Behe Bit It (Michael Behe on "The Colbert Report")

You're committing a couple fallacies here, but the primary one is that you're attempting a defense by changing the focus of attention. The topic is Behe and ID. If you'd like to discuss whether evolution is actually an effort to promote atheism, despite that people of all religions around the globe including Christianity accept evolution, then open a new thread. Huh? Are you ever going to say anything that is actually true. Reading on I see PaulK has addressed this, so I won't beat this dead horse.But I will mention once again your rather serious error when you stated that Tennessee had a special law permitting evolution when the reality is that it forbid evolution. You know, Google and Wikipedia are just a click away. You could actually check your facts before inserting your foot in your mouth all the way up to the hip. Filling one's mind with facts instead of fantasies does wonders for success in debate. What has memes or Dawkins to do with this topic? Since this is the second time you've committed this fallacy in this message I'll call it out specifically. This is the "Oh yeah? Well you do it too!" fallacy (anyone out there know the formal name?). It's a very familiar fallacy in common household arguments but has no place in science. A simple example would be, "Son, you dinged up the car. What happened?" "Hey, don't hassle me, you've had accidents, too!"The point has been made to you by both me and Paul that Behe's book is not rejected because it contains the word "Designer", but because, in Paul's words, "It contains lousy arguments," and in my words, it isn't based upon any legitimate scientific research but is just invented out of whole cloth by Behe himself. He hasn't submitted his ideas for scholarly review by submitting papers to scientific journals and conferences, so of course there is no scientific consensus behind his views, but he continues to promote them to the lay public as if they had some scientific legitimacy. And because of the public exposure and attention his ideas have received some scientists have gone to the trouble of rebutting his ideas anyway (though not in scientific journals, of course, since Behe's ideas cannot be rebutted there until he submits them there).Scientists do not fear God. Many scientists believe in God. Many scientists are even Christian believers in God who accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Your attempt to characterize rejection of Behe's ideas as due to fear of God just doesn't hold holy water, or any other kind.The stuff about scientific frauds is off-topic, it is the same fallacy I mentioned before ("Oh yeah? Well so are you!"), and it again reflects your lack of understanding of the scientific review process which I see Crash has already explained. Could you please stay on topic in this thread? If you're interested in discussing these frauds then I suggest you first educate yourself about them, then propose a new thread to discuss them. Sure you are! You just did it at least three times in this message alone!--Percy

It's the "Tu quoque" fallacy, which is a kind of ad hominem fallacy.

No, you're again constructing an illustration that doesn't correspond to the situation you're attempting to illustrate. They are not excluded from membership, they simply choose not to attend while making false statements about the church from the town common.In other words, IDists are not submitting papers to scientific journals and conferences. It's not because their submissions are sent back unopened. It's because they're not sending them.The reason they're not sending them is not because there's no point to it because they'd be rejected anyway. They're not sending them because they're not doing any legitimate scientific research about which they can write papers. The arguments about irreducible complexity (Behe) and specified complexity (Dembski) and information theory (Dembski and Gitt) that they've published in popular press books are just that, arguments. They aren't the result of research and of analyzing the evidence gathered from research, but are just arguments. There's no evidence backing them up. IDists need to present research and evidence in support of their arguments. Isn't he purposefully leading people to believe that scientists are debating ID in scientific journals and at scientific conferences? And isn't it true that no such debates are taking place? So of course he's putting out false information.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.

Well, that depends who you listen to."Creation means that the various forms of life began abruptly through the agency of an intelligent creator with their distinctive features already intact. Fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, and wings, etc." (Of Pandas and People, first draft.)"Intelligent design means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency with their distinctive features already intact: Fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks and wings." (Of Pandas and People, as it was eventually published.) What you mean by "special dispensation", I have no idea. The "Monkey Law" was targetted specifically against evolution:"AN ACT prohibiting the teaching of the Evolution Theory in all the Universities, Normals and all other public schools of Tennessee, which are supported in whole or in part by the public school funds of the State, and to provide penalties for the violations thereof." No-one is promoting phrenology any more. (Which didn't stop Stephen Jay Gould from having a go at it.) Crackpots aren't trying to get phrenology taught in schools. If someone was proposing that we should teach children to distinguish the inferiority of black people by observing the shapes of their heads, I for one would be more than a little perturbed. Too many negatives. But when you've unscrambled what you're trying to say, would you like to say what this dubious proposition can possibly have to do with Intelligent Design? Because five cases of alledged fraud over a century or so obviously do not represent the majority of biological research.You must also have been on these boards long enough to know that you are lying when you claim that Nebraska Man and Peppered Moth research involved "fraud", and, just in case you are under the illusion that telling known lies helps your case (which would explain the behavior of many creationists), then let me inform you that it does not. It makes your tissue-thin case look even flimsier. In the case of the Peppered Moth, I may add, your spiteful lies involve slandering persons still living. Do you people ever feel ashamed of yourselves?Archaeoraptor, of course, was an attempted fraud on scientists, not one perpetrated by them.Despite your valiant attempts to read the mind of persons unknown, we have no idea who was behind Piltdown Man or why.That leaves you with one definite fraudulent scientist, Haeckel, who was trying to prop up a hypothesis other than the theory of evolution.And this is the best you can come up with?Thanks for playing. That is not the reason, and, dammit, you know that perfectly well too.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

The disparity is what I was trying to distinguish. Reason being, it was basically said that the ID movement is about pushing Christianity in schools. But that isn't true, and I gave an example. So what, though? If you get to say that ID is pushing Christianity, then I get to say that evolutionists are pushing atheism by the same token. It springs from looking around you and surmising that 0 + 0 = everything doesn't add up. Its a logical deduction with or without Christianity. Heck, these teleological arguments predate Christianity and are well attested for in virtually the entire pantheon, albeit, however crude their arguments may have been. It springs from a philosophical view just like most everything else. Darwin's initial observations follow science. I make a point not to demonize the man, as he was just doing his job. His predecessors have taken on all of the trappings associated with the postmodernist movement that swept through Europe during the time when Origins were completed. For most evolutionists it is not, by any stretch, a dispassionate endeavor. There is much philosophical meaning derived from it. Your forum, alone, is ample evidence of that.Anyway, I can't complete the rest of it right now because I have to reboot the computer and I don't want to lose the information.

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"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy course; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat." -Theodore Roosevelt

Behe makes a controversy of sorts. But it isn't really within science, since science has decisively rejected his arguments. His views are not worth teaching in science classes for that reason.

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The disparity is what I was trying to distinguish. Reason being, it was basically said that the ID movement is about pushing Christianity in schools. But that isn't true, and I gave an example.

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It's about pushing religious beliefs in school. The ID strategy is based on an alliance of different groups (such as YECs and OECs) who will work together for a common goal (e.g. getting schools to teach that God created mankind) and sort out their differences later.I don't see why Wells presence in the ID movement can be seen as contradicting that strategy. By his own words he's a dedicated enemy of evolution.

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So what, though? If you get to say that ID is pushing Christianity, then I get to say that evolutionists are pushing atheism by the same token.

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Except. fo course, for the fact that you have Christians like Kenneth Miller, Francis Collins and Simon Conway Morris pushing evolution. Moreover we have evidence that the anti-evolutionary motivations of IDists are religious - both for individuals like Philip Johnson and Jonathan Wells and for the DI itself (e.g. the Wedge document). Was it a coincidence that the latest book the DI is pushing was launched at Biola ?

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It springs from looking around you and surmising that 0 + 0 = everything doesn't add up. Its a logical deduction with or without Christianity. Heck, these teleological arguments predate Christianity and are well attested for in virtually the entire pantheon, albeit, however crude their arguments may have been.

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So there you are. You admit that ID is about religion. Of course science offers alternative explanations that do NOT add to 0 + 0 = everything no matter how much the anti-science groups try to misrepresent it. And nobody could truthfully describe evolution in that way. So your "logical deduction" doesn't really add up.

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t springs from a philosophical view just like most everything else. Darwin's initial observations follow science. I make a point not to demonize the man, as he was just doing his job. His predecessors have taken on all of the trappings associated with the postmodernist movement that swept through Europe during the time when Origins were completed. For most evolutionists it is not, by any stretch, a dispassionate endeavor. There is much philosophical meaning derived from it. Your forum, alone, is ample evidence of that.

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I assume that you mean "modernist" - and not "post-modernist", just as you mean "successors" rather than "predecessors" - although given your record for accuracy that's hard to say. Modernism arrived in the late 19th Century when evolution was pretty well established. The post-modernists are later, of course (starting in the 1960s). In the Kitzmiller trial it was the ID side that drafted in a post-modernist for support.
But the rest of your paragraph is just silly. There's a huge amount of science done within an evolutionary framework. The scientific evidence for evolution continues to grow even now. But this philosophy of yours seems largely absent even in this group.To be honest I'd say that the big difference in philosophy is that the evolution side displays a degree of humility and respect for the truth that is absent on the creation side.This is demonstrated both in your claims of fact - where you chose to "remind" others of your completely fallacious view of the Scopes trial as if it were factual and even in your handling of arguments here. I've not forgotten your Message 73 where you accused me of "dishonesty" and admonished me to "follow the dialogue" when if YOU had been following the dialogue you would have known that your accusation was baseless.

"Intelligent design is just the logos theology of John's Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory." --- William Dembski You can say that, but you wouldn't be telling the truth, which would kind of vitiate your argument, wouldn't it? So, a couple of the usual creationist lies. First you pretend that the theory of evolution is that "0 + 0 = everything", which you know to be a lie, and then you prentend that evolution has some "philosophy" attached to it when you know perfectly well that evolution is accepted by people of all faiths and none.And this is what I don't understand about you people.You're lying. And we know you're lying. And you know you're lying. And you know that we know that you're lying. And we know that you know that you're lying. And we know that you know that we know that you know that you're lying.So why are you lying?Whom do you hope to deceive?Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Thought I'd track down a reference or two for the above.Specified complexity - Wikipedia
Down in the "Notes and references".Also Conservatives, Darwin & Design:An Exchange
by Larry Arnhart / Michael J. Behe / William A. Dembski

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Copyright (c) 2000 First Things (November 2000).In general, this seems to be a pretty interesting article, amongst other things, conceding the validity of the scientific support of the theory of evolution:

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I agree that conservatives should take seriously the good criticisms of Darwinian biology offered by people like Johnson, Behe, and Dembski. I do not assert that Darwinian theory can be demonstrated with the precision and certainty that would leave no room for reasonable doubt. I only assert that Darwinian theory is supported by the preponderance of the evidence and arguments. In fact, that is all Darwin himself ever claimed for his position. Moreover, although I do not think we can reason by logical inference from ordinary experience to the existence of a Creator, a Darwinian view of the living world as governed by natural laws is at least compatible with a theistic faith in the Creator as the supernatural source of those natural laws.

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and

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Indeed, in Darwin’s Black Box, Michael Behe concedes that there is enough evidence to support the Darwinian conclusion that all species, including human beings, arose from a common ancestor by descent with modification by natural selection. But he maintains that one kind of biological system cannot be explained by Darwin’s theory-namely, any system that is “irreducibly complex.”

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MooseAdded by edit: Another source for the material of the second cite:
http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/...s/ArnhartDarwinDesign.shtmlYou may also be interested in Larry Arnhart's blog:
Darwinian Conservatism by Larry ArnhartI now see that the above quote is from Larry Arnhart's part of the discussion article.Edited by Minnemooseus, : See above.

I continue to wonder when you're ever going to say anything that is actually true. You've got a computer, why not use it? Click on Google or click on Wikipedia and find out about the Unification Church. Had you done so you would have prevented yourself from committing the error of claiming Jonathan Wells as an example of a non-Christian advocate of ID. The Unification Church is a Christian religion that uses the Holy Bible as its primary religious text and it accepts the same creation story as the rest of Christianity. You're again committing two fallacies at once. First, this is the "Oh yeah, well so are you!" fallacy. Second, you're diverting attention from the topic.What's more, you're wrong, leading me again to wonder when you're ever going to say anything true. Both creationism and the ID subcategory advocate for Christianity. You can't deny it, their writings are filled with advocacy for Christianity. But you won't find a single biology textbook or any science textbook or even any scientific paper advocating atheism. That's because science is a non-religious endeavor, like knitting and car repair. And believers of all religions and no religion accept science and evolution. Except that that's not true either, that it's a logical deduction with or without Christianity. The truth is that for the most part only evangelical Christians see evolution as "0 + 0 = everything", and there's nothing honest nor accurate nor logical nor deductive about that position. God only knows what you're trying to say! Since evolutionists include professed Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Jews and Buddhists, and since it makes no sense that they would be pushing atheism or accept a philosophy pushing atheism, your statement also makes no sense. Of course evolution is a dispassionate endeavor. What I'm not dispassionate about is attempts by evangelical Christians to teach their religion in my kids' science class. Over and over and over again, whether it's at local school board meetings, or state school boards in Kansas or Ohio or Pennsylvania, or state legislatures in Arkansas or Louisiana, Christian evangelicals work to get their religiously based views on biology taught in public schools.EvC Forum exists to explore creationism's claim to be every bit as much science as evolution, and to therefore deserve as much representation in education as evolution. A defense of creationism comprised primarily of errors, ad hominem and denials of fact is unlikely to be successful, plus it's leaving this thread with little to discuss except corrections of your mistakes.--Percy

So there is a controversy of sorts.Not an absence of controversy of sorts.So you say his findings are not fact and should not be taught in a science class.I agree if they are not fact they should not be taught.By the same token I don't think anything that is not fact should be taught in a science classroom.Question:Is singularity a scientific fact?Is abiogenesis a scientific fact?

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

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So there is a controversy of sorts.

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Not an absence of controversy of sorts.

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In the same sense that there is controversy over whether the Earth is flat. A completely trivial sense that should have no bearing on educational policy.

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So you say his findings are not fact and should not be taught in a science class.

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That is not what I said. I said that they are not SCIENCE and should not be taught in a science class.

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Is singularity a scientific fact?

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It is a fact that if you use General Relativity to "rewind" the history of the Universe then you will get to a singularity. The Big Bang itself is solid scientific fact. If, therefore, you want to use the word "singularity" to refer to the earliest state of the universe (which is a loose usage but seems to be often done) it makes sense.

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Is abiogenesis a scientific fact?

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Since there is life now and all the evidence indicates that there was a time when there was no life I suppose some form of abiogenesis must have happened.

Let me clarify. So Behe's findings are not scientific fact therefore should not be taught in a science class.My question was is abiogenesis a scientific fact? Does life existing make abiogenesis a scientific fact?I asked, Is singularity a scientific fact? I did not ask about TBB. I was refering to the point that GR breaks down and can not tell us anything.Is there anything that is a scientific fact beyond GR breakdown?I am trying to be very specific because of the next question I want to ask after these 2 questions are answered.

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

Paul, don't get ICANT started on GR. Seriously. Don't. Take a peek at the Big Bang thread that recently closed if you don't believe me.NJ. It seems Dr. A, Percy and Paul have pointed out a number of your errors in the past couple of days. I especially like Percy's response to this... and Dr. A's response to this: What say you, NJ?And as for this ... Let's take another peek at Dembski, shall we? Conservatives, Darwin & Design: An Exchange by William A. Dembski | Articles | First ThingsAnd what about this tidbit from Moose? Hmmm?

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So Behe's findings are not scientific fact therefore should not be taught in a science class.

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Those are your words, not mine.

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Does life existing make abiogenesis a scientific fact?

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I didn't say that it did. You miss out half my argument - the fact that the evidence indicates that there was a time when life did not exist.

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I did not ask about TBB. I was refering to the point that GR breaks down and can not tell us anything.

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Obviously there ought to be something at that point. You might as well call it the singularity. It can't be far off.Please don't try to fish for the answers you want. I'm not about to change my position to suit your arguments.