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Author Topic:   UnPC guide to Evo and ID
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 16 of 44 (346709)
09-05-2006 3:07 PM


Ah, yes. Jonathan Wells. As I recall, he pursued his doctorate for the explicitly expressed purpose of fighting against evolution. I mean that he came right out and said as much.
And his "Icons" book displayed that he would take the approach of setting up strawmen just so he could put on a big show of knocking them down. Just like most of the creation science writers.
So, what strawmen does he set up in this book?
"Intelligent Design is based on scientific evidence, not religious belief"? [guffaw!]
Sorry, but that's of the same class as the "creation science" claim that it had nothing to do with the Bible. "Creation science" is the game of "Hide the Bible", whereas ID takes that one step further as the game of "Hide the Creationism".
About the only thing that ID does right is to distance itself from young-earth claims, which are the weakest and most blatantly false (and falsified) part of "creation science."
PS
A propos to ID, even though there's no mention of Wells having contributed, is Glenn Morton's reports on "The Nature of Nature Conference" in Waco, TX, in 2000. His listing of those articles and links thereto are at No webpage found at provided URL: http://home.entouch.net/dmd/dmd.htm#waco.
The one that really sticks in my mind as Dembski's "critique" of genetic algorithms in which he demonstrated that he doesn't understand what genetic algorithms are not how they work. And several members of the audience who should have been sympathetic to ID (one of them being a long-time YEC writer) informed him of that fact.
Edited by dwise1, : Added postscript in re Morton's reports.

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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 17 of 44 (346723)
09-05-2006 3:57 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Hyroglyphx
09-05-2006 12:45 PM


"What many public schools teach about Darwinism is based on known falsehoods."
I'm sure that that part will be a rehash of his false "Icons" claims.
However, what many public schools teach about Darwinism is wrong. But for very different reasons than Wells undoubtedly gives -- in fact, I know that many anti-evolutionists bank of the misinformation that's taught.
What came out of the experience of biology textbook selection in late 80's California was that the textbooks were all written by professional textbook writers, not by scientists. Scientists were brought into the process to proof-read and make recommendations. They found that none of the textbooks were acceptable. All the books were filled with factual errors and misconceptions. One publisher made some of the recommended changes, but their book was still not acceptable. However, the State Board then went behind the scientists' backs and approved that unacceptable book anyway.
Another problem is that many, if not most, public school science teachers lack the scientific knowledge and training and so end up relying on the book and on their own misunderstanding of science. One famous local case was John Peloza, a PE teacher who became a biology teacher; I heard him speak and everything he said about science and biology sounded like it came straight from the ICR. In another case, our younger son's 8th-grade biology teacher was the home-ec teacher; the other students kept going to him with their questions and got better answers than from her.

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Hyroglyphx
Inactive Member


Message 18 of 44 (346726)
09-05-2006 4:07 PM
Reply to: Message 16 by dwise1
09-05-2006 3:07 PM


The criminal conduct of J. Wells
Ah, yes. Jonathan Wells. As I recall, he pursued his doctorate for the explicitly expressed purpose of fighting against evolution. I mean that he came right out and said as much.
And what about those who specifically pursue a doctorate to explicitly defend evolutionary biology?
I will give you a synoptic overview of Johnathan Wells written by an author by the name of Jack Cashill. In the chapter, "Darwin's Heirs, Cashill goes into a discourse on Wells that I will now quote that goes into how Wells found himself disenchanted with the prevailing theory of evolution:
"Given this book's focus on America, Haeckel's continuing influence on the nation's academic culture demands his inclusion. The man who has made that continued inclusion immensely awkward for the science establishment is none other than Jonathan Wells. When 'Icons' was published, Wells expected a rough response. What he got was evern rougher than anticipated. Indeed, one review in the 'Quarterly Review of Biology' compared him to the Talented Mr. Ripley of movie fame, a charlatan and murderer.
If, however, he Darwinists and their allies thought "The Talented Mr. Wells" would go away, they obviously hadn't taken full measure of Wells. "I spent year and a half in prison defending my principles, I wasn't about to back down now," says Wells.
More like Forest Gump than Mr. Ripley, Wells has often found himself at the intersection of destiny and history. Born in New York City in 1942, Wells grew up in suburban New Jersey, excelled in high school, and narrowed the post-Sputnik space race by sending his homemade missles as much as a mile skyward. A go-as-you-please Protestant by upbringing, Wells majored in geology at Princeton where he found Darwin and lost whatever faith he had. A born rebel, Wells dropped out in his junior year while in the top 1% of his class.
On August 28, 1963, he happened to be visiting friends in Washington when he all but stumbled on Martin Luther King's famed march on Washington. So inspired was Wells by the marcher's peaceful discipline that he began his own study of Ghandian pacifism. With the Vietnam War heating up and his draft imminent, he couldn't see to land a job beyond driving a cab in NYC. As Wells expected, his number came up quickly, and he spent the next two years in Germany as guest of the US Army.
Encouraged by many leftist Germans with whom he came into contact, Wells began to question the war effort. After his discharge in 1966, he headed to Berkley both to finish his education and to advance the cause of pacifism. When the Army insisted he report for reserve duty, Wells, with tv camera's whirring, read a defiant letter of refusal on the steps of Berkley's Sproul Hall, the ultimate radical platform. Needless to say, the Army was not pleased. Shortly thereafter, Wells was grabbed off the Berkley streets by a pair of plainclothed MP's and imprisoned, still defiant, for four months of solitary confinement at the Presidio stockade and for another eight months at Leavenworth.
Upon release form prison, Wells returned to Berkley and graduated in 1970 with a major in geology and physics and a minor in biology. Put off by the coldhearted drift to violence of the Berkley left, he fled the Bay area first for a commune and eventually to the California hills where he built a small, solitary cabin. There, he immersed himself in nature, much as Thoreau had done more than a centure earlier, and soon began to intuit a sense of design in the grandeur of it all. This discovery informed his spiritual reading, and he found himself coming back time and again to the Bible...
He recieved a veritable calling to study Darwin. This calling took him to Yale where he got his doctorate in religious studies and wrote a book on nineteenth century Darwinian controversies. Not sufficiently armed for the battle that was to come, he took his mission a major step further. In 1989, now a husband and father, the forty-seven-yead-old Wells headed back to Berkley to get a Ph.D in molecular and cell biology.
No mention of his doctorate being recieved in order to overthrow evolution.
"Two years later a friend alerted Wells to a provacative new book called 'Darwin on Trial' by Phillip Johnson. Wells consumed the book in a gulp and, still in another Gumpian moment, discovered that Johnson was a law professor there at Berkley. Wells called Johnson immediately and invited him to lunch. Intellectual historians may one day trace the beginning of the influential anti-Darwian movement known as "Intelligent Design" to that very lunch, a coming together that Wells does not think was merely a chance meeting.
If at Yale Wells grew to understand the philosophical holes in Darwinism, at Berkley, he began to see the scientific ones, none of which were blacker than the one opened by Earnst Haeckel.
" -Jack Cashill
Anyway, i think that is a sufficient starting point to help you understand how Wells began his dissent from Darwinian evolution.

“"All science, even the divine science, is a sublime detective story. Only it is not set to detect why a man is dead; but the darker secret of why he is alive." ”G. K. Chesterton

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crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 19 of 44 (346732)
09-05-2006 4:27 PM
Reply to: Message 18 by Hyroglyphx
09-05-2006 4:07 PM


Re: The criminal conduct of J. Wells
Anyway, i think that is a sufficient starting point to help you understand how Wells began his dissent from Darwinian evolution.
Right - by becoming a fundamentalist Christian. Like the whole of the creationism movement, not a single one of them was convinced of it by the scientific evidence, but by a pre-existing need to assume the truth of the Bible and then cherry-pick the evidence to support it.
Hey, prove me wrong. Show me an atheist who was convinced of intelligent design by the evidence, and then, once convinced of ID, was convinced by further evidence that the IDer was none other than the God of the Bible.

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Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 20 of 44 (346738)
09-05-2006 4:45 PM
Reply to: Message 18 by Hyroglyphx
09-05-2006 4:07 PM


Re: The criminal conduct of J. Wells
Here we go, why not read about Well's motivations in his own words.
Father's words, my studies, and my prayers convinced me that I should devote my life to destroying Darwinism, just as many of my fellow Unificationists had already devoted their lives to destroying Marxism. When Father chose me (along with about a dozen other seminary graduates) to enter a Ph.D. program in 1978, I welcomed the opportunity to prepare myself for battle.
But Darwinism was clearly winning the ideological battle in the universities, the public schools, and the mass media, largely because it claimed to be supported by scientific evidence. I knew enough about biology to know that this claim was quite shaky, but few scientists were willing to challenge it. Those who did were often lumped together with young-earth biblical fundamentalists and thereby discredited in the eyes of most scholars.
I eventually decided to join the fray by returning to graduate school in biology. I was convinced that embryology is the Achilles' heel of Darwinism; one cannot understand how organisms evolve unless one understands how they develop. In 1989, I entered a second Ph.D. program, this time in biology, at the University of California at Berkeley. While there, I studied embryology and evolution.
Sounds pretty explicitly as if he intended to recieve his doctorate in order to recieved in order to 'overthrow evolution' at the behest of Reverend Moon as part of an orchestrated effort. It seems that Mr Cashill is pretty unreliable, he doesn't write for the Washington post does he?
I hope this helps you see that Well's foray into science was motivated by the unification church's explicitly anti-evolutionary agenda.
TTFN,
WK
Edited by Wounded King, : No reason given.

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Clark
Inactive Member


Message 21 of 44 (346740)
09-05-2006 4:47 PM
Reply to: Message 18 by Hyroglyphx
09-05-2006 4:07 PM


Re: The criminal conduct of J. Wells
No mention of his doctorate being recieved in order to overthrow evolution.
You missed it.
quote:
Father's words, my studies, and my prayers convinced me that I should devote my life to destroying Darwinism, just as many of my fellow Unificationists had already devoted their lives to destroying Marxism. When Father chose me (along with about a dozen other seminary graduates) to enter a Ph.D. program in 1978, I welcomed the opportunity to prepare myself for battle.
http://www.tparents.org/...nification/Talks/Wells/DARWIN.htm

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Clark
Inactive Member


Message 22 of 44 (346742)
09-05-2006 4:49 PM
Reply to: Message 20 by Wounded King
09-05-2006 4:45 PM


Re: The criminal conduct of J. Wells
You beat me to it.
Do you mean the Washington Times? That paper is owned by Rev. Moon.

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Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 23 of 44 (346745)
09-05-2006 4:55 PM
Reply to: Message 22 by Clark
09-05-2006 4:49 PM


Re: The criminal conduct of J. Wells
Do you mean the Washington Times? That paper is owned by Rev. Moon.
That was the one.
TTFN,
WK

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Hyroglyphx
Inactive Member


Message 24 of 44 (346770)
09-05-2006 5:58 PM
Reply to: Message 20 by Wounded King
09-05-2006 4:45 PM


Re: The criminal conduct of J. Wells
Sounds pretty explicitly as if he intended to recieve his doctorate in order to recieved in order to 'overthrow evolution' at the behest of Reverend Moon as part of an orchestrated effort. It seems that Mr Cashill is pretty unreliable, he doesn't write for the Washington post does he?
As you can see by his history, Wells was in the field of science long before Moonies were ever around. In fact, he already had a double major, a minor, and a previous Ph.D before he went back to Berkley for his second. The dumbest thing he's ever done was to except a "love bomb" from the Moonies.

"There is not in all America a more dangerous trait than the deification of mere smartness unaccompanied by any sense of moral responsibility." -Theodore Roosevelt

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NosyNed
Member
Posts: 8996
From: Canada
Joined: 04-04-2003


Message 25 of 44 (346800)
09-05-2006 6:50 PM
Reply to: Message 24 by Hyroglyphx
09-05-2006 5:58 PM


Wells, liar or not?
As noted before, NJ, it is reasonably easy to see if Wells is a reliable source of information or not.
Did he or did he not misquote here:
quote:
Here is how Wells quotes from my essay:
Retired physicist Mark Perakh, who grew up in the former Soviet Union, writes: “The anti-Lysenkoist stand of the ID advocates is . ludicrous given the similarity of their denial of Darwinian biology to the denial of the neo-Darwinian synthesis by the Lysenkoists.” Perakh continues :” From my experience both with Marxism and with the realities of the Soviet system, I can assert that . it is ID advocates whose behavior is reminiscent of the oppressive Soviet regime” since they subject Darwinists to “continuous denunciations, verbal assaults, derision, and ultimately to dismissal from their positions.”
(p. 182)
A brief look at the actual text of my essay immediately reveals that the alleged quotation has been constructed by Wells by means of some tricks.
1. He transposed various sentences from my essay, placing those that occur somewhere later in the text, ahead of some other that in fact occur earlier in the text.
2. He used ellipsis in several cases, apparently to hide from readers the exact wording of my essay.
3. He combined partial quotes taken from different parts of my essay in an allegedly single sentence thus fraudulently attributing to me something I did not say.
Here are some details.
from: Page not found · GitHub Pages
under the heading "Quote mining".
If he did he is a liar.

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Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 26 of 44 (346816)
09-05-2006 7:50 PM
Reply to: Message 24 by Hyroglyphx
09-05-2006 5:58 PM


Re: The criminal conduct of J. Wells
Ummm, did you actually read what Wells himself wrote? It has already been quoted twice in this thread!
He specifically says that Moon chose him in 1978 to enter the Ph.D program at Yale.
No mention of his doctorate being recieved in order to overthrow evolution.
Wow! I can actually hear you steadily shifting the goalposts. How come this strong claim has been abandoned with no accession as to its falsity, but instead we have these protestations that you are still right because Wells already had a degree in which biology was a minor.
Why not read what Wells himself wrote, admit that you were mislead by Cashill's account and move on from there. Or if you don't believe that Wells wrote it give us some reason why not.
TTFN,
WK
Edited by Wounded King, : No reason given.

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Hyroglyphx
Inactive Member


Message 27 of 44 (346860)
09-05-2006 10:37 PM
Reply to: Message 25 by NosyNed
09-05-2006 6:50 PM


Re: Wells, liar or not?
As noted before, NJ, it is reasonably easy to see if Wells is a reliable source of information or not.
Did he or did he not misquote here
I'm not sure who is even quoting here; Mark Perakh? Anyway, I don't know what is contained in the accusers book nor do I know what is contained in Wells book. From another excerpt, it reads:
Wells alleged quoting: From my experience both with Marxism and with the realities of the Soviet system, I can assert that . it is ID advocates whose behavior is reminiscent of the oppressive Soviet regime” since they subject Darwinists to “continuous denunciations, verbal assaults, derision, and ultimately to dismissal from their positions.”
Claimants alleged quoting: "From my experience both with Marxism and with the realities of the Soviet system, I can assert that in the dispute between the Intelligent Design advocates and their opponents, including pro-evolution scientists, it is ID advocates whose behavior is reminiscent of the oppressive Soviet regime."
The claimant asserts that Wells deliberately placed the claimants words in such a manner so as to mislead readers, which would obviously be tantamount to deception. I can't say what's true or not true at this point, but if it were true it would certainly diminish Well's credibility.

"There is not in all America a more dangerous trait than the deification of mere smartness unaccompanied by any sense of moral responsibility." -Theodore Roosevelt

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 28 of 44 (346861)
09-05-2006 10:45 PM
Reply to: Message 15 by Hyroglyphx
09-05-2006 3:04 PM


But comparing Jonathan Wells, who once was imbued by the Druid-master of evolution, to a liar is pretty bold to do.
"Once imbued by the Druid-master of evolution"?
What a strange, strange phrase.
Anyway, from wikipedia:
quote:
After graduating from Sun Myung Moon's Unification Theological Seminary in 1978, Wells earned two doctorates - one in theology at Yale University and the other in molecular and cell biology at the University of California at Berkeley. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church funded Wells to gain his science PhD at UC-Berkeley to learn how to defeat Darwinian evolution. In an essay posted to the tparents.org website, Wells has written:
"Father's words, my studies, and my prayers convinced me that I should devote my life to destroying Darwinism, just as many of my fellow Unificationists had already devoted their lives to destroying Marxism. When Father [ Sun Myung Moon ] chose me (along with about a dozen other seminary graduates) to enter a Ph.D. program in 1978, I welcomed the opportunity to prepare myself for battle."
It sound to me that he was, ah, imbued with being a Moonie.
Yet I notice that he claims on the cover of his book that ID is not based on religious beliefs.
quote:
"Intelligent design is just the logos theology of John's Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory." --- William Dembski
"Our strategy has been to change the subject a bit so that we can get the issue of intelligent design, which really means the reality of God, before the academic world and into the schools." --- Philip Johnson
Please explain how this makes Wells a liar. If Wells believes that Darwinism at heart is a major factor in the Spirit of the Age, then that's what he believes.
That is not the allegation which has been made against him. What was claimed is that he repeats the standard "evolution is an atheist theory" trash. Now the creationist in the street can be half-forgiven for reciting this rubbish, but Wells must surely know who his opponents are.
That doesn't make him a liar.
Well, may we at least say that what he teaches is "based on known falsehoods"? to quote the disgustingly mendacious phrase from the cover of his book.
I could just as easily say that you're lying about being a conservative christian republican because nothing you say is even remotely akin to those time-honored beliefs.
Really?
quote:
"It is mystifying that many conservative Christian Bible colleges and seminaries also seem to loathe creationists." --- Jonathan Sarfati
Creation/ID folks are good at finding things "mystifying". I don't find it mystifying in the slightest. I am not a person of faith myself, but if I was, I too should object to people trying to paint a red clown nose on the face of my crucified savior.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

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Hyroglyphx
Inactive Member


Message 29 of 44 (346864)
09-05-2006 10:55 PM
Reply to: Message 26 by Wounded King
09-05-2006 7:50 PM


Re: The criminal conduct of J. Wells
Wow! I can actually hear you steadily shifting the goalposts. How come this strong claim has been abandoned with no accession as to its falsity, but instead we have these protestations that you are still right because Wells already had a degree in which biology was a minor.
Why not read what Wells himself wrote, admit that you were mislead by Cashill's account and move on from there. Or if you don't believe that Wells wrote it give us some reason why not.
No, what I'm telling you is that it doesn't matter to me whether he seeks to eradicate Darwinism at all, especially when Darwinists want to eradicate Intelligent Design. Both sides thinks the other is a destructive heresy and both sides feel that hearts and mnds are at risk. However, if Wells aleged misquote was intentionally manipulative, that is another matter entirely. But his opinion on evolution shouldn't shock anyone, least of evolutionists, who seek the exact same goal in reverse.
And to clarify, my objection was that people claimed that Wells had no prior knowledge of evolution prior to becoming a Moonie. This is ridiculous. The man had already Ph.D's beforehand. Obviously, they want to paint this picture of a man who made a flippant decision based on little to no facts prior, even though he already held a Ph.D in biology. That would be absurd.

"There is not in all America a more dangerous trait than the deification of mere smartness unaccompanied by any sense of moral responsibility." -Theodore Roosevelt

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 30 of 44 (346865)
09-05-2006 10:55 PM
Reply to: Message 18 by Hyroglyphx
09-05-2006 4:07 PM


And what about those who specifically pursue a doctorate to explicitly defend evolutionary biology?
Name one.

This message is a reply to:
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