Thread: Expelled!

Originally Posted by Wildtim

Russel, I don't want to be mean or anything but the arguments you are making are specifically shot down in this article. I posted it earl;ier, but maybe you missed the link.

I'd be interested in a specific refutation, if it's out there.

I'd missed it as well, check out this for refutation.

First off, thanks for a level headed discussion.

And being an engineer, you should know that the type of research that scientists do is extremely accurate. If you want to know how much tensile stress a new composite material will withstand, you apply a axial load and measure it's elongation, and keep adding loads until it breaks record the results and do it a few more times for a good average, correct? What's the difference? It's the same scientific process of hypothesizing, testing, examining results and retesting.

I wouldn't say IS extremely accurate, but rather CAN BE extremely accurate. Experimental data in a controlled environment as per your example is one thing. Finding out about things that nobody was there for is quite another (and falls to conjecture for all sides), and thus we all are left to postulate on the possibilities. Evolutionary science does not, in my opinion, fall under the "hard science" category.


And I also agree with you that the garbage in garbage out axiom is applicable to pundits on both sides of the issue!

The whole I.D. discusion is like if I handed you a set of digital calipers and said that they are accurate to +- .025 fempto-meters when you have no way to test them because nothing that precise has ever existed.

Interestingly enough, I build picosecond lasers for a living. The laser pulse lasts for 1 x 10^-12 seconds duration. We also have a femtosecond laser here in the lab as well (10^-15 second duration). Just thought that was an interesting aside!

Originally Posted by Seraphim

Interestingly enough, I build picosecond lasers for a living. The laser pulse lasts for 1 x 10^-12 seconds duration. We also have a femtosecond laser here in the lab as well (10^-15 second duration). Just thought that was an interesting aside!

How many single stream photons can you pump out in a femtosecond?

Originally Posted by xman

How many single stream photons can you pump out in a femtosecond?

Is this like asking how much wood could a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

I think this is an interesting look at ultrafast pulses:

Moving downward on the scale of time, ultrafast science passes quickly beyond human experience. One second is a familiar and manageable piece of time. It's not hard to create a second's worth of light by turning a flashlight on, then quickly off. What's harder is to comprehend that in that second the light has gone 186,000 miles -- three quarters of the way to the moon.

From one second, let's move on to other time scales:

One thirtieth of a second is the time it takes human eyes to react to light. Project each frame of a home movie for one thirtieth of a second, and viewers, unable to distinguish separate frames, see continuous motion. Light, during the time one frame is projected, travels 6,200 miles. If you climb aboard a light beam in Chicago, you'll be in Tokyo in the blink of an eye.

One microsecond -- a millionth of a second -- is the duration of the light from a camera's electronic flash. Light that short freezes motion, making a pitched ball or a bullet appear stationary.

One nanosecond -- a billionth of a second -- is the speed at which transistors in today's computers turn on and off to represent the ones and zeros of binary logic and arithmetic. It is a time-duration so short that light, which can speed seven times around Earth in the second between our heartbeats, travels only one foot.

One picosecond -- a trillionth of a second -- is a spot of time from the domain of molecules. Light, traveling for one picosecond, would barely make it across the period at the end of this sentence. Only with a laser that generates picosecond light pulses can scientists freeze the short-duration motion of molecules and produce images of what goes on at the molecular level. Used in this way, the picosecond laser is comparable to a strobe, which can freeze the motion of a sprinter's stride in time-lapse photography.

One femtosecond -- a quadrillionth, or million billionth, of a second -- is a thousand times shorter than the picosecond snippets of time in which molecules react. Light, in one femtosecond, goes only far enough to traverse about 1,000 silicon atoms.

-- Excerpted from proto magazine, AT&T

Tim, I take no offense and offer you the same.

You didn't read very carefully, many of my points clarify common misconceptions, such as the mistaking of "naturally occurring" and "by chance". As well as the invalidity of irreducible complexity as a whole in that it was formulated in absence of correct understanding of Evolutionary terms.

Those points are not incorrect. Neither are the definitions of Naturalistic Science and Metaphysical Science. One must understand that I.D. is a Metaphysical Science and is untestable, it poses an opinion not a solution.

Furthermore, what Meyer's is doing, in that article, is redefining the ground work on which to base biological assumptions, by the words and theories of other I.D. theorists, then trying to disprove something that is based on other (more solid) principles by casting doubt, not providing new, testable alternatives.

He does do it in a scientific manner, and if he were to come to a testable solution (he hasn't) or proposed a workable mechanism (he hasn't) it would be great! It would receive support in full. But the whole problem with I.D. and Meyer's conclusions is that they are not science, they pose scientific situations and sort through scientific data, but never give testable results. Science is the process of discovering the cause a phenomenon and testing it for validity, it is utterly useless to pose questions, cite information and then come to a conclusion that is not testable.

There are numerous credible sources on the internet that show the document to be a complete farce.

The following was taken from http://www.pandasthumb.org/pt-archives/000430.html

"A central claim of Meyer’s is that novel genes have too much “CSI” to be produced by evolution. The first problem with this is that Meyer does not demonstrate that genes have CSI under Dembski’s definition (see above). The second problem is that Meyer cites absolutely none of the literature documenting the origin of new genes. For example, Meyer missed the recent paper in Current Opinion in Genetics and Development with the unambiguous title, “Evolution of novel genes.” The paper and 183 related papers can be found http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/en...m_uid=11682312. "



The bottom line is that there has yet to be a solution put forth by I.D. theorists that has been accepted by the established scientific community because none of their results can be tested. It is sleight of hand in an extremely artful manner.

Originally Posted by Seraphim

Interestingly enough, I build picosecond lasers for a living. The laser pulse lasts for 1 x 10^-12 seconds duration. We also have a femtosecond laser here in the lab as well (10^-15 second duration). Just thought that was an interesting aside!

That is VERY COOL, Seraphim.
I guess I was in a hurry at the end of that post, what I meant was there are no calipers with that accuracy and confused my train of thought with verifying them by means of other calipers, which is impossible, my implied scenario remains.

But then again you probably knew that and were just having a laugh, good one!

Agreed, thanks for having this talk.

While somewhat off topic, the idea that it is forbidden to teach religion in public schools is a misinterpretation. There's two ways to teach religion: one is the style of teaching towards believers to deepen their understanding of their faith, the other is teaching about religions from a detached viewpoint. The former is what is not allowed, the latter is still acceptable. The problems arise from the line between the two being very blurry and often what is detached, objective discussions of faith to one person can be seen as proselytizing to others. On the other end, a usual practice to maintain the detached teaching is to discuss multiple faiths. This is a case where political correctness has sometimes been self-imposed by the right, as some would rather not discuss Christianity in public schools if it means discussing Buddhism or Islam.

Most of the Supreme Court decisions regarding the Establishment Clause of the first amendment (the government cannot establish a state religion) have noted that a religion of secularism is also illegal. It's just that it has been easier to ignore it all and end up secular in appearance then to try to open up discussions that make all sides uncomfortable.

My current academic life has me primarily studying religious pluralism in American higher education, but the legal studies overlap between public universities and public k-12. This is why I wanted to jump in. Similarly I could jump on the discussions about the academic profession, but that would be a rant that would go off in a whole other direction and end up not being related to the subject matter here at all.

[QUOTE=They Call Me Blockhead;198287]While somewhat off topic, the idea that it is forbidden to teach religion in public schools is a misinterpretation. There's two ways to teach religion: one is the style of teaching towards believers to deepen their understanding of their faith, the other is teaching about religions from a detached viewpoint. The former is what is not allowed, the latter is still acceptable. The problems arise from the line between the two being very blurry and often what is detached, objective discussions of faith to one person can be seen as proselytizing to others. On the other end, a usual practice to maintain the detached teaching is to discuss multiple faiths. This is a case where political correctness has sometimes been self-imposed by the right, as some would rather not discuss Christianity in public schools if it means discussing Buddhism or Islam.[/qoute]

In other words as soon as someone becoms slightly offended it become illegal, not a good standard.

Originally Posted by They Call Me Blockhead

My current academic life has me primarily studying religious pluralism in American higher education, but the legal studies overlap between public universities and public k-12. This is why I wanted to jump in. Similarly I could jump on the discussions about the academic profession, but that would be a rant that would go off in a whole other direction and end up not being related to the subject matter here at all.

I think I speak for all when I say I have nothing against hearing a good rant, so start a thread, crack a Coors and vent

Originally Posted by Wildtim

I think I speak for all when I say I have nothing against hearing a good rant, so start a thread, crack a Coors and vent

Yep! Not like we get nasty.

Originally Posted by Wildtim

Originally Posted by They Call Me Blockhead

While somewhat off topic, the idea that it is forbidden to teach religion in public schools is a misinterpretation. There's two ways to teach religion: one is the style of teaching towards believers to deepen their understanding of their faith, the other is teaching about religions from a detached viewpoint. The former is what is not allowed, the latter is still acceptable. The problems arise from the line between the two being very blurry and often what is detached, objective discussions of faith to one person can be seen as proselytizing to others. On the other end, a usual practice to maintain the detached teaching is to discuss multiple faiths. This is a case where political correctness has sometimes been self-imposed by the right, as some would rather not discuss Christianity in public schools if it means discussing Buddhism or Islam.

In other words as soon as someone becoms slightly offended it become illegal, not a good standard.

That's not exactly correct. Someone gets offended, people give in rather than have a conversation. It's more how the schools decide to interpret the law rather than what the law is. If lawyers become involved it usually becomes an issue of economics (it's cheaper to cut the programs than fight for them), not law.

I think I speak for all when I say I have nothing against hearing a good rant, so start a thread, crack a Coors and vent

I'm writing a research proposal on the subject. Trust me when I say that you don't want to read it.