Dr. Robert T. Bakker's thoughts on ID and Atheism in schools.

So you knew about his being a pentecostal preacher before he posted here? Are you the source of that information then or did somebody post a link about it somewhere? I'm curious to read more about him.

yeah, i quoted one source earlier in this thread, i think, or the other one (moderation discussion). if not, the wikipedia article on him also mentions it.

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but he never actually says it?i dunno, either way, i must have missed it. i've only paid attention to his books and one film.

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Can you explain why you believe this.The post at the start of this thread shows quite clearly that he believes ID is an ideological religious movement set up in reaction to the dogmatic atheism of certain hardline materialists and their percieved influence over the teaching of evolution.He explicitly states that ID is not science. That doesn't sound like he's in the camp to me, unless he's there cutting the guy ropes. But for some reason there is still not enough evidence to convince you? Why is it that atheists and evolutionists are prepared to be lead by the evidence whatever the source but you seem quite happy to deny the evidence no matter where it comes from?TTFN,WK

ok, i guess i stand corrected then.

Hi WK,There are a couple of things in Dr Bakker's argument that I don't exactly agree with: This gives the impression that this isn't what is being strived for in the science class room, or that the evil atheists have got hold of our children in an attempt to take them away from their faith. No wonder Faith and Randman seem to think they have found a new poster boy (despite the fact that Bakker clearly denounces ID as unscientific).Now, this may be different in the States, but as far as I'm aware Prof. Dawkins and friends aren't setting the science sylabus in our schools and neither are they choosing the programes broadcast on TV. The harderned Evo-atheists may be a very vocal minority but they are just that: a minority.Unless it's changed drastically in the last few years, the vast majority of evolution teaching (in class-rooms, TV and books) goes nowhere near the place for faith or lack of it. Science teachers are teaching Science (or History of Science as Dr. Bakker puts it). Just because some people have trouble reconciling their faith with it doesn't change that fact.The reaction against ID is because it's not science, not because it is percieved to be Christian in nature. To single out 'smug' atheists as enemies of science is to play into the hands of the anti-evolutionists and their "Teach the Controversy" hog-wash. The reality at the moment is that 'anti-science' (ID) is trying to crowbar itself into science classes (which are supported by people of all faiths). Any possible anti-theist lobby has no-where near the same political clout or inclination to affect teaching policy - I certainly haven't heard about it.I agree with what I see as the basic premise of Dr. Bakker's statement: that learning the history of scientific discovery is a great way to teach science and that proper (and open) investigation of religious beliefs is healthy for society. The tone of the statement however echoes the rhetoric of IDists and even YECs - 'Atheist excess' indeed!The other thing I'm not so sure of (I may not have got my history quite right): Mmmmm. Just because Galileo was un-diplomatic doesn't mean that the church wasn't supressing non-Biblical astronomy. IIRC the church still ruled that Copernican teaching was false and forbid Galileo from holding such views. Sounds like suppression of ideas because they conflicted with church teachings to me.This message has been edited by Ooook!, 11-08-2005 10:30 AMThis message has been edited by Ooook!, 11-08-2005 10:33 AM

I agree with you Oook. I don't know much about education in America but I would be very surprised if there are many atheists using a science classrom as a pulpit to push an atheist agenda on kids through teaching them evolution, this seems to be much more a characteristic of the more fundamental ID/creationist side. The only remotely tenable case that comes to my mind is Michael Dini and even in that case there is absolutely no promotion of atheism, merely a rejection of biblical literalism to the exclusion of Darwinian evolution. Now this may be a US UK thing, but I have always thought of a 'bible-basher' as a proselytising christian rather than a critic of christianity. To be fair the topic he was called to speak on was directly to the point of Dawkin's claim that evolution naturally led to a philsophy of atheism. He also singled out, if you can single out two things at once, people promoting ID as science as enemies of science.I'm also with you on the Galileo thing, if the vatican's scientists were using Galileo's mathematical work while the church was actively denying the copernican model it was based on then this sounds more like hypocrisy than anything else.TTFN,WK

Hi RAZD I'm interested in your last point. I must confess that I lean towards the Dawkins style of militant atheism - not because I'm arrogant or think that believers are somehow inferior, but because I think, like Dawkins, that religious beliefs shouldn't be given the 'free pass' they now enjoy when it comes to promoting their particular brand of nonsense. Organised religions (be they Christian or Islamic) wield a lot of political power and are extremely vocal and militant themselves. I actually admire Dawkin's 'in your face' no nonsense approach.The only time that I have read anything of Dawkins that I considered 'over the top' was his comment "It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that)". The reason I didn't like this comment is that I think that the majority of evolution deniers who are aware of the data (i.e. are not ignorant) continue in their beliefs, not because they are stupid or insane, but because they have been heavily indoctrinated by their religious upbringing. I thought Dawkins really let himself down on that one. I was therefore happy to read an article here in which Dawkins, in addition to defending his inital comment, adds a fifth category.... ...which now reflects my thoughts on the matter.Note, by the way, that Dawkins' original comment, viewed by many to be his most inflammatory, is aimed at evolution deniers, not at those with religious beliefs per se.Finally, I would like to ask you for examples in Dawkins' books where he has made 'many .... comments that are not justified by the facts'. I have read all of his popular works and haven't noticed these comments. I'd like to go back and check to make sure I'm not reading with rose-tinted glasses.Cheers,SteveN

Gould had rejected Dawkins' lingo changes from "The Selfish Gene" to "The Blind Watchmaker" and it seems that Richard's cagey ness about the lock ness of cve or evc(have it your way) is only scientifically about this. I rejected personally the first title and seeing Gould making a structure out of it at last I find that if one simply overturns Williams' argument of snake venom and rattle tails and community effects via a physical causality (not biological supervienence)(energy intensive molecues incident in some theoretcial space of zygote differences with trophic level organizations etc) with facts (to be counted as they are collected) then both Mayr's proximate and ultimately his teleonomic systems dissipate in the equilibrated game and the wordy ness that borders on anti-cve in Dawkins removes itself without the book keeping of Gould. Gould would have to be additionally mistken that cross level effects ARE potentials in the electrotonic and other physics' senses and I know that is only my own reading. Nonetheless if the information content of zygote A and B of Williams is rendered measureable in nature via Dedekind's and Frege's rejection of Cantors reals of A, B, C...L then indeed the community can be counted in ways that Williams did not need to discipline and Dawkins can be read as over writing PRECISELY as Gould surmised about him and not about the relation of Gould and Dawkins in the community issues of creationism.

Hi BradI thank you for your very quick reply but I'm afraid that, like a few others here, I really have a hard time understanding exactly what you're saying sometimes. I have also read most of Gould's popular works and, although admiring greatly his writing style, found that I totally disgree with his view that religion and science are two non-overlapping aspects of the universe. I also found the much-hyped 'fight' between Gould and Dawkins concerning he role of PE in evolution to be a storm in a tea-cup. I may be totally wrong, but I seem to remember that Dawkins does not dispute the probability of long periods of stasis between periods of rapid evolution. He just thinks that this is obvious and disagrees with PE being promoted as a 'new' and important advance in our understanding of evolution.I'm sorry if this doesn't address your points but to be honest, despite reading your post three or four times, I can't quite figure out what your points are. Maybe one of the more experienced members here can paraphrase it for me?Cheers,SteveN

Faith, please take this as friendly advice. This is the kind of statement that is often going to get you into trouble. First of all, most people don't like to be called names, even if the names do have a ring of truth to them or could be construed as "just an abbreviation." (e.g. "evo"). It is unnecessary to do this. You can say evolutionists or creationists or "advocates for ....." and convey the same meaning. "Evo", "crevo", "fundy", etc are offensive to some people. You can say "well they are just too thin skinned or PC" or whatever but the point is that you have inhibited communication rather than facilitated it. Sometimes what people label "PC" (which is another term I don't like) is just common courtesy. It is also probably best not to refer to whole groups of people anyway - because it is a form of stereotyping and not all evolutionists think the same on a given issue such as Biblical interpretation anymore than all creationists do.Second to say "so and so claims to believe in the Bible but doesn't really believe in much of it" is insulting. People have different ways of "believing in the Bible." Some are literalists, some think it is mostly metaphorical, some think some parts are to be taken literally and others metaphorically. I can believe in the Truth of the OT that it is a wonderful story of how God works with his people but not necessarily think that every jot and tittle is literally true in an historical sense. That doesn't make my "belief in the Bible" any less real from a literalist, just different. Remember that "Man looks on the outside but God looks on the heart." Believe it or not, some people who read the Bible as metaphor think that to read it literally cheapens it and causes one to miss the larger Truth. I don't necessarily think that but I do think it is a danger.edited quote box codesThis message has been edited by deerbreh, 08-11-2005 03:01 PM

Criticism accepted.

Yes it nice to see you say you disagree with Gould on magesisteriality. I view it that way as well.In Bakker's relay of Augustine and sand flies this thread comes up to Williams'

quote:

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In dealing with various possible kinds of biotic adapation I have confined the discussion to the problem of whether the phenomenon really operates in the manner envisioned, and whether they suggest any creative evolutionary force besides the natural selection of alternative alleles.

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The kind of errors that person might make biologically in interpreting Augustine on the "song" of nature relate to the boy scout type information Williams narrates inter alia, about frogs calling "in order to aid their fellows in finding water" and such the likes of if rattle snakes are advertising danger ably (tail vs head) etc.I could take up the relation of Williams to Gould and Dawkins futher by reference to Figure 2 in the book in another thread if you would like. I categorically deny that there has been any adaptive "hardening" in the constricted community of evoutionary thinkers. Dawkins didn't seperate out the religious elements far enough. I have not read his last book. Williams IS mistaken where physical law exists in groups biologically that ARE NOT telenomic yet man-makeable educts of teleological determinations. This IS NOT a meme of it. It might be also. Williams went on to indicate the ecosystems were too loose to be causal in this approximate sense but I dont see how energy intensive molecular dissections of endemic places won't find biogeographic homlogy replacing the trophic pyramid at supramolecular levels of organization. If that was already found there is not either the effect of genic selectionism as provisioned in the past nor the affect of species selection in the manner already envisioned. This is a work in process where zygote information of different life cycles can be more than this reflectively considered.If you are just as confused with this post dont feel obliged to carry it further just now. I will read around some of your posts once I get back in Ithaca and begin the new semester and am done with summer.This message has been edited by Brad McFall, 08-11-2005 06:37 PM

Hi Steve, and welcome to the fray.Please visit the "Steve List" if you have not already done so.
http://www.ncseweb.org/...ticles/3697_the_list_2_16_2003.aspI do not think that those Dawkins comments you quoted are particularly {atheist promoting\faith bashing} as they are based more on the proper use of logic, evidence and reason than on the "virtues" of atheism vs faith. I have used these particular comments myself (with reference citation) on several occasions. The word I prefer for his fifth case is deluded as it sort of bridges the gap between insane and ignorant ... the person is deluded by false information from a respected (by the person) source (another reason that the argument from authority is invalid).The comments I refer to are more like the ones found in some other essays like (1) "The Theology of the Tsunami" (click)
or "Is Science a Religion?" (click)
btw - the "ignorant, stupid or insane" article with addendum can be read on-line at: "Ignorance is No Crime" (click)Note that this is a new URL so anyone with the old one should update their links. Some other articles by Dawkins on that website no longer exist according to their search engine results, so one of my other examples has been replaced by the one above (The old one was titled "Improbability of God"). Note that these are opinion articles, not science articles, of course. The man is welcome to his opinions as long as he doesn't portray them as facts. I am a Deist, so I stand just on the Theist side of agnosticism. Rationally speaking, the only logically valid position is agnostic, because in the end we cannot know (at least as long as there is no definitive evidence one way or the other), and thus any other position is based on belief. I choose to believe in a god that set things rolling with a universe primed and loaded for the evolution of life in as many unlikely places as possible with one command: "Surprise me" - and is otherwise totally uninvolved.To me the argument of the "Improbability of God" is just as false as the common FUNDIE (Fundamentalist Under Numerous Delusions Involving Evolution) argument on the improbability of evolution. The fact remains that however improbable an event is before it happens, that once it has happened the probability defaults to 1 - the event can not unhappen. We are here: it happened, we just don't know what "it" was.I don't think that any belief that ignores evidence or promotes something that is unproven should be given a "free pass" and this includes militant atheistic anti-theism along with self promotion of the major religions.Science needs to be firmly and unabashedly agnostic, as any other position means an unfounded conclusion is used in the logical structure. And any invalid precept means the conclusion is invalid.Enjoy.ps -- you can see some further comments on the
{Fundamental Atheism and the Conflicting Ideas Problem.} thread. This thread is now closed, but there are some interesting comments from "both" sides (as if any such dichotomy is real).

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

Personally, labels are only insulting if one chooses to let them be so.I have no problem with evo and creo, YECr, fundie or the like, as if they are distasteful they are distasteful because of associations with certain positions that come with the categories (the baggage that comes along) and not because the term was originally intended to be insulting.certainly they are all common shorthand on this and other sites so execting them to dry up is unrealisticI do think IDiot crosses the line

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}