Comments

  3. Richard Harris says

    Surely, the guy with the medical parphernalia would actually be a priest in this scenario.

  5. Lakonia says

    Sad but true.
    I began TA’ing a science class yesterday (graduate student in Marine Sciences). We the class we use response pads so as a starter we took a poll on evolution. Turned out only 63% in a unversity level science class accept evolution. It was a really disheartening way to start the semester.

  9. Cardinal Shrew says

    Ok, let me start off by saying a couple things. Creationism doesn’t belong in science classes. There is no controversy in the science community. We should continue the fight on all fronts to keep ID where it belongs, in church.

    That being said, we are going to lose a fight or 2. There are enough fundies in control around this country that there are going to be school districts that mandate teaching the “controversy”. What happens then? We shouldn’t give up on those kids. What will they be reading? I have no idea about what is in the various textbooks out there but considering the divisive nature of the topic it seems like there may be only 2 options. One, the traditional science book we all know and love that doesn’t even mention ID. Two, the science book written by the religiously motivated that has no business being in a science classroom. There should be a 3rd option for the districts that go down the fundie path.

    A textbook that covers the so called controversy but covers it well. Tells their side of the story and then demolishes it with the evidence. One that shows the transitional fossils, explains radiological dating and tears apart the various other useless arguments they are always throwing around. A text book that may actually help even though it has to discuss the foolishness that is ID. Does this style textbook exist?

    At least give the kids a fighting chance.

  10. The Clown says

    I’m not sure that this is an honest representation of the situation. There is a professor on my campus who is pro-ID as well as a senior immunologist. So representing ID people as this comic does is not being entirely honest. I’ve been reading these posts over the past week and observe that there is a huge amount of bigotry, hatred, misrepresentation, and dishonesty here.

  11. Epikt says

    Of course the church hierarchy would never lack advanced medical treatment; they’ll just buy it from secular countries, and keep very quiet about it. They’ll probably even grant themselves absolution.

  12. Chris P says

    Does anybody know what textbooks would be used for ID or creationism in a middle school. The new local charter school is having an open house so I wanted to check to see if they were using anything “odd”.

    Thanks

  13. senecasam says

    Yes, The Clown, the creationist/ID crowd is full of bigotry, hatred, misrepresentation and dishonesty.

    Most everyone here tries to fight it as best they can.

  16. says

    I’m not sure that this is an honest representation of the situation. There is a professor on my campus who is pro-ID as well as a senior immunologist. So representing ID people as this comic does is not being entirely honest. I’ve been reading these posts over the past week and observe that there is a huge amount of bigotry, hatred, misrepresentation, and dishonesty here.

    I guess we have to spell out everything to idiots.

    Here it is: It’s a joke.

    Besides that, of course much science of medicine can be done without evolution. However, from selection of lab animals and interpretation of their results, to the understanding of the evolution of resistance, it is evolution that guides and explains those aspects of research (even Behe agrees with respect to chloroquine resistance in malaria–though one has no idea how he presumes to say what evolved and what was “designed”).

    No, science would not totally stop if ID replaced evolution, and its anti-science philosophy were inexplicably not extended to the rest of science. It most certainly would not help science in the least, however, and clearly would be harmful in important respects.

    Glen D
    http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

  18. Didac says

    I think the idea of the comic is good. Th. Dobzhansky commented that, without evolution, nothing makes sense in biology. However, we must not forget that Jenner (smallpox vaccine) or Pasteur (rabies vaccine) are both pre-Darwinian from a theoretical point of view. Linné, for example, as a fixist-creationist. So, classic creationism did not preclude scientific advances. The problem is that modern creationisme and intelligent design are malicious in their intentions. They do not seek to convince people, but they seek to seed a post-modern, cynical, atitude towards science. It is not only evolution but vaccines, global warming, peak oil, etc. It is not a question of truth but of culture wars. There are a lot of people both in US and in Europe that makes a living from all this kind of divisive culture wars. Culture wars, surely, are profitable at short time… but ultimately they will conduct us to insanity.

    Charles K. Johnson used to say that science and technology were very different things. We need to connect basic biological science with both biotechnology and biomedicine. But, we must also be aware that Johnson was partially right. You can apply science without bothering very much for the abstract side of it. In fact, Copernicus tried to avoid Church harassment telling that the “heliocentric model” was just a tool, not reality. So, it is not hard to understand that some scientists both in US and in Europe try to appease religious right the same way.

  19. the strangest brew says

    ‘I’ve been reading these posts over the past week and observe that there is a huge amount of bigotry, hatred, misrepresentation, and dishonesty here.’

    but not quite as prolific or as vile arrogant and desperate as elsewhere it would seem…

  20. pough says

    I’m not sure that this is an honest representation of the situation.

    I know! You know what else? There are some details in Superman comics that leave me wondering. Like, if there is an enormous city called Metropolis, how come it’s not on any maps I’ve ever seen?

  21. Richard Harris says

    I’ve been reading these posts over the past week and observe that there is a huge amount of bigotry, hatred, misrepresentation, and dishonesty here. The Clown

    Well that’s about right, then. Well, not so much right, but more – appropriate.

  23. raven says

    There is a professor on my campus who is pro-ID as well as a senior immunologist.

    Only two? I’m sure at Bob Jones, Witch Doctor college, Fundie Death Cult U. or wherever you go, after they burnt a few scientists at the stake, the number of creos is well over 100%.

    Walk your talk clown. Next time you get sick or in a serious accident, stay away from those biology and evolution driven MDs and see a faith healer.

  24. Nerd of Redhead says

    Clown, if you have any evidence to show that ID and/or creationism is scientific, you need to show the evidence before you put on your attitude. If you can’t show any scientific evidence, which the scientists who post here will have the final say if it is scientific or not, then you need to go away and take your attitude with you.

  26. The Petey says

    What we need are the parents in the school systems that teach ID to sue the school boards for teaching religion to their kids.

  29. says

    Hey folks – I’m the nerd who drew the comic linked here.

    Just to clarify – this is meant as more an attack on the idea that ID is a program of forward-moving research in itself than an attack on creationists as being able to do good science. That’s an untenable attack, and I wouldn’t make it.

    Thanks for the link!
    Zach

  30. Matt Penfold says

    When antibiotics were first developed biologists knew that resistance would become a problem at some stage. Actually even before that they knew resistance was problem as bacteria also developed resistance to the sulphur drugs(*)

    (*)Paradoxically we are now turning back yo the sulphur drugs as some of the more dangerous bacteria that are now resistant to most antibiotics having lost resistance to the sulphur drugs. Using a combination of the last resort antibiotics and the sulphur drugs seems to be reasonably effective.

  31. Dianne says

    I thought the follow up cartoon was a little off: A creationist might ask for penicillin. But, if s/he really didn’t believe in evolution, s/he would ask for ONLY pcn or sulfa drugs–and low dose, please, no wasting the insurance company’s money with millions of units of pcn when a few thousand will clearly do. Because if there is no evolution then pcn resistance can’t possibly have evolved and so there is no need for increasing the dose of pcn and certainly no need for pcnase resistant antibiotics or new classes of abx. Because low dose pcn should work just as well now as it did in the 1940s when pcn first came to the market. So why do creationists allow their doctors to overmedicate them and waste money by prescribing higher doses of pcn or stronger antibiotics? Don’t they believe their own stories?

  32. raven says

    I’m not sure that this is an honest representation of the situation.

    I don’t either. In 20 years Allah Jehovah willing, on our current trajectory, we will be a third rate banana republic with piles of dead bodies in senseless wars around the planet, some American. The death rate will be up while life expectancy is down.

    There will still be many very good American scientists, mostly working abroad for our competitors.

  33. anthropicOne says

    Zach @29

    Why is an attack on creationists being able to do good science untenable? The fact that they consider ID as “science” is clear evidence they don’t understand science. Thus, they cannot be considered scientists.

  35. The Clown says

    Clown, if you have any evidence to show that ID and/or creationism is scientific, you need to show the evidence before you put on your attitude. If you can’t show any scientific evidence, which the scientists who post here will have the final say if it is scientific or not, then you need to go away and take your attitude with you.Nerd of Redhead

    ID detection is a key component of forensic science, SETI and archeology for starters. Now with Venter Institute’s incorporation of ‘watermarks’ in its artificial genome, ID detection is now an issue in biology, if it wasn’t already. Unless you have a scientific method to detect ID, you’re not even in the game when it comes to forensics, SETI, archeology and biology. I may be stirring the pot here, but when a scientist claims, on scientific grounds that ID was not involved in whatever, be it a signal from deep space, or a ‘watermark’ in DNA, but has no scientific method to detect ID, then he/she’s simply blowing smoke. Before we can talk about whether or not ID was involved in the origin of life, we’d better have a method to identify it. Regarding the idea in the cartoon, computer software designed by any intelligent software engineer is going to mutate over time on any known natural storage device, most certainly DNA, so the designer of that cartoon hasn’t even thought one step into the problem.

  36. Prof MTH says

    What we need are more secular private schools.

    We do; they are misnamed “public schools”.

    Since most public schools are funded by tax dollars (usually property taxes) collected at a city or smaller–district–level, then all schools are private schools. If you want your child to go to a better “public” school then you must either apply for a waiver or move. Moving requires being able to purchase a home and the ability to pay taxes on that home in the other school district. For the poor, this is not an option. While the schools may be funded by public tax dollars how those taxes are collected a distributed makes the “public” schools private.

    This is one reason why we should nationalize education. That and so that curriculum is standardized for every child in every school. Individual schools cannot “teach the controversy”.

  37. says

    AnthropicOne – I have no interest in having a debate on a public blog post, but if you’d like to email me directly, I’d be happy to discuss my viewpoint with you.

    thanks!
    Zach

  38. Aramael Musitello says

    Why is there still a controversy? Really. One of my earliest memories is from when I was, like, five or something, running into some dipshit who believed in Adam and Eve. I forgive him, because he was a child, but how can adults have these beliefs? I really don’t understand it.

    I really don’t.

    I mean, I really, really, really don’t. How can this crap survive?

    You believers, you think I’m arrogant and insensitive right now, but I don’t really care, because (a) I don’t think your pathetic beliefs shape reality, and (b) you’re wrong, and that’s all there is to it.

    (Aramael fans herself and attempts to calm down, but the stupid! it burns!)

  40. anthropicOne says

    Clown @35,

    WTF? What are you smoking? Learn some science first before posting such blather.

  41. says

    Next time you get sick or in a serious accident, stay away from those biology and evolution driven MDs and see a faith healer.

    Oh, but you know how it works. Science is evil, but cool modern gadgets are not product of science, but of engineers, so it’s ok if they use them. And evolution is of the devil, but modern medicine is not made by evolutionists, but by hard working, God-inspired chemists, or something, so that’s ok too. They always have an out.

    Oh, and since this thread is already about comics, is it ok if I plug my quite on-topic and tasty one? ;)

  42. Prof MTH says

    Now with Venter Institute’s incorporation of ‘watermarks’ in its artificial genome, ID detection is now an issue in biology, if it wasn’t already. Unless you have a scientific method to detect ID, you’re not even in the game when it comes to forensics, SETI, archeology and biology.

    Everything you claimed there was refuted by David Hume almost 250 years ago. That is one old, dead, rotting, rank horse you keep trying to ride.

  43. bonefish says

    Pleco @ #22:

    ROFLMSAO

    that is a keyboard drencher.

    Clown, ID as in Intelligent Design, dig?

  44. anthropicOne says

    Zach @37,

    I called you on a “public” statement you made, essentially clarifying your comic. If you don’t wish to respond to my comment publicly, then live with it. I couldn’t care less.

  45. MartinM says

    ID detection is a key component of forensic science, SETI and archeology for starters.

    Only if you’re willing to equivocate on the meaning of the term ID. ID in the general sense of ‘someone intelligently designed something’ is relevant to those fields. ID in the specific form that is actually under discussion here has nothing whatsoever to offer.

  47. Yossarian says

    A friend of mine who’s a biomechanical engineer put it perfectly: anyone who believes in intelligent design should be prohibited from using any technology or receiving any medical treatment or other therapy developed as a result of molecular biology research.

    I take a more Draconian view; such people should be prohibited from using any technology or receiving any medical treatment or other therapy developed after 1859. Let creationists enjoy the world as they would have it, and let them have the 45-year life expectancy that goes with it.

  48. Richard Harris says

    Clown, Unless you have a scientific method to detect ID, you’re not even in the game when it comes to forensics, SETI, archeology and biology.

    Yes, but the only evidence for ID that we have is mostly for human intelligence as the designer, and for other terrestrial animals in a few limited cases. Otherwise, there’s no evidence for ID, according to all the tools, philosophical, scientific, archeological, etc. that we have at our disposal. Calling for a scientific ID detector in terms of detecting ID in the genome is, well, clownish.

    Would you call for atheists to develop a scientific god detector before we claim that the putative existence of any gods has a negligible probability?

  50. The Clown says

    ProfMTH@42: Would you repeat that old Hume chestnut to SETI scientists, or forensic scientists, or archeologists? If you think Hume proved that nothing requires ID (including software, essays, intelligent signals from deep space), then you are badly mistaken.

    MartinM: I don’t know what your definition of ID is, but the one I’ve seen that makes sense to me is ‘an effect that requires a mind to produce’. So a paper out of a journal is an example of ID. Most of the time we don’t get into a lather when someone shows us something made by humans and says it required intelligence, or a mind, to design. We would get excited if SETI found an ID-positive signal from another planetary system. There is no a priori reason why ID is verboten when it comes to the origin of life. Life may or may not have required ID … we just don’t know until we’ve applied some scientific test to see if ID is required, exactly as we would have to do with an alien radio signal from deep space. I don’t see anyone doing the science on the problem of distinguishing ID effects from effects that require no mind. This isn’t a problem just specific to biology; a general method to detect ID should be applicable to forensics, SETI, archeology and Venter Institute’s ‘watermarks’.

  51. Nerd of Redhead says

    Clown, when ID is used as an abreviation at this site it usually means Intelligent Design. Your reply makes no sense if it means Intelligent Design as it is just handwaving. Again, can you supply some proof that ID is scientific? A link to a scientific paper, say from Nature or Science, would serve you well.

  52. Chayanov says

    As an archaeologist I can say that the clown is talking nonsense. I also note that while he’s really hung up on signals from deep space, he hasn’t offered any examples of archaeological ID detection. For one thing, archaeologists are pretty upfront about the identity of the designers of artifacts — people — and IDists are not. Knowing whether a piece of stone was worked intentionally or broken through natural causes requires knowing how lithics are worked by humans. As humans, we can do experimental archaeology to test our hypotheses about flintknapping. Where oh where are the ID hypotheses and experiments?

  53. Nerd of Redhead says

    Clown, according to the ID people only god is the intellignet designer. Your definition appears to allow humans and/or aliens to be the intelligent designers. OK, how was the first intelligent designer made?

  55. Aramael says

    Clown: the reason we don’t like to invoke ID for evolution is because it’s simply not necessary. This planet has been in existence for over four billion years; no human brain can comprehend such a length of time; but luckily, we can model it, and you know what? Natural selection works. Get over it.

  56. The Clown says

    Nerd of Redhead, when I use the term ‘ID’ I am referring to Intelligent Design, which I define as follows:

    Intelligent Design: an effect which requires a mind to produce.

    The term can also be used in the sense of a method or process as in, ‘she used intelligent design to build a novel protein’, meaning that she used her intelligent mind and knowledge of protein folding to design and build a novel protein (the effect). In that case, the novel protein would be an example of ID (Intelligent Design), as opposed to invoking mindless natural processes to explain the protein, or laptop computer, etc.

    So, regarding the question as to whether the origin of life required ID, it simply means, did the origin of life an effect that required a mind to produce. That seems to be what all the controversy is about. Trouble is, the people who are insisting one way or the other do not have any method whatsoever to test biological life (or a SETI signal, etc.) to see if it is ID positive.

  57. Patricia says

    Sven – You guys still battling on the old threads sure have endurance! That fool needed some blahs. The one we had last night made me furious. *grin*
    Now here’s Clown spinning fairy tales.
    I’m waiting for the bible evidence, then the blahs start.;)

  58. DrFrank says

    ID in biology comes down to “I don’t know wot did it, so god did it”. That’s basically Dembski’s entire ‘explanatory filter’ is non-obfuscated terms.

    If you could point out any sensible ways in which the detection of agency has been applied to biology, I’m sure we’d critique them for you. Simply drawing bad analogies with other fields doesn’t cut it, I’m afraid.

  59. freelunch says

    Clown, if you redefine words to mean what you want them to mean, you end up misrepresenting what the DI is doing. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson has already told us what he thinks of this.

  60. Chiroptera says

    The Clown, #35: Before we can talk about whether or not ID was involved in the origin of life, we’d better have a method to identify it.

    Hey, we agree on something! So, since we don’t have a method to identify ID in genomes, Dembski, Behe, and the other clowns (sorry, no offense) at the Discovery Insitute and the Boards of Education in Florida should stop talking about it.

  61. DrFrank says

    Trouble is, the people who are insisting one way or the other do not have any method whatsoever to test biological life (or a SETI signal, etc.) to see if it is ID positive.
    Actually, it is quite simple to imagine what an intelligent SETI signal might look like, but what would an intelligently designed genome look? I could imagine, and it would look nothing like extant biology.

    Also, I would point out that no ones come up with a way to test the presence of magical pixies in biological entities, and therefore I strongly believe that we should all be enormously agnostic on the subject, to the point of teaching magical pixie theory in schools.

  62. Prof MTH says

    Clown, if you redefine words to mean what you want them to mean, you end up misrepresenting what the DI is doing.

    His/her name is “The Clown”. Why are we taking him/her seriously? S/he is tying verbal balloon animals for us to pop.

  65. Richard Harris says

    Clown, if something that is posited does not actually exist, (other than cases of a well-defined instance of something, such as the ether, or an elephant in the room), for instance, unicorns, or fairies at the bottom of the garden, or gods, then it’s not possible to prove their non-existence. This applies to ID, as understood here to be Creationism. So your ID detector is nonsensical.

  66. frog says

    TheClown: ID detection is a key component of forensic science, SETI and archeology for starters.

    Ha, ha, ha, ha! Ha, hahahaha, ha, ha! Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah!
    Hahaha! Hahahahahahaaaaaaa!

    I think I may have pulled something there.

    Now that I’ve caught my breath, let me explain to you a little something about science. “ID detection” is an empty phrase – it has no theoretical structure to test. What folks in sciences like archeology do is detect a specific kind of intelligence – a human intelligence within a cultural horizon with a given set of technological tools.

    Now you’ll say “But SETI!!”. Well, why do you think SETI has been incapable of detecting intelligence? Because they have that very problem – they’re trying to detect a very amorphous kind of intelligence and lack the necessary constraints to be able to identify a specific “something”, without reference to anything but “high technology” and “computable”.

    Now, what does that mean for an abstract “ID”? That only an absolute cretin would advance that as some kind of theoretical structure to be studied. The ID “for biology” isn’t even an intelligence constrained by general rules of computation, but an “any intelligence”, unconstrained even by the laws of physics. So, complete gobbledy-gook devoid of any meaning.

    Really, learn a little science before trying such a clownish line of attack. At least try to posit a highly-constrained (and plausible) class of intelligences to test, and biologists would be more than happy to look for it. But “nothing that designs” — as I said, cretinous (or insane).

  67. DrFrank says

    Now that’s what I call sacrilege!
    I also do an encore where I tapdance on a pile of Eucharists.

  68. JoJo says

    SETI or Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence assumes intelligence on the part of whomever is sending out radio signals. Hence the name. SETI does not assume that some deity is signaling to the universe in general. ID as generally understood is not part of SETI, just like ID is not part of listening to the BBC World Service.

  69. Joe says

    Clown: I am really curious: can you please reveal the identity of your university, with its “senior immunologist” who is an ID’r? You need not out him (or yourself).
    At any major university, there are scores of professors in biological disciplines. The number of these who support creationism or ID, at any such institution, I would assert, is between zero and one.

  71. MartinM says

    Well, why do you think SETI has been incapable of detecting intelligence? Because they have that very problem – they’re trying to detect a very amorphous kind of intelligence and lack the necessary constraints to be able to identify a specific “something”, without reference to anything but “high technology” and “computable”.

    To be fair to SETI, their approach isn’t quite as unconstrained as you suggest. By and large, they assume that ET is similar to ourselves in goals, strategies and technology. In essence, they look for the kind of signal we would like to be able to send. This is precisely the kind of constraint which is forbidden in IDC, of course; no speculation about the designer’s motives or abilities is allowed.

  72. The Clown says

    Chayanov@#52: By your comments, I assume you are just starting first year archeology this past week. Here are two examples. I was looking at a display of some chert samples that an archeologist claimed were made by humans. To me they looked like something that could easily be produced by mindless natural processes, nevertheless, the archeologist argued that they were man-made and based that argument on the basis that they were actually anomalous within the range of what we would expect nature to produce (a re-occurring principle I’ve noticed in forensics, SETI, etc. when it comes to identifying effects that required design). She especially pointed out the edges to bolster the argument. The second case had to do with the trace provided by ground penetrating radar on the sea floor of the Mediterranean. The trace showed what looked like a wall buried under the muck of the sea floor. So once again we were faced with the problem of whether this effect was a product of design, or of mindless natural processes. A geologist was called in and he explained why he believed it was actually a lava dike and not a human artifact.

    Nerd of Redhead@#53: How was the first intelligent agent made? That question is not even relevant to the discussion of whether an effect requires a mind or not. Let us say I showed you a laptop computer and you said, ‘well how was the first intelligent agent made?’ What has that got to do with whether or not a laptop, or a SETI signal, or possible sunken city wall, or the genetic information to encode a protein requires a mind? Ultimately, it is an interesting question, and I don’t think the answer is ’42’. When we look for natural explanations for an effect and work backwards, we arrive at the ultimate question, ‘what is the natural explanation for the origin of natural explanations?’ At that point, logic dictates that there cannot be a natural explanation for natural explanations, for we cannot assume nature to explain how it came into existence; that would be a circular fallacy. We can invoke quantum fluctuations at the event horizon of a previous universe, which itself was spawned by a previous one, etc., but we cannot invoke an infinite regression, so we are still stuck with the ultimate question of ‘what is the natural explanation for natural explanations?’. It is a circular fallacy to assume the existence of nature in order to explain how nature came about. But that is not the issue here.

    Contrary to what Aramael asserted, we do not have a natural method to generate a novel protein family. We cannot even build a completely novel, average length protein (around 300 amino acids) in the lab without using an extant protein as a model. We cannot even come up with evolutionary algorithms that can do it (and our evolutionary algorithms do require a lot of ID in designing the proper fitness function). Let’s see your model. The best one I know of is AVIDA and the fitness function in that one did require intelligence to program. Even then, it generated a pathetic 32 bits, using 2 and 4 bit jumps, ridiculously unrealistic when it comes to the fitness increments of building real proteins.

    Anyway, it is Friday and time to quit slacking off from work and get home. It’s been fun stirring the pot a bit here. I’ve seen a lot of ID people who don’t know sweet tweet about what they are talking about, but I don’t see that things are any better here. Have a great weekend.

  74. Prof MTH says

    Clown: I am really curious: can you please reveal the identity of your university, with its “senior immunologist” who is an ID’r?

    My guess:
    Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College

    The “senior immunologist” is the person who gives the animals their vaccines protecting them from disease while traveling in cages.

  75. anthropicOne says

    Is it just me, or has it become rather clear that Clown suffers from some kind of mental impairment?

    I was beginning to craft a rather lengthy retort to the insane drivel posted in #72, then decided there really is no point.

  76. Nibien says

    Is it just me, or has it become rather clear that Clown suffers from some kind of mental impairment?

    I think it’s rather obvious he does, at the very least he’s so woefully misinformed and ignorant of the subject he makes me cringe.

    Either way, I don’t know why people are taking him seriously. It’s like Kenny2.0

  78. Nerd of Redhead says

    Clown, my question regarding the how the first designer came about was very appropriate. If intelligence is required to make a protein, then the intelligence must be present before the protein. At some point, there had to be the first intelligence. I am trying to get you to show your analysis of what made the first intelligence. For example, you could posit god as the first intelligence. But then the burden of proof showing god exists is upon you. Or, you could presume the first intelligence evolved. In which case the rest of your argument is bogus. In any case, you need to do much more than a little rhetorical hand-waving to convince this crowd.
    Now, can you give a rational answer to the question of how the first intelligence came about? If you dodge it again, we have your number.

  79. Ktesibios says

    Clown’s arguments have a very familiar format. Anyone interested in seeing a clearly related species in the wild need only go over to the James Randi Educational Foundation forum and browse the “9/11 Conspiracy Theories” subforum for a while.

    The combination of argument from illegitimate authority, inability to understand the claims they parrot and endless repetition of the same talking point are absolutely characteristic of the “AE911T” variety of twoofer.

    So, SETI’s problem is in defining a rigorous test for the technological-society origin of a radio signal based on its observable characteristics. What rigorous test for detecting the intervention of an intelligent designer in a biological system, based on its observable characteristics, is there or can be?

    “I know it when I see it” might be good enough for a jurist struggling for a definition of “obscenity”, but it will never pass muster as science.

  80. BobC says

    There is a professor on my campus who is pro-ID as well as a senior immunologist. So representing ID people as this comic does is not being entirely honest.

    Translation: There is a professor on my campus who is pro-MAGIC as well as a senior immunologist. So representing MAGIC people as this comic does is not being entirely honest.

    Your professor who is a proponent of magic is an idiot and a disgrace to the human race. He needs to grow up. There is no magic in this universe. Only retards believe in magic.

  81. Nerd of Redhead says

    Semi OT, Project Seti@Home has just started sending out their Astropulse signals for analysis. This covers a much larger bandwidth than the previous signals.

  82. BobC says

    Is it just me, or has it become rather clear that Clown suffers from some kind of mental impairment?

    I never met a creationist who wasn’t at least a little bit insane. Whatever they call their creation myth, intelligent design or creation science, it’s still nothing more than a childish belief in magic. There’s no excuse for believing this crap in the 21st century. To be a creationist requires insanity and breathtaking stupidity.

  83. Ranxerox says

    Would it be more efficient for the uber-poster here to exercise their verbal and mental gymnastics posting onto sites where the offensive ones tend to flock. Preaching-to-the-choir seems more of an ego massage than an attempt at educating the masses, no?

    I suspect many of you do but… just making an observation as a result of my frustration of the attitudes on both sides of this argument. Being right, about something, does not give one the right to rip-a-strip out of someone of a different opinion. Make your arguments and counter arguments without insults. That is what I would expect from truly intelligent posters.

    I deal with my teenager like an adult even though he does some very childish things. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, you know what I mean.

    Are the ID sites too effective at blocking intelligent posts? I don’t know. I haven’t been playing this game very long. I suspect play time is near over for me anyways.

    Don’t get me too wrong, there is certainly some entertainment value here but that begs another question.

    Anyways…

    There are three types of people in this world, those that can count… and those that can’t.

  86. BobC says

    Make your arguments and counter arguments without insults.

    As if a creationist retard has ever been able to understand anything. They just need to know that everyone else thinks they’re nuts and they will never be allowed to stick their hopeless stupidity into science education.

  88. James F says

    Zach @29 wrote:

    Just to clarify – this is meant as more an attack on the idea that ID is a program of forward-moving research in itself than an attack on creationists as being able to do good science. That’s an untenable attack, and I wouldn’t make it.

    I enjoyed your comic, Zach, but, with additional clarification, I have to disagree with you that it is an “untenable attack.” Let’s examine the facts:

    1) “Creation science” and intelligent design have failed to produce a single peer-reviewed scientific research paper presenting data supporting their claims. To grasp the enormity of this, consider that the National Library of Medicine has roughly SEVENTEEN MILLION citations currently indexed in its public database.

    2) Creationism and ID are fundamentally nonscientific because they a) invoke supernatural causation and b) start with a conclusion and try to find evidence to support that conclusion, not the other way around.

    In short, when scientists attempt to perform “creation science” or “intelligent design research,” they cannot be doing good science. They may very well be able to do valid scientific research (for example, Scott Minnich’s work on Yersinia pestis), but once they try to do work that involves creationism/ID, they are doomed to fail.

  89. Kvetch says

    Are the ID sites too effective at blocking intelligent posts? I don’t know. I haven’t been playing this game very long. I suspect play time is near over for me anyways.

    Many pro-ID sites actively filter comments before they may appear.

  90. meschlum says

    Having worked for SETI, I can confirm that the latest ‘definition’ provided by the Clown is entirely inapplicable to the problem.

    SETI *is* looking for extra-terrestrial intelligence. However, being resource constrained, and sane, they make a number of assumptions about what they are looking for.

    – The other guy is actively trying to be detected, by people at our tech level.
    – The other guy is bound by physics and resource management.
    – The other guy has our technological level or more.

    Under all those assumptions, it makes sense to study the electromagnetic spectrum.

    * We can detect it
    * It propagates quickly (speed of light) and cheaply through space
    * It’s a technology we could use

    Even so, a generic message would be too noisy to detect, and interpret as a signal – so we need to make more assumptions about what others are doing.

    * Are they using lasers (high range, but hard to catch if not aimed) or radio (lower range, easier to catch and identify carrier waves)?
    – Currently SETI projects work on the radio assumption.

    * Are they trying to communicate a complex signal (library of congress) or simply be found (beacon)?
    – Currently, SETI projects are looking for beacons, because that is all we can detect.

    * Do they have the lifespans and resources to be detected?
    – SETI assumes they do.

    So all of this boils down to SETI making some fairly narrow assumptions and definitions of Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (Earth does not qualify, currently). And *then* they work on ways to detect it (noise processing algorithms to extract carrier wave signals from noise, physics to determine which wavelengths and methods are most likely to be employed, modeling to determine how best to use and combine telescopes and processing to extract data…).

    SETI knows what it’s looking for (though this may change if we learn more), knows how to look for it (though the methods are improving), and knows how to tell if it’s wrong (a few false signals have been found, and identified as such).

    ID? Not so much.

    And defining ID as anything that is done by intelligence is just begging the question, anyway. Since a non standard definition of ID is involved, it’s best to be sure of the definition of intelligence as well.

    For SETI, intelligence is owning huge radio telescopes and using them to send a beacon out into space. But at least they are up front about their definition of the same.

    Now, if ID were to use that definition, I can *guarantee* that nothing you see on earth is ID. The antennas are too small, when they are involved at all.

  91. Patricia says

    #83 – More than half the regular commenter’s here, I’ll bet, wouldn’t get two posts in on a fundie blog. Why are you complaining? This is a highly diverse, multinational and open minded community.

  92. David Marjanović, OM says

    Does anybody know what textbooks would be used for ID or creationism in a middle school. The new local charter school is having an open house so I wanted to check to see if they were using anything “odd”.

    Open the book and read. It’s always fairly obvious.

    Before we can talk about whether or not ID was involved in the origin of life, we’d better have a method to identify it.

    This is an error.

    Suppose we have a case where we can’t tell if somethinng either evolved or was designed. In that case, evolution wins by default. This is called Ockham’s Razor: no more entities than necessary should be assumed. If you don’t need to assume a designer, you shouldn’t.

    And no, a designer isn’t necessary. Mutation, selection and drift work.

    Where else would you start? At the hypothesis that requires the greatest possible number of extra assumptions?

    There is no a priori reason why ID is verboten when it comes to the origin of life.

    It isn’t forbidden. It just isn’t necessary.

  94. BobC says

    Ranxerox asked me “So what is your motivation to post here?”

    My last comment was a response to your suggestion that people shouldn’t insult creationists. If I understood you correctly, you were suggesting people should try to reason with creationists. My reply was to point out the obvious fact that reasoning with a brain-dead idiot accomplishes nothing. Creationists are a lot like terrorists. It’s pointless to reason with terrorists and it’s pointless to reason with creationists. So our soldiers kill the terrorists, and I point and laugh at the creationists.

  96. says

    Here are two examples. I was looking at a display of some chert samples that an archeologist claimed were made by humans. To me they looked like something that could easily be produced by mindless natural processes, nevertheless, the archeologist argued that they were man-made and based that argument on the basis that they were actually anomalous within the range of what we would expect nature to produce (a re-occurring principle I’ve noticed in forensics, SETI, etc. when it comes to identifying effects that required design). She especially pointed out the edges to bolster the argument.

    There are such things as eoliths, chert nodules that have the appearance of anthropogenic stone tools but are actually the result of certain processes of erosion and glaciation. To the untrained eye (AKA me in 1996) they are hard to distinguish from the real thing. However, since their existence has been known since the 1880s, they have been extensively studied and experimented upon, and the processes that produce them are now well understood.

    By your comments, I assume you are just starting first year archeology this past week.

    There is nothing in Chayanov’s comment to indicate that s/he is not a working archaeologist, and Clown’s response instead only demonstrates that s/he himself/herself is aptly named.

    But by all means Clown, please continue to pursue the “I saw some stone tools, once” line of bullshit argumentation, if only because refuting such stupidity is one of the least taxing activities one can undertake on a Friday afternoon.

  97. Ranxerox says

    Patricia,

    Just the mood I am in today I guess. I would say it was that time of the month but I am male. Time for my testosterone shot :)

    Some people can come across as intelligent and then they go into a mode I call High-School. As in, “that was very highschool of you”.

    Just another observation I have made over the years. People may grow up but some of their attitudes get stuck in the highschool mentality. They may have been cool or popular back then, leaving a lingering effect on them.

  98. David Marjanović, OM says

    Are the ID sites too effective at blocking intelligent posts?

    Well… yes. Most of the regular commenters here are banned at Uncommon Descent (Dembski’s blog). People who are banned there are removed together with everything they ever wrote.

    There are three types of people in this world, those that can count… and those that can’t.

    There are 10 types of people in the world: those who know binary, and those who don’t.

    ——————–

    So, Clown. And now explain Stupid Design. You know, all those design flaws in life, like why you were born through a bony ring, or why DNA is used as the material of heredity even though DNA falls apart when stored in water. Or why vertebrate eyes are inside-out. That kind of thing.

    We’re waiting. Lots of ID proponents have come to this blog, and not one has been able to give an explanation.

  100. Ranxerox says

    BobC #94,

    I am quite clear on the fact that creationists enjoy their illusions and prefer to keep them that way.

    How about the fence-sitters, is that why you are here today then?

    Or do you just feel better after you insult someone?

  101. David Marjanović, OM says

    It’s pointless to reason with terrorists

    Oh, that depends. For example on whether they want to die.

  102. CortxVortx says

    Re: #10

    There is a professor on my campus who is pro-ID as well as a senior immunologist.

    The Clown, your Egnorance is showing.

  104. Ranxerox says

    So this is just a place to vent then, and at best a place to get a sense of where ones head sits w.r.t the rest of the blogging planet.

    OK, it is just entertainment then. Nothing really gained, just ego massaging.

    I guess the problem of posting on ID sites is unresolvable? We need someone on the inside.

  105. Patricia says

    Ranxerox – Yes, I know lots of folks stuck in high shool also. I’m holding on to ignorant slut/barnyard/tavern.

  106. negentropyeater says

    So this is just a place to vent then

    No it’s not only a place to vent. It’s also a place to learn, unless one has decided of course that one doesn’t need to learn anything.

  107. Nerd of Redhead says

    Clown is slippery troll, so he will probably be back for the Rev. and Patricia to get a bite into. After all, he hasn’t declared victory yet.
    Ranxerox, you might notice that PZ doesn’t delete very many posts. My understanding is that all creationist/ID fora delete any arguments that might damage their way of thinking. Here, as long as one is reasonably polite and doesn’t get too repetitive, you are in no danger of being sent to the dungeon. Enjoy the show, or join in as you can.

  109. BobC says

    How about the fence-sitters

    They can sit on their fence the rest of their lives. They are not anyone else’s responsibility.

    I suggest that anyone living in the 21st century who is undecided about whether or not magic is required to explain the diversity of life is almost as brain-dead as any hopelessly stupid creationist. Let them study science on their own. If they can’t do that, they’re a waste of time.

    Or do you just feel better after you insult someone?

    I wish there were no creationists to insult. Imagine a world where a biology teacher could teach evolution without a Christian asshole harassing him and/or threatening him. I insult creationists for the same reason I insult terrorists. They are scum and the world would be better off without them.

  111. says

    No, Ranxerox, this is not simply a place to vent about stupid IDers. ID is not the only topic up for discussion here. This thread may be aimed at laughing at the stupidity of many of ID’s claims, but that doesn’t mean that a great deal of serious discussion hasn’t ever been had, or will be had on the topic. Keep in mind, this is also a place for likeminded people to discuss issues and debate them. And, remember, you have stumbled upon a thread listed under “Humor” you know.

    Also bear in mind, that we are inundated with ID proponents and evolution deniers. Daily. Nearly every thread has a troll looking to crush us with their vast knowledge when in fact it’s always the same damn debunked claims arrogantly spouted. Stick around and you may get a little irritated at it too. If you truly are as new to this as you state, then don’t be so quick to judge. While the behavior of some doesn’t represent us all, you may find that even those who are irritated have good reason to be.

  113. negentropyeater says

    I’m a Creationist,

    I don’t get it.

    That might have to do with having suffered intense brainwashing and still not being able to realise it.

  114. says

    So this is just a place to vent then, and at best a place to get a sense of where ones head sits w.r.t the rest of the blogging planet.

    OK, it is just entertainment then. Nothing really gained, just ego massaging.

    Watch the unwarranted conclusions, Ranxerox. Many people come here for the community and the science. I don’t know about fence-sitters, but quite a few commenters have said they’ve learned a lot about biology by coming here (and others learn that the threat to decent science and science education by the willful and not-so-willful ignorant is much more widespread than previously thought.)

    The voraciousness with which trolls are attacked and dismembered comes less from a high school mentality than sheer exhaustion from having to field the same questions by the ignorance-proud. Imagine working as a surgeon in the ER and having an constant parade of holistic new age healers march through your operating room and smugly comment that they saw an operation on TV in which the patient died and their aunt told them that she once used a poultice to treat her arthritis and therefore your gunshot wound patient should be treated with Echinacea rather than surgery.

    Stick around long enough, and you’ll soon see why disingenuous trolls are given short shrift and little courtesy by many here.

    I guess the problem of posting on ID sites is unresolvable? We need someone on the inside.

    Lots here do while they can, at least until they’re silenced by the “teach the controversy” censors.

  117. negentropyeater says

    Lots here do while they can, at least until they’re silenced by the “teach the controversy” censors.

    Which goes very quickly. My personal experience is that it’s a waste of time.

    It took me 2 comments to get censored by uncommondescent. And I was just asking questions, but they didn’t like them.

    if I remember correctly, I asked : do you think ID has any value as a scientific endeavor if it refuses to explain who is the designer and how it came about ?
    I didn’t even say “how it evolved”, thinking that they might not like it, but they just didn’t like the question and claimed that it wasn’t relevant.
    So I asked why it’s not relevant, and they dodged me.

    Go ID !

  118. anthropicOne says

    It took me 2 comments to get censored by uncommondescent. And I was just asking questions, but they didn’t like them.

    This says a lot. Any time a group feels threatened and/or wants to dominate, it censors. Theocracies are famous for this, as are totalitarian regimes.

    Simple minds fear the exposing light of reason.

  119. Patricia says

    Better have a Cheeborger too.
    I’m having my first black ox-heart tomato if the year with cream cheese/fresh basil stuffed nasturtium flowers. Expected eggplants by now, but nooooooooo May was too cold.

  121. says

    Better have a Cheeborger too.
    I’m having my first black ox-heart tomato if the year with cream cheese/fresh basil stuffed nasturtium flowers. Expected eggplants by now, but nooooooooo May was too cold.

    damn that sounds good. No cheeseburgers as the rain, what little there is, is keeping me off the grill.

    Maybe tomorrow.

  122. Patricia says

    My folks brought me in a box of bartlett and bosc pears today. So Sunday I’m gonna bake pear/blueberry pie. Man is it good!

  123. Nerd of Redhead says

    Rev, I understand booooring. We had the remnants of Gustav meander over my area in the last couple of days. Steady light drizzle interspersed with hard drizzle. Yawn. Did the tomatoes some good though.
    Pear and blueberry pie? Sounds interesting. I’m sure the Redhead would like it.

  124. Lee Picton says

    With deepest apologies to MAJeff:
    Someone has to do it to The Clown.
    Blah, blah, blah, blahblah,blah. ID. Blech. SETI. blah. blah,blah. OK I feel better.

  125. 2-D Man says

    Are the ID sites too effective at blocking intelligent posts?

    I’ve tried to post on one. Interestingly enough, only the arguments that the poster didn’t understand made it through. When I explained myself in simple terms, I would typically get blocked. I eventually gave up, told the owner what an asshole he was being and haven’t been back since.

  126. ngong says

    This is where ID takes you. You get bogged down debating philosophical propositions like, “until we have a mathematics capable of design detection, the ID/evolution debate will never be settled.” Tedious BS.

  127. ngong says

    Are the ID sites too effective at blocking intelligent posts?

    Yes. It’s supposed to disprove evolution, I think. Survival of the moronic-est.

  128. Patricia says

    Firstshowing.com is reviewing Religulos as brilliant. They describe the ending as something the fundies will really hate. Good!

  129. Max Verret says

    Re: Cardinal @9

    “There is no controversy in the science community”

    What planet is this guy living on.

    “Textbooks written by the religiously motivated have no place in the classroom.”

    So, classroom science texts should be written only by atheist?

    Cindy McCain and VP nominee Sarah Palin are going to get you Cardinal.

  130. says

    religiously motivated

    Read before you speak Max.

    And please provide evidence that there is any controversy in the scientific community over the fact of evolution.

    Otherwise, quit making a fool of yourself on our time.

  131. tim Rowledge says

    The cartoon puts me in mind of a bumper sticker
    “If you think education is too expensive I guess you can’t read this”

  132. BobC says

    I remember Max Verret. He’s been here before and he has already proved beyond any doubt he’s a shit-for-brains god-soaked asshole.

  134. amphiox says

    Clown: Forensics, SETI and archeology all hypothesize a priori the specific nature of the intelligent agency whose actions they are looking for. Such hypotheses are falsifiable. It is possible to determine that an intelligent agent with such and such capabilities, the following motivations, access to these resources and these tools, was not involved in the phenomenon of interest. (Capabilities insufficient, motivation lacking, resources not available, available tools ruled out)

    But ID deliberately avoids committing to the nature of their supposed intelligent designer. This kind of “intelligent design” is not falsifiable, as any natural process allowable by the laws of nature can be exactly replicated by an intelligence given sufficient time to figure out the details, resources to make it happen, and motivation to actually do it. If you don’t specify your designer, you cannot distinguish natural processes from designed ones.

    Old-school creationism is more honest. They actually do specify their designer. And their hypothesis has been falsified. The evidence clearly shows that no entity with the specific attributes ascribed to the deity of the Christian bible had any hand in the creation of life on earth.

    Thus old-school creationism is at best failed science, perhaps of some historical interest. Modern ID is not science at all, and never has been. Its proponents dare not make it one, because they know that the instant they do, it will be thoroughly falsified. Their agenda is the spreading of a falsehood, and has nothing to do with science.

    Intelligence is certainly capable of designing and modifying life. Humans have been doing it for at least 10 000 years. But intelligence is not necessary to explain the emergence of life on earth. Furthermore, the features of life on earth clearly rule out the involvement of any intelligence with psychology or motivations remotely similar to humans. When we look at life on earth at its most fundamental levels, the most striking thing of all is that no human or human-like intelligence would ever attempt to design in this fashion.

    Finally, we know that intelligence can emerge from life, but currently we have no evidence of any possible mechanism by which intelligence can arise without life. If we are to postulate intelligence having a role in the creation of life in general, we would need such a mechanism to avoid an infinite regress.

  135. raven says

    Max V. the wannabe mass murderer:

    Re: Cardinal @9

    “There is no controversy in the science community”

    What planet is this guy living on.

    “Textbooks written by the religiously motivated have no place in the classroom.”

    So, classroom science texts should be written only by atheist?

    Cindy McCain and VP nominee Sarah Palin are going to get you Cardinal.

    There is no controversy in the scientific community. Acceptance of evolution runs around 99% for relevant scientists with the few dissenters freely admitting that they do so solely on religous grounds. It is higher than 99% overseas.

    No, classrooms science books shouldn’t be written by atheists. Or xians. or dogs. They should be written by real, qualified scientists. An atheistic, xian, dog would do nicely providing he has the degrees, experience, desire, and writing skills.

    Cindy McCain and VP nominee Sarah Palin are going to get you Cardinal.

    Oooh, A Threat. Boring, we’ve heard xian cultists threaten to kill us way too many times. It would be even more boring if they didn’t occasionally fire, beat up, and in one case, actually stabbed to death scientists.

    So, what’s the plan Max? Head shots and bombs like the MD assassins? Burning at the stake, too traditional IMO. Gas chambers, naw, been done once too often. This is the 21st century, maybe just a few years of torture at Gitmo or Kansas followed by the usual “heart failure”.

    I wouldn’t worry about Sarah Palin. She will be too busy helping god with the apocalypse and killing 6.7 billion people to bother with scientists. Unless they taste like moose. A few thousand nukes dropped on the other nuclear powers should work nicely.

    Have a nice night and god bless while you dream of piles of emaciated corpses of what was once the world’s greatest collection of brainpower who brought everyone the 21st century. Because xianity is a religion of peace and tolerance.

  136. says

    There is no controversy in the science community”

    What planet is this guy living on.

    Um, what planted are you living on.

    There is no controversy in the scientific community. A few disgruntled outcasts to not make a controversy.

  138. shonny says

    Idea of cartoon good, execution not so good.
    Why have a blackfella doctor?
    African tribal medicine man implied??
    Fat, pale white godfucker would be preferable.
    (Roland Barthes Fan Club, Australia)

  139. Clemens says

    Good cartoon ^^.

    An attempt to undermine the creationism BS would be to teach people at another, unsuspicious occasion, how science really works, e.g. what are theories, hypothesis, evidence, falsifiability, what’s the burden of proof, Ockham’s razor, what does peer review mean and why is it so important, etc.

    Isn’t it that in the average science class the style of teaching is exactly the same as in Sunday school? IMHO it is not made clear enough in which way the laws of nature differ from the religious doctrines, so to the people who avoid advanced science classes in their further education can’t tell the difference between a physics teacher saying “Opposite charges attract each other” and a preacher saying “God made the earth in six days”, or some astrologer saying “Jupiter aligns with Mars, you’ll come to money today”.

    I mean, I study physics and even I did not get taught at the university what Ockham’s razor, falsifiability, hypothesis, theory etc. really mean.

    But if people are made aware of how knowledge is gained through science, what a theory really is, how it develops and how the scientific community reaches consensus, they are much less vulnerable to superstition.

  141. Patricia says

    My chickens lay blue eggs that are infested with alien Bigfoot DNA that landed here 4000 years ago only to be defeated by archangel brothers of Satan.

    BUT

    I have threatened to sacrifice them all, said 12 Hale Mary’s, 44 Our Father’s and genuflected 7X7. Fear not children, all is well.
    So now you may all donate to the holy church of Our Mother of Bullshit in full confidence that you will, for $19.95 go to heaven. Amen

  142. Sleeping at the Consle says

    If ID is to replace the theory of evolution, then surely it must account for everything the theory of evolution does, that is the facts of evolution, and include even more, and I’d wager it would include the origin of life as well.

    So, what is this new and improved theory of the origins and the evolution of life they call “ID”? What are the hypotheses? What’s the evidence? What predictions can be made?

  144. Fernando Magyar says

    Ranxerox, re is this just a place to vent?

    If you haven’t already I would suggest checking out
    A Taste of Pharyngula
    (Complete listing)

    As a lay person with a keen interest in the biological sciences I can’t think of better place than this blog to be exposed to some of the best minds in the field discussing the science of biology. I am also truly convinced that we are engaged in a war (I do not use that word lightly) of ideas with some very powerful interests. I find myself firmly in the camp of those who prefer reality and personal responsibility as opposed to a world view that believes in the magic of an all loving sky daddy.

    As for venting and ridiculing these morons and watching them being torn to shreds by much better minds than my own, sure it is a pleasure and a priviledge! It also gives me some personal enjoyment and quite often brings a smile to my otherwise somber countenance.

    Vent away my friend.

  145. negentropyeater says

    Rev.

    A few disgruntled outcasts to not make a controversy.

    Well actually, controversies start with a few outcasts. But that’s when they have real evidence to back their claims.

    So far, whether it’s on the denial of AGW, HIV not being the cause of AIDS, vaccines causing Autism, or ID, there are a few outcasts, but as much as they wish for it, they just don’t have any evidence.

    There is a strange phenomena, unexplained so far (?), whereas the USA represents maybe something like 40% of the world’s scientific research, they represent something like 80% of these unbacked scientific controversies…

  146. Iain Walker says

    The Clown (#35):

    ID detection is a key component of forensic science, SETI and archeology for starters.

    Yes, and do you know how it’s done? By painstakingly accumulating an empirical understanding of the kinds of phenomena that are known to be produced by intelligent agents (e.g., human brings) and the kinds of phenomena that are produced by natural processes. I.e., by learning from experience how to distinguish between the artificial and the natural. And because it’s an empirical process, it is never 100% reliable, and can generate both false positives and false negatives.

    This is a million miles away from the approach adopted by ID-ists, which relies (a) on the argument from ignorance (“It must be designed because I can’t see how it was produced by natural processes”), and (b) by seizing on some property (e.g., irreducible/interlocking complexity, or complex specified information) and question-beggingly asserting it to be a criterion of design.

    There is no comparison between the way real scientists test for intelligent agency (based on experience, context-dependent) and the way ID-ists think they can test for it (arbitrary a priori criteria).

    #50:

    I don’t see anyone doing the science on the problem of distinguishing ID effects from effects that require no mind.

    Except in forensic science, SETI and archeology – for starters. You even contradict yourself by giving an example in #72 of scientists working on the problem of distinguishing phenomena produced by intelligence and those produced by natural processes.

  147. Phantari says

    Fernando @144:

    “As for venting and ridiculing these morons and watching them being torn to shreds by much better minds than my own, sure it is a pleasure and a priviledge! It also gives me some personal enjoyment and quite often brings a smile to my otherwise somber countenance.”

    …and that’s what drags the entire blog down, in my opinion. Yes, there are a great many well-informed and erudite posters here. Speaking with them is a pleasure, as is debating them.

    There are also posters of the “Hurr hurr hurr I’m smarter than you ‘cuz I know SCIENCE!” variety. No rational argument; no demonstration of any actual knowledge of science whatsoever. Just endless variations on the theme of “Anyone who doesn’t understand or accept science is a bad person.” Replace “science” with “God” in their posts and they would be indistinguishable from the most rabid and mean-spirited Creationist.

    And, yes, I know the standard response: “It’s justified because the Creationist trolls do it!” Well, no, it’s not. “He started it!” doesn’t fly as an excuse much past kindergarten.

  148. Kingasaurus says

    Actually, I’m fascinated by the fact that after about 60 years, doctors are still portrayed in popular culture (and this comic, too) as wearing those mirrors on their heads.

    Someone should research as to why such a depiction never seems to go away, despite decades of inaccuracy.

  149. says

    Well actually, controversies start with a few outcasts. But that’s when they have real evidence to back their claims.

    Granted. I guess my not so well worded intention was that a small group of ulteriorly motivated individuals who may have the scientific credentials but are motivated by their region, do not make a controversy.

    Other than maybe, how the hell did they make it through the education process.

  150. Chiroptera says

    Kingasaurus, #148: Actually, I’m fascinated by the fact that after about 60 years, doctors are still portrayed in popular culture (and this comic, too) as wearing those mirrors on their heads.

    What’s funny is that even when I was a kid in the 60s/70s watching cartoons, I never knew what the circle thingy was on the heads of cartoon doctors. It wasn’t until I visited a doctor in a third world country who was still using the old-style mirror strapped to his forehead that I finally found out what it was all about.

    That said, I have noticed that it is rarer to see it these days — but maybe I don’t read the right comics.

  151. JoJo says

    My opthamologist occasionally uses one of those mirror things. But no other doctor I’ve seen in the past 20 years seems to even own one.

  152. JasonTD says

    But wait, there is finally proof that a supernatural force created the Earth at it exists now! It is even photographic proof! The Christians are just wrong about what supernatural force did the creating. ;)

  154. guthrie says

    rankxerox #104- plenty of people have “been on the inside” on ID forums. But in EVERY example I have seen, ordinary pro-science posters who contradict the ruling Creationists eventually get banned, even if they have been polite and use only scientific sources.
    Of course in some cases they don’t ban people, often because they use them as examples for propaganda purposes, so they can say “Look, we don’t ban people, we have proper discussions”.

    The biggest example is “Uncmomon Dissent”, the blog/ ranting podium of William Demsbki and friends. They average probably 1 to 3 people a week banned. A list of banned people can be found over at the “After the bar closes” forum which is part of “Pandas thumb”, which is a site devoted to covering the Creationism/ ID wars.
    Here:
    http://pandasthumb.org/

    I suggest that you head over to:
    http://www.uncommondescent.com/

    The aforementioned Creationist/ID website, and try and experiment. Sign up, and see if you even get to post in the first place. IF you do, see how long it is before you get banned. And don’t tell us what name you are using until after you get banned, that way they won’t be nice to you just to try and prove that they don’t ban people.

  155. guthrie says

    And always a sucker for showing ID in a bad light, I just came across this:
    http://www.antievolution.org/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=14;t=5735;st=1620#entry121967

    An open letter by Jack Krebs to Dave Scot, regarding the formers banning by the latter. Jack was one of the commenters they kept around for a long time to maintain a veneer of respectability, but it seems he has been forced to walk the plank.

    Despite the intellectual bankruptcy of ID, there are undoubtedly some intelligent honest ID supporters, but I have seen perhaps a handful online, and they are not the big players.