wetlabmonkey
Posts: 7
Joined: Mar. 2008
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Hi all,
I was looking over Casey's latest parody where he beats up on a puppet-"Darwinist", and I had an epiphany. I've been a lurker since Dover, and his little dialogue unwittingly encapsulated a lot of what I've come to detest about the ID movement. He rambles off buzzwords rather than forming a coherent argument, and of the pages and pages of critiques that others have leveled against the ID movement, only a word or two makes it past Morton's demon. I think it's weird how the ID side is obsessed with creating straw-opponents and defeating them, but I thought I'd return the favor and fill in what I think a real "Darwinist" would say. This is mostly from the top of my head, so let me know if I left something major out.
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ID Proponent: DNA. Genetic code. Language. Commands. Information. Intelligent design.
Darwinist: Studying the precursors to DNA is currently underway. Assuming the conclusion doesn't help your cause, and it's why many people feel ID would slow or stop scientific progress.
ID Proponent: Cambrian Explosion. Pattern of Explosions. Cosmic Fine-Tuning. Intelligent design.
Darwinist: Do you know over what span the Cambrian "Explosion" took place? If you did, it might help you understand why evolutionists are not really quaking in their boots over this.
ID Proponent: Complexity of life. Irreducible complexity. Specified Complexity. Intelligent design.
Darwinist: I remember when irreducible complexity was all about how you couldn't remove any part of the bacterial flagella.Oops . I also remember when irreducible complexity covered a receptor and it's ligand. Oops. And why does specified complexity seem to change depending on how much I, the observer, know about the system?
ID Proponent: Human intelligence. Creative Genius. Love. Music. Art. Leonardo da Vinci. Beethoven.
Darwinist: I have no idea what you're trying to argue. Is human intelligence supposed to be impossible to evolve?
ID Proponent: Molecular Machines. Molecular motors. Cellular factories. Intelligent design.
Darwinist: This is one of the longest running and crappiest analogies because the machines you are comparing do not reproduce! There is no evolutionary process so its apples to oranges.
ID Proponent: Science. Evidence. Data. Observations. Intelligent design.
Darwinist: Actually it's more like Pseuodoscientific Buzzwords. Ignore Evidence. Hide from Data. Bias Observations. Intelligent Design.
ID Proponent: Atheism: Richard Dawkins. Daniel Dennett. Sam Harris. Eugenie Scott. Barbara Forrest. Stephen Jay Gould. E.O. Wilson. Michael Ruse. P.Z. Myers. Many others. Wedge? Irrelevant.
Darwinist: Notice how none of them wanted to "renew" science in a manner which removes the basic tenet of testability nor have any of them stated that they will use evolution as a wedge to change the government into a theocracy of their liking? I'd say it's a significant difference.
ID Proponent: Judges can’t settle science. Courts can’t change data.
Darwinist: Man, does your side keep whining about this. Remember how your side was so gung-ho before the trial and all excited about the "vise" it would put scientists in? Then you guys screwed up at every chance, and Dembski didn't even make it to the stand. Just par for the course for the cdesign proponentsists, I guess.
ID Proponent: Judge adopted false definition of ID.
Darwinist: He adopted the position argued by the ID expert witnesses. You better get some better experts then.
ID Proponent: Judge ignored positive case for design.
Darwinist: Rather, your side has ignored how the case for ID was demolished and have resorted to character attacks rather than substantial intellectual defense.
ID Proponent: Judge copied many errors into ruling from ACLU. Judge ignored ID rebuttals. Judges make mistakes all the time.
Darwinist: This is a perfect example of the above. Judge Jones included the Facts and Finding which he found were supported by evidence. The dearth of arguments on your side has more to do with the facts than Judge Jones, and the quicker you catch on to this, the less petulant you will look.
ID Proponent: Judge ignored peer-reviewed pro-ID publications. Meyer, Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. Dembski, The Design Inference. Beye/Snoke, Protein Science. Others.
Darwinist: The prosecution showed how ineffectual those papers were as a basis to attack evolution. You need to catch up.
ID Proponent: Judge ignored pro-ID research. Minnich's flagellum research.
Darwinist: Nick Matkze has shown how your side has ignored significant research into homologies between proteins and the minimal number of required components.
ID Proponent: Not an explanation. Huge Leap.
Darwinist: Well, it's not the little storybook you want, but it's a start. It's also shows that co-option is a viable explanation for the evolution of the flagella.
ID Proponent: Flagellum: Rotor, Stator, Bushings, Motor, Propeller, U-Joint, Rotary Engine 100,000 RPM. Irreducibly complex.
Darwinist: See the above about minimum required proteins. Also, you're impressed by the RPM on a flagellum? Go check on the hz on one of those fancy cesium atomic clocks. Is that more proof of ID?
ID Proponent: Then provide step-by-step evolutionary model.
Darwinist: Ahhh, moving the goal-posts. It's the only intellectual work-out an IDer seems to get.
ID Proponent: Minnich. Axe. Dembski. Marks. Meyer. Behe. Snoke. Gonzalez. Biologic. Others.
Darwinist: The striking link between most of the above is how quickly their scientific productivity dropped when they got involved in ID, especially Behe and Gonzalez. And what is with all the secrecy around Biologic? And as the puppet-darwinist you set up said "NAS rejects. AAAS rejects. “Steves” reject."
ID Proponent: That’s Politics. Thomas Kuhn was right. “Science not a democracy” –Eugenie Scott. All majority views started off as minority views.
Darwinist: That is so ironic considering how the major pusher of ID is basically just a PR machine.
ID Proponent: ID also has science. Plus Darwinism has politics: NAS anti-ID edicts; AAAS anti-ID edicts; Witch hunts (Sternberg, Crocker, Gonzalez, others).
Darwinist: Witch hunts? Please. Your persecution complex is so sensitive it goes off when legitimate steps are taken in policing peer-review, preventing creationism from being taught in the classroom, and choosing what assistant professors will be productive scientists.
ID Proponent: DNA. Genetic code. Language. Commands. Information. Not Bible based.
Darwinist: Did you just reboot?
ID Proponent: Cambrian Explosion. Pattern of Explosions. Cosmic Fine-Tuning. Not Faith based.
Darwinist: Why is your mind so impenetrable to facts which contradict your position?
ID Proponent: Complexity of life. Irreducible complexity. Specified Complexity. Not Divine Revelation based.
Darwinist: Please, just apply a little creativity to your arguments. Surprise me with your fallacies.
ID Proponent: Molecular Machines. Molecular motors. Cellular factories. Not Religion.
Darwinist: Oh man, I plead with you not to use this stupid analogy again...
ID Proponent: World’s most famous evolutionist Richard Dawkins (who is anti-ID): “Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.”
Darwinist: I think the puppet-Darwinist you set up said it best. "Hmmf. TalkOrigins Quote Mine Project."
ID Proponent: DNA Nobel Prize winner Francis Crick (who is anti-ID): "Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved.“
Darwinist: TalkOrigins Quote Mine Project.
ID Proponent: Former NAS president Bruce Alberts (who is anti-ID): “The entire cell can be viewed as a factory that contains an elaborate network of interlocking assembly lines, each of which is composed of a set of large protein machines. . . . Why do we call the large protein assemblies that underlie cell function protein machines? Precisely because, like machines invented by humans to deal efficiently with the macroscopic world, these protein assemblies contain highly coordinated moving parts.”
Darwinist: Have you clued in that if the person is anti-ID, then you might be taking the quote out of context? Alright, let's play a little game. Who designed the designer?
ID Proponent: Theological Objection—Irrelevant. Theological Answer: God is eternal, has no designer.
Darwinist: Is God irreducibly complex?
ID Proponent: Knowledge of designer not necessary for design inference.
Darwinist: Well, then how come you keep using examples like SETI, archeology, or crime-solving when those all assume something about the designer?
ID Proponent: Why does the universe exist?
Darwinist: I don't know. Try using that as an honest answer sometimes and stop trying to ruin science.
ID Proponent: Science seeks truth. If ID is right, ID is progress.
Darwinist: Science strives to understand the material world because that is all it can test! If ID is right and wants to be science, it will need positive results in a material context.
ID Proponent: That’s my point: Naturalism failing. How did flagellum evolve? Evolution of the gaps.
Darwinist: No, evolution fills gaps with hypothesis which can be tested and revised. The current hypothesis may not be totally (or remotely) correct, but we can find ways to check and update our ideas.
ID Proponent: Where are Cambrian ancestors? Evolution of the gaps.
Darwinist: If we're really lucky, some were fossilized and have survived. If we're not lucky, we can look for genetic clues. Again, we can form testable hypothesis and you can't.
ID Proponent: How did the first cell arise? Evolution of the gaps.
Darwinist: Again, we can form testable hypothesis and you can't.
ID Proponent: ID is positive. DNA. Genetic code. Language. Commands. Information. Cambrian Explosion. Pattern of Explosions. Cosmic Fine-Tuning. Complexity of life. Irreducible complexity. Specified Complexity. Human intelligence. Love. Music. Art. Leonardo da Vinci. Beethoven. Molecular Machines. Molecular motors. Cellular factories. Science. Evidence. Data. Observations. Information in nature requires intelligent design.
Darwinist You have totally misunderstood what it means to look for positive evidence. Try some predictions instead of retrodictions.
ID Proponent: How did any single biochemical pathway arise? Evolution of the gaps. ID dramatically superior.
Darwinist: Take a look at some of the resources compiled to answer that question because I'm done trying to reason with you. |
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