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Author Topic:   Discovery Institute's "400 Scientist" Questionaire
arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1344 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 1 of 3 (237912)
08-28-2005 4:33 AM


step two: questions and format
background:
with the recent request of dr. robert davidson to be removed from the discovery institute's infamous "400 scientists" list of darwinian dissenters, and his charge that he misunderstood what the organization was about and what he was signing, we began questioning the motivation of the signers. someone (maybe monk, maybe me) suggested that he just signed up to get a free dvd or two. the idea came up in The DI loses one to email him, and find out precisely what he thought, why he joined the list. was his name used with permission?
the thought also crossed my mind that if davidson felt misled, maybe others did too. so let's email ALL of them. in Discovery Institute's "400 Scientist" Roster we are working on compiling a list of the emails of every "scientist" on the list. the quotes are used because, as it turns out, many of these people are very hard to find because they're not actually scientists. many appear to be post-docs who don't even work in the field anymore (let alone studied an applicable field, period). this thread is for:
step two: drafting the questions we are to ask.
my suggestion is that we make the questionaire multi-part, with a few yes or no questions in each section, but allow them to explain too. i think we should ask questions regarding:
  • personal background and education, current career
  • god
  • religion
  • science (and geology?)
  • evolution/biology
  • intelligent design
  • creationism
  • education
i think if we break it up into enough specifics (without making it overly long) we could concievably allow for very intricate positions, and compromises, such as theistic evolution, etc. the idea is not to take a pot-shot at DI, but to find out exactly who these people are, and where they really stand on the issues. DI's original statement is very vague:
quote:
I am skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.
any good scientist is skeptical by nature, and by practice carefully examines evidence and encourages others to do so as well. it also says "evidence FOR darwinian theory" not "against." this wording seems to be designed to trick people into agreeing, imho. but that's wort of what we're aiming to find out. so we need to be specific.
side note:
also, i'm thinking of getting my little brother involved -- it might prove to be an interesting science fair project and the "scientists" might be mroe prone to answer a 13 year old doing a research project than a bunch of message board geeks.
This message has been edited by arachnophilia, 08-28-2005 04:38 AM

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Replies to this message:
 Message 2 by arachnophilia, posted 08-28-2005 4:36 AM arachnophilia has not replied

arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1344 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 2 of 3 (237914)
08-28-2005 4:36 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by arachnophilia
08-28-2005 4:33 AM


some sample questions
sidelined writes:
If we were to ask of each member on the list,
"Is either evolution or intelligent design a sound scientific theory? Why or why not?"
would this be neutral enough a question to elicit a reply that requires input from the respondent that needs a definite stance outlining their viewpoint or is there a better means of enquiring?
personally i think we should ask doubly-leading questions. for instance, ask:
  • do you believe in god?
  • do you believe the bible to be the literal/inerrant word of god?
  • do you believe in special creation?
  • do you believe in creation ex-nihilo?
  • do you think evolution is the best model currently available for explaining the complexity of life on earth?
  • do you think speciation occurs?
  • do you think natural selection occurs?
  • do you think microevolution happens?
  • do you think macroevolution has happened?
  • do you think there are legitimate problems with darwinians theory as a whole?
  • do you think there is a controversy in the scientific community?
  • do you think that there is more than one explanation that should be taught in public schools?
  • ... universities?
  • do you think that 'intelligent design' has merits as a scientific field of study?
  • do you think that intelligent design offers a better explanation for complexity than darwinian evolution?
etc. basically, if we ask enough of the RIGHT questions, we should be able to get an exact position regarding religion, science, god, darwin, evolution, and id.
for instance, i'm willing to bet that a substantial number of these people believe in god, but that most accept evolution as the best current model.

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This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by arachnophilia, posted 08-28-2005 4:33 AM arachnophilia has not replied

AdminBen
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Message 3 of 3 (242254)
09-11-2005 11:30 AM


Thread copied to the Discovery Institute's "400 Scientist" Questionaire thread in the Is It Science? forum, this copy of the thread has been closed.

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