Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

from spendis lift

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THE scientist who led the team that cracked the human genome is to publish a book explaining why henow believes in the existence of God and is convinced that miracles are real.

(Note: spendi capitolized THE which modifies scientist, and then , the article states that Collins NOW believes in a God-all of this is untrue) because of the following : Sory, I dont have any links in side my head

This is an example of how newspapers never "get it right". Collins ws a leader of of some specific gene mappings , but he didnt lead the team that "cracked the human genome" He was way down the pack quite a bit and most of the real work had been done already .EG Kary Mullis, the "surfer dude" invented the PCR and Lloyd Smith and Mike Hunkapiller developed the auto sequencer, and Maynrd Olsen and Daniel Cohen, and finally Craig Venter and William Haseltine first sequenced the human genome, without the above happening first (including the actual sequencing of the human genome by Venters Company) Collins would be without anything significant to do except thump his Bible.
Collins was , from is early days in med school, a professed , deeply religious guy, so the articles pronouncements , made to sound as if they were quite recent, are incorrect

Wandel-remember that Spengler flunked his first dissertation because he couldnt find enough references. When he finally got his doctorate, he celebrated by having a nervous breakdown. Hes always been the trite example of 'overachievement' ( I mean that in a nasty sense where someone thinks that hard workalone is a full substitute for talent, and hard work)

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fm-

You should write to the Sunday Times. They are almost certain to publish your letter and it is quite a feather in the cap to have that done as I well know. You have an advantage too. It is that they like to publish letters from places like Pa as it shows how deep into the boondaks they are penetrating.

It matters not one jot what you say about Spengler. You really ought to discuss the passage quoted instead of hiding your seeming inability to do so behind such well worn smears and innuendos. Some psuedo-intellectuals have sought to discredit his writings on even more spurious grounds than yours. You can end up in quite a tangle focussing on such irrelevancies. Einstein often forgot to put one or both socks on and was often to be seen with dried egg down his front. Spengler did predict the "Second Religiousness" and it is getting here gradually.

And Nietzsche was carried off by the men in white coats.

Copernicus was a bit of a nutter as well. True science often leads people into such states. It can get awesome.

"The truth is obscure,too profound and too pure,
To live it you have to explode."

Journey Through Dark Heat.. Bob Dylan.

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spendius wrote:

You should write to the Sunday Times. They are almost certain to publish your letter and it is quite a feather in the cap to have that done as I well know.

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I told you before that I dont get a suntan from Spenglers Glow. I found his work (I hadda read the "Untergang" ... in HS ) So, if you are impressed, as I said before, stay as simple as you are.

You overshot my main critique in that the newspaper piece about the "recent" conversion of Francis Collins to religion is total bullshit. You may have missed the sublety of my point. Try not to post crap it neither adds to the discussion , nor does it reflect on your comprehension skills. (Or maybe it does)

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You should write to the Sunday Times. They are almost certain to publish your letter and it is quite a feather in the cap to have that done as I well know.

Look at me world! Ive a letter in the Sunday Times, Im published in aperiodical . I may now die a happy man.
If you had a letter so published Im sure it was edited for brevity, content, and a certain modicum of wit was added.

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Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., is the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He led the successful effort to complete Human Genome Project (HGP), a complex multidisciplinary scientific enterprise directed at mapping and sequencing all of the human DNA, and determining aspects of its function. A working draft of the human genome sequence was announced in June of 2000, an initial analysis was published in February of 2001, and a high-quality, reference sequence was completed in April 2003. From the outset, the project ran ahead of schedule and under budget, and all the data is now available to the scientific community without restrictions on access or use.

Dr. Collins received a B.S. from the University of Virginia, a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from Yale University, and an M.D. from the University of North Carolina. Following a fellowship in Human Genetics at Yale, he joined the faculty at the University of Michigan, where he remained until moving to NIH in 1993. His research has led to the identification of genes responsible for cystic fibrosis, neurofibromatosis, Huntington's disease and Hutchison-Gilford progeria syndrome. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences.

Off Google.

I haven't a clue about any of this but unless it is false fm's depiction of the man is a bit whooshy to say the least.

Although I am aware that fm only uses scientists for his own purposes and any he disagrees with are by definition hopeless and those he agrees with have the beams from the morning sun radiating from their fundaments.

I have no idea where the THE came from. I copied and pasted from Sunday Times Online so I assume it was in there. I wouldn't build a theory on it if I was you fm.

There is reading Spengler and there is READING Spengler. I have been READING On The Form Of The Soul for about three weeks off and on for about the fifth time and following the footnotes and I'm only ten pages into it. And his "soul" in not the same as Rex's. I know you haven't READ it fm. You might have scanned it so you could say you had read it to impress folks. I study it in trying to understand such things as art and money and science.He was a bit inexperienced with the ladies and he does have a gap in that respect.

His doctoral dissertation was on Heraclitus the "dark philosopher" who was famous for the line "War is the Father of all things". He was failed for "insufficient references" which is to say "overestimating the examiners" and his critics have never ceased to latch onto that to try and discredit his work. It is a technique known as " rejection-criticism" and went out of fashion many years ago. Obviously not in the USA.

He used the physiogmatic method which consists of looking directly at things through the intuition rather than strictly scientifically. He was more artist than scientist although he taught mathematics,physical science,history and German literature.

As Mr Stimely said-

"Too often the real meaning of things is obscured by a mask of scientific-mechanistic "facts". Hence the blindness of the professional "scientist-type" historians, who in a grand lack of imagination see only the visible."

Mr Stimely would have loved this thread.

Look-a guy called Swynford wrote that piece in the ST. I only quoted it in the service of the idea that some peer reviewed scientists don't necessarily buy into anti-ID. So I don't know what subtlety I'm supposed to have missed and neither do I know what the crap was I am supposed to have written but if you say it was crap and that there was subtlety in your point I'm sure we will all have to take it as a fact won't we?

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Look at me world! Ive a letter in the Sunday Times, Im published in aperiodical . I may now die a happy man.

I think most people would take that view. Maybe it is a weakness but it certainly isn't an uncommon attitude. But that was a minor example anyway. Would you be ashamed of it fm? I'm certainly not. If you do write in to correct Mr Swyford's report, which really you have a duty to do,
I would give them a little more respect with your typing than you do us.

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If you had a letter so published Im sure it was edited for brevity, content, and a certain modicum of wit was added.

Perhaps you would be good enough to explain how you are so "sure" about your ridiculous conclusions. If your conclusions about the fossil records are as soundly based as your certainty in the matter of my letter I would recommend scrapping science in schools altogether if it is anything like what your idea of it is. You give me the impression that it is just another alternative belief system.

Braudel is complimentary to old Ossie but that must be because he's a shite historian from whom nothing better can be expected.

Oh yeah!

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spendi. Its not that you get things flat wrong, its just that you dont get more deeply involved nor remember the details enough to make an intelligent contribution.

The boys at Celera , led by Dr Craig Venter had already announced the mapping of the human genome (or at least 90%) of it at a fraction of the huge govt subsidized program that actually finished the mapping that was already done by Venters group. Their "shotgun approach" was much better at producing a product than was the NIH's gene by gene counting methodCraig Venter and the HGP. Youre not completely wrong , just a bit misinformed about who really won the race. The US govt, in an effort to recover some dignity from the spent Billions under Collins team, renigged on the possiblities of p[atenting parts of the genome. Bill Clinton, as one of his last efforts declined Celeras patents on specific genes.

ANYWAY, (if youd quit trying to sound pompous about **** of which you know nothing), the fact that you were trying to peddle originally was that , somehow Collins had recently discovered God. he was a known thumper from his days at YAle and was a speaker at many symposia about the reconnection of faith and science. You need to become more deeply informed rather than posting things that are only partly true.

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You might have scanned it so you could say you had read it to impress folks.

I dont think Ive ever done that of which you accuse me anywhere in these fora spendi. You, on the other hand , constantly try to gain great respect with your self pumping reminders of other peoples thoughts , whether in context or not,

Quote:

Look-a guy called Swynford wrote that piece in the ST. I only quoted it in the service of the idea that some peer reviewed scientists don't necessarily buy into anti-ID. So I don't know what subtlety I'm supposed to have missed and neither do I know what the crap was I am supposed to have written but if you say it was crap and that there was subtlety in your point I'm sure we will all have to take it as a fact won't we?

By the way, Collins is not an IDEr as far as I know. Hes been working on the parts of the "junk DNA" in the intron zones where evolution has weeded out experiments of morphology.
Ken Miller writes textbooks on biology and hes a practising and believing CAtholic. He neither considers himself an IDer. My stuffing your quote up your bum had nothing to do with anything personal (however I see that with your whiney retorts I must have struck some nerve). It was merely the call for complete accuracy
1 The HGP was the large govt funded project that mostly cleaned up what Venter and HAzeltine published in 2000

2Collins was not a recent convert to Christian belief. He became a practicingChristian as a result of his routines in his medical training in trauma units. His book would probably have a serious discussion of that fact, contrary to your quoted reporters opinion.

Try to settle down, this is the first Ive seen you get angry, welcome to the club. Pewrhaps theres something that youre passionate about besides being a mere contrarian.

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Good grief fm!

What the heck was all that about? I was not,am not and won't be "angry".
The only time I ever get mildly shirty is when I'm hungry.

I don't give a damn who invented what. As far as I'm concerned our culture invented everything. These famous guys are merely agents of a deeper force.

I had never heard of Collins before this morning.I didn't even read the whole article. It doesn't hold my interest. Or any of those others you mention. I assumed, perhaps wrongly, that he was am fairly eminent scientist. He looks a bit of a gump in the picture on Google which is normal for scientists in my experience.

I only put him up because he was an example of a scientist who supported the religious drift. Let's call it a drift. It isn't black and white. Cultures don't yo-yo from one extreme from the other. It's like one of those quivering things in a glass inspection tube measuring gas flows. If where the gas is heading can take a bit more it rises slightly.

wande has put enough up on the other side. Were any of them as eminent as Collins.

And another thing. Human behaviour in any field is pretty complex and even more so in the one you describe. You can't discuss such things in a few sentences. It's all too convenient doing that and it's only your version as well. A jury would want to hear the other side I think. Collins must be pretty good if the Gov't has put billions into his team. One would hope so at least.

But it's pub time.

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aapology accepted.

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SOUTH CAROLINA UPDATE

Quote:

Education panel approves wording on biology standards
(Associated Press, June 12, 2006)

COLUMBIA, S.C. - The state Education Oversight Committee approved high school biology standards Monday that do not require students to learn to critically analyze the theory of evolution.

The wording of standards had caused an impasse between the committee and the state Board of Education.

Education Board members and state Education Superintendent Inez Tenenbaum worried the change would open the door to teaching alternative theories such as intelligent design.

Under the wording approved Monday, students would have to understand how scientists use data to critically analyze the theory.

"Scientific inquiry is taught at every grade level and in every discipline," Education Department spokesman Jim Foster said. "It does not require students to study alternatives to evolution that are decidedly out of the mainstream."

Monday's unanimous vote to approve the standards without more controversial wording came with almost no discussion and there was no mention of evolution.

"I cannot see this as anything other than a victory," said Casey Luskin, a spokesman for Discovery Institute, a Seattle, Wash.-based think tank that encourages critical analysis of evolution. "Students will now learn the scientific strengths and weaknesses of evolution."

Both the Education Board and the oversight committee had to approve the biology standards before they could be adopted. The standards have to be approved every seven years, meaning the debate could begin again in 2010.

The PR statement from the Discovery Institute is ridiculous (in my opinion).

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fm-

I do understand your position.

You have a bunch of heretics on your hands who whizz around like Catherine wheels. Thus symbols are of some importance to you.Fine distinctions.Words.

To me Rome is the mother of all Churches in our culture.It is our culture. Never straying from the path of orthodoxy, as I am careful never to do, Papal infallibility I mean, I have no need of such things. Even if I screw somebody's missus,which I stopped doing for reasons which still cause me to consider blushing, I can get absolution and by mumbling a few rote learned words as fast as fast gets short of lightning I'm in the clear. I can rob a bank even and with a swift confession become as pure as the snow which falls gently upon the awning over the entrance to the Girlie bar in upper Manhatten where someone's dear daughter is performing.
One senses men who understand human nature with such theology.They are not utopians by any stretch. They attempt to manage and are beset all around by shysters and the silver tongued with the short term gain of the bushwhacker in mind to the exclusion of all else.

I would think that as soon as it is politically possible creationism will be declared the heresy which it obviously is. You will have to be patient.

I will admit to a bit of a passion. It is to provide for the young lads and lasses of the future as good a time as we have had and I simply can't see Science doing it on its own. It lacks something. Call it Art. I don't really know but it isn't simple.. That's what I learned from Spengler-that it isn't simple and the way in which I saw everything changed after that.

x=f(y).

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His faults are human faults and neither here nor there.

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wandel. can this mean the possible end to the concept of the "critical analyses" schtick?. Next we must work on "sudden appearance" in the fossil record.

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farmerman wrote:

wandel. can this mean the possible end to the concept of the "critical analyses" schtick?. Next we must work on "sudden appearance" in the fossil record.

I wish I knew. The Discovery Institute is putting a very strange spin on this. Although Ohio dropped "critical analysis", the Discovery Institute claims that South Carolina and four other states have some form of "critical analysis" in their science education standards.

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fm wrote-

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Wandel-remember that Spengler flunked his first dissertation because he couldnt find enough references.

Viewers will recall that I rendered that as due to "overestimating the examiners".

I repeat it here in order to show how a smear works. With hindsight we now know that Spengler was a long way ahead of any likely examining body in his intellectual capabilities. He used terms and concepts and visions which would have quite passed by the understanding of an average examining board which was probably corruptly appointed in the first place. Such people, suffused with pride, would not wish to admit that and thus they trotted out "insufficient references" which his memory has been stuck with ever since.

And what such people considered to be a "nervous breakdown" might also not stand much scrutiny in relation to our modern use of the phrase.

But, as I have said, none of that matters anyway. The words of his famous and renowned book stand on their own pedestal even had they been written by a monkey and hence the smear referred to is a gratuitous one.

wande wrote-

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The PR statement from the Discovery Institute is ridiculous (in my opinion).

If you are referring to the use of the word "victory" I would agree with you wande. That is ridiculous.

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SOUTH CAROLINA UPDATE

Quote:

TEACHING EVOLUTION
(The South Carolina State, June 13, 2006)

After nearly a year of wrangling, the Education Oversight Committee on Monday endorsed these revisions to biology teaching standards for the topic of evolution that the Department of Education initially recommended in late 2005.

The student will demonstrate an understanding of biological evolution and the diversity of life:
Summarize the process of natural selection.
Explain how genetic processes result in the continuity of life-forms over time.
Explain how diversity within a species increases the chances of its survival.
Explain how genetic variability and environmental factors lead to biological evolution.
Exemplify the various lines of scientific evidence that underlie our understanding of evolution and the diversification of life.
Summarize ways that scientists use data from a variety of sources to investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory.
Use a phylogenetic tree to identify the evolutionary relationships among different groups of organisms.
(Source: S.C. Department of Education)

The Discovery Institute continues to issue press releases describing this as a victory for them. Question

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wandeljw wrote:

SOUTH CAROLINA UPDATE

Quote:
TEACHING EVOLUTION
(The South Carolina State, June 13, 2006)

After nearly a year of wrangling, the Education Oversight Committee on Monday endorsed these revisions to biology teaching standards for the topic of evolution that the Department of Education initially recommended in late 2005.

The student will demonstrate an understanding of biological evolution and the diversity of life:
Summarize the process of natural selection.
Explain how genetic processes result in the continuity of life-forms over time.
Explain how diversity within a species increases the chances of its survival.
Explain how genetic variability and environmental factors lead to biological evolution.
Exemplify the various lines of scientific evidence that underlie our understanding of evolution and the diversification of life.
Summarize ways that scientists use data from a variety of sources to investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory.
Use a phylogenetic tree to identify the evolutionary relationships among different groups of organisms.
(Source: S.C. Department of Education)

I don't see any thing objectionable about that.

I wonder what the revision is? Is it just that line about summarizing ways that scientists use data from a variety to sources to investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory? It seems to me that a students understanding of those things would only strengthen their understanding of evolution, not undermine it, so it looks good to me.

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rosborne979 wrote:

I wonder what the revision is? Is it just that line about summarizing ways that scientists use data from a variety to sources to investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory?

rosborne,

The Discovery Institute is proclaiming that the one line constitutes "critical analysis of evolution". I never post their press releases. Their propaganda is ridiculous.

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Quote:

The student will demonstrate an understanding of biological evolution and the diversity of life:
Summarize the process of natural selection.
Explain how genetic processes result in the continuity of life-forms over time.
Explain how diversity within a species increases the chances of its survival.
Explain how genetic variability and environmental factors lead to biological evolution.
Exemplify the various lines of scientific evidence that underlie our understanding of evolution and the diversification of life.
Summarize ways that scientists use data from a variety of sources to investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory.
Use a phylogenetic tree to identify the evolutionary relationships among different groups of organisms.
(Source: S.C. Department of Education)

As the student will learn early on in the course humans are a life form descended from more primitive creatures which most people think likely to be monkeys or something similar.

Being naturally narcissistic as media has encouraged then to be they will be more interested in these principles being applied to humans than to lizards or apples.

So-
* The female chooses what she fancies.
* Attraction,foreplay,excitation,copulation, conception, gestation, birth,maturation,attraction, foreplay etc etc all through the foggy ruins of time up to here. Assuming no perversions of the natural order of course.
*The fashion industry related to unequal wages.
*Perversions of the natural order under various stimuli from the environment in such species as show-dogs,fruit flies, racehorses as well as humans.
*Any statistical study of the birth,marriage and deaths columns in regional newspapers over,say,50 years related to house prices or lunar cycles.
*Pushing their own boat out and getting paid for it.
*Class solidarity through occupations,leisure activities and courtship rituals.

You could always place some discreet curtains around the piano legs if they are too suggestive and ros has objections and bore the little bleeders witless.

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spendi, on Ozzie Spengler, said

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And what such people considered to be a "nervous breakdown" might also not stand much scrutiny in relation to our modern use of the phrase.

So you dont disagree that, after this period, Spewngler had dwelled in a lifelong pursuit of weirdness.

I enjoy the simple declarative reflections on the human condition.
William Tecumseh Sherman once said something to the effect ,"I respect (gen) Grant. He stood by me when I was crazy amd I stood by him when he was a drunk"

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Neat fm.

I'll look for an excuse to use it in the pub sometime. Very manly.

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Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

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