forward through communism.
dhex|9.27.07 @ 4:39PM|#
Evolution doesn't explain why I can't find my car keys in
the morning.
lack of environmental pressures to make car key finding a
selectable trait?
Paul|9.27.07 @ 4:41PM|#
Ben Stein has been a shameless partisan hack for
years.
joe, calm down. He's a partisan hack the way 99.9823475% of
hollywood celebrities are.
However, I'm very disappointed with Mr. Stein.
Paul|9.27.07 @ 4:42PM|#
Look at all the wars that have been fought throughout
history in the name of religion.
Rattlesnake:
Throughout history, most cultures have been religious.
SIV|9.27.07 @ 4:43PM|#
Darwin and Mendel's work did kinda lead to eugenics, but the
theory of relativity brought us the fucking atom bomb
Atomic bombs are morally neutral. Eugenics is not.
Bronwyn,
he does not accept that evolution alone can explain life on
earth
ARGH! No self-respecting scientist says it does!
I haven't counted but some commenters (see Shannon for one) are
under the same misconception that Darwinian evolution explains the
origin of life. Personally, I don't have "faith" that 1 in 50
public school science teachers are capable of understanding
evolution much less teach it (that is not an endorsement of them
teaching alternatives to it).
|9.27.07 @ 4:44PM|#
I believe some religions do promote warfare when they promote intolerance of others' viewpoints. People have fought over things as silly as whether Jesus' body and blood are physically consumed at Communion.
Syloson of Samos|9.27.07 @ 4:44PM|#
Shannon Love,
Also, just by way of example, check out the responses to Locke's
Letter On Toleration sometime. Locke spent the good part
of the last fifteen years or so of his life defending against
almost innumerable written attacks his vision of what one might
think of today as an Spinozan political order tolerant of religious
difference.
Syloson of Samos|9.27.07 @ 4:48PM|#
Shannon Love,
I think people want to fight wars and then use religion to
justify their actions.
In that you are simply wrong. Unless the mountains of material we
have in which people discuss their actions are simply a form of
self-delusion. Religion as community identity has been the cassus
belli for many, many wars. Indeed, can you imagine a British Civil
War sans Charles I trying to force through his Laudian reforms on
the Scottish Presbyterian church? I really don't think it would
have started without such.
Syloson of Samos|9.27.07 @ 4:50PM|#
SIV,
A lot of folks I think confuse the origins of life with the
post-origin evolution of life.
Shannon Love|9.27.07 @ 4:50PM|#
Syloson of Samos,
Anyway, whatever one might say of the influence of Darwinism on
Nazi ideology,...
Nazi and Marxist alike were not Darwisnist but rather believed in
another once widely scientifically accepted idea of evolution
called orthogenesis (correct creation). Orthogenesis holds that
unknown perfecting forces drive species along a predetermined path.
In this view, competition merely functions to execute those
individuals who deviate from the preordained path.
The primary driver of evolution in Darwinism is
diversity/variation. Its easy to see how both Marxist and Fascist
would be uncomfortable with that idea.
Uncompromising, unitary, etc. visions of the world seem to be
the issue, not whether they are religious, materialistic, etc.
not.
I agree. I simply object to the idea that religious i.e. belief in
non-materialistic causations, beliefs in an of themselves trigger
violence. I lot of people make the de facto argument that since
they are not religious, their ideologies won't be dangerous.
More to the point of this thread, people who base their acceptance
of evolutionary theory on watching the real-world actions of
ideologies purporting to spring from it, have real cause to believe
that evolutionary theory leads to dangerous philosophies. That idea
is I think wrong because no one has actually based on political
ideology on actual natural selection and all it implies. However,
only people with a specialist knowledge of evolutionary theory and
the history of the idea of evolution itself can clearly see that.
For the laity it really looks like evolutionary theory presents
real dangers.
Jim Lippard|9.27.07 @ 4:52PM|#
The intelligent design people at the Discovery Institute already do have a book titled "From Darwin to Hitler."
|9.27.07 @ 4:52PM|#
Rattlesnake Jake,
"silly as whether Jesus' body and blood are physically consumed at
Communion."
Silly?? Watch your back! Your on my list!
|9.27.07 @ 4:54PM|#
Rattlesnake Jake,
Did they fight wars over whether the body of Christ was physically
consumed?
Or did they fight wars over whether some group of people should be
subject to the edicts of some authority?
|9.27.07 @ 4:57PM|#
Look at all the wars in Great Britain in which Syloson mentions one. Queen Mary wasn't known as Bloody Mary for nothing. She was Catholic and persecuted Protestants. Protestants would get their sweet revenge when Comstock came to power.
|9.27.07 @ 5:00PM|#
"Did they fight wars over whether the body of Christ was
physically consumed?"
"Or did they fight wars over whether some group of people should be
subject to the edicts of some authority?"
The latter, but the edicts were of a religious nature.
|9.27.07 @ 5:00PM|#
Did they fight wars over whether the body of Christ was
physically consumed?
Or did they fight wars over whether some group of people should be
subject to the edicts of some authority?
And now we also fight wars over our weapons...real or imaginary.
Science and technology win!
|9.27.07 @ 5:01PM|#
Also, Communists rejected the notion that biology determined
human history, and was the source of conflict between human groups.
They were materialists, to be sure, but they were not biological
materialists.
Culture-as-an-expression-of-power-relations was the motive force in
Marxist thought. The idea that the material functioning of the
natural world drove human history was the polar opposite of
communists' theory of history.
There just isn't any way to reconcile the communists' ideas about
the malleability of the human character and the cultural foundation
of who survives and who perishes with the principles of
evolution.
In a sense, the communists were the ultimate partisans of the
"nurture" side of the debate, and the Nazis the ultimate partisans
of the "nature side."
Anonymo the Anonymous|9.27.07 @ 5:02PM|#
Evolution doesn't explain why I can't find my car keys in
the morning. It also can't explain why bats seem so creepy.
Therfore its wrong.
(Your point is obviously sound but just saying) actually, you
probably can come up with an explanation for either of those
phenomena that relates to evolution. I'm not saying there's
adequate evidence now for those explanations to succeed, but it
doesn't seem implausible --
Why can't I find my keys? The cognitive functions that enable tasks
like finding my keys were rarely necessary for the survival or
reproduction of individuals in the early evolutionary environment,
and thus no selection pressure was exerted in that direction.
Why are bats creepy? What we're really saying here is, why do
humans find bats creepy? Humans find bats creepy because in the
early evolutionary environment, being in the presence of bats or
creatures that resembled bats in some relevant way was a detriment
to survival or reproduction. People attracted to bats (or something
resembling bats) were more likely to die or otherwise fail to
reproduce (perhaps due to bat-transmitted disease); people who
found bats repulsive and fled were more likely to survive and pass
on the genes that give a propensity to believe "bats are gross".
Over time, the "bats are gross" crowd grows while the "aww, I think
I'll try to hug those adorable bats; hey, why do I have rabies?"
crowd died.
|9.27.07 @ 5:03PM|#
A lot of folks I think confuse the origins of life with the
post-origin evolution of life.
A lot of folks also confuse evolution within a species with
trans-species evolution.
Though, if you're trying to get ID into public schools, I think
you're shooting yourself in the foot. If experience has taught us
nothing, it's that the public schools inevitably fail at what they
try to do.
I mean, seriously, schools have been teaching evolution only for
decades and overwhelming majorities of Americans still believe in
some form of creationism.
If they start teaching ID, I think in another generation or two,
the country would be almost 100% atheist. ;)
|9.27.07 @ 5:05PM|#
And for the record, human beings don't need much of an excuse to kill, maim, murder, defraud, steal, rape or pillage one another. It seems to come fairly naturally to our species.
|9.27.07 @ 5:08PM|#
Ben Stein is not well liked or even really accepted among
conservatives. I once had an e-mail exchange with a fairly
prominant conservative opinion writer about Herb Stein, Ben Stein's
father and an accomplished economist and someone whome we had both
met. The topic of Ben Stein came up and this guy at least was of
the opinion that Ben Stein was about the worst human being on earth
and said that pretty much everyone in the conservative
establishment agreed.
Stein to the extent that he is a conservative is of the paleo kind
closer to Pat Buchananon than anything else. He used to write some
awful things in Front Page magazine about how wonderful the
antebellum South was, how horrible Lincoln was and how the North
winning the Civil War ruined the country. It was just appalling
stuff. I think he is pretty much a media whore and I am sure he did
this documentary for the money if nothing else.
The Darwin to Hitler idea bugs the hell out of me. I really object
to the idea that religion or lack of religion create a better
world. Bullshit. Man is what he is. From a Christian perpective,
Where did Jesus ever promise anything on this earth to his
followers but ridicule and scorn? The purpose of Christianity is to
save our sinful souls from eternal damnation in the next life, not
create paradise in this one. If we could do that, we wouldn't need
Jesus to return would we? It drives me crazy when bible thumping
Christians, some of whom write for your magazine, talk about how
wonderful the world is because of religion. Well, that is true
insofar as billions of souls have been saved from eternal damnation
in the next life because of Christianity. As far as this world
goes, regardless of religion man is still in a horrible fallen
state away from God and cannot help himself but to sin and
generally make a mess of the place. To claim Christianity can stop
that is no different than believing God will pay off your credit
cards if only you pray hard enough.
The same can be said for lack of religion. Man is in a fallen state
and cannot help himself but to make a mess of things. That will
happen regardless of what he beleives.
|9.27.07 @ 5:10PM|#
Baisically, the Nazis didn't happen because of Darwinism, the Nazis happened becaus that is what man does.
|9.27.07 @ 5:14PM|#
Rattlesnake Jake,
I used to live in a city called Fitchburg. It was a mill town, with
a big river running through it.
Originally, in colonial times, it has been the western section of a
town called Lunenberg. Then somebody realized that he could build a
grist mill on the river. Then a store. Then an inn. A pretty good
commercial district got going in the center of Fitchburg.
A few years later, the mill owners and store owners and some of the
more prosperous farmers got together and petitioned the legislature
to allow Fitchburg to incorporate as its own town.
The reason they gave was that the ride to the meeting house in
Lunenberg center for services on Sunday morning was too long and
arduous for the women-folk. Upon winning the vote, these
petitioners became the first generation of Fitchburg's poitical
leaders.
I suppose one could say it was about religion. I'll bet a pretty
good number of the farmers who were asked to support the seccession
on the grounds of religion did so, passionately, so that they could
have a meeting house closer to their homes. Heck, some of the mill
owners and merchants might have convinced themselves of that,
too.
But it seems to me that it is pretty rare in human history that
anything political happens solely in the name of God, without
somebody having some sort of a decidedly earthly angle.
Shannon Love|9.27.07 @ 5:17PM|#
Syloson of Samos,
Unless the mountains of material we have in which people
discuss their actions are simply a form of self-delusion
Why not? As a species we do seem very prone to self-delusion.
Beside, many scholars operating from a perspective of Marxism or
cultural materialism have identified many non-religous factors such
as economics, class and ethnic conflict in many supposedly
religious wars. People might believe they fight for religious
reason when in fact they have other concerns they might not want to
admit to themselves they are willing to kill for.
I am sure that religious disagreements have caused wars. I am not
sure, however, that on the whole, we would have seen fewer wars
overall if people held strictly materialistic beliefs.
For one thing, we have built in biases in history. Prior to circa
1792, no widespread materialistic ideologies existed that possessed
the power actually needed to fight wars. We can't say with any
factual basis for example that an atheistic medieval Europe would
not have been a land of incessant warfare or that a mass military
campaign such as the Crusades would not have occurred. We have no
data.
Secondly, we can't see the wars that religion headed off. A war
that never happened is largely invisible to history. For all we
know, based on available data, religion might stifle more wars than
it triggers.
Religion hasn't played a major role in the wars of the last two
hundred years yet one cannot say it has been a non-violent era.
Even the current War on Terror is relatively minor compared to the
secular wars of WWI,WWII and the Cold War.
I think the sad truth is that humans seek overarching explanations
for reality and that they are willing to kill to defend those
explanations. I don't think it matters whether the explanations
have roots in religion or materialistic doctrines.
SIV|9.27.07 @ 5:28PM|#
Ron,
I skipped the pdf and went to your article
where, if I'm skimming correctly, it states that the judge didn't
rule on ID, but on the wackiness proposed by the Dover school
board.
Meanwhile, the Discovery Institute, the chief promoter of the
ID movement, claims to have been dismayed by the Dover School
Board's activities. They say they had advised the board not to
mandate the teaching of ID.
As I stated above, I don't think 1 in 50 Public School science
teachers are capable of understanding (much less teaching)
Darwinian evolution.I wouldn't expect any better ratio on ID.I have
a great appreciation of subversive ideas and skepticism.
ID has driven evolutionists ballistic. Whereas "Scientific
Creationism" was laughably absurd and easily proven BS there seems
to be a "fear" of ID catching on as a philosophical idea.
|9.27.07 @ 6:05PM|#
"Whereas "Scientific Creationism" was laughably absurd and easily proven BS there seems to be a "fear" of ID catching on as a philosophical idea." That's nuts. Respectable scientists don't "fear" that their grad students and tommorrows future great scientists will suddenly see the brilliance of ID (which as Bailey and others note is largely the same as "scientific creationism"), they are worried, as they were with creationism explicit, that it will be forced on generations of students via politics.
|9.27.07 @ 6:05PM|#
I find claims of religion as a strongly civilizing force improbable in the sweep of history. The claim that religion is a prerequisite for moral action is absurd on its face. You are really going to tell me that Bertrand Russell was killing people off and eating babies in his spare time? If just he was a broadly decent person, doesn't that invalidate the entire claim?
|9.27.07 @ 6:11PM|#
Treat others as you would like to be treated.
Many of us have found ourselves on the dissent end of a consensus,
such as global warming or passive smoke, and whenever that rolls
around we all say "consensus is not part of the method" and other
things asserting the right of the skeptic.
No matter how rediculous the dissent we must allow people to have
their say, after all, with fair honest application of the
scientific method there is no danger intelligent design will win
out.
Lets just not go the path of the global warming eco-fascists.
|9.27.07 @ 6:25PM|#
But it seems to me that it is pretty rare in human history
that anything political happens solely in the name
of God, without somebody having some sort of a decidedly earthly
angle.
(emphasis added)
Maybe religious motives aren't the sole motivating
factor in many aspects of human affairs; but there is alot happens
that would be extremely difficult or impossible to pull off without
getting alot of people to cooperate based on their religious views.
Some examples:
- The Inquisition: I'm sure some people who claimed to have seen
their neighbors contracting with the devil or engaging in
saucery(sp?) just did it to settle a grudge or get their property.
And some torturers were merely sadists. But plenty of people
participating didn't benefit from it, and many participants were at
least theoretically at risk of being denounced themselves. It would
be much harder to get away with something like that if there
weren't significant numbers of people who thought there was
something to the catholic church's metaphysical claims.
- Prohibitions on consenting-adult sodomy: Some people may support
such prohibitions just because it grosses them out and they don't
care about the freedom of others. And some uber-paternalists might
be willing to throw out all sexual liberty due to sexually
transmitted diseases. But naked intolerance is a much tougher sell
if you can't convince some people with an argument like: "God says
so and divine orders trump any human interest in freedom or
pleasure".
- The Temple Mount: The intensity of each side's desire for
juristdiction or access to this piece of land, and the extent to
which it has hindered the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, is
clearly out of proportion to its economic value.
There are undoubtedly other examples, but I think its clear that
people's beliefs are a significant motivation factor in many human
affairs.
|9.27.07 @ 6:43PM|#
"The problem with intelligent design is that its proponents
practice massive intellectual dishonesty. They are searching for
questions to support the answer they already have"
much like nearly every 'social scientist' in the sociology, women's
studies, ethnic studies, etc. dept's i might add. same syndrome,
different idiots. see, for example, what happened when larry
summers mentioned research about cognitive differences between men
and women. i totally agree that ID'ers are (to a large extent)
people working backwards (ok, we have the theory. now lets get the
right evidence to support our theory and ignore everything else...
syndrome).
derb, at national review has done some GREAT pieces just skewering
ID'ers. simply put, whether or not ID'ers are right is irrelevant.
it's not SCIENCE. ID is not science. it's really THAT simple. thus,
it should not be taught as science.
|9.27.07 @ 6:48PM|#
"In that you are simply wrong. Unless the mountains of material
we have in which people discuss their actions are simply a form of
self-delusion. Religion as community identity has been the cassus
belli for many, many wars. Indeed, can you imagine a British Civil
War sans Charles I trying to force through his Laudian reforms on
the Scottish Presbyterian church? I really don't think it would
have started without such."
which isn't the same thing, of course, as saying that religion was
the cause of these wars, or more importantly, that we wouldn't have
at least as many wars (and govt. sponsored violence w.o
religion)
the fact is that (especially in the timeframe mentioned) most
people were religious. therefore, it would be surprising if we
didn't see them using religion so often as a causus belli.
however, if there is one thing the 20th century made abundantly
clear, it is that the rise of "official state mandated atheism" and
numerous nation states that were officially atheist, were at least
as (if not more) prone to fight wars. they just didn't use religion
as an excuse. they used other stuff.
i think that prior to the 20th century, it was a reasonable
assumption (even if incorrect) that religion was the cause of so
much war and strife n stuff, and if only (see: john lennon) we got
rid of these mythologies, we would all be living in a much more
peaceful world.
i don't think any rational student of history can believe that
after digesting the rapacious murderous warlike recent history of
the world.
the fact is that man is a churlish, selfish, aggressive, warlike
beast. it's not religion's fault.
|9.27.07 @ 7:38PM|#
There are eye conditions, retinopathies, where blood vessels in
the retina leak. Sometimes, in various parts of our anatomy, the
body limits the damage caused from leaking blood vessels and saves
organs and functions by growing new blood vessels. But with some
retinopathies, the new blood vessels grow on the surface of the
retina as well, causing blindness.
It's easy to see the mechanisms of adaptation and selection
(evolution) at work here. It's rather harder to see design, unless
the designer is thought to be malicious or not too intelligent.
Syloson of Samos|9.27.07 @ 8:20PM|#
Religion as a community institution (and that has been one of
its primary roles) has been one of the most significant forces in
the sweep of human history. As such its role in the wars that
humans undertake has been quite significant.
Shannon Love,
Religion has played a significant role in many wars over the past
two hundred years, and that includes wars like the American Civil
War and WWI where religious language by the participants was often
at a fever pitch.
I am not sure, however, that on the whole, we would have seen
fewer wars overall if people held strictly materialistic
beliefs.
I don't think anyone made such an argument. Then again, it is hard
to me to imagine a the French Wars of Religion taking place without
the community religion based strife between the two confessional
communities of France. Certainly the savagery of those wars is hard
to imagine without such - St. Bart's Day being a good example of
such. In this case (and the other wars associated with the
Reformation) we're talking about conflicts which saw the slaughter,
starvation, etc. of hundreds of thousands of people in nations
which had far smaller populations than they had in the 19th and
20th centuries.
|9.27.07 @ 9:04PM|#
he would do well to read Judge John Jones' decision in
Kitzmuller v. Dover in which the judge found it unconstitutional to
teach intelligent design in public school science classes. Why?
Because it is a religious belief, not a scientific
theory.
I'm not sure how impressed Stein (J.D. Yale, 1970--and first in his
class, according to Wikipedia) would be by Judge Jones's (J.D.,
Dickinson School of Law, 1980) opinion.
|9.27.07 @ 9:11PM|#
Ben Stein, yes, the Ben Stein in Ferris Bueller's Day Off
and yes, the Ben Stein of Comedy Central's "Win Ben Stein's
Money"
Ben Stein is also the son of Herb Stein, who was A. Willis
Robertson Professor of Economics at the University of Virginia
(where I believe he may have taught economics major Ronald
Bailey).
Interestingly, Regent University founder and intelligent design
supporter Pat Robertson is the son of former Senate Banking
Committee chairman A. Willis Robertson (D-Va.).
|9.27.07 @ 9:24PM|#
Gaijin, Dave B., Bart Simpson, Ron Bailey et al,
I meant that monkey morals are fine by me. Monkeys, and their
morals, don't even come close to being as troublesome as homo
sapiens, and morals.
|9.27.07 @ 9:30PM|#
If we were intelligently designed, I wouldn't have hair on my tucchus, and my member wouldn't drip after taking a leak
Bad|9.27.07 @ 9:39PM|#
I've been following this movie for awhile now. Short version: Intelligent Design is so intellectually bankrupt that it's now moved almost exclusively to kvetching about persecution and oppression. We can pretty much already map this movie out: lots of one-sided claims about abuses on ID people without any honest accounting of what actually happened + carefully selected "scary" quotes from atheists + Darwin = Hitler. Wrap that puppy up in a faux outlaw chique, hire the "Last Temptation of Christ" PR team to market it directly to churches, and make boku moola... as well as lots of people more angry AND more stupid.
|9.27.07 @ 10:20PM|#
Intelligent Design isn't new. Stein showed his ignorance right
from the start. This originated with Paley among others
before Darwin even started working on his theory.
This is over 150 years ago. In that time, it has gone absolutely
nowhere. It gets resurrected from time to time. Sorry, once a
zombie, always a zombie.
Stein IMO isn't all that bright. I once read a pop financial piece
a year ago that was so dumb, I made a note of the author who I had
never heard of. His name was.....Ben Stein. Funny how he showed up
in Expelled. Maybe he isn't quite that dumb. Presumably he got paid
for this propaganda film.
Bad|9.27.07 @ 10:59PM|#
Oh, but Ben IS a genius. A short lived second
blog post on the official movie site said so... at least until
the authors thought better of it and yanked it down. It read, in
part:
"And if we re-read Ben Stein's words here again and again (as I
have)…we may still not quite comprehend the full
implications of his thoughts. But keep trying, if you misunderstood
them…it's worth it."
As I wrote: the emphasis was, incredibly, actually in the
original.
Joe|9.27.07 @ 11:06PM|#
Food for thought: Neither theory of the origin of the universe is scientifically provable. Why? Because science is the study of what we can observe. The scientific method deals with observable results. We cannot prove either scientifically wrong or right because neither can be observed because they are things of the past.
The Wine Commonsewer|9.27.07 @ 11:32PM|#
Everyone has to believe in something so I believe I'll have
another glass of wine. It isn't ID, Big Bang, or Evolution.
Clearly, wine is the Only Answer.
Donut|9.27.07 @ 11:58PM|#
You people who believe in "evolutionism" have simply been
brainwashed! I wonder if any of you would have ever come up with
the THEORY without the powers that be pounding it down your throats
for the past century?
Look up evolution in the dictionary and you will get six different
definitions. Evolution is not a science it is a belief system, a
religion unto itself. I believe in micro evolution which is simply
adaptation. I do not believe that you can get a totally different
creature out of another creature and that is what evolution
teaches. Did anyone ever see a Banana give rise to a Monkey?
Let's sum up what evolution really is: Four point five billion
years ago our planet was a rock. It started raining on the rock and
all life sprung from the prebiotic soup created by the rain and the
rock. That is truly what all of these "Scientists" believe in and
that is all evolution is after you remove all of the clever
sophistry and rhetoric.
One more thing...The human eye is an amazing piece of engineering,
though people who argue for evolution are always saying God did a
horrible job by putting the blood vessels in front of the
optics...If the blood vessels were behind the lens the suns ultra
violet rays would fry it and we'd all be walking into trees and
falling off cliffs!
|9.28.07 @ 12:37AM|#
I don't have the energy to explain the problem with Donut's
argument right now. If this thread is still active tomorrow I'll
continue the debate. For now I'll just link to a very good general
rebuttal that I've read.
http://www.angelfire.com/ok5/pearly/htmls/gop-evolution.html
Kyle|9.28.07 @ 1:41AM|#
This is some of the best debating i've read in awhile, some guy
said i was funny! Another guy said I'm full of crap. The truth is
i'm both!
Keep in mind that we did in fact come from the earth in some way.
Now what was the catalyst in our evolution? And BG, it isn't MY
thesis, it is one Terrence Mckenna's, look into his book Food of
the gods. Some guy said Terrence Mckenna and some other guy are
full of crap, I bet that guy who talked crap about my crap works
for the government or is somekind of tool. I'll look into the
Occams Razor dealy.
Economic progress is an illusion. We live in a finite planet. World
war 3 is already happening. :P
Dave Woycechowsky|9.28.07 @ 7:29AM|#
...if evolution explained everthing then murder would be
okay...
Good luck supporting that claim.
Resident secularist, and starter of this fine thd, Ron Bailey came
out in favor of the Iraq War. I wonder how he feels about bombing
the genetically homogeneous people of Iran.
MartinM|9.28.07 @ 7:48AM|#
The scientific method deals with observable results. We cannot prove either scientifically wrong or right because neither can be observed because they are things of the past.
Events in the past leave observable results in the present.
MartinM|9.28.07 @ 8:16AM|#
Excising those parts of Donut's screed which don't even attempt
to imitate a coherent argument, we're left with:
Look up evolution in the dictionary and you will get six different definitions.
Dictionaries define common usage. Plugging dictionary definitions
of 'energy' and 'mass' into E=mc^2 would produce some fairly
ridiculous results. That's not a problem with relativity, but
rather with the person who thought getting their science from a
dictionary was a good idea.
I do not believe that you can get a totally different creature out of another creature and that is what evolution teaches.
No, magically jumping from one creature to another totally
different one is saltation, not evolution. Evolution is a
gradual process of descent with modification.
Did anyone ever see a Banana give rise to a Monkey?
Case in point. Monkeys are not descended from bananas, nor did
anyone claim so. It would help if you understood evolution before
attempting to criticize it.
Let's sum up what evolution really is
Let's not. Childish simplifications are the stock in trade of
pseudoscientists unable to deal in substance.
If the blood vessels were behind the lens the suns ultra violet rays would fry it
Actually, UV is largely absorbed by the cornea and the lens.
Furthermore, other species have more sensible arrangements, and
somehow manage to avoid going blind nonetheless.
In any case, arguing for physical constraints on design hardly
makes sense when said designer supposedly designed those very same
physical constraints.
|9.28.07 @ 9:32AM|#
"Resident secularist, and starter of this fine thd, Ron Bailey
came out in favor of the Iraq War. I wonder how he feels about
bombing the genetically homogeneous people of Iran."
He probably supports it because of his support for Israel, but
Israel doesn't need our help. Israel has plenty of nukes to take
care of itself. Iran would never attack Israel.
|9.28.07 @ 10:03AM|#
"Resident secularist, and starter of this fine thd, Ron Bailey
came out in favor of the Iraq War. I wonder how he feels about
bombing the genetically homogeneous people of Iran.'
Wow, we have some seriously recessive genes expressing themselves
here.
|9.28.07 @ 10:07AM|#
"Don't worry about Donut's argument.
That was the hole talking."
That is the funniest ad hominum attack I have seen in a long
time.
|9.28.07 @ 10:35AM|#
Ben Stein has always been a buffoon who seems in over his head when talking about any issue. If he didn't have the funny voice nobody would pay even listen,
|9.28.07 @ 11:07AM|#
wayne
Give yourself some credit. "Wow, we have some seriously recessive
genes expressing themselves here." was pretty funny.
Kyle, I'll see about looking into Terrence Mckenna's argument at
some point. Here's a link to an overview of Occam's Razor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_Razor
And other commenters done a good job of refuting Donut's agrument
so I'll just say "bravo people".
Dave Woycechowsky|9.28.07 @ 11:10AM|#
He probably supports it because of his support for
Israel
A lot of people think that Jewish people are a genetically inferior
group. I don't think it is their religion Mr. Bailey so much
digs.
Dave Woycechowsky|9.28.07 @ 11:12AM|#
Bad typo. What I meant to say:
--A lot of people think that Jewish people are a genetically
SUPERIOR group. I don't think it is their religion Mr. Bailey so
much digs.--
I was trying to say that I suspect that Mr. Bailey holds Jewish
people in high esteem for genetic reasons, not that he thinks they
are inferior.
|9.28.07 @ 11:39AM|#
Dave Woycechowsky
I don't suppose you have any evidence for your belief that Bailey
thinks that.
Bad|9.28.07 @ 12:01PM|#
"You people who believe in "evolutionism" have simply been
brainwashed!"
I'd rather be brainwashed than
an utterly ridiculous liar and BS artist, which is what it
seems most creationism seems to involve.
Jim Lippard|9.28.07 @ 12:04PM|#
SIV: "I skipped the pdf and went to your article
where, if I'm skimming correctly, it states that the judge didn't
rule on ID, but on the wackiness proposed by the Dover school
board."
No, Judge Jones ruled that intelligent design is not science, but
religion--that it is, in fact, just the same old creationism
repackaged under a new name. The plaintiffs showed in court that
the main book involved in the Kitzmiller case, _Of Pandas and
People_, referred to creation science in earlier drafts. They
substituted "intelligent design" for "creationism" and "creation
science" after losing at the Supreme Court in Edwards v.
Aguillard.
Steve Reuland|9.28.07 @ 12:39PM|#
In any case, I'm sure the evolutionary biologists didn't say anything they didn't believe.
They didn't say anything directly relevant to the film's premise
either, because they thought they were being interviewed for a
completely different film. This is worse than simply withholding
certain bits of information; the interviewees were actively lied to
about the film's subject.
Consider the difference between what the film is about and what the
interviewees were told it was about, and you understand why the
filmmakers resorted to this deceit. The filmmakers claimed the film
was about the intersection of faith and science -- a worthwhile
subject to be sure, and one which could benefit from thoughtful
analysis. But Richard Dawkins and PZ Myers at least are outspoken
atheists, and will gladly opine that they think religion is for the
birds. Those statements will then be juxtaposed with the film's
real premise, which is that ID advocates are being persecuted, and
the audience will be led to believe that Dawkins and Myers are okay
with that because of their atheism. Had Dawkins et al
known the actual premise of the film they would have answered it
directly, but the filmmakers deliberately prevented them from doing
that. The filmmakers didn't want scientists to answer the film's
ludicrous charges, they wanted to collect anti-religious statements
in order to make those charges look more credible.
This is not the sort of thing that you can write off as a mere
matter of sneaky journalists misleading interviewees in order to
get their story, this is simply bad journalism. Not because they
lied to the interviewees, but because they are lying to the
audience.
Bad|9.28.07 @ 1:07PM|#
Steve is correct: the subterfuge employed was specificaly so that the interviewees wouldn't be able to respond to any of the accusations and arguments the film was going to make, and so that they could collect quotes on what the interviewees thought was a different subject.
|9.28.07 @ 1:11PM|#
Number 6 said:
The notion that there may have been some sort of creator is not inherently stupid.
No, the notion that there may have been some sort of creator is
inherently vacuous. The arguments used to prop up this fruitless
notion are inherently stupid.
Dave Woycechowsky|9.28.07 @ 1:20PM|#
I don't suppose you have any evidence for your belief that
Bailey thinks that.
Well, that comment was in response to Rattlesnake Jake who
said:
He probably supports it because of his support for
Israel
So, if Rattlesnake Jake is correct, and I think he is, then there
is some evidence. I mean, I don't think it is the theocratic aspect
of Israel he prefers, and it has to be something about the
nation.
He never comes out and says that he prefers the genes of the people
of Israel over the genes of the people who would remove that
genetic group to Europe or America. But, I think, deep down, that
is exactly how he thinks, as a secularist with a belief that
evolution is the be all and end all of human existence.
I mean, I think some people supported the Iraq War for cheap oil. I
put Dick Cheney in this category. I think some people supported the
Iraq War for religious reasons. I think some people supported the
Iraq War because they thought the Iraqis had done 9/11. I don't
think Mr. Bailey supported the war for any of the reasons set forth
in this paragraph. I think Rattlesnake Jake called it correct and
it came down to the genes for Mr. Bailey.
Does he want to bomb Iran?
Someone Who Doesn\'t Want to L|9.28.07 @ 1:54PM|#
Joe | September 27, 2007, 11:06pm | #
Food for thought: Neither theory of the origin of the universe is
scientifically provable. Why? Because science is the study of what
we can observe. The scientific method deals with observable
results. We cannot prove either scientifically wrong or right
because neither can be observed because they are things of the
past.
This is a common misinterpretation of what science does. Science
actually doesn't prove things, it disproves them. Science works by
falsification, not by verification. No amount of specific
observations (unless that amount is "all") prove anything.
So science functions by setting up and performing tests that might
disprove whatever theory is being proposed. The results of the test
don't definitively give us correct theories, they eliminate
incorrect ones. Biblical creationism, by the way, routinely fails
these sorts of tests (by testing the age of the universe, the age
of mankind, evidence of the mass destruction of all but two members
of every species by flood, etc.).
If you take the specific ID claims divorced from the usually
soon-to-follow Genesis claims, science can't disprove them because
much like past unfalsifiable claims (as those of Freud), the bar
keeps shifting any time a testable claim is made. (In the case of
ID, I can't actually recall any testable claim that might disprove
it ever being made.) Creationism, unless it engages in this same
"bar-shifting" practice, is easily falsifiable. ID is almost
content-free enough that it can't be falsified, at least 'til its
supporters finally come out of the closet enough to admit they're
actually creationists. This is what makes ID unsuitable to be
taught in any science class: not that it's wrong, but that
it doesn't have the ability to be tested and potentially falsified
that scientific claims do.
ID is, I guess, if it's anything, philosophy, rather than science.
(I'm not sure it's even that, actually.) If most of its proponents
were real scientists, they might focus on creating tests for the
parts of evolution that they find unlikely. However, the usual
method of an ID proponent is simply a claim: "This couldn't have
happened. These blood coagulants could have served no use if not in
tandem. A part of this flagellum or this eye would not be useful."
No tests are proposed, and so none are completed. Science is not
advanced.
Someone Who Doesn\'t Want to L|9.28.07 @ 3:00PM|#
This is what makes ID unsuitable to be taught in any science
class: not that it's wrong, but that it doesn't have the ability to
be tested and potentially falsified that scientific claims
do.
I perhaps should have said:
This is what makes ID unsuitable to be taught in any science class:
not that it's wrong, or even that
it's religious but that it doesn't have the
ability to be tested and potentially falsified that scientific
claims do.
|9.28.07 @ 3:19PM|#
Dave Woycechowsky
I have not read anything in which Bailey endorses bombing
Iran.
But even if he does support that, it does not follow that he wants
to do so out of support for Israel. He might have other reasons
(for example, he might buy the idea that a nuclear armed Iran is a
sufficient security threat to justify airstrikes to prevent them
from getting such weapons). I don't support bombing Iran, but I'm
just throwing out some other possible reasons.
But even if he supports bombing Iran out of support for Israel, it
does not follow that he subscribes to some kind of Genetic Jewish
Supremecy Theory. Maybe he is concerned about the rights of Israeli
citizens out of a general concern for human rights. Maybe he
regards it as important to preserve Israel's existence because,
whatever its faults, it is a freer country than what those who
derise Israel's abolition would likely create in that
territory.
I'm not saying Bailey is right to support bombing Iran (if he even
does support that, he may not); but you're skipping some big steps
in your reasoning.
|9.28.07 @ 3:20PM|#
Another reason he might support Israel:
Does he own stock in any Israeli companies? Has he ever disclosed
such ownership? :)
|9.28.07 @ 4:02PM|#
Evolution by natural selection absolutely should be taught in
school (obviously). But I have a few other helpful
suggestions.
Perhaps 'science history' should be taught (I've found books like
Bryson's "Short History of Nearly Everything" and Bodanis'
"Electric Universe" to be helpful) as well. Science literacy and
mathematical literacy are invaluable, but for many students perhaps
it would be helpful if they were also introduced via philosophy
courses to the writings of Descartes and Spinoza.
Gaining perspective for mathematics and science within the larger
framework of traditional Eastern and Western thought would assist
students in understanding that evolutionary theory, etc., are far
from arbitrary and in fact grounded in the soundest principles of
empirical observation.
I think a grounding in philosophy could even help scientists better
communicate with the public. For instance, if one can understand
the natures of the Brothers Karamazov, one can gain some
understanding to the impediments to human concensus on 'spiritual'
matters.
In other words, the context in which an education is couched is
nearly as important as the education itself.
Just my $.02
|9.28.07 @ 4:10PM|#
Someone Who Doesn't Want to Lose His Job said: This is what
makes ID unsuitable to be taught in any science class: not that
it's wrong, or even that it's religious but that it doesn't have
the ability to be tested and potentially falsified that scientific
claims do.
Absolutely true. But it seems some people can't tell the difference
between a philosophical hypothesis and scientific theory.
|9.28.07 @ 7:22PM|#
It is funny to see all of you criticize Ben, if you all had only
10 % of his brains, you would be very fortunate!
Go Ben
!
|9.28.07 @ 8:13PM|#
Ironic that the reasoned minds on this blog are criticizing a movie they have not even seen yet!
Someone Who Doesn\'t Want to L|9.28.07 @ 11:06PM|#
Golani:
As to Ben's brain:
A law degree is OK if you aren't smart enough to get your Ph.D. in
something serious. I mean, it's certainly better than an M.B.A. or
a Ph.D. in Political Science or Comparative Literature.
Someone Who Doesn\'t Want to L|9.28.07 @ 11:07PM|#
Sorry, I get arrogant when I'm drunk and communicating through the wondrous anonymity that is teh internets!
Bob|9.29.07 @ 12:41AM|#
So let me get this straight: Ben Stein makes a ridiculous Hitler comparison and he is an idiot, but some moron at the Cato Institute compares Roosevelt to Mussolini and states the Depression worker programs are in the same spirit as Auschwitz and he is lauded by people on this site as a genius and is actually defended. Hypocrisy is too much of an understatement for this situation.
|9.29.07 @ 4:09AM|#
Bob said: Hypocrisy is too much of an understatement for this
situation
I actually cannot disagree more with this. I do not agree with the
ad hominem arguments against Mr. Stein. I was not even criticizing
the movie, or really even the article. I was simply pointing out
that I feel the 'intelligent design vs. evolution' debate is moot
if educators consider philosophy and the actual work of science
within their proper context. It is not the imperative of scientists
to see or not to see the 'Hand of God' at a quantum level or what
not. The scientist must make empirical observations and use the
scientific method.
Whatever metaphysical views the scientist may hold, they are
immaterial when observing the physical world.
As for the article on FDR, I thought both the author and reviewee
took great pains not to equate FDR with said authoritsrians, but
make a 'reasoned' comparison.
I haven't watched the movie, so I can't be sure, but it seems Stein
has made a similar error in reasoning as many ID proponents. If
you're going to present the idea of God in a classroom, it should
be within a parallel philosophical discussion, not within the
context of hard science. Or at least not without mentioning the
Anthropic principle or something.
|9.29.07 @ 4:34AM|#
H. Humbert said: No, the notion that there may have been some
sort of creator is inherently vacuous
It depends, I suppose on whether one is predisposed to put an idea
that is so unscientific out of one's mind.
For me the Deist idea of Monus Monadus is not so easily removed
from metaphysics (as distinguished from epiphysics), unnecessary as
the concept is within physics.
I don't believe such mystical feelings are always utile, but I
believe they're related to a reverence for nature that science can
help nurture within people.
But I believe the only difference between Deists and Atheists, and
Agnostics for that matter, is an arbitrary conceptual azimuth for
predilection.
Look at me trying to justify my Deism. :)
|9.30.07 @ 1:26PM|#
What's interesting is that the domain name expelledthemovie.com
was registered on March 1th, PZ Myers was contacted about an
interview in April. And Dawkins too was contacted around that time
I believe.
So why did they decide to do the interviews from Rampant Films
claiming the movie was going to be called Crossroads when
expelledthemovie.com was already registered? It seems they just
used Rampant Films and the seemingly made-up movie Crossroads to
fraudulently obtain the interviews. So this wasn't just a
misunderstanding or a name-change but more like a well thought out
plan to deceive.
Here's the tool I used to investigate when the domain names were
registered:
http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/index.jsp
|10.9.07 @ 6:12PM|#
Mickey Klein writes:
"Many of us have found ourselves on the dissent end of a consensus,
such as global warming or passive smoke, and whenever that rolls
around we all say "consensus is not part of the method" and other
things asserting the right of the skeptic.
No matter how rediculous the dissent we must allow people to have
their say, after all, with fair honest application of the
scientific method there is no danger intelligent design will win
out."
Yes, and while we're at it let's let alchemy into chemistry class,
and astology into physics class. Let science sort it out! Again!
What an excellent use of class and laboratory time!
Btw, evolution is a *fact*, an actual observable phenomenon that
occurs in the real world (that includes speciation, for you
crypto-creationists who like to make a spurious distinction between
'micro' and 'macro'), and there is a theory of evolution to
describe and explain its mechanism, just as gravitation is a fact,
a phenomenon that has a theory of gravitation to describe and
explain it.
Also btw, current consensus theory of evolution shouldn't be
referred to as 'evolution by natural selection'. Natural selection
is just one driving force, genetic drift is another, founder effect
yet another, and of course mutation is required as well.
This is all Evolution 101, a course few 'skeptics' seem ever to
take. One could do much worse than to read the various FAQs on the
talkorigins.org website
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