Mr_Christopher
Posts: 1238
Joined: Jan. 2006
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Since this is the Casey Luskin thread, I thought copying the source Wes linked too was relevant. it really shines some light on Mr Luskin.
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Date: 23. marraskuuta 2000 08:56
Oheiset raportit osoittavat miten evolutionistien leiri alkaa olla todella
huolissaan
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Sorry it's a bit late, but this is a report on weeks 7 and 8 of the UCSD
anti-creationism seminar,and also on the wonderful "Darwinism, Design, and
Democary" conference in Clearwater, Florida on 11/10-11/11.
On November 9th, Eugenie C. Scott, director of the National Center for
Science Education (an anti-creationist political activist group) came and
spoke at the UCSD anti-creationism seminar and then gave a public lecture
at Scripps Institution for Oceanography. 24 hours later I came up for a
breath in Florida at the "Darwinism, Design, and Democracy" conference
hosted by Tom Woodward, Trinity College of Florida, and the Foundation for
Thought and Ethics. And then the following Thursday (11/16) I had the
pleasure of discussing Dembski's book "Intelligent Design" at the
anti-creationism seminar again with special guest star Wesley Elsberry
presiding. I'd like to share some highlights of these experiences with you
all.
Eugenie C. Scott's lecture:
Scott definitely speaks "scientese". She presents herself as a scientist,
which she once was, who is trying to do the right thing for science. She
is very charismatic, funny, and very good at getting people behind what
she's saying. It's no wonder she's the director of the NCSE. In the past
I've compared Eugenie C. Scott to Darth Vader because she is full of
internal contradictions, knows in her heart she's lying, powerful,
persuasive, and most importantly, she travels around representing the
dominating power (the Empire) and fighting the good guys. All in the name
of ...well, I'm not exactly sure what her motivation is yet. It's
certainly not truth.
(On the other hand, there is the rebellion against the Empire. Small,
understaffed, often outgunned and outmanned, but not outsmarted. However,
the rebellion has the people of the galaxy behind them, and most
importantly, the Force. Of course not all of us in the rebellion believe
in the "force" (the analogy is God), but what unites the rebellion is the
common belief in the problems with the current establishment, and the
desire to replace it with something better. When we introduced ourselves
in the class, I should have said I was Luke Skywalker, but I suppose I was
under the control of her powers at the time so I just said I was Casey, an
earth sciences major.)
You will hopefully find this encouraging: The first thing Scott did at the
seminar was hold up a copy of "Icons of Evolution" and say (this is more or
less verbatim), "I want you all to see this book. This book will be a
"Royal Pain in the Fanny" for those who want to be teachers of evolution
[in the schools]" I had to take a double-take to make sure that she had
really just said that. She then said that most high school bio teachers
don't want to be controversial, and if the book shows some things in a
textbook to be controversial, then many k-12 teachers who "don't know a lot
of science" will be "intimidated"--especially if parents use the ammo
provided by the book to check the school board--and then the teacher will
just avoid the subject altogether. She said that many textbooks might not
publish as much on the subject of evolution if it will be controversial and
cause the textbook to not get sold to school districts (which, implicitly,
have read Icons and understand what it is saying). She laid the blame for
this "at the foot of the university profs". She also spoke of it at the
public seminar, saying people should watch out for it.
Also she said that the author (whom we all know very well) "works hard to
hide the religious underpinnings" and like many other ID people had done
his homework well. Was that a compliment to you Dr. Wells? I'm not so
sure. According to Scott ID is still "a religious movement" whose "goal is
to replace scientifric materialism with theism". Apparently ID people are
"using evolution as a talking horse" to achieve that goal. The false
notion that ID is religion, and the claim that "methodological naturalism
and theism aren't mutually exclusive" form the basis of her attacks upon
the arguments made by the pro-ID.
At the public lecture she went through the differences between YEC, OEC,
and ID. She showed a quote from Henry Morris saying that all science must
be based upon Scriptures, and a quote an address by someone who used to be
the director of the discovery institute (I missed the name) discussing the
importance of bringing theism back into the intellectual life. This was
part of her usual attempt to show that ID is purely religiously based, and
nothing more.
Scott criticized ID because it doen't say what happened. Well, Dr. Scott,
ID says that an object was intelligently designed. "Yeah," she replies,
"but what happened?." "Like I said, It was intelligently designed". "But
what happened?" Scott doesn't get it--Intelligent Design theory is a real
theory that doesn't overstretch itself--it doen't say exactly how the
design was inserted into the real world because at this point it
can't! But IT CAN say that it was designed, period. Of course that isn't
enough for Scott, but she just proved another point of pro-IDers that the
design inference can stem questions which could lead to fruitful research
(i.e. how was the design accomplished).
Scott also claimed that the famous Colin Patterson quote is grossly out of
context. Not sure how she knew that, but I'm serious about this--someone
at ARN should send her a free copy of the transcript of his talk.
The worst point she made, repeatedly was saying that the ID people say,
"It's just an Intelligence" "wink wink nudge nudge". She's trying to
convince people that ID is nothing but religion. She said ID says
evolution is a bad idea. Not true. She said ID doesn't make any
practically helpful statements. Not true--especially if you're not
interested in truth. I think we need to do all day workshops at many
universities around the country to show people what ID really is, to stop
the lies of Scott, if ID is going to work. Otherwise she's going to go
around the country spreading this garbage, and scientists who don't know
better will undoubtedly buy it. She used a lot of standard criticisms of
ID, irred comp, and other things I won't go into. But if anybody wants
more details, please e-mail me and I'd be happy to provide them.
She concluded by asking everyone present to help out by joining the NCSE
(similar to what seemed to happen in Marcus Ross's experience with the NCSE
at GSA), to write letters to the editor fighting creationists whenever
possible, and encouraged all scientists to go back to their churches,
synagogues, temples, etc., to make sure they all get the right perspective
on evolution. She later said that profesors need to leave philosophical
materialism out of the discussion as much as possible. Statements like,
"Life is here by chance without a plan or purpose" (as I've had one upper
division evolution prof, who attended her lecture, say) are now off
limits. She made that very clear that scientists need to check philosophy
out at the door. I think that's good, but she never addressed the question
of whether some of the science itself is based upon philosophy. So that is
where Scott is coming from: don't tell your students they can't believe in
religion, but do tell your fellow church members they can't believe in
creationism. What's wrong here?
I was able to talk with Scott one on one for about 3 minutes while she
walked from our class seminar to her public lecture. I asked her why she
thinks ID isn't science. She said it isn't science because it does not
refer to natural law (a reference to Ruse's testimony which he later
recanted). She also said that it isn't testable and she doubts that
Dembski will be able to really formulate "detectable design' (even though I
think both evolution and Design are inferences, epistimologically
equal). Scott also opposes the teaching of ID because it would cause
"chaos" in the classroom curriculum. In my opinion, that is a copout
answer, for a well-organized presenter could present all the material in
Icons and allow for a good discussion of the issue in at most two class
periods.
Here is something very interesting that I found out about the NCSE: From
what I understand, the NCSE tries to coordinate the effort to fight people
who effectively challenge the one-sided teaching of evolution (OSToE) in
the schools. When the NCSE finds out that somebody is attacking the
one-sidedness of a curriculum in an area, they apparently then contact
local university professors and local CLERGY (who, from what it seems, tend
to be catholics, lutherans, or episcopalians who tend to see evolution as
religiously neutral with regards to origins, and also see
creationist/ID/anti-evolution ideas necessarily as religious doctrine
rather than empirical science). The NCSE then gets these local clergy and
university profs to go before the school boards to effectively testify that
any anti-OSToE ideas are purely religiously based and/or not science.
She specifically mentioned bringing in clergy, because it seems to be an
effective way of convincing school boards. That makes sense to me, because
if I was on an innocent school board member trying to do the best thing for
the community, and saw that the religious people are OK with evolution,
then I wouldn't have trouble thinking that there must be no scientific
problem with evolution.
I think that by looking at what Scott's group does, a good strategy can be
developed which might be very successful for pro-ID people, creationists,
and any others who want to end the OSToE but don't necessarily know where
to begin.
I think that the place to start is where they start--with the local
university scientists and clergy. Go to the local university scientists
and host a half-day workshop for the local biology profs / other professors
with the sole intention of educating them about Intelligent Design,
problems with evolutionary theory, answering any questions or reservations
they might about ID with the intention of helping them and befriending
them, not winning an argument or making them out to be the enemy.
The same should be done for the clergy, and emphasize to them the
scientific problems with evolutionary theory, and show them that this stuff
has nothing to do with religion or causing unnecessary conflict, but with
real scientific truth and fairness and truth in science
education. Hopefully they would be behind that. This could diffuse any
future potential objections these people might have to ID.
After talking to the local clergy and university scientists, give each
member of the local school board a free copy of Icons. Let them read it
and say, "We'll be back in about 2 weeks to present all of this stuff all
over again and make our case, but we just wanted to give you a chance to
read up on this before we come." In 2 weeks, come back, make the case, and
get the OSToE out of the curriculum and perhaps even get some ID ideas into
it! These are just some thoughts I had. What do you all think is the best
strategy?
One last thing--someday on some website there may appear a picture of Scott
with some students, and one student in the back smiling to himself, "My
gosh what am I doing in this picture". If you ever see it, it was taken at
the seminar by Wesley Elsberry. (Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Wesley
Ellsberry, devoted critic of William Dembski and others, came. He was her
ride from the airport. He videotaped and photographed her 2
performances. I did get a chance to meet him (he had e-mailed the IDEA
Club a few weeks earlier) and he did seem like a nice enough guy in
person. We had a long talk after his revisit to the seminar during week 8,
which I'll go into in a bit.
Florida Design Conference:
In the words of Eugenie C. Scott, I attended this pro-Intelligent Design
Conference because, "it's a dirty job but somebody has to do it". That's
what she said during the public lecture about a design conference she had
once attended. Well, attending this conference near the beach in
Clearwater, Florida wasn't a dirty job, and I was happy to do it!
The conference was organized by Tom Woodward of Trinity College in Floriday
(see his website at "www.apologetics.org") and by the Foundation for
Thought and Ethics. The keynote speakers were Tom Woodward, George Lebo,
and phylo Scott Minnich and Paul Chien. The theme for the conference
seemed to be the quote, "In China we can criticize Darwin, but not the
government, in America you an criticize the government but not
Darwin" Apparently this infamous quote was said by Chinese paleontologist
Dr. Jun-Yuan Chen. I didn't get the exact location or circumstances of the
reference, but if anyone has it that would be great!
George Lebo spoke on Friday night about evidences for design in the
universe. He made some interesting points--that the universe must be
sparsely populated because life couldn't exist in most parts of the
universe. Apparently our solar system and galaxy are special, because the
solar system exists away from the center of the galaxy, where high levels
of radiation would prevent life, and also because the solar system is in a
somewhat synchronous rotational orbit with the rest of the galaxy, such
that the gravitational forces on the sun and planets are constant, allowing
for the earth to have a stable orbit. Otherwise, we'd be in big
trouble. Apparently this situation is very unique among stars, and that it
is unlikely that it would commonly be found in the universe.
On Saturday Paul Chien gave a great lecture on the Chenjiang Cambrian
fossils. The undisrupted yellow mudstone these fossils are found in has
allowed for much better preservation than their counterparts in Canada,
which are found in metamorphosed shale. Paul Chien estimates that the
entire layer, which is less than 4 feet in height, was deposted in less
than 2 million years. On an evolutionary timescale, that's an
instant. Chien noted that Chinese scientists have doubted evolutionary
explanations for the Cambrian explosion, but said that American scientists
are "in denial" saying "maybe we'll find more fossils". One interesting
point made, which many of you might know (but I didn't so I'll say it
anyways) is that Simon Conway Morris has become a Christian. That doesn't
necessarily mean he's pro-ID or anything even close to that, I just found
it interesting--and encouraging--that a foremost researcher into the
Cambrian life has become a Christian. Chen said, "[Chinese scientists] go
where the evidence leads because they cannot deny [the scientific
evidence]". It's a blessing to have Paul Chien on the side of ID on the
Cambrian explosion.
Scott Minnich also spoke on Saturday on the bacterial flagellum. This talk
was fascinating, as I'm not a biologist, and was amazed as he told us some
statistics on the flagellum. The flagellum is a self-assembled and repair,
water-cooled rotary engine consisting of 30 structural parts and driven by
a proton motor force. In some cases it has 2 gears--forward and reverse,
and operates at speeds usually around 17,000 but has been seen as high as
100,000 rpm. Wow--Ford motorcompany should take notes! There are
apparently no papers discussing the origin and evolution of the
flagellum. The Designer is apparently a lot better than we are! Scott
noted that the base of the flagellum is used in the mechanisms that some
viruses use. Thus, it is designed, but also designed to kill. No one said
we lived in a pretty world. Scott also made a great point that many people
often complain that design theory is just old arguments being
re-used. Yes, Scott said! And now those formerly dismissed arguments are
being revitalized by new data!
I could say a lot more on the conference, but as far as the talks go these
were definitely the highlights! I missed the talk on ID in Public
Education and law, given by Tom Woodward, so sorry that I can't report on
it to you all. Why did you go all the way from California to Florida for a
weekend conference on ID you ask? Well, AS of UCSD helped to cover a good
portion of our trip costs, as we went as representatives of the IDEA Club,
a student organization which can receive AS funding for that stuff. So, it
wasn't a free trip, but it was free enough so I'd go! My friend Nate and I
had a great time, and really enjoyed meeting Scott Minnich and Paul Chien
in person! The trip was an amazing blessing for me, and if you ever go to
Clearwater, go to Frenchy's on the Beach and try the grouper sandwich!
UCSD (anti)Creationism seminar Week 8:
Wesley Elsberry (San Diego chauffeur for Eugenie C. Scott), a graduate
student and marine biologist who works for the Navy came and sat in as the
resident expert on Intelligent Design. This meeting started off VERY
INTERESTING. I walked in a bit late as I have a class beforehand that ran
overtime. I sat down and what to my surprise did my little eyes see, but a
copy of the IDEA Club website being printed around! It got passed to me,
and I passed it along. I now am fairly sure I know what happened.
About 3 weeks ago Wesley Elsberry e-mailed the IDEA Club to suggest a link
for our links page. It was a brief, but friendly e-mail correspondence. At
Scott's talk I introduced myself and said that I was the one he had just
been e-mailing with. So now that Elsberry knew that I was in the class and
also the IDEA Club guy, he told the professor, who then printed out the
club website and brought it to the class the following week. The
intellectual doubters of evolution page had also been printed out, so
thanks to all of you who have helped me get it up to an impressive 125
people in just a few hours of work over the past few weeks! Hopefully that
number can be tripled that before its completed.
Anyway, the discussion topic for last week was the Ch. 4 "Naturalism and
it's cure" from Dembski's book "Intelligent Design". It's probably a good
thing I didn't know about the reading assignment, because if I had read it,
I would have probably been a little too zealous for the class. Dembski's
chapter 4 is very Christian, and makes some very challenging points --both
on a personal level and on a philosophical level, to the naturalist. These
points need to be made, but they are more of a Christian philosophical
discussion of Intelligent Design rather than a scientific one of what
Intelligent Design theory really is. So needless to say a lot of the
people in the class probably didn't like reading about our sinful nature.
Dembski does make the point, that "neither theology nor philosophy can
answer the evidential question whether God's interaction with the world is
empirically detectable. ... To answer this question we must look to
science" (Pg. 104-105)
Wesley Elsberry is convinced that God's interaction with the world, if it
ever happened, isn't detectable. He apparently plans on submitting, or
already is submitting a pre-emptive paper to some journal somewhere in
which he distingiushes between what he calls "ordinary design" and
"rarified design". Ordinary design is the design of things we
understand--sculpture, buildings, language signals, etc." while rarified
design would be design in the realm of biology, which he would probably say
we don't understand. Elsberry says that "rarified design /= ordinary
design". He calls equating the two an inductive leap. As far as inferring
a simple intelligent cause, I don't think it's a leap at all, and I don't
think that Elsberry can rigorously distinguish between the two types of
design without assuming that biological design can't exist.
One girl said still didn't understand how the ID people didn't mean God
when they talked about the Intelligent Designer and she cited the fact that
Dembski constantly refers to God in "Intelligent Design". I said that's a
valid point, but I said that while this may not be too constructive or
consistent as far as rigorously promoting ID theory goes, it is perfectly
legitimate in a popularized version of "The Design Inference", which is
basically pure math and doesn't even mention God. Apparently no one in the
class had yet even heard of "The Design Inference." Fortunately Wesley
Elsberry had brought a copy along, so he actually came to Dembski's defense
for mentioning God saying that Dembski did write another technical book
which is more rigorous and doesn't mention God, and that the "Intelligent
Design" book is meant to be a "bridge between science and theology" so it's
probably OK for him to mention God.
The anti-creationist professor said to the class that an evolutionary
worldview doesn't imply a personal God. Oh no. I'm confused! Eugenie C.
Scott says it's OK to believe in evolution and God, but you, Dr. professor,
say I cannot! Actually the AC-prof committed the very blunder that Scott
told him not to. Enter William Dembski, with the bridge between science
and theology.
We talked about the explanatory filter ideas, and how Dembski is arguing
that certain things are too improbable to have happened due to pure
chance. I love how Dembski basically wrote a very long technical
mathematical book to take the excuse away from atheists that "It was just a
coincidence". We didn't get too far into debating the technical aspects
of it, although I did bring up Specified Complexity at one point (not sure
if it would have come up otherwise). Elsberry claimed that these ideas are
not good science because they haven't spawned any further papers or
research. But aren't you responding to them in print Wesley? If they're
so useless or bad science, why the needed refutations? I didn't realize
this until after, but apparently nobody ever mentioned that "The Design
Inference" was printed by Cambridge University press. I found that out
after the class, as a classmate was very surprised to find out who the
publisher was!
At one point the AC-prof said that the human backache affliction is
evidence of a history of natural selection (I happen to have one as I write
this as I've been sitting at the computer for 2 hours). I noted that these
are theological claims, not scientific, and that there are many theological
answers for why we have backaches. But the AC-prof mainained it is science
and evidence of natural selection because we have backaches because our
back uses parts that look like other parts in the body, and natural
selection can only build with things that are already there. Is this
true? Why do we have backaches (in a physiological sense?). I'd really
like to know, and can somebody get me a tylenol right now while you're up?
Sersiouly, the AC-prof merely exchanged one theological answer for another,
as if to imply that the Designer can't re-use parts! Perhaps there's been
some devolution over time--what do you all think of that?
Two last interesting points were that Elsberry said that the ACLU believes
that one day there will be a court case that they just won't win, because
these slippery creationists will be able to come up with something
legitimate. That was interesting to hear--I wonder who is sources are!
Also, Elsberry said that we shouldn't teach ID because as Scott said, we
should "teach the best science that is avaialble." This "best science" is
apparently determined by a "consensus" of scientists. So now we decide
what is true and what isn't true by committee? I know that's sort of how
science works, but who will be on the committee? This sounds like the NAS
committee who wrote the book I'll be reporting on for the class next week
"Science and Creationism a vew from the National Academy of sciences".
According to an article in the Sept 99 issue of Scientific American, only
5% of NAS members believe in a personal God. That says something when you
compare it to polls saying that 40% of practicing scientists at large
believe in God. Plus, I think that Zero of that 5% were on the committee
that wrote, "Science and Creationism a vew from the National Academy of
sciences". Regardless, next week it's my turn. I get to present on the
booklet, so if any of you have any comments, or helpful suggestions for
strategy, it would be very much appreciated. Does anybody know anything
about Rodhocetus, an alleged land-mammal-->whale transition? That would be
very helpful. In any case, I've got some good materials already, but I
might ask for some more help in a few days. Take care all and be thankful
to the Designer for all you have this Thanksgiving--even the backaches!
Sincerely,
Casey
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--TJT--
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Uncommon Descent is a moral cesspool, a festering intellectual ghetto that intoxicates and degrades its inhabitants - Stephen Matheson
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in that paper - most of which are recycled creationist arguments. 
