Thread: Expelled!

Originally Posted by Russel Baldridge

I would like to hear from some more folks living outside of the USA, I seem to remember a statistic about the number of other nations facing the same debate, and that we are pretty much alone in it.

Is that correct, or slanted, or mis-stated?

Over here, evolution is pretty much taught in all schools, public and private.
Not as the source of life, but a way to trace humans to apelikes, to dinosaurs.
Evolution exists. It can be witnessed, hence it is a testable theory which can make testable predictions.

Religion is taught in most schools, and it is used to explain how it all got started without being too specific. Over here it is perfectly acceptable to say that God was responsible for the big bang and the laws of nature, after which he let the universe get on with business.

The whole creationism at schools debate in the US is viewed as weird by most Europeans.
I am not saying I am 100% sure that evolution explains everything. But if you start teaching creationism, you might as well teach about the flying spaghetti monster while you're at it.

Pretty much the same thing over here as in Belgium with Bruno.

Religions are taught (offcourse they are...we have catholic schools....REAL catholic schools where kids go to Mass once a week/month etc) in all school at least so kids know what other people believe. Outlawing religion in school seems to us kind of weird for a country that claims freedom of religion as one of it's basic laws.

Besides that. I still want to know why it's wrong for established Theory to be challenged? That's pretty much what I saw from the trailer that the film was about.

After all....however likely a theory is....it is still a theory and only true untill proven not true. That's what science is all about isn't it?

Originally Posted by LX_Emergency

Pretty much the same thing over here as in Belgium with Bruno.

Religions are taught (offcourse they are...we have catholic schools....REAL catholic schools where kids go to Mass once a week/month etc) in all school at least so kids know what other people believe. Outlawing religion in school seems to us kind of weird for a country that claims freedom of religion as one of it's basic laws.

Besides that. I still want to know why it's wrong for established Theory to be challenged? That's pretty much what I saw from the trailer that the film was about.

After all....however likely a theory is....it is still a theory and only true untill proven not true. That's what science is all about isn't it?

Basically thats all the ID people want that the evolutionists admit that the origin of life isn't a forgone conclusion and that there are other explanations for it. Evolution does happen as every farmer and animal husband will admit. If things were taught here the way Bruno lays them out there would be no argument, unfortunately thats not what happens.

For my primary education I went to religious school, and I was taught about evolution and how it worked as well as Gods design and setting of the world in motion. When I went to public high school, and state run college, evolution was taught but the origin of life was sketchy at best and questions were actively discouraged. In other words as an 8th grader I had a better understanding of the scope of human ideas and theories due to a religious education than I was taught in state college because, specifically, this is a taboo subject. I don't care whether or not you are an atheist but if you don't see a problem with that, I have no hope for this country.


This whole debate is really a reaction to the way in which God has been systematically attacked and made a taboo subject in public discourse. It seems the freedom of religion has been warped into the freedom from religion over here. You are mainly seeing things like this as a backlash and a reaction to that. To give an example there was a teacher fired from public school last year for wearing a small gold cross on a chain while the same school was forcing students to make Kwanzaa decorations, when stuff like that happens people have a right to get a little irate.


Right now there seems to be this belief that Freedom means never having to deal with things that offend you or that you don't agree with. So we see PC speech, banning religious discourse, certain word that white people can't use. All in an effort to keep anyone from being offended.

Sorry folks, freedom doesn't work that way. If everyone is free to say and practice what they want, you will be offended by some of them. There are religions or viewpoints I find offensive, but I listen to them because the other has the freedom to say what he wants. There are bigots in this world, and they shouldn't go to jail for their words, offensive as they be, but only for their overt acts.


Anyway thats the larger debate this is a part of in this country. ID vs. the evolutionary origin is place that is relatively weak in the amour of the academic PC crowd. Despite some believing it is "relatively irrefutable" I have yet to hear a explanation that is significantly more plausible or scientifically useful than any other, that makes it a weak point in the general theory of modern scientific arrogance.

This all from a guy who used to consider biology to be my favorite subject, I never got less than an A even in university.

Originally Posted by Russel Baldridge

Irreducibly complex: the idea that no part of a biological organ or organism can be taken away or reduced in complexity and still produce a working part or organism

This is fundamentally incorrect as it supposes a purpose for the given organ or organism. The human eye is often used as an example. The claim is that the human eye is no longer a functioning human eye if you remove a piece of it. And in making that statement they have named the function of the eye so that anything less is in fact no longer an eye. But in reality there are sundry forms of less (and more) complicated eyes in the natural world and just because we know what ours are capable of does not mean that they'd be useless if they were less complicated than they are currently. A photo receptor (light sensor) is better than complete blindness, fuzzy vision is better still, the human eye is yet one step up, and an eagles eyes are one better. Irreducible complexity is hand waving at best.

My understanding of irreducible complexity is somewhat diferent. You are focusing on one componenet, or organ, and if a change were made to it, it would no longer function. Simple light sensors work too, as you say.

But, the key argument I find of irreducible complexity is not focussed on ONE organ, but rather, how do you explain the fact that for a living creature to exist, it takes a number of very complex organs to do so?

i.e.- say a organism with a heart were to have evolved on it's own, but what good is a heart without lungs to oxiginate the blood that the heart pumps? And then you need a liver to filter and clean the blood that is circulating around. And a stomach that is capable of feuling all of this action. You need ALL of these components all at once for an organism to function. And this goes for "simple celled" organisms as well, as I mentioned- the nucleus needs the endoplasmic reticulum and mitochondria, et al.

If life is created by chance, or rather by the simple natural combining of elements, this seems rather implaussible. OK, if even ONE organ (or endoplasmic reticulum if you want to keep it simple), were to be created in this manner it would be stupendous beyond belief, but the fact is that it takes alot more than one organ/component for an organism to function. So, by chance ALL of the neccessary components came into being at once?


I will add this as well- I myself have been on both sides of this debate. For most of my life I bought into the idea of evolution, etc. (isn't that what they taught me in school?) I was into the whole idea that given enough time anything is possible, and all that, and that creationists are just blindly marching in lock-step to the edicts of their religious leaders. I shook my head at how simple minded they seemed. Science! Don't these people understand science?

Well, now I'm on the other side. I'm an engineer, so I feel that I do have a solid understanding of science. But one thing that needs to be said about science is that it is not as "pure" as its proponents make it out to be. If you make an assumption you can then gather data to support that assumption instead of letting the data speak for itself. Garbage in, garbage out.

You find a 3 million year old skeleton. True science would look at it as itself. A skeleton that bears some resemblance to both humans and apes.

Assumption science however, makes the leap by saying "aha! A 3 million year old gorilla skeleton, this MUST be where WE came from!"

Just because a claim is made by someone in the scientific field, that does not make it scientific fact.


Anybody else out there switch sides at one point or another?

I've been wondering whether to post or not, but since I grew up in the commie part of europe and I'm now in US I figure I may as well.

Originally Posted by JMS

So, my question is, if this statement you made is true, why can't we question what "science" so arrogantly presents us as truth!

I don't think there is a problem with questioning science at all. That's the whole point of science and everything is being questioned all the time. The evolution is a scientific theory - there is evidence for it, a lot of the short-term processes are facts, they are reproducible in a lab and work the same way every single time.
ID/creationism is nothing of the sort - it lacks any predictive power and it is just a postulate, or heuristic argument, just as the flying spaghetti monster. If anybody feels the need to absolutely have answers to questions that the science has not been able to address yet (or perhaps won't ever), they can choose whatever answer they want, but labeling that answer as 'science' is plain wrong as it doesn't even remotely resemble it.

As Russel said, the theory of gravitation is pretty incomplete too, so you are equally free to claim that God is making objects attract. And most people will be happy with that. Luckily for all of us there have been people who were not satisfied with this explanation, so we have nifty things like airplanes and satelites.
Large part of the world has enough food only because evolution works in a lab. Just check with DuPont and Monsanto. Most of their products are inconceivable by natural selection or any other such mechanism, they are true creations, designed very intelligently.

Nobody in the scientific community believed in the BigBang - however only few decades later that's a well established scientific theory that is being developed further. Scientific theories come and go all the time, but they can only be successfully challenged by other scientific theories, not the stuff that only superficially looks like one.

As far as what we were taught in school - evolution, no religion whatsoever, but we had philosophy, and ethics where some religions were touched upon. There has been push for some years for some sort of religious education, but since the society is very secular and the state-supported religion is really a caricature, nothing significant is happening and may not happen for a while.

Originally Posted by Seraphim

Anybody else out there switch sides at one point or another?

I did, when I was in high school I actually didn't participate in the evolution section of science class on the grounds that it was against my religion. So I was not aware that lightning mud was commonly taught. I owned two shirts that didn't have religious messages on them, and played bass in The Almighty God Loving Livestock (We got to open for Timothy James Meany once.)

As I'm sure you've noticed I've changed my opinions since then.

Originally Posted by voerman

I don't think you are with the program yet. You are supposed to free your mind, think outside the box, and question everything. Only when you have accomplished all those things will you actually be in a true state of enlightenment and see everything the way the professor does.

Please continue to seek the true meaning of life, my son.

A college professor,
Lou

excellently stated!

John P.

Originally Posted by Seraphim

My understanding of irreducible complexity is somewhat diferent. You are focusing on one componenet, or organ, and if a change were made to it, it would no longer function. Simple light sensors work too, as you say.

But, the key argument I find of irreducible complexity is not focussed on ONE organ, but rather, how do you explain the fact that for a living creature to exist, it takes a number of very complex organs to do so?

i.e.- say a organism with a heart were to have evolved on it's own, but what good is a heart without lungs to oxiginate the blood that the heart pumps? And then you need a liver to filter and clean the blood that is circulating around. And a stomach that is capable of feuling all of this action. You need ALL of these components all at once for an organism to function. And this goes for "simple celled" organisms as well, as I mentioned- the nucleus needs the endoplasmic reticulum and mitochondria, et al.

If life is created by chance, or rather by the simple natural combining of elements, this seems rather implaussible. OK, if even ONE organ (or endoplasmic reticulum if you want to keep it simple), were to be created in this manner it would be stupendous beyond belief, but the fact is that it takes alot more than one organ/component for an organism to function. So, by chance ALL of the neccessary components came into being at once?


I will add this as well- I myself have been on both sides of this debate. For most of my life I bought into the idea of evolution, etc. (isn't that what they taught me in school?) I was into the whole idea that given enough time anything is possible, and all that, and that creationists are just blindly marching in lock-step to the edicts of their religious leaders. I shook my head at how simple minded they seemed. Science! Don't these people understand science?

Well, now I'm on the other side. I'm an engineer, so I feel that I do have a solid understanding of science. But one thing that needs to be said about science is that it is not as "pure" as its proponents make it out to be. If you make an assumption you can then gather data to support that assumption instead of letting the data speak for itself. Garbage in, garbage out.

You find a 3 million year old skeleton. True science would look at it as itself. A skeleton that bears some resemblance to both humans and apes.

Assumption science however, makes the leap by saying "aha! A 3 million year old gorilla skeleton, this MUST be where WE came from!"

Just because a claim is made by someone in the scientific field, that does not make it scientific fact.


Anybody else out there switch sides at one point or another?

excellent post, I like the way you think.
Personally, I don't think my belief in creation mutually excludes evolution, but perhaps for some it does. Personally I have a hard time with the idea of an omnipotent, omniscient being who would create creatures which are unadaptable.
So...while I lean toward intelligent creation, I think a small level of adaptation is part of the design process rather than evidence against it. I do not believe, however that one species simply turns into another-although WE made those names...and a kit fox on San Clemente Island (where I used to go on detachment) is a different species than an identical kit fox on the mainland....simply because the latin name differentiates the location it is found..

John P.

black, italic = Seraphim. Blue non italic = Me


My understanding of irreducible complexity is somewhat diferent. You are focusing on one componenet, or organ, and if a change were made to it, it would no longer function. Simple light sensors work too, as you say.

But, the key argument I find of irreducible complexity is not focussed on ONE organ, but rather, how do you explain the fact that for a living creature to exist, it takes a number of very complex organs to do so?

Well, that is the the summary of all I.D. arguments, it seems that life is too complex. But the point is that it has been a slow march of ever increasing complexity, it did not happen all at once.

Irreducible complexity as defined by the I.D. theorists is as I mentioned above. They also give the flagellum as an example, in that no part can be removed (physically) without rendering it useless. This is again a misunderstanding of evolution, as it is clear that there are less complex flagellum, but none could function in their current state of complexity without all of their constituent parts. They are mixing facts with rhetoric, and not doing actual science.

i.e.- say a organism with a heart were to have evolved on it's own, but what good is a heart without lungs to oxiginate the blood that the heart pumps? And then you need a liver to filter and clean the blood that is circulating around. And a stomach that is capable of feuling all of this action. You need ALL of these components all at once for an organism to function.

100% correct, but this is not how life came about. It started with life forms that did not have hearts or organs, they acquired the elements that they needed from their environment through osmosis. Then a bit more complexity results in dedicated parts of a simple organism to do specific nutrient or elemental transfers with the environment thus increasing efficiency. And so on until you have rudimentary organs, and finally full organs in a highly complex symbiosis with all other organs.

And this goes for "simple celled" organisms as well, as I mentioned- the nucleus needs the endoplasmic reticulum and mitochondria, et al.

True, and there is surely a lower form that it evolved from, but I am not personally and achaebacteriologist, so that exact scientific name and cited documentation is beyond my grasp. Will you humor me in doing some research? I'll try to as well.

If life is created by chance, or rather by the simple natural combining of elements, this seems rather implaussible. OK, if even ONE organ (or endoplasmic reticulum if you want to keep it simple), were to be created in this manner it would be stupendous beyond belief, but the fact is that it takes alot more than one organ/component for an organism to function. So, by chance ALL of the neccessary components came into being at once?

This is precisely not how Evolution attempts to explain life, you're mixing Creationism and Evolution. Evolution says that it happens naturally, but not necessarily by chance, "by chance" implies no direction and no influencing factors. Nature directs Evolution in the way that organisms must change in order to survive, and a naturally varying environment pushes the most adaptive members of a group to survive and pass on their genes. Evolution "by chance" would mean that we are all sitting around in a perfect vacuum with no alteration to our environment whatsoever and genes just start mutating. Which is entirely inaccurate.

I will add this as well- I myself have been on both sides of this debate. For most of my life I bought into the idea of evolution, etc. (isn't that what they taught me in school?)

It is not just an idea, it is a constantly tested and retested explanation that has yet to be disproved by any verifiable evidence, it is under question because I.D. theorists are poking at the (small and largely negligible) gaps and claiming the whole theory to be wrong.

I was into the whole idea that given enough time anything is possible, and all that, and that creationists are just blindly marching in lock-step to the edicts of their religious leaders. I shook my head at how simple minded they seemed. Science! Don't these people understand science?

This is great that you can admit to changing your mind, few people are capable of such a feat and even fewer will admit it, kudos sir.

Well, now I'm on the other side. I'm an engineer, so I feel that I do have a solid understanding of science. But one thing that needs to be said about science is that it is not as "pure" as its proponents make it out to be. If you make an assumption you can then gather data to support that assumption instead of letting the data speak for itself. Garbage in, garbage out.

Very true for both sides of the argument.

You find a 3 million year old skeleton. True science would look at it as itself. A skeleton that bears some resemblance to both humans and apes.

Assumption science however, makes the leap by saying "aha! A 3 million year old gorilla skeleton, this MUST be where WE came from!"

Just because a claim is made by someone in the scientific field, that does not make it scientific fact. (there is no such term as scientific fact, scientific theory is as good as it gets and can be disproved if valid evidence is discovered.)

And again, you are correct, but this is not an argument against evolution or even general science, it is an argument against bad science. Scientists do not go out and say "hey this looks like that, so this must be that" in the childish manner you are implying, they examine as many different samples as they can, usually in the thousands, then present their finding in a journal for other scientists to review. A theory is borne of many scientists doing many tests and making professional observations again and again and again. It is not a casual process whatsoever.

Anybody else out there switch sides at one point or another?

Yes, I was once enticed by the arguments the I.D.ers put forth, but that was prior to examining the evidence objectively and coming to the conclusion that their arguments are largely rhetorical and not scientific.

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 an 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.

Intelligent Design and Creationism on the other hand have no such testing, or analysis. They take a claim that Evolutionists have put forth, and try to disprove it. This is not science, at best it is doubt casting. They offer no way to test for when Design has occurred, or by what mechanism a supernatural force interacts with the natural world. It is rhetoric, not science, plain and simple.

The whole I.D. discusion is like if I handed you a set of digital calipers and said that they are accurate to +- .025 femto-meters when you have no way to test them because nothing that precise has ever existed. You would surely say "who calibrated them?" or "who manufactured them" and I could just say "The Designer" and you effectively have no way to refute me other than the fact that I can not offer tangible proof. The same applies to intelligent design, they offer no tangible scientific evidence, only conjecture.

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.