pangloss

I hate to tell you. "guts", but I see no "research" at any of those links..

Can you be more specific?

scombrid

The Kettlewell experiment has already been addresssed by other posters so I'll focus on: should not be presented in textbooks as evidence for evolution..

Evolution is not argued in gradeschool classrooms. Gradeschool classrooms are not some court in which scientific principles are argued for the approval, disapproval, or belief by the students. Gradeschool classrooms are a place in which the prevailing scientific principles are taught and are to be memorized and understood. You can't critique something or contribute to an idea in a meaningful and creative manner until you understand it. Whether the Kettlewell experiment was conducted under artificial conditions or not it still makes a neat illustration of how natural selection can work through the increased success of one morph over another. It's not meant to prove evolution to some adolescent jury, it's meant to help them understand how natural selection works. Evolutionary theory is not "proved" or "disproved" in the classroom. It is taught in the classroom because it is the accepted view within the scientific community.

theyeti

We'll see about that...

That's not completely false, if indeed it's false at all. It's simply a matter of interpretation.

Many (or most) IDists are self-avowed creationists. And many (or most) creationists call themselves IDists. There is in fact no clear dividing line between creationist and IDist beliefs; the two form a continuum that blends seemlessly in the middle.

What they both share in common is that each forms a political movement whose stated purpose is religious apologetics and "cultural renewal". And since their goals are mostly identical, the two movements are allied to such a degree as to be practically indistinguishable. Given that the report concerns political groups trying to alter textbooks for their own ideological ends, it's perfectly legitimate for CNN to consider ID and creationism as the same thing.

First of all, this is a quote from a participant at the debate. It could not qualify as a "completely false" statement from CNN even if it were false, because it wasn't made by them.

And I know you're not so naive as to think that all the DI wants to do (and in all likelihood, the quoted individual was not responding to the DI) is to "fix" certain aspects of textbooks. In Ohio last year, they specifically tried to get ID into the science cirriculum, until they realized that it wouldn't work and thus they aimed for a lower goal. This is just part of that lower goal -- trying to engineer all sorts of doubts into the textbooks in order to make it easier for teachers to segue into ID. (So far, the pinnacle of ID "science" has been to claim that such-and-so couldn't have evolved, so it's not clear that there's any distinction here anyway.)

And the real problem is that the ID movement's interpretation of the peppered moth studies is flat-out wrong and dishonest. For example, the moths do normally rest on tree trunks, but the rest more frequently in tree branches, which were also affected by pollution ans subsequent bird predation. It doesn't make it any better that they want to alter textbooks to include false or misleading information.

Earth to Guts, Earth to Guts...

The DI was not the only group there trying to alter the textbooks. There were lots of YECs as well, in addition to other Religious Right activists. That's why CNN's mention of creationism is not a misrepresentation of ID, because there were lots of creationists there who were doing the same thing. In fact, thanks to the influence of the ID movement, most creationists just say that they want "Intelligent Design Theory" to be placed in textbooks. Now how is it CNN's fault for saying that a lot of activists are trying to do this when in fact that's exactly what they're trying to do?

Once again, Bohlin was not the only person present trying to alter the textbooks. (His belief system is pretty much identical to the rest of them though.) That's what makes the DI's whining so utterly stupid. They complain about being misrepresented when in fact that report wasn't even about them; it was about the broader phenomenon of activists trying to push their ideological adgenda into the textbooks, of which they make up only one interrelated part.

Now, where exactly did the CNN report misrepresent ID as was so vehemently complained about by the DI? You have only offered one highly dubious example and three irrelevancies.

theyeti

Guts

Goober,

Gee, someone asks me to list some Biologists that disagree with neo-Darwinism, and then you reply it doesn't matter and that I should give it up.

In the future I will ignore posts like Goober's.

Guts

Principia writes:

Sheesh can't you think of anything more complicated than that.

Guts

Hello Albion,

You write:

Albion, I am an ID proponent and I am not a creationist, nor does ID require supernatural intervention. In fact, Mark Edwards of the DI has said this on many occasions.

Guts

Principia wrote:



The two papers that he published in J. Thermal Biology and J. Mammal was research (it was so good that the peer reviewers accepted it for publication). The fact that it was published before his dissertation is irrelevant.

I just noticed that the same person replied to my post in more than one seperate post. So I will traverse this thread and combine replies to the same person.

Principia wrote:

It was a sample of the research being investigated, then you link to YEC sites, tell me, how does saying that the original cells were designed 3.5 billion years ago and were front-loaded to evolve from protozoans to metazoans not contradict the YEC perspective?

By the way, the first link is broken.

The second link is very Biblical, find me a biblical reference in any ID research (not in the commentary the research itself).

The third link is about Mt. St. Helens and is completey irrelevant. Bah. This is already boring. Moving on.

Guts

Albion writes:

Which ones? Although, it is irrelevant to whether the experiment discussed in textbooks, which is used as evidence for Darwinian evolution, (even in very up to date textbooks which should have already known it was an error) still contain the Kettlewell experiment. Now, if you agree this is an error, there is nothing wrong with trying to get these things out of the textbooks. If anything you should be thanking IDers.

Well I just ran out of time for tonight (not that anyone cares ). I want to get to some juicier (is that a word) topics. I'm pretty satisified with the responses in this thread enough so that I'm willing to move on.

I'll be kind of busy for the next couple of days, but I am getting a bunch of free time soon. I hope that we will have many fruitful discussions

Guts

Just noticed Theyeti's post. I would like to ask you one question. Why didn't the CNN report mention the 100 scientists that disagree with neo-Darwinism, not one word of it. Why didn't they mention the textbook mistakes? Thats how they misrepresented it. They mention ID, but they call it creationism and then don't mention any of the things that the IDers themselves were actually doing, huh?

1. Mention ID (call it creationism).

2. The DI was there to correct textbooks, and to get the evidence for and against neo-Darwinian evolution discussed.

3. Other groups were there trying to change the textbooks for their religious and political agenda (i.e. glaciers).


But if you mention 1., leave out 2., and mention 3., it looks like 1. is doing 3. And thats how CNN misrepresented the DI. Anyone reading it wouldn't be able to make the distinction that you and I make.

Doubting Didymus

I must have missed the bit where someone pointed to a problem with the kettlewell experiment. What's the objection there, exactly?