Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

The numerous PHD's in the film who have been discriminated against, ostricized, and blacklisted are evidence enough that there is a major problem in academia. This film demonstrates that better than any other in recent memory.

Nell, I agree that the movie is trash, but I'd like to clarify a couple of things:
"Stein employs misdirection and guilt by very tangential association to try to make his case."

His attempt to associate Darwin with Hitler isn't even tangential--it's just false! Hitler explicitly rejected Darwin's hypothesis (now a theory) of common descent in Mein Kampf, which puts Hitler in the same camp as the IDers and creationists, who reject common descent and accept change within a species or "kind," which is what Hitler was trying to accomplish with genocide.

"Intelligent Design advocates believe that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected or random or mechanical process such as Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection."

Natural selection is anything but random, and mutations are only random with respect to fitness. Thus, any attempt to portray the entire process as random is a lie.

"Stein begins by interviewing scientists who lost their jobs for even mentioning the theory,..."

This is incorrect in two ways. None of the people lost their jobs for "mentioning" ID. Second, ID is not a theory; in science, the term "theory" refers to a hypothesis with a long track record of successful empirical predictions. The ID movement is afraid to test their laughably weak hypothesis, so instead they lie to deceive the public about the very nature of science.

"... baits some Darwinian scientists in selective clips from interviews,"

Real scientists only use the term "Darwinian" to describe mechanisms. All of the scientists interviewed are well aware of multiple non-Darwinan mechanisms.

"Stein says that freedom of speech requires that both Intelligent Design and Darwin's natural selection should be taught in America's classrooms."

But the reality is that students, when taught properly, learn about non-Darwinian evolutionary mechanisms too.

"But he never subjects Intelligent Design to the kind of scrutiny required by scientific analysis, which is based on observation and experimentation."

Correct, with one essential prediction--a scientist has to use her/his hypothesis to make predictions about what she/he will observe, and then go to the lab or the field to test those predictions. The irony is that no one in the ID movement has sufficient faith to put an ID hypothesis to the test.

"Science is all about challenging, refining, and refuting established theories, as the movie concedes, with Albert Einstein’s improvement of the theories of Isaac Newton as an example."

Yes, but unlike IDers, Einstein made empirical predictions, and he didn't become famous until those predictions were shown to be correct. IDers are afraid to make predictions and they have labs and money to test them if they did. Einstein was a patent clerk.

"Darwin says that life forms evolved through random mutation and natural selection, the survival of the fittest."

Darwin knew nothing of random mutation. He observed heritable variation, as anyone else does.

"Stein never shows that Intelligent Design can go from theory to explanation as it must to be considered science."

You're conflating "theory" with "hypothesis." Theory is the endpoint, and hypothesis is the beginning. "Theory" does not mean "untested guess."

Overall, this is an excellent, well thought out review. Perhaps the best I've seen so far, and I have seen them all.

John makes some valid points, but none the less, very nice work.

"The numerous PHD's in the film who have been discriminated against, ostricized, and blacklisted are evidence enough that there is a major problem in academia. This film demonstrates that better than any other in recent memory."

The movie completely misrepresents and out right lies about all these poor, alleged victims of academic snobbery. Read the facts at expelledexposed.com.

http://www.expelledexposed.com/index.php/the-truth

It also need to be said that it is not a "problem" for academia to reject sheer nonsense. Evolution is a proven fact. There is no such scientific theory as "Intelligent Design" (that is purely a religious movement, not a scientific on, and it has never provided any testable hypotheses), and there is no more reason to be "open minded" about it than there is to be open minded about an argument that the earth is flat or that it sits on a turtle.

There isn't even anything to TEACH about ID. It's nothing but a religious belief, with no evidentiary basis and no scientific reasoning behind it. There is, to be sure, that specious little device called "irreducible complexity" contrived by Michael Behe which avers the uninteresting truism that if something in biology cannot possibly have developed by natural processes then it must have developed by some other process. The problem with that, though, is that not a single example of so-called "irreducible complexity" has ever been demonstrated to exist (and no, bacterial flagella are not irreducible. Neither are eyballs or wings or any of the other rubbish that typically gets espoused by creationist/ID demagogues and their naive audiences.

Thanks so much for all of these comments. A few responses:

John, I especially appreciate your illuminating and clarifying comments. Thanks especially for the reminder of the importance of distinguishing the scientific use of the term "theory" from the colloquial use and the additional information about Hilter's views.

Bad, thanks for the additional information about some of the scientists featured in the film. Your point is exactly the right one -- they can't call Intelligent Design "science" unless they are willing to subject the hypothesis to the same tests that all of science must be measured by. If not, they can call it something else or even invent their own category and keep natural selection out of that one, but they cannot call it "science."

Both John and John-Paul: I believe that if you are going to argue with someone's point, you have to begin with their own description of their views and thus I felt it necessary to use Intelligent Design's own statement of its core beliefs, including their use of the term "random." I believe they use it to refer not to natural selection but to mutation.

Thank you, Ben and Ford, for the kind words. You saw in my review what I was hoping to convey, not ideology but an assessment of the logic of the movie within its own terms. Stein says in the movie he would not want his child taught that the earth was flat or that the Holocaust never happened. But he never explains how the mechanism for establishing they are not true should not be applied to Intelligent Design. It really is a terribly shoddy piece of work.

Let's take IntelligentDesigner's comment one step further. "Every code and machine that has come into existence has required intelligent causation, hence, Intelligent Design."

Not only that---every complex machine that has come into existence has required many different designers. Surely DNA and the cellular machinery are more complex than an automobile or an aircraft. Yet each of these requires hundreds or thousands of designers--dozens for the structural parts, dozens for the engines, dozens for the electrical systems, and on and on.

Actually, multiple designers expalin many aspects of living systems. Why do some animals catch and eat others? Well, why do missiles destroy an enemy's buildings? Antagonistic designers. Why do some species drive others out of existence? Well, why do automobiles designed by different companies compete with each other? Why do species go extinct? Different designers obsolete the designs of preceding designers. Why do some features of many animals appear similar? Some companies design engines and sell the same design to different aircraft designers. Why do animals have vestigial organs? Many digital watches use exactly the same chip---different models merely disconnect unwanted circuits.

A moment's reflection will reveal many other reasons why living beings must have been designed by vast numbers of different designers.

OLORIN,

Not necessarily. Morse Code had one designer. Samuel F. B. Morse. So it would be more correct to say that a machine or code requires AT LEAST ONE DESIGNER (possibly more than one). In a more general sense, these concepts' origins require a mind.

A wedge is another machine that only requires one designer. A wedge does require intelligent design when you investigate its origin. If you do not think so, then I have a bridge I can sell you.

Saji George,

There is so much emotional and staunch responses because ideologues have taken over specific branches of science and they are being exposed. 88% of biologists do not believe in a personal God. Only around 9-12% of general population thinks the same. In academia, you have a situation where only evolutionists are able to decide whether or not evolution is true and how far the mechanism goes with regard to origins in biology and cosmology. This is similar to the Catholic Church being the only authority to judge what can be said and regarded as truth with regard to the origins of biology and cosmology in medieval times.

Motivations are a distraction and have nothing to do with that actual arguments against the Explanatory filter, Complex Specified Information, and Irreducible Complexity. Ad Hominems are common to the Darwin lot. They would rather use "Bulverism" tactics then actually engage in argumentative debate (because they know they are wrong). A famous lawyers creed is: if you have the facts on your side, argue the facts, if you have the law on your side, argue the law, if neither are on your side, destroy your opponents credibility. Darwinists do not have the facts on their side, so they don't argue the facts. Darwinists do not have the law on their side (how can you argue about acedemic freedom legislation?)so they have to invent strawmen arguments in order to make the law on their side (by saying that ID postulates a supreme being or supernatural being, when it really just postulates that the most likely cause for the origin of said thing is an intelligent cause). The only thing left after knocking down strawmen is for them to attack the credibility of their opponents in the ID community since EF, CSI, and IC are not in any religious scripture.

Just saying something is not science, then talking about how the ID people got to thinking the way they do is not science, it's logical fallacy. Its bluffing.

If ID is not a real phenomenon, and not scientific, then I'd like someone to tell me the origin of the computer or airplane. If detecting intelligent causation can not be studied, then I want to know why, and then they'd need to talk to the forensic scientists, because that is indeed what they do for a living.

Thanks for your reply. I agree with your review, I'm only saying that there is far more deception than what you identified.

"...I felt it necessary to use Intelligent Design's own statement of its core beliefs, including their use of the term "random." I believe they use it to refer not to natural selection but to mutation."

Some do, most don't.

I'm just saying that it's a major point of deception either way. Even mutation is only random in a single, limited sense. Mutations are grossly biased in their directionality (A->G happens orders of magnitude more often than A->C or A->T, triplet repeats like the one that causes Huntington's expand at incredibly rapid rates and rarely contract) and in their location. Some mechanisms crank up mutations. They are only random wrt fitness.

If you want to get an idea as to how ludicrous their claims of limits are, consider this fact: your body, in real time (2 weeks), using nothing but genetic variation (recombination and mutational hotspots) that is random wrt fitness and selection, create multiple proteins that bind to another single protein with incredible specificity. Moreover, there are so many ways to evolve specific binding that the multiple proteins evolved in your body will be different from the ones my body evolves, even when we are presented with the same protein. The new proteins are the antibodies produced by the immune system.

The punchline: assuming that God designed us, why did He choose genetic variation and selection as the mechanism underlying something as important as the immune system? Aren't the IDers who claim that protein binding sites can't evolve specificity calling God unintelligent then?

> To say that ID is not science is utter BS

Excellent review!
See also http://www.expelledexposed.com/
and
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=sciam-reviews-expelled

ID is poor theology and no science at all. It does not make any predictions, does not suggest any experiments, its theories are not testable and cannot be falsified.

Good Old BobC, appearing at every Darwin Blog Site.

Why can monkeys and apes and chimps not add concept onto matter in the form of a machine or code like humans can?

Did you know that Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel have millions of lines of identical code? Did you know that they aren't common ancestors, but rather the product of a common designer?

So to say that the genetic code is similar in chimps as it is in humans, and call that proof of common ancestry is joke, and is a lie. No code has been proven to come into existence from scratch through any other cause then Intelligent causes (a mind). Another better possiblity that we can in fact demonstrate in reality and prove beyond a reasonable doubt is that similar code means a common designer.

The study of origins is tricky because the genetic code was only produced once (if it was produced more than once, then chance is that chance would have made a different code other than the genetic code). Since it was produced once and we cannot observe it today, then we have to infer causal powers that can be attributed to a code's origin. The only causal power of the universe that makes and produces codes that can be demonstrated in reality and tested empirically and scientifically is intelligent causation.

English language: ID, Morse Code: ID, Airplane: ID, Automobile: ID, Compound Bow: ID.

I find it interesting too that monkeys, apes, chimps cannot add concept onto matter in the form of a machine or code. Only humans have that unique innate ability.

Saji George wrote:
"It would be interesting to explore the possibility that proponents of darwinism have emotive and dogmatic reasons as well."

Your question is a perfect example, Saji. You're not exploring anything, because you are using loaded language that reflects a determination to value ignorance and political spin over evidence.

The stupidity of your question lies in the fact that, as a cell biologist and neuroscientist, I am in no way can be accurately or honestly described as a "proponent of darwinism." The fact is that educated people realize that modern evolutionary theory involves both Darwinian and non-Darwinian mechanisms, and both types are highly relevant to my biomedical research. No one calls physics "Einsteinism," or "Bohrism," so your label represents rhetorical dishonesty right out of the box.

Do you see that by your uncritical adoption of a false label, you've demonstrated to me that your mind is almost certainly dogmatically closed to begin with, particularly to evidence, the fundamental currency of science?

If you disagree, why don't you outline some empirical predictions of ID hypotheses and explain why no one in this well-funded movement can be bothered to test any of them? They've even got their own journal that hasn't been published in over two years? How can I censor a journal that they control?

IntelligentDesigner, produce evidence for your intelligent design magic, evidence that doesn't include lying about science, and I will consider your strange ideas.

Please remember your misconceptions about biological evolution are not evidence for your magical creation ideas. Also, your wishful thinking is not evidence for your belief in supernatural magic.

"The whole point of the film is not to discredit evolution, but to point out that academic freedom is being infringed upon."

It would be hard to discredit evolution itself, as it is a phenomenon. If you are referring to the collection of theories regarding mechanisms of evolution, nothing the ID movement has done has discredited them.

In what way has academic freedom been infringed upon, Stephen? None of the people featured in the movie were fired.

Are you saying that I, as a neuroscientist, can choose to criticize fundamental theories, simply write dumbed-down books and make movies aimed at laypeople instead of doing experiments, and claim that my academic freedom has been restricted when my grants don't get renewed?

That would involve much less work than I'm doing now, and it would be lying.

Reply to comments from BobC on 4/18/08 @ 6:10pm.

"IntelligentDesigner, produce evidence for your intelligent design magic, evidence that doesn't include lying about science, and I will consider your strange ideas."

English is a code, which is part of a greater form called a language convention. Notice the English comes into existence by a mind. Your mind, my mind, we can add the English onto a physical medium (ink and paper / computer), store the information on that medium for later informational retrieval from another. It requires translation, semantics, syntax, grammar, and medium.

I am in a sense adding concept onto matter in the form of a code, which is English, onto the computer (medium) which translates it from machine code.

Writing English is not magic. It originated through the action of a mind (an intelligent cause). The action (in the form of a machine-body) of a mind is a unique and separate causal power of the universe (it is a guided cause/process). You will notice that the evolution of English needed a mind and body, hence Intelligent Design. We know it originated by the Angels, Saxons, Jutes which were the Anglo-Saxons sometime past 600 AD. The code required Intelligent Design. The code required logic as well.

This is a simplistic example of a code in which its origin was found to be Intelligent Design. I have demonstrated to you Intelligent Design. It’s real and can be demonstrated to exist. I can give you more examples of codes coming into existence through Intelligent Design.

Humans seem to have that innate ability that chimps and all other primates just simply do not have, which is the ability to produce a code through Intelligent Design.

"Please remember your misconceptions about biological evolution are not evidence for your magical creation ideas. Also, your wishful thinking is not evidence for your belief in supernatural magic."

A magical creation idea would be saying that natural selection and random mutations can produce a code. You must believe in supernatural magic if you think any combination of undirected, unguided, and random processes/causes can produce a code from a non-code. I will wait for you to come up with such a mechanism.

Ignore changes in species through evolution, what about the genetic codes’ existence itself? It’s a code. It is a holistic digital instruction set which codes for proteins. RNA translates. The ribosome is the factory that builds the proteins using the code from DNA.

Intelligent Design becomes the inference to the best possibility. No one has witnessed the origin of the genetic code. It is metaphysical—I agree with you that . It is pretty much the definition of a miracle because of its complexity and uniqueness, with a seemingly specified shape.

IntelligentCausation:

The most important words in what you wrote are "inference" "predict," and "known." You acknowledge that your conclusion is an inference and a prediction and not a hypothesis which can be tested and proved. And you acknowledge that your inference is based on what is (now) known, implying that we may know more in the future. Well said. Thank you.

It can be tested.

Actually I have changed my mind. Rather than just review the movie, the author goes out of their way to insult and attack Intelligent Design, and set up this same dishonest or misinformed which ever of the two it is, caricatures of ID.

But a refutation of a caricature, is only a caricature of a refutation. This author's strawman should not be taken seriously.

About Intelligent Design She says:

"A rebuttal website has been created by The National Center for Science Education, which defends the teaching of evolution in public schools, and whose executive director appears in the film. Families who would like to know more about this issue should review the court's decision in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District,"

Oh please, the Grandly named "National Center for Science Education" is nothing of the sort... as a teacher, or as an educator, you have nothing to do with them, and in fact you would never even hear of them unless you were closely following the Intelligent Design controversy. They do not in fact "have" a rebuttle site, they ARE the rebuttle site, and a lobbyist group, and that is ALL they are. Furthermore, the Case was a sham, the Judge, Judge Jones, who was about as conservative as Rudy Guliani, plagerized from the ACLU and basically copy-pasted from them. Which was clearly a very good political move for him, and quite frankly, this appears to be his reasoning. Because is verdict is chock full of demonstratable lies.

Thanks for posting, Tim. I am sorry my views were not clear to you. Please re-read the first sentence of my review and my responses to other comments. I do not agree with your characterization of the film. "Thinking they have evidence for a God" puts them, as I said, in the realm of philosophy, religion, and metaphysics, not science. Presenting a hypothesis that can be tested according to the principles of scientific inquiry puts it in the realm of science. Everyone on all sides agrees that our current understanding of science does not cover the question of how it all began. IDers want to fill in that blank with conclusions that cannot be tested.

The movie tried to shift the argument to academic oppression, as I said in my review, but was unsuccessful in doing so. In order to make a case for academic oppression, you have to be able to show that the study should be legitimately included as an alternative theory and the film does not do that; it skirts around the issue.

Arguments have to be made on the basis of logic, not name-calling. Judge Jones, as I pointed out, is a Republican, a church-goer, and a Bush appointee. Finding this movie a poor argument for ID does not make someone an atheist.

Intelligent Causation, if ID can be tested according to the principles of scientific inquiry, I am sure its proponents are undertaking that now and I look forward to their findings.

ID may not qualify as science, but, as I have said, questions of the origin of life belong in other classrooms like religion, philosophy, anthropology, metaphysics, and even literature. Consider this lovely quote from Carl Sandburg:

Something began me and it has no beginning: something will end me and it has no end.

The comments to this excellent review demonstrate why it is so important to cling to an objective "scientific method," no matter how difficult and challenging it is. People who are convinced they are struggling over your immortal soul get emotional and exorcised and often end up willing to adopt any means to achieve what they perceive to be a sacred end.

I would urge people who are still arguing about intelligent design to read the judidical opinion in the famous case of Kitzmiller v. Dover. There, a conservative, religious judge wrote a long, thorough, thoughtful analysis based on the results of a comprehensive trial where all the experts on both sides had a chance to make their case and be cross examined by the other side. The judge ruled that, while he had no way of knowing whether intelligent design was true or not, it was definitely not science. He found, in fact, by carefully looking at the original documents and tracing the history of intelligent design, that the proponents of intelligent design had repeatedly lied under oath in his court to cover up its roots in creationism and fundamentalism, and that they had altered drafts of documents to change key words in order to paint religious beliefs as a "science" in an effort to insert their religion into public schools and get public finding. Finally, he found by interviewing witnesses that "academic freedom" was simply a ruse used by religious advocates who could not prevail on the merits of their claim that intelligent design is science.

The proponents of intelligent design were so devout they believed it was worth committing fraud and perjury to further God's interests. Based on some of the comments here, the books and press releases they generated are having their intended affect. This example shows, better than anything, why it is important to guard the sanctity of science against propagandists like Ben Stein.

I've read the decision. It was horrible. Intelligent Design is science. You can detect intelligent causes, and there are things intelligent causes do that other causal powers of the universe do not, namely, produce a code or machine.

His definition of science was taken right from the ACLU. He did copy their definition--methodological naturalism. Methodological naturalism is fine and dandy except that it excludes intelligent causes which makes no sense.

If you have done little or no reading on this issue then your viewpoint is one from ignorance. Google "Intelligent Design" and spend an hour finding answers on your own. If you wish to discuss this issue further come over to the 'Evolution and Origins' forum at http://www.talkrational.org/

Hi Nell,

It's amazing that someone who is in effect opening their review by lauding their own intelligence would make such a rookie mistake as you have.

Or,perhaps you were a bad little scientist girl & didn't even bother to watch it before you wrote?

Several people in the movie testified that through their work in science, they saw evidence of intelligent design, apart from a "God" or a specific religion, but you've conveniently skipped over that fact.

Furthermore your opening attack on Faith just proves that Stein's points in the movie about the new Science mafia being blinded by "world views", is correct. You clearly fear God, & religion.

In the end, you Darwinists when cornered always say the same thing when ask what exploded in the big bang theory.. "We don't know for sure" or "We don't know". Even if you answered, I'd ask you, ok,then what was the origins of the substances that made up the "matter" you say exploded out to form the universe, & so on?

You always make excuses for the questions you cannot answer, yet you fail to see that it takes faith to believe in even nothing, & you in your incidental self deification, belittle those who have faith when they say "I don't know how God did it."

On the most detailed origins of life, the science community has been just as much a failure as anyone else, because no matter what they discover, they have to find out what comprises that thing, & it is obviously infinitive, & beyond any human's intellectual capacity. In all their arrogance, secularist science cannot admit that truth.

You have betrayed science for the benefit of your personal ideologies, like a mob of bitter children who no matter how hard you try, cannot get your way.

Despite this, you will take a dirt nap with the rest of us, & thank God wherever he is, because humanity has grown so arrogant that we apparently need the smack of death to understand our place as sub atomic dust particles compared to the universal space around us.

Your arrogance kills true science, & your arrogance kills your own spirit.

Sad to watch, because if I'm wrong about the existence of God, I have nothing to lose. If you are? Who knows exactly what you'll face if there is indeed a spiritual continuance after death. It's not a gamble a sane person should take.

Believing in God has never stopped me from searching for more scientific answers in life, but you people sure do seem a bit inquisitively repressed these days.

~Dan Lee

Dan Lee -- Thanks for writing. I have never been persuaded that the Pascal's wager approach (why not believe in God? I have nothing to lose!) counts as faith, but I understand that faith is a gift and not everyone has the same capacity for it. Reminding you that insult is not argument, and that it diminishes the credibility of your views and your faith practice by commenting in a hostile and non-substantive manner, I will respond to your comment by saying I agree with you entirely -- as did the scientists interviewed -- that the ultimate question of what began creation has never been answered and is unlikely to be answered. At that point, faith enters in, and that is why it is not science.

Science only includes those hypotheses that can be tested according to the scientific method. If, as the Discovery Institute representative in the movie says on screen, they have scientists of many different religions who believe in ID, I am sure they are working on developing protocols and experiments to meet the standards of scientific inquiry and look forward to their results. Until that time, the conundrum of assuming intelligence based on the existence of patterns and complexity will stay in the realm of philosophy, metaphysics, and religion. The issues and arguments are valid and meaningful but they are not science.

God gave us hearts and minds. Clearly, we are intended to use both. I am genuinely glad that you feel you have found the answers you seek and that you found that this movie supported your views. I found that it failed in the task that it set for itself in making a persuasive case for ID as science, but then I came to it with an open mind.

Ben Stein is more of an arrogant fool than I previously thought. Apparently he forgot what Hitler's major influence for the holocaust was--Martin Luther--the infamous antisemitic father of protestantism. Luther preached that Jews should be robbed, thrown out of their homes while they watch them burn to the ground. Hitler was a Roman Catholic, not an atheist. And even if the theory of evolution provoked it, it was his ignorance and hate(along with his favorite religious revolutionary and his Bible)that influenced his actions. Evolution does not teach that slaughtering Jews is a good idea. Besides, religion is a major cause of war, murder, genocide, terror, oppression and abuse. Shouldn't we get rid of religion since evolution, for what little damage it has caused, has hypothetically caused evil and needs to be pitched?

How could any Jew support creationism?

So why isn't intelligent design not taught in school? Well, maybe that's because of the fact that there's nothing to teach about it. If ID were true, then we'd know that God created everything, and that's it. There's nothing else to say. There is no science involved in it. There is no evidence to support it. It's based on mythology. And mythology should only be referred to as such.

Sorry folks. Evolution is here to stay whether you like it or not.

Why do religious commentators always end up saying (basically): "I feel sad for you" and the inevitable "you're going to burn in hell"

It's impossible to argue with irrational/delusional people. There's just no point. Which I why I just started agreeing with them! Yes, the world did have a creator, and his name is The Flying Spaghetti Monster (www.venganza.org). Disprove me.

Jeff wrote:
"I think that one of Stein's main points..."

You misspelled "lies."

"But what I have read in reviews and comments about the movie demonstrates that Stein's film must have forgotten to mention one important point about scientific inquiry: it must be supported - at least, minimally - by an instituition acceptable to scientists!"

False.

"They don't care how smart you are,..."

True. They care about evidence, something no one in the ID or creationist movements has sufficient faith to produce by testing an ID or creationist hypothesis.

"... they don't care how well educated you are..."

True. They care about evidence, something no one in the ID or creationist movements has sufficient faith to produce by testing an ID or creationist hypothesis.

"... and, finally, they don't care how clever or revealing your scientific enquiry or paper is."

Jeff, that's false and a lie.

" If you are not a scientist associated with a college or university ... or a government or non-profit instituition ... or perhaps even a major corporation ... your scientific research will never be published in a scientific journal!"

That's another lie. Robert Makela's affiliation in his revealing (especially wrt evolution) Nature paper is given as "Rudyard High School." Do you have the integrity to admit that you're wrong, Jeff, or do you scoff at the Ninth Commandment?

"I have a master's degree and so, theoretically, I have a credential for having my scientific research published in a scientifically respectable journal, right?"

No such credentials are needed. Makela's coauthor never even finished college.

"Wrong. As I am not affiliated with an educational instituition, government entity or a major corporation, I have no standing to have my scientific paper reviewed or published in a scientific journal. (Scientific journals weren't always this fussy, but that open-mindedness gradually ended about fifty years' ago.)"

So how do you explain Makela, Jeff?

"Therefore, if we were to perform an astounding piece of scientific research in our basement at home (perhaps by studying E. coli bacteria, for example), no credible scientific journal would publish it!'

Utterly false. You stack lie upon lied.

" If we could prove, scientifically"

You are utterly ignorant about science. NOTHING is EVER considered to be "proven" in science.

"... that some aspect of Intelligent Design was more than just a theory,..."

ID isn't even a theory. Theories have track records of successful predictions.

"... where would we be able to publish it?"

PCID would never reject it; its entire editorial board consists of ID proponents.

"Scientific journals would reject it as being generated by a private party with "no credibility in the scientific community"."

PCID would be all over it. It hasn't been published in over two years! Check it out at iscid.org.

"The popular media wouldn't be interested in publishing our enquiry unless it was something that struck them as earth-shattering and fascinating to the general public (such as using cold fusion to generate electrical power from cold water, LOL!)."

Last time I checked, movies were a popular medium. Why doesn't this movie include any evidence, Jeff?

"So, here's what we would be left with: publishing our ID-related research in one of the few journals specializing in religion-and-science or Intelligent Design, where our research will be ignored or mocked by nearly all of the scientific community ("... just look where they had to publish their so-called research. Ha-ha!")."

No, Jeff, we mock them because even when they publish, they publish no evidence. It's all just rhetoric.

"That's Stein's main point, I suspect: by terminating or denigrating academicians and scientists who would support - or do research into - Intelligent Design, the educational establishment has effectively squelched all scientific research into Intelligent Design."

The point you're missing is that none of the people being mocked do any research into ID at all. That is why they are mocked, and they deserve to be mocked. Science is about evidence, and they are afraid to test their own hypotheses (not theories).

I enjoyed the documentary and it is clear that there really are two distinct world views and that Stein is correct - the "scientific" point of view has totally bought into the atheist, evolutionist position. The result is a culture of death that has lost the integrity of scientific inquiry and embraced the kool-aid of abortion and eugenics. Cheers to Stein for having the courage to call them on it!

Jeff, you wrote a serious response (unlike many of the fire - and - brimstone types who have written about ID here) and it deserves a serious response. You ask, "So, why are Intelligent Design researchers thrown out of universities before they have a thorough opportunity to prove (or disprove) their hypotheses about Intelligent Design?" I don't think anyone is preventing advocates of ID from writing or speaking about or teaching ID at any university. The only question is whether it is done under the auspices of the science department or some other department (theology, philosophy, etc.) The answer, I think, is fairly simple: Universities permit professors to continue to attempt to prove or disprove "the hypotheses/theories of Lamarck, Freud, Hull, Skinner, Malthus" because those theories may be capable of being proved or disproved, given enough empirical data and a scrupulous methodology. You have not said what an "ID researcher" would be "researching," but sitting in a room and thinking hard about a closed, untestable system does not constitute scientific research.

When ID advocates can articulate a test to prove that ID is right or wrong, they will be welcomed into the ranks of science. Until then, it should remain what it has been for the last thousand years: an interesting and illuminating philosophical theory.

You completely missed the point.

The movie is about suppression of ideas and where it eventually leads.

The Berlin Wall is a symbol of this concept - and ID is just 'another brick in the wall'.

It could have been about a number of disciplines where questioning is "Not Allowed" - hence the movie's title. ID is a brilliant example because Darwinism is a sacred cow sanctioned by the US government as the ONLY view to be taught to our children. As a zoologist, I could go on for pages why the theory is 'as clear as a fog' - but that would take away from the ironies yielded ...

1) Journalists are so appalled by the topic, they systematically try to keep people away from the movie - not on it's merits, but on the subject matter.

2) The Scopes trial was about teacher's having the freedom to teach what they saw fit, unshackled by the state ... yet proponents of it turned around and forbade alternative thought with respect to the origins of life.

Someone asked, "Should we then teach flat-earth?" to which I reply, "Why not?" A true debate of the topic would yield a greater understanding of our planet.

So many are focusing on just one brick that they ignore the whole barrier to free thought and critical thinking resulting from limiting us only to ideas the government tells us.

Tear Down the Wall! Tear Down the Wall!

Anyone? Anyone?

I enjoyed the documentary and it is clear that there really are two distinct world views and that Stein is correct - the "scientific" point of view has totally bought into the atheist, evolutionist position. The result is a culture of death that has lost the integrity of scientific inquiry and embraced the kool-aid of abortion and eugenics. Cheers to Stein for having the courage to call them on it!

Frank, you are right. There are two distinct world views. One is that science should only be about what can be tested, with its conclusions based on empirical evidence. That is the integrity of scientific inquiry. Other disciplines have other measures and that is why ID belongs in one of those categories.

I don't know what "culture of death" means. Much of science is focused on life, from the study of biology and organic chemistry to understand life to the development of medical advances to enhance and prolong life. I believe you are mixing up two different things -- the study of science, which has no allegiance other than inquiry and honest, logical evaluation of evidence within the limits of ethical conduct (indeed, the history of science is always about debunking past thinking) and policy/political science/ethics/law/religion, which provide a context for determining the consequences of scientific findings. It is not science which determines the legality of abortion. That is a determination based on law, policy, and ethics. The same with eugenics. Selective breeding for improvement of species is widely applied to plants and animals but not to humans for reasons based on law, policy, and ethics, not science.

The only point of view science has "bought into" is the one that defines its core: an organized body of KNOWLEDGE gained through RESEARCH. ID is not knowledge or susceptible of becoming knowledge with research based on any of the current techniques capable for testing and measurement. Ultimately, it always boils down to speculation that is inherently limited because it is inherently solipsistic. As I said above, look at it this way -- science is limited to what can be proven. ID transcends that limitation and cannot be squeezed into that discipline.

Paul Alvarez is right in demonstrating the relative importance of teaching natural selection as an essential foundation for understanding crucial aspects of the world with which the next generation must be familiar so that they can help direct our priorities and resources based not just on science but on the other elements of study -- economics, values, public policy -- that must be included in determining the future direction of the community.

Thank you for an exceptionally thoughtful comment, Ryan. I agree with much of what you said.

I believe that no one should be permitted to disagree with a position until he or she can state it to the satisfaction of the person on the other side. Therefore, the definition I used in my review was taken verbatim from the website of the Discovery Institute, which the film puts forward as a primary proponent of ID. If you have a better definition, I would welcome it. I agree that it must be judged on its results, and I welcome additional information on what those results are as well.

As for the "firing" incidents, I refer you to the rebuttal website, expelledexposed. If there is additional information to correct any of those statements, please let us know.

I agree that "The question is whether or not design could exist and be detected through science." My understanding is that so far no one has found a way to do this, but again, I am glad to hear of any progress along those lines. If ID can be and is subjected to the same standard of scientific inquiry as any other hypothesis, then the question of whether it is good or bad science can be considered.

I also agree that "we judge on evidence, not motivation." As Don Marquis says, "An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it."

A movie review -- unlike a scientific paper -- must be somewhat rhetorical (the term just means "using language effectively and persuasively") because it is by definition the expression of an opinion. But I always try to explain my opinions in a way that makes it clear why I think the way I do and gives the reader a sense of whether he or she is likely to agree. What you called "just goofy and awkward" in the use of stock footage I called "manipulative and disingenuous," surely a difference of degree rather than a fundamentally different conclusion.

Yes, this is a question that people feel passionate about, and it has been fascinating to me to see how those passions are expressed. What troubles me most is the inability or unwillingness of a few of the people writing comments to try to understand the other side(s). They speak such different languages and seem more interested in spouting off than in persuasion or finding common ground. It saddens me that a very few of them feel so strongly that they forget to display compassion and respect.

Fortunately, most of them, like you, are most thoughtful and courteous. Thank you very much and I hope you will visit and post often.

Nell:

Very nice review and it's been good to see your responses to the comments. One additional item, as you note that the site is about belief, not just Christianity: One way of telling whether something is science is whether people of diverse beliefs hold it. Einstein's theory of gravity is accepted by people of almost all beliefs. The modern theory (not Darwin's original, we've learned a lot in those 150 years) of evolution is also accepted by people of all beliefs. ID, on the other hand, is only accepted by a very small slice of the spectrum, and even there, the religion came before the 'scientific' idea. Hence the simple word replacement (documented in Kitzmiller v. Dover) of 'intelligent designer' for God and 'intelligent design' for creation in the book at issue there.

Tim, Re; Kitzmiller v. Dover:
>Furthermore, the Case was a sham, the Judge, Judge Jones, who was about as conservative as Rudy
>Guliani, plagerized from the ACLU and basically copy-pasted from them. Which was clearly a very good
>political move for him, and quite frankly, this appears to be his reasoning. Because is verdict is chock
>full of demonstratable lies.
>
>Posted by: Tim | April 19, 2008 7:56 AM

The plagiarism charge is an interesting one (as in bizarre) for someone who says that the judge was not conservative. The thing is, in a case like this it is the job of both lawyers to submit arguments that a judge _could_ use verbatim in writing his decision. The judge's job is to judge between the two sets of arguments. Whichever he finds to be more persuasive, he uses. It is a _conservative_ judge who uses significant chunks of the plaintiff's or defendant's arguments. The activist judge is the one who tosses them and writes his decision entirely whole cloth.

It's also strange to see the ID crowd complain about the judge ruling on whether ID was science or not. (no surprise they complain about him deciding it wasn't). The thing is, both sides asked him to do so. Only an activist could have refused to. He acted conservatively and ruled on a point both parties in the case asked him to.

Interesting that the THEORY of evolution is considered LAW of evolution. Evolution has not been proven as has the LAW of gravity, or the LAWS of thermodynamics. Yet schools and society teach evolution to be the one truth of the origin of species. Evolution has not been proven which is why it remains a theory. I am a strong proponent of science and am also a strong proponent of the Bible. I don't believe that the two are mutually exclusive. It is important that evolution be taught as a theory and that other theories be taught and explored as well. The day may come when we know without a shadow of a doubt how we came to be. However, today we do not know, all we have are theories to explain the diversity of life. If you have the proof that evolution, and I mean MACROevolution (one species "changing" into another) please present it. Otherwise please keep an open mind. After all science is "evolving" and what we think to be true today may be proven to be false in the future. Afterall, until evolution is proven it is taken to be true on "faith."

ID is quite distinguishable from theistic evolution. Theistic evolution involves science, but the mechanism for it's behavior is supernatural. ID does not involve science at all, there fore there isn't even anything to teach about it. According to ID, god created everything...it all just showed up out of nowhere. There's no possible for something so absurd to be proven, because it is merely mythology. Evolution is powered by natural selection, which is a real system that we observe every day. Funny how our bodies are made up of mostly salt water and our DNA is almost completely identical to that of bonobos and chimps. Nothing proves that mankind isn't anything more than just another species of animal, that just happen to be a little smart and think it owns the world and will come up with any lies to make that a self-fulfilling prophecy.

[[I just read eleven articles that blasted "Expelled" for even daring to say the word Nazi out loud. ]]

Can you provide links to those eleven articles? I did a web search and I've read about ten reviews of the film and haven't run across any as moronic as that. But I would love to see what idiotic writers/critics would have a problem with simply the word "Nazi."

I found it interesting that you gave Sicko, made by Michael Moore, the undisputed king of bias-injected documentaries, one of your highest ratings.

I saw your mention of Moorewatch, but it's become apparent in this nation (myself not necessarily excluded) that something is only bias if you don't agree with it.

Sigel wrote: "A giant cloud of hydrogen turned into a giant rock, which blew up, and created life, including all of the diversity we now see... This is the scientific explanation that is logically superior to the possibility of God existing? It sounds stupid even to say out loud."

You're right, that is stupid. Luckily nobody's actually saying it. Why don't you try actually learning something about evolution before you attack a point that nobody's even trying to make?

What are you (and they) saying? Believing the "Big Bang" theory - which is prevalent in the "scientific" community takes a whale of an imagination and is more than silly.

Again, what are you saying is the origin of life - do you have a theory?

corey tried to dodge the absence of evidence on his side:
"The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena."

So why has no one from your side presented a single new observation or experimental investigation related to an ID hypothesis, corey? Why do they only have rhetoric? Why do they make movies instead of finding new fossils or doing new experiments? Why is it all spin, all the time?

"The "theory" of evolution is by definition a theory because there is not enough evidence to make it a law."

Utterly false. While hypotheses graduate to theories after long track records of successful predictions ("ID theory" is a lie), theories don't necessarily graduate to laws.

"Even when that “theory” defies the “law” of entropy..."

It doesn't, corey. The misrepresentation of the second law is a standard creationist lie. The earth is not a closed system. You might realize that if you went outside during the daytime and looked up at the sun. If the earth is a closed system, there's no way that the sun can blind you by a massive influx of energy to your photoreceptor cells. Do you have real faith?

"Let us not forget that Darwin was only a man with an explanation for what he observed, he was not all knowing."

The lie that we follow a man comes from YOUR side, corey. I know of many non-Darwinian evolutionary mechanisms. Can you even name one?

"I enjoyed the movie because it brings debate back into science as we strive for a theoretical explanation of phenomena."

Science is about evidence, particularly predicting it in advance. Evidence settles scientific disputes, not debate.

"I imagine those scientists who thought the earth was flat fought for their theory with all the same passion."

I doubt it. They would have asked for the new evidence, the upstarts would have presented the new evidence, and they would have changed their minds. Where's the new evidence from your side, corey?

John wrote:

The misrepresentation of the second law is a standard creationist lie. The earth is not a closed system. You might realize that if you went outside during the daytime and looked up at the sun. If the earth is a closed system, there's no way that the sun can blind you by a massive influx of energy to your photoreceptor cells. Do you have real faith?

This is total ignorance. Sure the Earth is not a closed system, it is shooting electro-magnetic radiation at us all the time. The sun's energy does not become useful without a complex mechanism to utilize it. The chloroplast is the molecular machine that performs this function. To say that this evolved from virtual non-existence is religion, not science. It is a machine governed by a code, requiring an intelligent designer.

So without the chloroplast, you cannot utilize the sun’s energy, and you have nothing but destruction coming from the cosmic rays.

Iorek, please tell me what the origin of a code is. A code is not superstition or emotion. It is a real concept that can be tested and verified. Humans use ID all the time, that is how we have guns, planes, boats, computers.

Intelligent Designer -- anyone who wants to be persuasive has to learn the standards and vocabulary of the opposing side. You and the people who oppose the teaching of ID as science are using the same words but you mean different things. Words like "test," for example. What you consider an adequate test for proof does not meet the very specific standards of the scientific method. You bring us back to the debate between the two physicists I described earlier. Some say that complexity is itself proof of an intelligent creator. But that hypothesis is not susceptible to the kinds of tests that are required by science. Now, you may say that science should change its standards about what tests are required. But then it would not be science. It would be skience or spience or some other discipline.

Marcus, I do not agree with your characterization of the movie. The scientists are frank about the limits of their understanding of evolution and natural selection. There are a number of advocates of ID in the movie and the movie itself is proof that they have not been silenced. Yes, ID has been excluded from science curricula, but for the same reasons that other non-scientific ideas like astrology and phrenology are not included; they do not meet the testability standards of scientific inquiry.

Science does only one thing but it does it very well, as iorek noted. There is plenty of space in human thought and in the curriculum to discuss ID. But it will not fit into science until it meets the verifiable standards of the scientific method. Until you find a way to squeeze the round peg of ID into the square hole of science and make it fit, scientists will not consider it a scientific inquiry. What you can do is understand the scientific method well enough to construct protocols for a test that fits that standard. If you feel there is prejudice at work, you can find some other hypothesis that meets the same standards as ID and is accepted by the scientific community. What will not work is to continue to argue that your definitions fit their words and to continue to rely on the closed-circle solipsism that Judge Jones described: "the argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, [which] employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980's." Saying that our experience is that only intelligence creates codes is not a basis for making untestable conclusions about our own creation, at least not one that holds up to scientific scrutiny.

Science limits itself to the How and is explicitly humble about its inability to do more than speculate about what started it all. ID should spend its time on what it does best, exploring the Who and the Why.

Let's not forget that "genetic code" is a metaphor, because there's nothing symbolic about it. Also, let's not forget the RNA World hypothesis.

The genetic code is a code. It's a holistic sequence of information that performs a purpose through translation. In the case of the genetic code, it codes for proteins.

The RNA world hypothesis is less of a developed hypothesis when compared with ID. Notice no scientist can actually test the hypothesis against reality. Notice no scientist is actually demonstrating RNA without the presence of DNA. Notice there are no examples of RNA floating around without DNA that can be demonstrated to exist (so you have to BELIEVE THAT IS DOES). So that makes the RNA World hypothesis metaphysical, not science. Please show me an RNA molecule that can survive without DNA present. If you cannot, then your RNA world is not a hypothesis, but rather, religion since it cannot be demonstrated to exist (alone without DNA). RNA is still a code. The origin of a code is still required to go back to the beginning.

Evolutionary mechanisms have not been shown that they can produce a code from a non-code. It has been shown time and time again that intelligent cause(s) are required each and every time the origin of a code is known.

If forelimb structures can be declared qualitatively similar, and that can be considered science, why do the evolutionary proponents turn around and say that manmade codes and the genetic code DO NOT share qualitative similarites (or that they do, but it is somehow not scientific)? Why do they not recognize the similarties?

I need an evolutionary proponent to answer the following question. Is it scientificly valid to study design detection?

ID does not "bring debate into science," it loosens the methodology that has paid such rich dividends for us since the golden age of Greece. It dilutes the integrity of the scientific process and thereby delays the progress of scientific discovery. Scientific method is not perfect, and it requires constant vigilance, but If science hadn't achieved such remarkable accomplishments and earned such respect, religious advocates would not be so eager to label ID as "science." This whole argument is over ID borrowing the legitimacy that comes with the label, "science." But science won't continue to produce such benefits if we replace its discipline with superstition and emotion.

The golden age of Greece??? Sigh.

Why do evolutionary proponents always confuse historical science, and applied science? Why do they take credit for all the technology of the world, yet their mechanisms provide no insight as to how to add concepts onto matter? Why do you guys on the 'Darwin is right' side not see that it takes Intelligent Design for technology to come into existence?

Why do evolutionary proponents think science is a tangible thing? I see it over and over again. It's actually just a way of knowing about the world. Superstition would be like matter creating itself, or that the universe has multiple dimensions that we cannot test and demonstrate or repeat.

It's emotional on both sides (not just ID side) because YOU PEOPLE USE THE WORD SCIENCE TO PEDDLE YOUR VERSION OF THE ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSE AND IT CANNOT BE TESTED OR FALSIFIED!!! (black holes, big bang, dark matter, cannot be tested against reality or demonstrated to truly exist--its mathematics done wild!).

What is emotional about Intelligently designing codes and machines?

What part of ID makes you think its emotional superstition? Which part? What are you having trouble grasping?

But your distinction between historical science and applied science is just plain invalid. (I assume by applied science you mean applied research, which for a while was distinguished from basic research, but which most experts now put on a seamless continuum with technological development).

I have confused you. Let me clear up the misunderstanding.

Applied science would be the study of how things work. Example: How does the genetic code work? What are its properties?

Historical science looks at the past and tries to discover or find clues as to how something originated, or where something came from. The origin. Example: Where did the genetic code come from? When and where did it originate?

These are two separate ways of knowing. The first one, applied science, can be understood by looking at the object/system or subsystem of a system in question. This also works with known mathematical formulae that can be applied to matter if it provides predictive creative power.

The second one, historical science, can be understood by looking at clues to the past that would help deduce the origin. You have to go outside and away from the object or subsystem of a system in order to find the answer. With historic science it is possible that you cannot deduce to the beginning of an object or subsystem of a system. The genetic code is a big example of this. We cannot go back to when either the genetic code created itself, or the genetic code was created through intelligent causation by another entity using a mind. This leads us to a conundrum in which we have to look at the properties of the object or subsystem of a system and determine what the inference to the best possibility is, if the origin is unknown. I propose that since we see a code that shares common properties with all the other codes that are known to have been intelligently designed using a human mind, we must conclude with our senses that it most likely took an intelligent cause to produce the genetic code which governs the regulation and production of the machine body of biological organisms.

They work with different rules. You don't need to know Pythagorus even existed in order to see how his formulae work. Also, you could have known Pythagorus and not even known how is formulae work. They are distinctly different ways of knowing.

Intelligent Design seems fuzzy, philosophical, theological and, well, ... JUST NOT SCIENTIFIC! Off with their heads!

But, for all of the Hard Sciences' bedrock, steady, non-theological and Scientific certainty, we do run into a few moments that should give us pause.

For example, the frequently changing nature of scientific proof, scientific law, scientific theory and scientific hypothesis ... and seemingly only John has an absolutely clear understanding of these various and oft-confused (and often cross-defined) terms ... should give anyone who sneers at the "mushiness" of Intelligent Design a little bit of a pause.

(1) Does anyone remember the 100 years or so when medical scientists assured us that ulcers were caused by excessive stomach acidity and excessive anxiety? (A pathologist in 1991 discovered it was caused by Helibactor bacteria in the stomach lining.)

(2) When my brother discovered his first son was autistic, in the late 1990's, he and his wife were strongly assured by several medical and psychological science-experts that they could have more children because there was no scientific proof of a genetic link for autism. They had more children, two of whom were later diagnosed as autistic. Now, in 2008, you probably couldn't find a medical or psychological scientist who did not firmly state that there IS a genetic link for autism.

(3) In the mid-1970's, scientific experts were warning us about the impending global winter and the ice age soon to come. Now in 2008, we're about to wreck our economy in an effort to save us all from global warming and worldwide flooding from melted glaciers!

(4) The cause of the widespread extinction of all of the dinosaurs, dated at 65 million years ago by scientists, has had as many scientific causation theories and explanations as I have fingers and toes!

(4.1) Incidentally, about a year ago (2006-2007), paleontological scientists admitted that other paleontological scientists had actually discovered and dated a smallish dinosaur as having been found in rocks that were 60 million years-old and, as I recall, even carbon-dated the fossils to 60 million years-ago. Why is this significant? Because all dinosaurs were supposedly destroyed in a brief period of time, 65 million years ago! Yikes! So either our fossil dating methods have flaws ... or one or more dinosaur species survived for millions of years after they all had been supposedly pushed into extinction!

(4.2) By the way, a theory that is becoming more and more accepted is that the dinosaurs did not truly die out 65 (or 60?) million years ago. They live on today as BIRDS. By the way, the dinosaur-to-bird theory was promulgated in the 1970's and was immediately attacked by many other scientists as absurd, unprovable, theoretical, etc. (Sound familiar?)

I could give you dozens of other examples - such as the origin of the canals on Mars or or the actual amount (and origin) of petroleum oil in the earth's crust, just to name a couple - in which the scientific consensus has shifted wildly over the last hundred years or less!

Intelligent Design is just the latest controversy, perhaps the latest dinosaurs-into-birds science controversy for the first decade of the 21st century!

Karl, Your ignorance is bliss.

Monkeys cannot make machines. Only humans can make machines. So the argument is not about tools. Even a bird can make a nest (tool to store non-adult stage offspring), so this ability is no big deal.

Monkeys cannot place a code onto matter. Only humans can add such concepts onto material. Again, tools are nothing special, a quite a few animals can make tools.

If you think that monkeys can count faster than humans is a scientific fact, then you have been brainwashed by primatologists. I cannot help you Karl if you think that way. The human can count faster then any monkey hands down.

IntelligentDesigner, thanks for the clarification of what you meant by historical science. You are right, I did not appreciate what you meant by the term. If I understand you correctly now, I am still not sure where that takes you. The principles of applied science that we use every day to assess how things work are the exact same principles that I would expect when I look for historical explanations of where things came from. If I am analyzing where genetic code came from, the only explanations I would accept as scientific are the ones that are compatible with the rules of applied science. Why should I carve out an exemption from those rules for past physical behavior? If your answer is because science can't explain first causes, I would say OK, science can't explain first causes. Which is why belief systems which attempt to explain first causes with faith are not entitled to the same kind of deference that objective, legitimate science is. The only reason that ID types stretch to call their philosophical speculation science (or even "historical science") is because they want to appropriate that credibility from science.

You write, "I propose that since we see a code that shares common properties with all the other codes that are known to have been intelligently designed using a human mind, we must conclude with our senses that it most likely took an intelligent cause to produce the genetic code which governs the regulation and production of the machine body of biological organisms." That is quite possible. I am not denying it at all. You don't have to know a thing about genetic code to believe that, philosophers have believed it for centuries based on the "order" they see about them. That doesn't make it science.

Finally, it seems to me that you are selling this deity of yours short, assuming that He would order the universe consistent with the sensory constructs of the lowly human mind. That does not sound like the God of Job to me. Heck, it doesn't even sound like the God of Bertrand Russell, who wrote, "Physics is mathematical not because we know so much about the physical world, but because we know so little; it is only its mathematical properties that we can discover."

As an atheist, I salute Nell Minow for proving that faith and clear thinking are fully compatible!

For my ID friends who are so hot to extrapolate conclusions from the appearance of patterns and order in nature, try your hand at this: thousands of years ago, we had a great many gods to account for everything we didn't understand: weather, crops, the sea, volcanoes, fortunes of war, etc. The more human learned about the world, the more those gods faded from the scene. Now we have scientific explanations for things that it used to take hundreds of gods to explain. We are down to one god left, and his jurisdiction is far more limited.

What does that "pattern" tell you?

Chimpanzees indeed do make tools.

IntelligentDesigner, if you think "intelligent design exists everywhere in front of you," you obviously haven't read anything about the run up to the war in Iraq. Your intelligent designer must have gone on vacation and turned the president over to random subatomic particles.

Let me challenge your statement, "this exercise has nothing to do with any God." If you sincerely believe that, then you are in a distinct minority amongst the IDers. But just what or who do you think your "designer" is? As long as you postulate a "consciousness" or a "supreme intelligence" or a "prime mover," you can't say this has nothing to do with any God.

From the Discovery Institute's website:

"It is in the context of our concern about the world-view implications of certain scientific theories that our wedge strategy must be understood. Far from attacking science (as has been claimed), we are instead challenging scientific materialism--the simplistic philosophy or world-view that claims that all of reality can be reduced to, or derived from, matter and energy alone."

In other words, they acknowledge that ID can't be accepted as science unless they hijack the definition of "science."

Iorek,

Darwinists follow a materialist religion that cannot be tested against reality. They delve into the metaphysical all the time. The big bang is one such example that they continue to peddle.

Nell,

If I can empirically test the properties of codes and machines of manmade objects, and see that their are certain similaries to the machines and code that are contained in biological organisms, why do you say that is not science? What part of what I am saying is theological? I am using observation to look for similaries in characteristics and origins. It turns out there are unique characteristics and origins that all codes and machines have in common.

Why is studying similar forelimb structures in different kinds of animals 'scientific' evidence for evolution when their is even less testing and demonstrating of one coming from the other then in my examples with codes and machines. In other words, why do you think change over time is occuring on such structures when it has never been observed by anyone (and hence, metaphysical).

Also, please answer my question.

What is the common origin of all the codes that we observe in the universe when such origins are known?

What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.
--Bertrand Russell

Jeff wrote:
"Intelligent Design seems fuzzy, philosophical, theological and, well, ... JUST NOT SCIENTIFIC!"

No, it doesn't merely seem fuzzy, it is fuzzy. It is a complete rejection of the scientific method.

"(1) Does anyone remember the 100 years or so when medical scientists assured us that ulcers were caused by excessive stomach acidity and excessive anxiety?"

No, I remember physicians saying that, but no "medical scientists."

"(A pathologist in 1991 discovered it was caused by Helibactor bacteria in the stomach lining.)"

Yes, and evidence changed everyone's minds. What new evidence has the ID movement produced, Jeff?

"(2) When my brother discovered his first son was autistic, in the late 1990's, he and his wife were strongly assured by several medical and psychological science-experts that they could have more children because there was no scientific proof of a genetic link for autism."

Hearsay isn't evidence, Jeff. Your claim is so garbled that it is worthless. Let's look at the evidence as it stood in 1998:

--------
Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1988 Oct;45(10):953-61.
Autism and genetics. A decade of research.
Smalley SL, Asarnow RF, Spence MA.
Department of Psychiatry, UCLA School of Medicine 90024.
The last ten years of research on the genetics of infantile autism were critically reviewed. Epidemiologic findings have shown that autism is a rare disorder with a prevalence of two to five per 10,000, a male-female ratio of 3:1, and an association with mental retardation (66% to 75% of autistic subjects have full-scale IQ scores [70]). Autism is familial, as reflected in an empiric sibling recurrence risk of 3% and pooled monozygotic and dizygotic concordance rates of 64% and 9%, respectively, which are much greater than the population prevalence of 0.02% to 0.05%. Genetic heterogeneity is pronounced with potential genetic subgroups, including autosomal recessive inheritance, X-linked inheritance, and sporadic chromosomal anomalies.
--------

1) It was clear long before 1988 that autism has a huge genetic component, and 1988 was before the late 1990s.
2) Science doesn't purport to prove anything--every conclusion is provisional.
3) It appears that the experts (physicians aren't necessarily experts on the underlying science) told your brother that they didn't know (or couldn't prove) whether his first child's autism was inherited, and your brother (or you) filtered that as applying to all cases.

"They had more children, two of whom were later diagnosed as autistic."

That's not surprising.

"Now, in 2008, you probably couldn't find a medical or psychological scientist who did not firmly state that there IS a genetic link for autism."

You're weaseling, Jeff. You went from the unscientific "proof" to the equally unscientific "link," which mean two very different things, even to laypeople.

The big bang remains only a theory, but a variety of esteemed and respected scientists continue to gather empirical data and make mathematical calculations to test it, and so far they are very supportive.

Iorek,

They are using math that cannot be tested against reality. They are inventing constructs such as black holes, thermo-nuclear engines, neutrinos, dark matter in order for the math to work. The invented constructs I just described cannot be tested against reality, and no one observes them. Big Bang cosmologists are liars when they say the universe is electrically neutral, its been known for a long time now that the universe contains a more powerful force than gravity, which is the electrostatic force. So their models are flawed at its basic premise. Plasma Cosmology is more promising and is now recognized by IEEE. Electrifed gas is a plasma (such as a fire, a neon light, northern lights in Alaska). Electro-magnetic radiation is what the hum to the Earth is (which is funny because its somehow a mystery to astro-physicists which are the big bang proponents). Go to: holoscience.com for more info. They are currently experiencing the same problems as the ID proponents are (except they are trying to fit their theory into evolution, which you'd think if they were doing that that they would get more money for their research since they are the ones making the accurate predictions already). The reason they get no money is because they have disproven Einstein's theory of relativity (which is not based on electrostatic forces, but rather mechanistic mathematical theoritical nonsense)in the sense that time travel is impossible (they say that communication is instantaneous throughout the universe because of the electrical connections throughout).

I can invent an algorithm to do anything. The true test would be, does it model reality? The answer is that Big Bang cosmology does not. It ignores electricity and the electro-static force (which is the force that can repel and attract as opposed to gravity which can only attract). So we need a better theory than that one, one that is more empirically testable, and one that is less religious (metaphysical).

The problem is, Big Bang proponents are in charge of the money for the research, so of course since their jobs depend on their theory, they are never going to say its wrong, the evidence will always be made to fit the paradigm, so they keep their jobs. They do not want to learn about electrical engineering principles (because that would require too much work), so they invent a mechanistic explanation that is just totally out there and bogus. It's a fairytale for grownups. Pure religion.

First, let me quote an author who is a far better writer than I am, GK Chesterton, from The Everlasting Man:

“Nobody can imagine how nothing can turn into something. Nobody can get an inch nearer to it by explaining how something could turn into something else. It is really far more logical to start by saying ‘In the beginning God created heaven and earth even if you only mean ‘In the beginning some unthinkable power began some unthinkable process’. For God is by nature a name of mystery, and nobody ever supposed that man could imagine how a world was created any more than he could create one. But evolution really is mistaken for explanation. It has the fatal quality of leaving on many minds the impression that they do understand it and everything else; just as many of them live under a sort of illusion that they have read The Origin of Species.”

Western civilization has this idea that science is the supreme viewpoint which all other viewpoints must fall under or live up to. Let’s put science in its place, as people are so free to do with creationist viewpoints that challenge macro-evolution, the big bang, and the general “scientific” idea that something started all by itself from nothing.

Science cannot prove its very foundation; it cannot prove that there is an “external, objective world out there, uninfluenced by human consciousness… The quantitativeness of physics does not guarantee an objective physical world and… there is no meaningful boundary- indeed no real difference- between the subjective and objective approaches to things.” (RF. Jones, Physics as Metaphor)

Science is one approach to absolute truth. There are other approaches.

Science cannot explain how the universe began. Science takes repeated observation and makes statements based on those observations. No human being today was around at the beginning of the world to see nothing become something, so people are not going to be able to make observations about how the world began. We can take bones and try to imagine the creature they formed, but we shouldn’t call that picture scientific.

Prehistoric history itself is a contradiction of terms. History is stories told by people, and how can it exist without people to tell them? What we have are artifacts and stories, our individual ideas and observations. I’m not saying it is a wrong to believe there is an external world, I’m confidant there is. I would not walk out in front of a moving bus and expect good results. In the same way, I am not saying that science isn’t good. There have been tremendous benefits from science, as anyone using a historical viewpoint can see. And I am definitely not vouching for relativism, where a one idea is as good as another. Notice I said “absolute truth” earlier.

We each have an individual responsibility to genuinely search for that truth. There’s this song that goes, “..if you don’t decide, you still have made a choice.” I hope this movie motivates people to search. Check out the different angles. Read authors who have done research, and then, read the research. CS Lewis is a good example of this. He was a brilliant professor who was a convinced atheist. He set out to debunk Christianity, and he ended up becoming a Christian. Many people have ideas about Jesus that are based on popular myths, and they haven’t even read the Gospels. Don’t let white coats and big words or the harsh responses people can give scare you. Many times they’re just a façade to hide behind. Guess what, there are scientists who are smart people, who started out as macro-evolutionists and became creationists.

I am a Christian. I believe that Jesus died on the cross for everyone’s sin and that God’s grace in His Son’s death for our sins is a free gift that anyone can receive that redeems us. I’m no better than anyone else, just a beggar who found bread.

I also believe God created the universe with a word. I believe He formed the first man from clay. I believe in a global flood. I believe there is evidence of a global flood. There are hundreds of flood stories, from pretty much every tribe around the world. In fact, there are many creation stories as well, from many different tribes. And there are many similarities between them. I am convinced there is a lot of good evidence supporting the Biblical account of Creation. Try going to Ken Ham’s site http://www.answersingenesis.org/ I remember him being a great source of information on evidence for creation.

When we get down to it, God is what we’re really arguing about. Is there a God or not. And if there is, what does He want with us? I am fully convinced that He made everyone of us for a reason, and the main reason was to love us and be loved by us.

One last quote, because our Western Civilization has made us uncomfortable with metaphysics. I think people feel kinda weird talking about God, or souls, or even concepts and ideas as being real. It’s from Gene Wolfe, “… your materialism doesn’t make materialism true. Don’t you know that? In the final summing up, it is spirit and dream, thought and love and act that matter.”

Fire is not about 'combustion'. Fire is actually electrified gas which gives off the light that you see. It also produces its own magnetic field from the process. I find that interesting.

Remember the 90's, when 'scientists' were telling us the O-zone was being depleted and that something had to be done fast (not pollute) in order to stop the process. Well, it turns out that the sun sends us electro-magnetic radiation that heats the planet up. The 'Global Warming' is due to an increase in solar flares coming toward our planet. A solar flare is an electro-magnetic radiation burst typically stronger than normal. What's funny is that when the sun emits more electromagnetic radiation at this time it hits Earth's magnetosphere and collides entering the ionosphere, electrifying oxygen and nitrogen atoms (the nitrogen becomes Carbon14 used to carbon date objects). The oxygen (which is in the form O2) then breaks up and then combines to become O3 (which is ozone). You can go buy an ozone generator right now and it works in principle by electrifying oxygen. Mini ball lightning. Which also brings up the important point about lightning itself. Rubbing my hand against a rug and producing stored electricity is not analogous to Lightning that is experienced from the sky. Notice in school you cannot take water vapor and collect it to make clouds and ball lightning. This is because lightning actually comes from space. Clouds are not the cause of lightning. Venus has lightning and no clouds. You have been duped.

They now say Ozone is bad (its not, it protects us from most of the suns electromagnetic rays) because it is increasing. They say it's a greenhouse gas. THIS IS GETTING RIDICULOUS.

The increase in solar activity is the cause of the increase in ozone (its electrifying more atoms in our upper atmosphere).

Hello, IntelligentDesigner, I have a question for you.

Do you believe in evolution? What I'm trying to get at is, do you believe that species have been transformed by God's hand over time? Or do you accept any evolution that happened after the origin of life, where God designed DNA code?

IntelligentDesigner, that's ridiculous. Lightning does not come from space, and Venus is covered in clouds - you can't even see the surface. As for ozone, it's bad for us on the ground (bad to breathe), but good for us in the upper atmosphere (blocks harmful rays from the Sun). The problem of the ozone hole looked precarious in the 1980s and 1990s, but has improved due to our cessation of the usage of CFCs, which were destroying ozone molecules in the upper atmosphere. All of this is easily referenced in any encyclopedia among thousands of other references. If this is typical of your level of scientific knowledge, I would hardly trust your judgement on the merits of evolution or ID. Either that, or you're just having us on.

There is no need to invoke an all-powerful God to explain the diversity of life on Earth - it's just not necessary. Evolution explains it perfectly well without the need for intervention from a God. Just to be clear, evolution does not address the origins of life, it addresses only the origins of species. Life as you see it today was most definitely not "created" in its current form, a fact that the fossil record decisively proves. 99% of all the species that have ever existed on Earth are extinct, and most species that exist today didn't exist even a few million years ago - how does ID explain that? Evolution explains it with ease, along with every other known biological fact. That's science. Stein's film is full of clap-trap, anti-science and propaganda, and one need only read over the transcripts from the Dover trial to make that utterly clear.

Mike, the fossil record does not decisively prove that it was not created. Science does not "decisively prove" facts. It takes a large amount of similar observations and it makes statements based off of those observations.

Read the quote I posted by Chesterton above. I feel that "invoking" an all-powerful God is necessary to explaining the origin of the universe. When have we ever scientifically documented a case of something coming from nothing. What we do observe, however, is that everything has a prior cause. To assume this goes back into infinity is illogical, therefore it makes sense that there would be a first cause that owes its existence to nothing else.

As for 99% of all the species on earth being extinct, I'm tempted to say that 90% of statistics can be made to say whatever we want 50% of the time. Come on, Mike, 99%? The truth is that many creatures that scientists say are extinct turn up to be alve and well. I can't remmember what deep sea fish scientists said was extinct and then turned up in like a fishing boat or something.

Let me say something else about what the fossil record tells us. Do you know what it takes to make a fossil? Intense immediate factors make fossils. Objects need to be covered very quickly, otherwise they decompose and are scavenged by nature. There was this coal miners hat from the 1800s that was fossilized in a collapsed mine shaft. There are even human footprints found fossilized inside of dinosaur footprints. There are huge fossil beds heaped up in great piles as if some big natural disaster happened and buried everything very fast. Again, most every tribe and culture has a flood myth.

Also, where are the missing link fossils? If species did evolve into other species, surely it wouldn’t be to difficult to find fish with legs just beginning, or whatever missing links we needed. There would be millions of these creatures.

Oh, one more thing, you know the layers in the earth that dated to different eras? They are dated by what fossils are found in them, but then, there are fossils that are dated by what layers they are found in, which is this whole circular logic problem going on. But anyways, they find bones stuck straight down through the layers. These layers are supposed to take millions of years to form, so was this a very old creature that died slowly from the bottom up?

Macro-evolution, species turning into other species, has some big problems. That's why the timeline is stretched out so far, because people think that if there is something happens slowly enough, it is more plausible. Lets take the flagella of bacteria that another writer mentioned above. I believe it has been suggested that these bacteria may have evolved into our cells, but nevermind that. The flagella work like a motor boat engine, almost exactly like a motor boat engine. What happens when just one of those parts are missing? The engine doesn’t work. There is no time for one of those parts to evolve, they either need to be there, or the bacteria dies.

Also, mutations do not usually produce good effects. I feel safe to say that 99.9% of the time, they do not produce good effects. What happens to the three legged dog in the wild? It gets eaten. It doesn’t have time to “pass down its mutation”, and I have to check with my mom who knows something about breeding horses, but I don’t know if the traits that are passed down I within the species (micro evolution or natural selection) are actually considered “mutations”. I don’t think they are.

My favorite “ape-man” they discovered was Lucy. It was discovered in Nebraska, from what I remember. There were pictures of a male and female made and everything. This is what people were able to construct from two teeth that were discovered. Later on they found out that they were pig’s teeth.

Macro evolution does have serious problems. I would say, many serious problems. ID does have scientific merit. It can make very good assessments of fossil records. Before I wanted to bring a realistic assessment of science as one of many world views, because science has taken this post enlightenment position of being the “only way to determine what is real”. But I definitely didn’t intend to make people think that science doesn’t support ID.

Pauli Ojala, if the human race is going to continue to progress, we will simply have to stop thinking in bumper sticker slogans that reinforce our own personal biases. People have tried to tar everyone from Beethoven to Nietzsche by associating them with "the Nazis." You can find all kinds of stray connections between the Nazi movement and other individuals or ideas, both good and bad, but an idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it. If you are willing to investigate the Nazis conscientiously, you will find that their methods are far closer to those of intelligent designers than to evolutionists. The Nazis were enemies of the "scientific method" and inserted mythology and nationalism as substitutes for hard empirical data. They had "faith" in the founding aryan myth, and fought scientists like Einstein by distinguishing between "Jewish science" and "aryan science." The best detergent against the Nazi myth would have been a rigorous, empirical science.

Of course I am not saying that intelligent designers are Nazis; I don't resort to the same kind of "guilt by association" trash talk that Ben Stein does. But given the relative connections of ID and Darwinism to Nazism, perhaps you can understand why it is so despicable for this movie to play the "Nazi" card.

There's a lot of stupid sh*t being said here. The worst though comes from the fingers of Joseph.

Joseph, you sir should try reading a text book before you criticize something. Otherwise you're talking crap, and don't know anything about the subject, and people can see that.

For example:
"According to your statement, that would be faith, not science. Again, science makes observations and the makes statements and predictions off those observations. These events that happened millions of years ago cannot be tested by scientific hypothesis."

Yes, yes they can. Radiometric dating for one - not just carbon dating buddy. Do some research on something other than a pro-creationist website. As an addendum to this point, Joseph, not everything that happens is recorded, nor can any such recordings be believed simply because they're recorded. The radical Muslims in certain Islamic countries record that the holocaust was a lie - because they record it that way, surely it must be true yes? No.

"Lets take the flagella of bacteria that another writer mentioned above. I believe it has been suggested that these bacteria may have evolved into our cells, but never mind that. The flagella work like a motor boat engine, almost exactly like a motor boat engine. What happens when just one of those parts are missing? The engine doesn’t work. There is no time for one of those parts to evolve, they either need to be there, or the bacteria dies."

Joseph, maybe you shouldn't be making arguments using disproved and fatally flawed "research". It has already been shown how the flagella could (and does) still work with a significant portion completely removed. Not even the Discovery Institute bothers with the flagella argument any more.

"What happens to the three legged dog in the wild? It gets eaten."

Yes that's exactly right, because it's a deleterious mutation.

"But I definitely didn’t intend to make people think that science doesn’t support ID. "
You don't need to make people think anything. Science neither does nor will support "God Did IT" Intelligent Design, with or without your help.

"When have we ever scientifically documented a case of something coming from nothing."
Do a google search for "Virtual Particles". Read a little bit about Quantum Mechanics.

"everything has a prior cause."
You make this statement, follow it with "therefore there must be something that didn't require a prior cause, therefore God". It could just as readily have been the Universe itself was the effect that had no prior cause. Again, Quantum Mechanics has a little something to say about this, without claiming to be the absolute answer.

"Also, where are the missing link fossils? If species did evolve into other species, surely it wouldn’t be to difficult to find fish with legs just beginning, or whatever missing links we needed."

Google for "Australian Lung Fish"

"There are even human footprints found fossilized inside of dinosaur footprints."

I know of two cases. One was a fraud thanks to a Creationist, the other was disproven.

"I also believe that scientists do have faith. Everyone has some faith. Many of us haven’t been so fortunate to see Paris, but we have faith that its there. All the pictures and atlases and accounts of other people may not be true, certainly I’ve never directly sensed Paris myself, but I’m confident from all these other accounts that Paris is there. If I boarded a plane to Paris, I wouldn’t wind up in some strange void."

Many of us haven't seen the formation of the Earth, but we "have faith" that is backed up by "physical evidence" that it occurred 4 and a bit billion years ago. Likewise we didn't see the dinosaurs die, nor did we see them alive, yet we "have faith" backed up by "physical evidence" that they existed. Your arguments for God don't hold up to scrutiny.

In conclusion, if you've read this far - before you criticise evolution, try understanding it. Not from your local pastor, or from AnswerInGenesis, try opening a high school text book. Try wikipedia, they have a great section on "common misconceptions about evolution". Learn before you criticise. Your arguments are received warmly but your equally ignorant Jesus-pals but to the rest of us, you're a wet paper bag trying to hold in a kitten.

Come whine at me on my blog at http://healyhatman.blogspot.com if you want, I'll set all of you straight.

Lorek,

I feel that your most revealing sentence is "I don't know how you propose to establish that your "feelings" are more legitimate or correct than Osama Bin Laden's, but do me a favor and please keep your personal feelings out of my science."

"Your science"? You own science?

I think part of the problem is your us-versus-them mentality regarding science. But that seems to be part of the larger scientific community's general attitude towards ID. I made legitimate points, so why don't people respond to them? I think the answer may lie in the appeal to emotion you expressed in that statement by comparing my feelings with Osama Bin Laden’s. You are diverting people from the fact that you don’t have answers for some genuinely good questions and you are hostile because of this. Maybe Western Civilization has made a god out of science. It obviously has a high place in your life when you claim to own it. Science is a tool. And a really good tool too, but I wouldn’t worship a hammer.

What makes my feeling more legitimate or correct than Osama Bin Laden’s? The answer is obvious: I feel that all people have a right to freely search for the truth.

Joseph, you say that "I feel that all people have a right to freely search for the truth." If you want to call it "truth" rather than "faith," you will have to agree on a methodology for distinguishing what is true from what is false. As Daniel Patrick Monynihan once said, "everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but they are not entitled to thewir own facts."

Healyhatman, "Bravo!"

Joseph, you said:

You say that when it comes to what began creation, faith enters in, and that is not science. But isn’t science trying to enter in and say many things about a supposed many millions of years of time?

Science and history and anthropology all say things about what happened a long time ago and all are based on the best possible kinds of proof that we can develop. All are eager to jettison any received wisdom that can be disproven as new techniques and technologies are developed. There was a time when the best science available told us that that the world was flat and diseases were caused by evil spirits. There will certainly be a time when we discover that something currently taught in science books is incomplete or flat-out wrong. But the key question is how we will discover it? What methods of proof are going to be valid? Joseph, you use false analogies and a straw man (projecting views onto the other side that are an inaccurate statement of their position) to make your points. Those arguments would not succeed in a debate or in court or in any other forum where established rules of logic and proof are required. As I have said before, you cannot win an argument until you state the other side's position in a manner that is acceptable to them.

These rules of logic and proof are not arbitrary. Intellectual rigor is a fundamental necessity for certain kinds of inquiry. It is limited. It is not suitable for all questions -- at this moment in history it does not, cannot, does not try to and does not pretend to know how life began, as Dawkins said in the film.

Joseph, are you saying that it is time to amend the scientific method, which looks only to evidence and proof and is continually subjecting itself to the most stringent tests? If so, you had better be ready to walk away from all that the scientific method has produced, from the electric light bulb to the polio vaccine and open-heart surgery. The moment you turn science into religion, faith, or philosophy, you walk away from the prospect of any kind of standard able to produce the kinds of understanding and beneficial developments -- like the pasteurization you refer to -- that we have achieved.

And IntelligentDesigner, you said:

Evolution has become a religion. Is abiogenesis science? Where do codes come from? One wonders.

Does one wonder? Or does one merely repeat the same points without any substantive engagement in the challenges presented?

Is this your position? To the best of our understanding and experience, only human beings have had the intelligence to create complex patterns (I think that is what you mean by codes). Therefore, since life on our planet is in part made up of codes, they must have been created by some kind of intelligence.

If that is what you are arguing, it is inadequate as a matter of logic, much less science. It does not even work as religion, which recognizes that God is so far beyond our capacity to understand that we can never fully encompass the concept, not intellectually anyway.

One reason this debate becomes so heated is that people are using the same terms -- theory, proof -- to mean different things. But another is that neither side seems willing to do any basic research outside the comfort of their own constructs.

IntelligentDesigner, you diminish the credibility of your position with your unwillingness to make an effort to understand and respond to the arguments of the other side. You cannot make an argument based on the way that the the Discovery Institute etc. describe science. I once went to a British history museum that had let's just say a very different take on the Boston Tea Party than we learn over here. You are basing your arguments on a very slanted representation of the scientific method and of scientific theories about natural selection.

In what way has evolution become a religion? Under what definition? Evolution is the opposite of a religion. It is based on scientific principles of rigorous testing and proof, constantly being revised. It does not address in any way the concept of a deity. I'll make a deal with you; you don't call the theory of natural selection religion and I won't call intelligent design science.

religion = metaphysical.

Science claims it can tell us what the origin of the universe is. Scientists do this every single week on the History channel. I have already laid out the metaphysics involved.

Science claims that abiogenesis is scientific, yet they exclude intelligent causes in their research. Abiogenesis is metaphysical.

Science claims that stars form using a thermonuclear engine. The thermonuclear engine is metaphysical, cannot be falsified, and cannot be demonstrated. Please demonstrate to me my error.

Science claims that body plans, tissue types, cell types, organs, cellular machinery and a code changed over time without an intelligent cause. This has never been observed. This has never been verified. E Coli bacteria have been observed to produce E Coli bacteria after over a trillion generations (that were actually observed over 100+ years). They are still bacteria and have not changed in the ways described above. The only time changing body plans have been observed is through the catepillar/butterfly, and the tadpole/frog, which keeps the same genetic information throughout its life-cycle (which generates a lot of change over time with respect to morphology).

Science claims that fossils are proof of missing links and changes in body plans, tissue types, cell types, organs, cellular machinery, and a code, yet no one can test those ideas against reality, and they are not falsifiable. It is metaphysics gone wild.

The list goes on. So this should be ample proof that science is in fact very engaged in metaphysics, and hence, very engaged in religion. You have to BELIEVE a lot to believe in all the powers that scientists have given to 'evolution'.

The next post will be about knocking down your arguments one at a time Nell. I notice you didn't answer my questions and you questioned my logic. I like how you didn't explain the logical inconsistency in my questions and just threw out blind assertions.

Okay, I really don’t want to seem like I’m taking both views into account here or that I just want to harp on the same point without offering anything new to back it up with. If I’m doing that, I apologize. These are subjects that really do excite me and I hope to stimulate an engaging discussion. Also, I did want to make my worldview clear upfront, instead of sneaking in “I’m a Christian” later on.

So I’m getting two possible ideas about the other side of the argument, from an evolutionist perspective, albeit, that can be a vague term. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

How the universe began is unknown. How life began is unknown, although it was through some form of abiogenesis. Whatever the case, life began, and from a single celled organism and the process of macro evolution we have all the diverse species we have today.

I’m going to rip from a philosophy text book in some places here. I’ll quote them. I think that a lot of people in the evolutionist camp fall under strong scientism, which is “… the view that some proposition or theory is true and/or rational to believe if and only if it is a scientific proposition or theory; that is, if and only if it is a well-established scientific proposition or theory that, in turn, depends on its having been successfully formed, tested and used according to appropriate scientific methodology. There are no truths apart from scientific truths, and even if there were, there would be no reason whatever to believe them.

Nell, you seem to fall into the second camp, weak scientism, advocates of which “…allow for the existence of truths apart from science and are even willing to grant that they can have some minimal, positive rationality status without the support of science. But advocates of weak scientism still hold that science is the most valuable, most serious and most authoritative sector of human learning. Every other intellectual activity is inferior to science. Further, there are virtually no limits to science. There is no field into which scientific research cannot shed light. To the degree that some issue or belief outside science can be given scientific support or can be reduced to science, to that degree the issue or belief becomes rationally acceptable. Thus we have an intellectual and perhaps even a moral obligation to try to use science to solve problems in other fields that, heretofore, have been untouched by scientific methodology. For example, we should try to solve problems about the mind by the methods of neurophysiology and computer science.”

I’m trying to avoid arguing against a “straw man”, so corrections are welcome.

I would agree with this:

“…strong scientism is self-refuting. Strong scientism is not itself a proposition of science, but a second-order proposition of philosophy about science to the effect that only scientific propositions are true and/or rational to believe. And strong scientism is itself offered as a true rationally justified position to believe. Now propositions that are self refuting (e.g. There are no truths) are not such that they just happen to be false but could have been true. Self-refuting proposition are necessarily false, that is, no amount of scientific progress in the future will have the slightest effect on making strong scientism more acceptable.”

“Here is a list of some of the philosophical presuppositions of science: (1) the existence of a theory-independent, external world; (2) the orderly nature of the external world; (3) the knowability of the external world; (4) the existence of truth; (5) the laws of logic; (6) the reliability of out cognitive and sensory faculties to serve as truth gatherers; (7) the adequacy of language to describe the world; (8) the existence of values used in science (e.g. “test theories fairly and report test results honestly”); (9) the uniformity of nature and induction (healyhatman, I believe there’s an interesting correlation between this point and radiometric dating); (10) the existence of numbers.”

John Kekes in The Nature of Philosophy, said this:

“A successful argument for science being the paradigm of rationality must be based on the demonstration that the presuppositions of science are preferable to other presuppositions. That demonstration requires showing that science, relying on these presuppositions, is better at solving some problems and achieving some ideals than its competitors. But showing that cannot be the task of science. It is, in fact, one task of philosophy. Thus the enterprise of justifying the presuppositions of science by showing that with their help science is the best way of solving certain problems and achieving some ideals is a necessary precondition of the justification of science. Hence philosophy, and not science, is a stronger candidate for being the very paradigm of rationality.”

Ioreck, your appeal to the majority and so-called “self-legitimizing” of science is just plain wrong. I’m not questioning the great strides science has made in improving the living conditions of humanity. I’m questioning labeling the highest category under which all other categories must fall.

Nell, I don’t have to walk away from the light bulb or open heart surgery to do this. The scientific method works just fine for science. Also, you should take a look at Jeffrey Burton Russell’s Inventing the Flat Earth. It uses the historical method to show how certain groups of people in high places used the flat earth myth to make Christians look stupid. It was very well known among the educated priests in the middle ages knew the earth was round. It’s circumference was approximated in the ancient world. In the Bible, Job says “Behold, He hangeth the earth upon nothing.”

I’m not turning science into anything else. It is a system or thought and a tool. It takes a place underneath philosophy. As for “…the kinds of understanding and beneficial developments… that we have achieved”, well, we’ve achieved vaccines that cure diseases and nuclear weapons that can annihilate the world many times over. The term beneficial is subjective depending on the goal. One can argue it (again, I think the polio vaccine is sweet)
I saw a man in the film who stated that he would shoot himself in the head if his cancer came back and it made me sad for him. He basically said “that was that” after he died. I’m assuming he was a materialist.

Healyhatman, a few things:

First off, I don’t know why, but your comment wasn’t
showing up before I posted anything, so I thought
iorek had made the only response to my comment.
Anyways, dude, calm down. It is okay for people to
have other beliefs besides the ones that you hold
dear. I’m just saying that doesn’t make those beliefs
right.

So I googled the Australian lungfish. It looks cool,
and it supports what I was saying about many fossils
from “400 million years ago” that are creatures that
are alive and well today.

Radiometric dating? I did what you suggested and
looked up some information on Wikipedia. Here’s a
cool quote:

The precision of a dating method depends in part on
the half-life of the radioactive isotope involved. For
instance, carbon-14 has a half-life of about 6000
years. After an organism has been dead for 60,000
years, so little carbon-14 is left in it that accurate
dating becomes impossible. On the other hand, the
concentration of carbon-14 falls off so steeply that
the age of relatively young remains can be determined
precisely to within a few decades. The isotope used in
uranium-thorium dating has a longer half-life, but
other factors make it more accurate than radiocarbon
dating.

Plus radiometric dating assumes isotopes decay at the
same rate, which apparently has been question. And
there is evidence that they don’t.

What about radio carbon dating? Definitely some
problems there as well. I know that when Mount St.
Helen’s erupted, there were a bunch of trees under the
lake nearby that were dated to extravagantly old ages.
It happens quite a bit with radio carbon dating.

“…not everything that happens is recorded…” I don’t
believe that was in question. “The radical Muslims in
certain Islamic countries record that the holocaust
was a lie - because they record it that way, surely it
must be true yes?” That’s an interesting way to
phrase that question. But eye witness accounts and
historical evidence do suggest that the holocaust
occurered.

“…creationism is taught by the media…” Yeah, I know
what you mean. It’s like, I turn on the radio, and
it’s the Pussycat Dolls singing “He made the heavens
and the earth, made the land and the sea…” Come on,
this is just blatantly untrue. I’m sure we can all
agree that evolution is well accepted by the
mainstream media. Is it different in Austrailia? The
us media is very biased towards evolution. “…everyone
in the church..” Again not true.

Healyhatman, I’m starting to think that maybe not
everything your saying is true, and maybe scientists
who believe in creation have some good worth while
points to look at as well.

One last thing, I was thinking about this when I got up this morning. People say many times that they are searching for God. One person looks at the complexity of a cell, and asks why God doesn’t put a sign in the sky saying “Here I am!”. Another person looks there and everywhere else and sees God everywhere. Just was thinking about that today.

I made a ridiculous mistake right at the beginning! I meant to say, "Okay, I really don’t want to seem like I’m 'not' taking both views into account."

lorek, I appreciate your compliment, and I'm wondering if my typo led to a misunderstanding. I think science and faith are compatible and don't need to be crammed together.

healyhatman, some quick thoughts, about your comments.

About radiospectric dating:

You are saying that in all the years we’ve tested the decay rate, it’s never changed. Which is how many years out of the 4.5 billion being assumed? Not many. Also are we assuming that all the samples used had the same amount of isotopes when the universe began? Or when earth began? Also, many times, fossils are dated based on rock layers, and rock layers based on fossils found in them, in a kind of circular reasoning. Does this ever happen with radiometric dating? And no, I’m not suggesting we throw everything out. I’m just suggesting that there may be other explanations for the discoveries we make. When scientists are working from inside the box, so to speak, on evolution, or with an evolutionary bias, it may be hard for them to think about other explanations for those results.

Carbon-14 isn’t used to date the earth, but there are some similarities between the methodology of carbon-14 dating and radiometric dating.

The trees under the lake near Mt. St. Helens is one example. Another would be the week old fruit from a market that was dated to like the 1500s. I believe there was another with turtle shells or something, but you’re right, we should look for more and see what that might suggest.

As for Job, I pulled this up on a commentary:

Hint of the true theory of the earth. Its suspension in empty space is stated in the second clause. The north in particular is specified in the first, being believed to be the highest part of the earth (Isa 14:13). The northern hemisphere or vault of heaven is included; often compared to a stretched-out canopy (Ps 104:2). The chambers of the south are mentioned (Job 9:9), that is, the southern hemisphere, consistently with the earth's globular form.

You can hang a flat towel from rack. At Christmas, we hang little glass globes on the tree. Job 9:9 talks about constellations in the southern hemisphere too, which is cool. And I am stating that a greek dude measured the circumference of the earth. And I’m stating that educated priests in the middle ages knew the earth was round. And yes, Job is in the Old Testament. It’s really old. That’s one of the cool things about it.

Musicians make music that’s played on the radio. Radio is media. And the media is biased towards evolution, and generally against Christians too, by the way. And Imagining the Pussycat Dolls singing a hymn is funny.

While I didn’t actually say that God made all the animals in the Garden of Eden, but yeah, I believe that. I also believe that God spoke the universe into existence. Uh oh, right?

Another thing I noticed is that you keep harping on how every bit of scientific evidence shows us evolution happened. Sometimes, blanket statements worry me. Not that they’re not ever true, but still.. every scrap of scientific evidence?

These are some quick thoughts. I appreciate your response and the whole discussion in general. And does anyone want to address the bias of Western Civilization towards scientism and physicalism, and any other –isms? I believe that has some relevancy here.

Alright, I gotta go hang out with my Jesus-pals now :)

I'm disturbed by this review, because I hoped to understand something more about a movie I haven't seen yet -- but I'm now confused! It seemed clear to me from the trailer that "Expelled" is about academic freedom, and recent debate over Intelligent Design only provides the occasion for a critical look at the real state of academic freedom in our universities. In other words, the arguments for and against Intelligent Design aren't really central to the movie. After reading this review, however, I wonder if I've misunderstood what the movie is about, or if Ms. Minow doesn't understand what the movie is about. When she says "Stein quickly shifts the debate from a head-to-head assessment of analysis of data to frame the issue as one of freedom of speech," is that really a shift, or does this comment indicate that she misunderstood the show's premise from the very beginning? I'll have to see for myself.

I'm also bothered by some little problems of reasoning in the review. One example is this statement: "Stein never shows that Intelligent Design can go from theory to explanation as it must to be considered science." Doesn't Movie Mom know that all theories attempt to explain? And that not all explanatory theories are science (e.g., the theory that Christopher Marlowe wrote some of the plays attributed to Shakespeare)?

Or consider the next sentence: "As a lawyer, he should understand that freedom of speech also guarantees the freedom not to have to listen to mangled, manipulative, and disingenuous rhetoric like this." Is Movie Mom suggesting that Stein thinks people do not have the freedom not to watch his movie? The implication is ludicrous.

And what does it mean to say that intelligence is "defined as rationality grounded in proof." Who defines intelligence that way? And how does Movie Mom understand "rationality" to be "grounded" in "proof"?

She says also that "Intelligent Design is based the fact that (1) there are questions that natural selection does not answer -- which Darwinian scientists admit, and (2) therefore, some intelligent force must be behind creation -- which cannot be proven by scientific means and therefore is more appropriately considered within the fields of philosophy or religion." Perhaps she's right, in which case any of us who know a thing or two about either science or philosophy will quickly point out how enmeshed all of science is with philosophy. So if science and philosophy have to be strictly segregated, all science will immediately come to a stop. I should hardly need to point out that Intelligent Design has nothing to do with religion, but if it comes to it, please take my word for it. If, on the other hand, Intelligent Design does fall within the domain of philosophy, then by all means, it must be taught in a philosophy class.

As a final criticism, what does it matter, for purposes of our understanding this movie, what "A Republican Christian judge appointed by President George W. Bush" has to say about anything? And why point out that the judge is "Republican," "Christian," and "appointed by President George W. Bush"?

I'll certainly go see this movie. I still have no idea whether I'll like it since Movie Mom only interprets the movie on the basis of her own misunderstanding of the issues involved -- and possibly the thesis of the film itself.

Good grief. Why does the argument always break down to creationism versus 'science'. No one has ever presented any proof of cross-species evolution. So where is the 'rationality of scientific inquiry' that presents repeatable, measurable, and observable facts for this? I'm not a creationist and I'm not saying evolution isn't a very plausible theory. But since I require proof to accept cross-species evolution, I am labeled a 'nut'.
Ben Stein makes a very good point. Science must be challenged to present compelling facts and evidence in order to progress.

"... any of us who know a thing or two about either science or philosophy will quickly point out how enmeshed all of science is with philosophy. So if science and philosophy have to be strictly segregated, all science will immediately come to a stop."

Agkyra, beautiful. No one else will address this. And beyond the philisophical assumptions of science, I would bet that science textbooks might even make some bold statements about the beginnings of the universe i.e. the big bang.

I hope MovieMom will address this article that proves a double standard exists when it comes to philosophical presuppositions with regards to the origin of the universe and of living things. Nell, you constantly have told me that design detection is not science so I want to give you a taste of the competition. Let’s see if you will admit that Ken Dill is not doing science, and instead think that his ideas are religious.

Ken Dill, a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco featured in the video, adds: ”In fact, complexity can evolve through small steps. We can infer the evolution of a very complex organ, like the eye, by looking at intermediate stages preserved in animals alive today. And just as a baby’s eye is built up step by step over nine months in the womb, the eye evolved in small steps over millions of years.”

http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2008/05/ncse-eyeing-id.html#more

I brought this quote up from the Pandas Thumb written by PvM as he was quoting Ken Dill.

This is an example of a blatant double standard that evolutionists like MovieMom employ. On the one hand evolutionary proponents say that science cannot infer design with respect to biochemical machines and the genetic code simply because we have not witnessed that particular code and set of machines come into existence, which is what you espouse Nell Minow. Yet here the atheist is, monopolizing science by claiming to "infer the evolution of a very complex organ...eye...by looking at intermediate stages preserved in animals alive today". This is pure hypocrisy, pure philosophy, pure religion based on your definition of religion Nell! What's worse is that Mr. Dill has no mechanism or set of causes that he proposes can produce a code. After all, the genetic code with complex, specified microscopic machinery built up the structure that is the eye, it didn't come from any place else. The statement Dill made: "And just as a baby’s eye is built up step by step over nine months in the womb, the eye evolved in small steps over millions of years.”" is religious, and I want you to admit that Nell, or at least explain why you do not think it is. The way I see it, Ken Dill wasn't around 11 million years ago, all the animals he is testing in reality only exist in the present, and he tells us all this in spite of reality showing us that it was the code in the original cell during inception that eventually produced the eye. Mr. Dill has come to the conclusion that he has looked into the deep past where no one else was, saw the evolution of the eye yet cannot demonstrate it or the mechanisms involved in its evolution, then told us it was really produced in a womb from a code and machine set (genetic code and egg cell). Where did the code and microscopic machines come from? Mr. Dill explains no mechanism or cause(s) for his eye that is natural an undirected (and not from a previously existing code). The eye came from a different eye, which doesn't explain where the original eye came from. Mr. Dill is spreading his own variation of an evolutionary religion, all the while hijacking science for his own Proslitization. He has not demonstrated a code could come into existence without an intelligent cause. He hasn't even shown that one eye could change into another distinctly different eye. What's more is that following this religious fanatic's logic, evolution would conclude that two eyes evolved the same way at the same time because no animal that he can compare will have just one eye. Organisms always contain either no eyes, or at least two eyes, never just one. This man believes in magic!

Read the whole article, it is very similar to Ken Miller arguing that the bacterial flagellum (which contains a rotary machine) evolved into the type III secretory system (again, another machine produced from a code) based on similar proteins and function. It's circular and also begs the question about how the original machine and code originated. Where did evolution come from?

Nell, you are a true religious believer in evolution. I don't think there is one thing you can think of that 'change over time' does not solve and explain when it comes to origins. If you think that 'change over time' with respect to the origin of a machine or code is going to happen without an intelligent cause, you are dreaming, and are practicing religion and quite possibly a believer in magic along with Ken. Intelligent design is science because it can be shown to produce machines and codes, while no other combination of mechanisms and causes have ever been shown to produce them. So I can logically infer design in biological organisms whereas Ken Dill cannot logically infer evolution because change over time does not explain the original code and machines that produced the eye. Ken Dill ignores that problem because he knows he cannot explain the origin of the code. Darwin could not have settled the evolution of the eye because his evolution didn't even predict that there would be a code that governs the organisms' creation to begin with. He didn't even know a code existed within all life during his. He was an ignorant foolish fundie of the non-creator type that interpreted his evidence into his narrow sectarian religious worldview. How else can you explain it when the man saw different beak shapes and concludes that all animals throughout all time and space are related to each other? It’s a purely religious extrapolation from the evidence. Pure philosophy. Not science based on your view of science.

The design inference is the inference to the best possibility, and is logically the most plausible. Codes can be shown to come into existence using ID. This is a fact. If you do not count the genetic code as a code, then you are an intellectual fraud. A holistic sequence of information that performs a function which has a physical symbolic representation is a code. I am sorry if it affects your worldview or ideology, but it’s the absolute truth, and the intelligent cause is supreme in dealing with their existence. I am waiting to hear otherwise.

If Design is excluded from the OOL research which is what you are implying when you say that there are no methods of detecting it, then science is in the business of validating atheism, because then only atheistic philosophical scenarios are allowed in science, which creates a sectarian religious viewpoint that excludes a designer i.e. abiogenesis. Following your logic Nell, you cannot explain how the computer came to be because if intelligent design is not detectable and therefore not science, then science is left with BS plausibility scenarios that do not lead to the truth with respect to the computer’s origin. i.e. The screw evolved to fit into the hole, which over time sealed the computer’s case, making the computer more survivable is a junket story that proves only that you have great imagination with no applicability.

You keep trumpeting that ID is not science yet I explained to you that humans perform Intelligent Design all the time, proving to whoever is reading these comments that ID does in fact exist unlike concepts such as black holes and dark matter (you do think astrophysicists are scientists right?). You also never answered my question when I asked you what causes a code to come into existence. When the origin is known, what has caused a code to exist Nell? Please answer that.