Freethought & Rationalism Archive

S2Focus · 04-16-2002, 05:21 PM

...with a 45 page pdf document ( <a href="http://www.discovery.org/articleFiles/PDFs/quesAndAnsNCSECritiqueOfBib.pdf" target="_blank">45 page pdf document</a> )

I've spent just a couple of minutes skimming it, but it looks like more of the kind of BS "Piled Higher and Deeper" that we've come to expect from the discovery institute. Enjoy!

{Edited to fix long URL - Pantera}

[ April 16, 2002: Message edited by: Pantera ]

tgamble · 04-16-2002, 05:27 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by S2Focus:
...with a 45 page pdf document ( <a href="http://www.discovery.org/articleFiles/PDFs/quesAndAnsNCSECritiqueOfBib.pdf" target="_blank">45 page pdf document</a> )

I've spent just a couple of minutes skimming it, but it looks like more of the kind of BS "Piled Higher and Deeper" that we've come to expect from the discovery institute. Enjoy!

There have been so many claims, accusations, disclaimers added etc. it's hard to know what to believe anymore or what really happened!

The DI seems to be doing a lot of complaining about things the NCSE never did! They never claimed that either Wells or Meyer claimed the articles were evidence of ID!

What they did say was:

Quote:

"Because the representatives of the Discovery Institute who appeared at the March 11 meeting — Jonathan Wells and Stephen C. Meyer — were widely touted as promoters of "intelligent design," it would have been reasonable for the Board to assume that among the "dissenting viewpoints" included in the Bibliography was "intelligent design." But it isn't."

Makes sense. How else would ID in the classroom be justified?

They also mention Peter Lockhart's work. But he himself stated:

Quote:

I don't think it is a good representation of our work — our work does not present 'a classic challenge to evolutionary analysis'. In our paper we point out that technically it is a hard problem to reconstruct the phylogeny of corbiculate bees regardless of whether you use morphological or molecular data (the reason for this concerns the pattern of radiation — four different lineages diverged in a short period of time a long time ago — given this pattern it is not surprising that different data types might suggest different phylogenies). In our article we do not say that interpretation of the molecular data is right and that interpretation of the morphological data is wrong (or vice versa). Instead we make some suggestions which we believe will help resolve why the different data types suggest different conclusions — we suggest that the bee morphologists relook at the interpretation of some of their data and we also encourage the molecular biologists to determine some additional data which would help test their hypotheses — we suggest that if these things are done then there should be a resolution to the controversy over which phylogeny is correct. We do not doubt that there is a phylogeny — in contrast, the statement by the Discovery Institute suggests that the bee controversy is evidence for absence of phylogeny. No scientist involved in the corbiculate bee debate has ever suggested this to my knowledge.

One wonders just how the DI would want ID taught! Theistic evolution? OECism? YECism? Or something else?

ID class on ID:

"life is complex. it requires a designer. Why? becaues life is complex" That's it. Test tomorrow.

What a joke!

[ April 16, 2002: Message edited by: tgamble ]

{Edited to fix long URL in quote - Pantera}

[ April 16, 2002: Message edited by: Pantera ]

hezekiah jones · 04-16-2002, 05:39 PM

What a bunch of clowns the DI is. Haven't they got anything better to do, like, actual science maybe? Obviously not.

Now the DI is arguing with the articles' authors comments in response to the DI's original comments on the authors' articles.

Do Wells and Meyer actually believe their interpretation of the author's research overrides the author's own interpretation of his own research? No wonder the DI is a laughing stock.

An ARN poster summed this whole escapade up perfectly:

Quote:

I can already see the next DI press release:

"Some prominent scientists do not appear to categorically deny their work falsifies Darwinian evolution!"

Seth K · 04-17-2002, 10:07 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by hezekiahjones:
What a bunch of clowns the DI is. Haven't they got anything better to do, like, actual science maybe? Obviously not.

Now the DI is arguing with the articles' authors comments in response to the DI's original comments on the authors' articles.

Do Wells and Meyer actually believe their interpretation of the author's research overrides the author's own interpretation of his own research? No wonder the DI is a laughing stock.

One would figure that if the DI was really serious about the scientific validity of their re-interpretation of other's work they would do their own scientific research to come up with data that supports it, and publish it. Instead they resort to "Is so!...Is not!"-style argumentation.

I'm not saying that the author's interpretation of his own research is sacrosanct. He/she may be wrong, but that is for his/her collegues familiar with the area of research to decide using actual data to demonstrate whether the interpretation fits. The pontifications of non-experts in the field, without a shread of fact to back them up, are irrelevant.

04-16-2002, 05:21 PM	#1
S2Focus Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: 1162 easy freeway minutes from the new ICR in TX Posts: 896	Discovery Institute responds to the NCSE... ...with a 45 page pdf document ( <a href="http://www.discovery.org/articleFiles/PDFs/quesAndAnsNCSECritiqueOfBib.pdf" target="_blank">45 page pdf document</a> ) I've spent just a couple of minutes skimming it, but it looks like more of the kind of BS "Piled Higher and Deeper" that we've come to expect from the discovery institute. Enjoy! {Edited to fix long URL - Pantera} [ April 16, 2002: Message edited by: Pantera ]</p>

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