The Templeton Foundation really must run this ad. I’d applaud their honesty if they did…but they won’t.
Truth in advertising
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
The Templeton Foundation really must run this ad. I’d applaud their honesty if they did…but they won’t.
Even here in Minnesota, we get creationists ranting in the newspapers. This one is in the Brainerd Dispatch.
In response to a previous writer’s statement ” … modern neo-Darwinian synthesis of organic evolution is supported by more compelling and intellectually satisfying empirical evidence that any other idea ever advanced by the world’s scientific community … “
The retort to this statement is simple: hogwash! Remember, the neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory is not “change over time” or “modifications through natural selection within an existing species”, nor dynamics of cellular metamorphosis. These kinds of actions are simply workings of the natural order and have been observed and recorded for centuries.
I could tell exactly what the writer is about to do at this point. Note that he is responding to a statement of fact, that there is a great deal of empirical evidence in support of evolution. He has announced that that is “hogwash”, but is he going to rebut any of the evidence? No, he’s going to do a little dance over the word “evolution” and tell us what it isn’t. And he’s going to get it wrong. Neo-Darwinian theory includes all of the things he just listed (well, except for “dynamics of cellular metamorphosis” — I don’t even know what that means, and the writer certainly doesn’t, either).
It’s nice of him to coopt elements of the theory and claim that we’ve known it all along, though. It’s one small step forward.
So, science is not synonymous with neo-Darwinism. Neo-Darwinism is in reality a very recent construct. In fact, it was and is being continually cobbled together long after Darwin himself died. Neo-Darwinism in effect says – since there is no pre-planned design behind it – every thing is random and undirected-nothing is planned. There is no purposeful form of life. So human beings, like everything else, is in effect just one of the many possible resulting accidents of an unconscious blind cosmic dice shake. Everything that is came into being as an accident and will disappear someday the same way. Consequently, there is no reason for being, nor any purpose for the natural world, or behavioral norms, and surely there is no rational for a future hope in anything.
No one claims that science is synonymous with neo-Darwinian theory — the physicists and chemists and geologists would be very surprised to learn that they needed to be biologists to be called scientists.
The neo-Darwinian synthesis is less than a hundred years old. No one has been arguing otherwise about that, either. It’s also an active theory which is being continually tested, revised, and re-assessed. This is a good thing: we like to modify our ideas to fit the facts, not vice versa.
So far, nothing he’s said contradicts the claim that evolution is a well-supported theory.
But now we get to the nub of his objections: evolution is unplanned and lacks a long-term purpose. This is both a premise and an inference from the science. We always assume chance is behind variation; that is the null hypothesis. One could charge in, I suppose, and hypothesize that a particular pattern of change is the result of directed meddling, but the best way to test that would be to directly address the mechanism of the intervention. It’s not a very productive approach, we’ve found. We’d have to deduce some of the properties of the agent behind the change, you see, and if we try that, advocates of teleology always back away quickly from any testable proposals. It’s been a much more promising approach to postulate an absence of design, make predictions from that, and test them.
And voila, it almost always seems to work out well. Predictions that leave out angels, demigods, demons, and magic spells seem to work out quite nicely, so we are left with a powerful theory sans deities, which implies that deities are at least superfluous. That’s all the ateleology of biology means.
Ah, but notice again: none of his railings have any relevance to the claim of empirical evidence for evolution, that which he calls “hogwash”. This isn’t an argument, it’s an emotional appeal. Many people are uncomfortable with the idea of an absence of guidance, so he’s announcing that evolution doesn’t include a god, and gee everyone, shouldn’t that make you dislike it? But whether we dislike an idea or not has no bearing on its truth.
Especially not when our Minnesotan critic then goes on to demonstrate his ignorance.
Neo-Darwinism’s top proponents-Dawkins, Huxley, Weiner, Gould and Dobzhansky are all convinced atheists. For the person who is interested in the subject, but does not want to wade through pages of polemic, or get into deep esoteric scientific reading, might simply go to the video store and ask for Ben Stein’s “Expelled” or get a hold of the book “Icons of Evolution” by molecular biologist Jonathan Wells. It might stun you on just how neo-Darwinism is pure fraud.
Ron Lindner
East Gull Lake
OK, let’s see. The top proponents are:
I do have to give Mr Lindner points for unintentional irony. If you don’t like polemics, go watch Expelled? Right. Don’t want to read that science stuff? Then go read Wells. At least I can agree with that last point, since there isn’t so much as a scrap of science in that book.
I’m feeling dissatisfied, though. His starting premise was that the body of empirical evidence for evolution was “hogwash”, and he seems to have forgotten to actually address the point. Typical.
The news from a small UK survey is heartening: teenagers are abandoning or never had much belief in religion. Two thirds don’t believe in gods at all, and
It also emerged six out of ten 10 children (59 per cent) believe that religion “has a negative influence on the world”.
ÂThe survey also shows that half of teenagers have never prayed and 16 per cent have never been to church.
I came to the enlightenment late, so I’ve been in church. Really, they aren’t missing a single thing. Not one thing. Funny, isn’t it; the religious insist that we need the fellowship and ritual and sermonizing, but it’s all the most dreary crap and superficial ‘community’. We won’t miss it when it is all gone.
I am horribly envious. I am speaking of the Village Dog Project, some current research going on that looks very cool.
Understanding the evolution and domestication in dogs requires genetic analysis of a global and diverse panel of non-breed-affiliated village dogs. With a network of worldwide and Cornell-affiliated collaborators, we plan to gather dog samples from remote villages, establish a genetic archive containing DNA and phenotypic information from these dogs, carry out genetic analyses on these samples, and develop computational methods for analyzing this dataset. In particular, we are interested in understanding the location, timing, and demographic conditions underlying domestication; the genetic changes involved in the transition of wolf to dog; the relationship between these village dogs and the breed dogs; and the effect that historical forces have shaped village dog diversity.
That looks informative and useful, and I’ll be looking forward to the publication of the research. That’s not what’s got me envious, though: for that, you have to look at their field work. The researchers are spending the summer traveling to exotic, remote locations (admittedly, to the kinds of places rife with scavenging village dogs, but still…) to collect blood samples. They have a travel blog that will be recounting their adventures, and also explains the science a little more.
After initial domestication, dogs probably lived “breed-less” lives as human commensals (hanging around humans, not really helping or harming them but living off their trash) for many thousands of years. During this time, dog populations quickly expanded and spread across the globe. In the last few hundreds of years, several hundred dog breeds were formed from local dogs in many parts of the world; these breed dogs have entirely replaced the non-breed “indigenous” dogs in some parts of the world, notably in Western Europe and the USA. However, most dogs throughout the world still live their lives as non-breed, indigenous, commensal dogs. We refer to these dogs as “pariah” or “village” dogs. They tend to be smallish (25-40 pounds), often tan, short-haired dogs, though the type varies a bit according to the region you’re in. The important point is that these dogs have not undergone the intense genetic bottleneck associated with breed formation. Thus, while breed dogs have only a small subset of the total genetic diversity of all dogs, it is likely that village dogs have a much greater range of the total diversity. Thus, they are very useful for looking at the original domestication event. They are informative of the original genetic bottleneck that led to the formation of domestic dogs many thousands of years ago.
Hmmm. We don’t seem to have many dogs running loose around exotic, remote Morris, Minnesota, but there are a few feral cats living off the dumpsters near the grocery store.
I probably wouldn’t try to read about visiting small midwestern towns to collect cats, though.
What a deal. For only 99¢, you can get an abridged version of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life; you can tell it’s been abridged because the title has been reduced to Origin of Species. It’s also special because it contains a 50 page introduction by Ray Comfort, which tells you everything that the creationists are sure is wrong about the rest of the book. It’s like a book with multiple personality disorder — two parts that absolutely hate each other, an intro that is the inane product of one of the most stupid minds of our century, and a science text that is the product of one of the greatest minds of the author’s century.
But wait! For only $3.99, you can also get a copy of The Charles Darwin Bible, which is the only Bible in existence to mention DNA, the Cambrian, mutations, peppered moths, etc. And it includes “In-text study notes written specifically for atheists”! Unfortunately, Charles Darwin had nothing at all to do with this Bible; it’s actually the product of Answers in Genesis.
I’m tempted to get copies of each. They look like beautiful examples of creationist “thought”.
Oh, dog. Discussion of the conflict between science and religion. Francis Collins comes up first. Atheists are shrill. Human genome. Morality is a pointer to god. C.S. Lewis. Fine tuning. Atheists are arrogant. Atheists are fundamentalists. Atheism is irrational. Read my BioLogos website. The usual appalling Collins drivel.
Next up…you’d think anything would be a relief after that tepid, tired inanity, wouldn’t you? But no. Who is the complement to the pious, gullible, nice Dr Collins? Someone who might offer a different point of view? Someone who might spark some real discussion? Someone who might, you know, disagree?
It’s Barbara Bradley Hagerty.
Jebus. What a pile of brainless, self-congratulatory pudding pretending to be a discussion of substance. And then the reporters in attendance dish it up with a spoon, and they gum it over with their soft, toothless questions, and everyone dies of sugar poisoning.
No, I lied. The ending is even worse.
Francis Collins picks up his guitar and sings.
Praise the source of faith and learning that has sparked and stoked the mind
With a passion for discerning how the world has been designed.
Let the sense of wonder flowing from the wonders we survey
Keep our faith forever growing and renew our need to pray.
That’s where I began projectile vomiting. Horked up my spleen right on my keyboard, blood squirted out of my eyeballs, and my howls set the small vermin lurking in the walls of my house scuttling to throw themselves beneath the wheels of passing vehicles in a massive and merciful act of suicide.
Speak the name “Templeton” and the prim, dutiful servants of the foundation will appear. If you look at the recent articles from Coyne, Dawkins, and me, you’ll discover the same comment, shown below, from a representative of the Templeton Foundation. I’ve seen these guys in action before. They are very serious, somber fellows in their nice suits, with the dignitas of boodles of cash behind them, who will calmly state their position with an air of dispassionate certitude.
They remind me of Mafia lawyers.
A.C. Grayling and Daniel Dennett have refused to talk to a serious
journalist (Edwin Cartlidge of Physics World) about a serious subject
(philosophical materialism) because the journalism fellowship under
which he is pursuing this subject is sponsored by the Templeton
Foundation. They will have nothing to do with the Templeton Foundation,
they say, because our aim is somehow to “muddy the waters” about the
relationship between science and religion.That’s not how we see it at all. First-rate, peer-reviewed science is
essential to our work at the Foundation and to the progressive vision
of the late Sir John Templeton, who was deeply committed to scientific
discovery. Many of our largest grants go to pure scientific research
(like our support for the Foundational Questions Institute in Physics
and Cosmology, the Godel Centenary Research Prize Fellowships, and the
Program for Evolutionary Dynamics at Harvard).But, yes, we do like to include philosophers and theologians in many of
our projects. Excellent science is crucial to what we do, but it is not
all that we do. We are a “Big Questions” foundation, not a science
foundation, and we believe that the world’s philosophical and religious
traditions have much to contribute to understanding human experience
and our place in the universe. For Grayling and Dennett to compare this
rich, expansive discussion to a dialogue with astrologers is silly.
They know better.Gary Rosen
Chief External Affairs Officer
John Templeton Foundation
Materialism, philosophical or otherwise, is a serious and useful subject. The bit he left off, though, is that the Templeton Foundation opposes it. For instance, they give a series of prizes, many of which reward people for making the best excuses for inserting superstition into research: the Templeton Prize, for “affirming life’s spiritual dimension”; the Award for Theological Promise, for the best thesis on “God and spirituality”; the Religion Reporter of the Year; the European Religion Writer of the Year; the Religion Story of the Year; the Epiphany Prize, for shows that “increase man’s understanding and love of God”; the Kairos Prize, for movies that “result in a greater increase in either man’s understanding or love of God”; you get the idea. Let’s have no illusions. First and foremost, the Templeton Foundation’s purpose is the promotion of religion…they have simply chosen to pursue that goal by dressing up as philanthropists supporting a certain kind of science. They are what the Discovery Institute wishes they could be, if they were staffed with grown-ups and had $1.5 billion to play with.
They do aim to muddy the waters. They want to blur the boundaries between legitimate science, which questions traditional dogma, and religion, which is traditional dogma, by playing favorites with religion in a game that apes scientific institutions. Yes, they certainly do spend money on real science projects; it’s part of their aim to entangle valid, secular science in the financial webs of a religiously motivated agency. Again, look at the Mafia for a model. Diversify and get your hands in real businesses like trucking or garbage collection or construction, and when someone asks difficult questions, just say “Hey, look — fleet of garbage trucks!” And meanwhile, build up a network of obligations — do a little, perfectly legal favor for some little guy, and when the time comes, you can ask him to return the favor, to your advantage.
Now of course, the Templeton Foundation is doing nothing illegal, and the comparison to a criminal organization does not extend to actual criminality. The only place it holds up is in the way they maintain a pretext of doing one thing, while actually profiting most off another activity altogether. Look at Mr Rosen’s comment. Nowhere does he admit outright that what they fund is the introduction of a religious perspective in science. Instead, we get euphemisms. They are a “Big Questions” foundation, whatever that means. He will not come right out and state plainly that what they think is a “Big Question” is the role of a god in creating and maintaining the universe and humankind.
That’s not a big question. It’s a bad question.
I have never found a discussion with a theologian about their favorite deities to be “rich, expansive” — just saying it is so doesn’t make it so, but is actually the crux of the argument. They are trying to buy their way into the debate, rather than earning it. I don’t think they know Grayling and Dennett very well at all, either, because they do know better, and the comparison with a dialog with astrologers is spot on — they won’t be disavowing it any time soon.
I’ll stand by my Mafia comparison, too. It’s an organization that gets a lot of mileage out of making offers people can’t refuse.
We only have a month or two left. I have been reminded of a prediction made in the July/August 2004 issue of Touchstone magazine. Brace yourselves.
Where is the ID movement going in the next ten years? What new issues will it be exploring, and what new challenges will it be offering Darwinism?
Dembski: In the next five years, molecular Darwinism—the idea that Darwinian processes can produce complex molecular structures at the subcellular level—will be dead. When that happens, evolutionary biology will experience a crisis of confidence because evolutionary biology hinges on the evolution of the right molecules. I therefore foresee a Taliban-style collapse of Darwinism in the next ten years. Intelligent design will of course profit greatly from this. For ID to win the day, however, will require talented new researchers able to move this research program forward, showing how intelligent design provides better insights into biological systems than the dying Darwinian paradigm.
Man, I’m glad I’ll be on sabbatical. It’ll give me a year to patch up the radical changes I’ll have to make in all of my courses after the ID revolution comes. The rest of you are going to be coming back to rubble in September.
Although, I should also mention that the very next paragraph in that article is the one credible paragraph Paul Nelson ever wrote.
Nelson: Easily the biggest challenge facing the ID community is to develop a full-fledged theory of biological design. We don’t have such a theory right now, and that’s a real problem. Without a theory, it’s very hard to know where to direct your research focus. Right now, we’ve got a bag of powerful intuitions, and a handful of notions such as “irreducible complexity” and “specified complexity”–but, as yet, no general theory of biological design.
Almost five years on, still no theory.
You little scamps in the comments have been acerbic and rude and loud again, haven’t you? I’ve received a little threat in the mail about your activities, and you know how threats get me all trembly and weak in the knees.
Dear PZ Myers.
My name is Petter XXXX and I am a graduate student in biology at University of XXXX, as well as active as an ecology consultant in XXXX.
I would be grateful for the removal of slanderous comments directed personally at me on your blog Pharyngula.
I have nothing but admiration for your work with not allowing creationism or ID be a part of education, although fortunately that is not a big problem in Europe.I commented on your blog that I thought it was unnecessary to riddicule people of faith.
I think it hurts the reputation of scientists frankly.
But that is my opinion, and I fully respect if you do not agree.However, on your blog I am called
comment 131. Petter the ignorant rude jerk troll:
comment 187: Petter the lying christofascist troll.You are not a scientist. Stop lying. Your grammar, spelling, logic, and word usage are at the level of a highly religious moron. I’ll pray for you to leave your cave of darkness, mental fog, lies, and hate. Petter, time to pull out the xian default.
comment 189: “This comment accuses me of sponsoring terrorism”, it is likely to fall under “slander per se”
comment 191: Comments referring to sexual actions.
comment 192: Accuses me of impending human rights, would have a pretty good chance to fall under “slander per se” to.
I fully understand that it is hard as a blogger to keep up with editing posts that go over the line, and I am aware of that you did not write the comments.
However, you being the author of the blog I kindly ask you to remove all comments above.A copy of this mail has been sent to my legal representative, in case further actions would be necessary.
I however hope that we can stop here, by you removing the comments.Best regards,
Petter XXXX
Uh-oh. He’s quite right, you know. You’ve been saying unkind things about people, like for instance calling them ignorant, rude, and a jerk. We can’t have that kind of thing going on in a blog, now can we?
Oh, wait. Yes, we can. I rather like plainspoken responses.
And look, he’s asking me nicely, with only the slyest of implications of legal action, to delete your comments, but doesn’t seem to think his own warrant censure. I’ll have to think about whether I should do that.
OK, done. No.
Just a general suggestion to the thin-skinned who think about commenting here: don’t do that. No one gets treated gently here; even I sometimes hesitate at dipping a toe into the bacon-chummed shark-, piranha-, and candiru-infested waters here. You will get abused. And if you do get abused, don’t come crying to me to protect you, because I’ll just do something even ruder, like taking your plea and tossing it back into the deepest, murkiest, roiling whirlpool I can, and if you didn’t like getting a few boo-boos before, you’ll really hate the public flensing that will ensue.
And please, please, never write to tell me that your favorite authority figure, whether it is your lawyer or your mommy, will come after me if I don’t do your bidding. It makes me cranky.
By the way, I’ve done the complainer the favor of removing the bits from his letter that would reveal details of his identity. What makes this complaint especially stupid is that all any of the cruel, cruel commenters know about him is his very common first name; unless he thinks he is the only Petter in the world, he has not yet been exposed to any public or professional ridicule.
Of course, if someone starts harrassing me with futile legal documents, I can fill in those blanks.
Juicy stuff from a mainstream newspaper coming out and hitting Scientology hard: this week and over the next few days, they’re publishing a special report on Scientology. If you’ve followed the cult at all, there’s nothing too surprising — it’s a scam run by abusive psychotics — but it does have some personal accounts by high-ranking defectors.
I’m sure there are meetings going on in Clearwater right now where they’re plotting revenge.
