Isn't there just one science denier out there that is NOT a christian conservative? So typical.
William | 04.21.08 - 11:22 pm | #

Thanks for your comments on my blog! Looks like you've done some good thinking and research! Thanks.
Dave | Homepage | 04.22.08 - 8:29 am | #

Isn't there just one science denier out there that is NOT a christian conservative? So typical.

Given that Darwinian reasoning is often set up on a dialectic with Christian theology you shouldn't be surprised that's the case. E.g. "The Christian God wouldn't make a panda's thumb like this, therefore natural selection made it or somethin'! Say...why is it that Christians always disagree with me and my science, theology has nothing to do with science!" Etc.

Of course there are various people that you're ignorant of who disagree with the Darwinian creation myth who are not Christian conservatives, many appear in Expelled. That doesn't really matter though, an argument of prejudice and bigotry isn't based on anything but a crude form of "typical" pattern recognition. Something along the lines of: "Say, some groups of people tend to disagree with me and now I don't like them or somethin'."
mynym | Homepage | 04.22.08 - 10:28 am | #

Thanks for your comments on my blog! Looks like you've done some good thinking and research! Thanks.

Thanks, it seems that my Darwinists always go silent when it comes to facts, logic and evidence much like the Holocaust deniers that I debate. So I have to go looking for some forms of stupidity and ignorance to correct. Looks like those on your blog are going silent now. That's too bad. I'm sure that eventually I'll find someone who can point to some ignorance and stupidity of my own. Then I will begin the process again with more knowledge.
mynym | Homepage | 04.22.08 - 10:34 am | #

Instead of doing psuedo intellectual / philosophical backhandsprings to rationalize your belief in the supernatural, perhaps you should defer to those who have a much greater grasp on science than you. What % of PhD geologists, physicists, biologists believe in intelligent design? In my 20 years as a professor, I can tell... virtually none, and it's not because they've been 'discriminated against'. I know, some humans think themselves so grand as to have been 'created in the image of god' ... perhaps one day you'll realize how arrogant and self serving this fantasy is. Maybe some day you'll lose the preconceived dogma that filters you view of the world to accept possibilities, including the concept of infinity, that our short 2 million year stint as a spieces on this planet isn't as significant as your self aggrandizing religion leads you to believe.
William | 04.22.08 - 11:38 am | #

What % of PhD geologists, physicists, biologists believe in intelligent design?

What percentage of biologists were not eugenicists in the early 1900s? What percentage among ancient priests of Knowledge disagreed with astrology? How did it essentially become astronomy? What percentage of alchemists disagreed amongst themselves and how was alchemy reformed into chemistry?

Maybe some day you'll lose the preconceived dogma that filters you view of the world to accept possibilities, including the concept of infinity...

Given current cosmology how is it that you fit the concept of the infinite into the finite?

...that our short 2 million year stint as a spieces on this planet isn't as significant as your self aggrandizing religion leads you to believe.

I agree with you but only in your case. You're right, everything that you write here is insignificant or is significant only as an effect of things like natural selection operating on a population of ancient ape-like creatures. Taken on your own terms you are indeed rather insignificant, so why should anyone treat the texts that you write as if they are significant enough to encompass a knowledge of the nature of Nature, what can or cannot be known and the definition of scientia/knowledge?

At any rate, I agree with you. Any symbols and signs of your own design are just an insignificant illusion brought about by unintelligent processes.
mynym | Homepage | 04.22.08 - 1:46 pm | #

Well William, let's see. Argument by authority (I'm a professor and most of the other professors agree with me) and ad hominem (you are a religious quack) with just light garnish of bigotry (and a Christian one at that!) The debate in question isn't my fight, but I have to say this is my first visit to this site and given my predeliction for iconoclasm, I may well return. Could be entertaining.
Wes | 04.30.08 - 1:06 pm | #

...given my predeliction for iconoclasm, I may well return.

If you do return then let me know what your fight is. My fight tends to be debates on origins and the philosophy of science but I doubt that it's as important as people involved in it make it out to be.
mynym | Homepage | 04.30.08 - 5:16 pm | #

"Currently the established orthodoxy which purports to define knowledge/science in academic settings is Darwinism..."

How do you explain the fact that we biologists agree upon, understand, and use non-Darwinian mechanisms, then?

Your fake quote: "“We have observed insecticide resistance, therefore we have a knowledge of the origin of all specification and form found in living organisms.”"

"Etc. Biologists are generally stupid enough to make such arguments, apparently."

Apparently not, since you have failed to identify the stupid biologist who made such a statement.
John | 05.02.08 - 7:50 pm | #

I've been busy here.

Biologists have argued that the type of natural selection which can be observed among insects is essentially seamlessly linked to the human brains which observe such things.

As they argue: "We have observed insects become resistant to insecticides (Ffrench-Constant et al. 2000), animals and plants acquire disease resistance (Carpenter and O'Brien 1995; Richter and Ronald 2000)...." Etc. (Talk.origins

You don't believe that they're arguing that such observations have to do with a knowledge of the origins of all specification and form found in living organisms?
mynym | Homepage | 05.08.08 - 8:41 pm | #

"You don't believe that they're arguing that such observations have to do with a knowledge of the origins of all specification and form found in living organisms?"

No. You're simply lying, because nothing you actually quoted was even an argument-both were simply observations. Can't you tell the difference?

Why did you fabricate the entire second clause of your quote? Was that an honest thing to do, particularly since you labeled the consequent "stupid"? Didn't you bear false witness?
John | 05.08.08 - 10:21 pm | #

No. You're simply lying, because nothing you actually quoted was even an argument-both were simply observations. Can't you tell the difference?

Simple and trivial observations having to do with natural selection are cited as evidence under the heading: "29+ Evidences for Macroevolution" yet ironically the empirical observations being cited could be advanced against the notion of "macroevolution."

Why did you fabricate the entire second clause of your quote?

Why don't you know that biologists claim to be able to "explain" the origins of specification and form found in species and cite such evidence as if it justifies such claims?

Didn't you bear false witness?

That's an ironic question coming from a biologist. I will answer it but why do you suppose that biologists have a history of bearing a false form of wit/knowledge against man? Why does it take more than a century for biologists to correct Haeckel's false imagery in textbooks when it was known that his form of knowledge/wit was false long ago? Even if I was trying to bear as much false witness as I could I couldn't keep up with biologists.

At any rate, I didn't bear a false form of knowledge because trivial observations having to do with natural selection (e.g. insecticide resistance) are woven into the Darwinian creation myth. Apparently biologists believe that the average person won't be able to tell the difference between a constructive and destructive process so even destructive processes are advanced as evidence of the origins and construction of body plans and specifications observed in life forms and so on. A hypothetical analogy with a touch of satire might help illustrate the point: If a group of humans was observed and only those without hands survived because they couldn't eat a poisonous form of food then it wouldn't make sense for them to argue that the same process of survival and death brought about humans and hands in the first place. All they would actually be observing is a general reduction in form and function which benefited survival in a misanthropic environment, so some might try to point to such evidence but they wouldn't have the hands to do so.

If you and other biologists generally have a knowledge of the origins of form and specification observed in living things then why are you taking a "passive role" instead of actively writing dissertations on it like those at talk.origins? After all I'm just a simple fellow and I do bear some false forms of wit/knowledge as the result of mistakes or ignorance.
mynym | Homepage | 05.09.08 - 7:54 am | #

"Why don't you know that biologists claim to be able to "explain" the origins of specification and form found in species and cite such evidence as if it justifies such claims?"

Mynym, you're moving the goalposts. I am challenging your earlier lie (caps mine):

“We have observed insecticide resistance, therefore we have a knowledge of the origin of ALL specification and form found in living organisms.”

This goes back to my earlier question that you dodged: How do you explain the fact that we biologists agree upon, understand, and use non-Darwinian mechanisms?

You won't answer this because it doing so truthfully would be an admission that your claim, "Currently the established orthodoxy which purports to define knowledge/science in academic settings is Darwinism..." was a lie, too.

"Why don't you know that biologists claim to be able to "explain" the origins of specification and form found in species and cite such evidence as if it justifies such claims?"

Biologists don't cite such evidence as an explanation of ALL specification and form. That's why you're still lying. It's just lie upon lie, isn't it?

"At any rate, I didn't bear a false form of knowledge because trivial observations having to do with natural selection (e.g. insecticide resistance) are woven into the Darwinian creation myth."

You did deliberately bear false witness because biologists don't cite such evidence as an explanation of ALL specification and form. There is no Darwinian creation myth.

The fact that you keep desperately lying to conceal is that biologists understand and exploit non-Darwinian mechanisms.

"A hypothetical analogy with a touch of satire might help illustrate the point:..."

Analogies aren't evidence. I'm asking why you continue to deliberately lie about both evidence and reality.

"If you and other biologists generally have a knowledge of the origins of form and specification observed in living things then why are you taking a "passive role" instead of actively writing dissertations on it like those at talk.origins?"

I've never written anything there. I test my hypotheses by doing experiments, produce new data, and publish the data in the primary scientific literature. Why has no ID proponent ever had sufficient courage to do so in testing an ID hypothesis?

"After all I'm just a simple fellow..."

Definitely. Dishonest, too.

"... and I do bear some false forms of wit/knowledge as the result of mistakes or ignorance."

That's not true. You are bearing false witness because you are actively avoiding the truth. No biologist has ever claimed that natural selection produces ALL specification and form in living organisms, because we know that non-Darwinian mechanisms play an important role. This in turn shows that your claims about "Darwinism" being some untouchable religious orthodoxy are blatant lies.
John | 05.09.08 - 12:23 pm | #

How do you explain the fact that we biologists agree upon, understand, and use non-Darwinian mechanisms?

You are acting as if Darwinism is some clearly defined form of knowledge which can therefore be kept distinct from non-Darwinian processes when it fact its meaning is often blurred. I didn't move any goalposts, the only thing I might be guilty of is using the fact that they shift on their own. As Wikipedia notes, "Discussions of Darwinism usually focus on evolution by natural selection, but sometimes Darwinism is taken to mean evolution more broadly, or other ideas not directly associated with the work of Darwin."

Here is a more interesting question than if I'm a naughty little liar and so on. Your argument rests on the notion that Darwinism is defined, limited and verifiable to the point that non-Darwinian mechanisms can be known which falsify the notion that Darwinism explains "all," so what processes or observations can be advanced as falsifications of Darwinism? Given that Darwinism has never been well defined I suppose the question is, what observations refute the notion that natural selection has nearly unlimited explanatory power?

You won't answer this because it doing so truthfully would be an admission that your claim, "Currently the established orthodoxy which purports to define knowledge/science in academic settings is Darwinism..." was a lie, too.

If it would help, you could use the term neo-Darwinism or the modern synthesis.

If you can break yourself away from trying to prove what a liar I am based on All sorts of pedantry and so on for a moment here's a more interesting topic: What organisms or characters do you think that Darwinian reasoning (of the sort based on natural selection) is not a good explanation for?

This in turn shows that your claims about "Darwinism" being some untouchable religious orthodoxy are blatant lies.

Your quibbling over the term "all" hasn't shown that I am a liar, yet even if it did it would be absurd to conclude anything about Darwinism based on whether or not I'm a liar.

Proponents of the modern synthesis have claimed that nothing makes sense in biology without it, do you disagree with them? The comment you are focusing on reads like a satire but there really are fellows who study insects and based on such a myopic focus go on to claim to have a knowledge of the origins of ALL biological beings, including man.
mynym | Homepage | 05.09.08 - 5:38 pm | #

"You are acting as if Darwinism is some clearly defined form of knowledge..."

You're lying again. "Darwinism" is a term used by dishonest people like you to deceive their audiences.

"... which can therefore be kept distinct from non-Darwinian processes when it fact its meaning is often blurred."

You're the one blurring meaning and dishonestly putting words in the mouths of others. YOU.

"I didn't move any goalposts, the only thing I might be guilty of is using the fact that they shift on their own. As Wikipedia notes..."

Wikipedia doesn't note anything--people do. Wikipedia is not a reliable source.

"Your argument rests on the notion that Darwinism is defined, limited and verifiable..."

False. I don't make any claims about "Darwinism" other than that it is a word primarily used to deceive. I do have notions about DarwinIAN mechanisms. Do you think you can keep the goalposts where they belong, or are you unable to resist the temptation to bear false witness?

"... to the point that non-Darwinian mechanisms can be known which falsify the notion that Darwinism explains "all,""

Close, except that I don't obfuscate with the term "Darwinism." Darwinian mechanisms do not explain all evolution, so anyone claiming that "Darwinism" is orthodoxy or that Darwinian mechanisms have been claimed to explain "ALL specification and form" is simply lying.

"... so what processes or observations can be advanced as falsifications of Darwinism?"

There's no hypothesis or theory called "Darwinism." You are so dishonest that you can't abandon this term, because you know that your house of cards will fall.

"Given that Darwinism has never been well defined I suppose the question is, what observations refute the notion that natural selection has nearly unlimited explanatory power?"

Literally tens of thousands of them. Have you ever looked at any data, mynym? What would you estimate is the ratio of words you've written about evolution to the relevant data you've examined for yourself?

Can you bring yourself to admit before God that no biologist has ever claimed that natural selection has nearly unlimited explanatory power?
John | 05.11.08 - 2:58 pm | #

"If it would help, you could use the term neo-Darwinism or the modern synthesis."

It wouldn't help. Using terms that end in "-ism" don't clarify anything in any field. You would misrepresent the term "modern synthesis" anyway.

"If you can break yourself away from trying to prove what a liar I am based on All sorts of pedantry and so on for a moment here's a more interesting topic: What organisms or characters do you think that Darwinian reasoning (of the sort based on natural selection) is not a good explanation for?"

There are Darwinian hypotheses and mechanisms. There's no "Darwinian reasoning."

"Your quibbling over the term "all" hasn't shown that I am a liar,..."

Then why do you keep moving the goalposts?

"Proponents of the modern synthesis have claimed that nothing makes sense in biology without it, do you disagree with them?"

Nope. I'm challenging your lie, not any additional lies you tell in trying to equivocate between your lie and other claims.

"The comment you are focusing on reads like a satire but there really are fellows who study insects and based on such a myopic focus go on to claim to have a knowledge of the origins of ALL biological beings, including man."

You're running away from your lie again which was that you dishonestly attributed the notion that ALL specification and form are caused by natural selection to real biologists. Your lies are:

1) “We have observed insecticide resistance, therefore we have a knowledge of the origin of ALL specification and form found in living organisms.”

2) "Currently the established orthodoxy which purports to define knowledge/science in academic settings is Darwinism..."

If your position is defensible, why do you tell new lies about your opponents' positions and keep changing your own?
John | 05.11.08 - 6:40 pm | #

You're lying again. "Darwinism" is a term used by dishonest people like you to deceive their audiences.

No, generally Darwinism is used by people describing a pattern of ideas generally known as "Darwinism." Apparently you're ignorant of all that falls outside the scope of a microscope so here are a few examples:

...if Darwinism is right, you and your ancestors have an unbroken string of successful gambles for similarly fatal stakes on the algorithms embodied in your "machinery." That is what organisms have done, every day since life began: they have bet their lives that the algorithms that built them, and that operate within them if they are among the lucky organisms with brains, will keep them alive long enough to have children. Mother Nature has never aspired to absolute certainty...(Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meaning of Life by Daniel Dennett :440)

The problem with Teilhard's vision is simple. He emphatically denied the fundamental idea: that evolution is a mindless, purposeless, algorithmic process. .... The esteem in which Teilhard's book is still held by nonscientists, the respectful tone in which his ideas are alluded to, is testimony to the depth of loathing of Darwin's dangerous idea, a loathing so great that it will excuse any illogicality and tolerate any opacity in what purports to be an argument, if its bottom line promises relief from the oppressions of Darwinism. (Ib. :320-321)

There are people in the world who desperately want not to have to believe in Darwinism. (The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design by Richard Dawkins :250)

The rise of Darwinism in the nineteenth century polarised attitudes towards the apes. Opponents who might have stomached evolution itself balked with visceral horror at cousinship with what they perceived as low and revolting brutes.... (The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution by Richard Dawkins :108 )

You're the one blurring meaning and dishonestly putting words in the mouths of others. YOU.

Not at all, it is simply a fact that Darwinism has never been all that well defined so its definition tends to evolve. An example from history:

German academic opinion on Darwinism was by no means united even among its enthusiasts. .... Haeckel, while still a student, was already under the spell of evolutionary theory, having read The Voyage of the Beagle. .... By the time that Haeckel had been appointed to a chair at the University of Jena, where he lectured to large numbers of enthusiastic students, Virchow and he were clashing publicly over the political implications of social Darwinism. (Hitler's Scientists: Science, War and the Devil's Pact by John Cornwell :77)

Ernst Haeckel, a towering figure in German biology and an early Darwinian, was also a racist...and a strong advocate of eugenics who "can be claimed as a direct ancestor" of the Nazi "euthanasia" project. Wilhelm Bolsche was a literary critic who became a disciple and biographer of Haeckel and was known to have provided Hitler with "direct access to major ideas of Haeckelian social Darwinism." (The Nazi Doctors by Robert Jay Lifton :125)

Can you bring yourself to admit before God that no biologist has ever claimed that natural selection has nearly unlimited explanatory power?

If there are versions of evolutionary theory that deny slow gradualism, and deny the central role of natural selection, they may be true in particular cases. But they cannot be the whole truth, for they deny the very heart of the evolution theory, which gives it the power to dissolve astronomical improbabilities and explain prodigies of apparent miracle. (The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design by Richard Dawkins :250)

It is time to turn the burden of proof around, the way Darwin did when he challenged his critics to describe some other way--other than natural selection--in which all the wonders of nature could have arisen. [All?!] Those who think that the human mind is non-algorithmic should consider the hubris presupposed by that position. (Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meaning of Life by Daniel Dennett :451)

mynym:

Your disgusting dishonesty here is based on multiple patently false equivocations:

1) between Darwinian theory and evolutionary theory. The former is a subset of the latter.

2) between Darwinian theory and "social Darwinism." Since Darwin himself rejected this, labeling it with his name is a lie.

3) between natural selection and evolutionary theory. Again, the former is a subset of the latter, even though it is the heart.

Again, "Darwinism" and "Darwinist" are terms that are primarily used to deceive. Your multiple deceptions are providing ample evidence to support that.

Have you considered, in the interest of basic honesty, to try and discuss evolution without using either of those deceptive terms?

Finally, you wrote, "Of the "literally tens of thousands" of MECHANISMS that you supposedly know of which do you think cannot ultimately be explained by natural selection, anyway?"

This reveals your fundamental refusal to make an honest attempt at discussion. If you can be bothered, in the interest of obeying the Ninth Commandment, to read what I actually wrote instead of bearing false witness, you might note that I made no claim, literally or figuratively, about tens of thousands of MECHANISMS.

I wrote, "Literally tens of thousands of them," in response to your question about OBSERVATIONS.

What kind of mind desperately equivocates between mechanisms and observations, mynym? How can anyone have a real conversation with someone who is that reflexively dishonest?

You seem to be utterly incapable of reading what I actually write. Look inside your soul before you answer that question (I predict you won't).
John | 05.13.08 - 11:24 am | #

I've debated hundreds of people and I've never seen someone so ready to call down the wrath of God based on semantics and pedantry. It's really quite humorous. But at any rate...

Your disgusting dishonesty here is based on multiple patently false equivocations:
1) between Darwinian theory and evolutionary theory. The former is a subset of the latter.

Who has said that Darwinian theory is a subset of evolutionary theory, you?

between Darwinian theory and "social Darwinism." Since Darwin himself rejected this, labeling it with his name is a lie.

He proposed social Darwinism as a scientific fact and argued that progress would make it inevitable, then said that we should know that it's evil based on the vestiges of a "noble instinct" which the pseudo-science which he presented as scientific fact undermined. If you want to argue in that pedantic way that you have that "Darwinists" who were social Darwinists (pretty much all) were liars then so be it but they're the one's who ladened the term with its history of meaning.

between natural selection and evolutionary theory. Again, the former is a subset of the latter, even though it is the heart.

I haven't equivocated between natural selection and evolutionary theory. You didn't know "ALL" that's been claimed of natural selection by Darwinists although you claim to be a biologist.

Again, "Darwinism" and "Darwinist" are terms that are primarily used to deceive. Your multiple deceptions are providing ample evidence to support that.

The only one trying to deceive people about Darwinism is you. On the one hand I can cite prominent Darwinists, biologists and philosophers trying to promote Darwinism and historians assembling evidence having to do with the history of Darwinism and on the other here you are trying to prove that I'm a liar based on definitions that only you know of. Who else claims that "Darwinism" and "Darwinist" are terms that are primarily used to deceive?

And there are your other claims, what prominent biologists have published evidence having to do with the limitations of natural selection based on the "thousands" of supporting observations which you claim exist? I may know of a few myself but it's up to you to support your claims. And if there is such evidence then why did you waste time going off into yet another pedantic point based on distinctions which make no meaningful difference instead of delving into the evidence?

I wrote, "Literally tens of thousands of them," in response to your question about OBSERVATIONS.

Apparently you can't figure out that you have to be observing a MECHANISM in order for it to have any bearing on limiting natural selection because that's what natural selection is. I meant to wait to point that out until you had cited some actual observations but I doubt you would have anyway. You're welcome to cite observations which have nothing to do with "MECHANISMS" as well.

If you're really concerned about my audience and how deceptive I am to them and so on as you mentioned before you should probably try to come off as a little less neurotic. For example, you seem to have a habit of making some trivial argument and then concluding with: "Behold the wrath of God, thou evil doer!" before you've even won your pedantic arguments. Note, that's a satire of a general pattern which is designed to help you be aware of the pattern. Unfortunately, like the original comment about a myopic view typical to biologists it's not that far from the truth and ample evidence which isn't distorted by satire in the least could be assembled to that effect: "Look inside your soul before you answer that question..." Etc.

You haven't cited any evidence with respect to your claim that Darwinism is a deceptive word primarily used to deceive and you still haven't cited any evidence which limits natural selection. If you really feel a neurotic need to make some pedantic point then go ahead but after that why not cite some actual evidence? As far as your latest point goes, mechanisms can be observed and observations which would have the most to do with natural selection would have to do with mechanisms... but you can go ahead and cite any non-mechanistic observations which you think limit or falsify the main focus of Darwinism, i.e. natural selection. There's literally thousands, so go on and cite some.
mynym | Homepage | 05.13.08 - 5:40 pm | #