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  Topic: Discussing "Explore Evolution", Have at it.< Next Oldest | Next Newest >  
PennyBright



Posts: 78
Joined: May 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 07 2007,12:32   

Quote (Albatrossity2 @ Aug. 06 2007,07:37)
 I don't think a lot of Xtian home-schooling parents are going to spring for an expensive, slim, and non-Biblical specialty textbook on evolution alone. Maybe I'm wrong, and i certainly am not privy to the advertising in that market, but it seems unlikely to me.


You are exactly on mark here, Albatrossity - the Xtian homeschoolers won't touch it with a ten foot pole if it doesn't talk explicitly about God and the bible.   We're talking about people who refuse to participate in the Girl Scouts because it's not biblically based.    

I'm betting they're aiming for Xtian k-12 schools.

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Conversation should be pleasant without scurrility, witty without affectation, free without indecency, learned without conceitedness, novel without falsehood. - Shakespeare (reputedly)

  
Wesley R. Elsberry



Posts: 4991
Joined: May 2002

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 07 2007,13:01   

Quote

I'm betting they're aiming for Xtian k-12 schools.


Seems doubtful to me. If they were, they could mention "God", "Bible", "creationism", and "intelligent design" without worry, and would improve their market penetration by doing so. There is just one place that EE is "designed" to enter, and that is public K-12 science classrooms.

Anything else is a happy coincidence.

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"You can't teach an old dogma new tricks." - Dorothy Parker

    
"Rev Dr" Lenny Flank



Posts: 2560
Joined: Feb. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 07 2007,17:12   

Quote (JohnW @ Aug. 07 2007,12:10)
Quote ("Rev Dr" Lenny Flank @ Aug. 05 2007,11:32)
Thus endeth my look at "Explore Evolution".

Wow.  Outstanding sacrifice of time and neurons to the cause, Lenny.

So how long did you have to shower to get rid of the smell of old garbage?

I'm still wet as I type this.


:)

--------------
Editor, Red and Black Publishers
www.RedandBlackPublishers.com

  
"Rev Dr" Lenny Flank



Posts: 2560
Joined: Feb. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 07 2007,17:15   

Quote (Albatrossity2 @ Aug. 06 2007,07:37)
Perhaps they don't really have a coherent marketing strategy for this thing, but that would be surprising, since marketing is definitely their strong suit.

I'm still sticking with the hypothesis that this thing was designed (pardon the pun) to serve as their textbook for "teach the controversy", and was written BEFORE "teach the controversy" died a gruesome death in Kansas and Ohio and Georgia.

Now that they are stuck with a "textbook" that they can't teach, they're just trying to sell it to somebody, anybody, to recoup the losses.


After the way they left the Dover Dolts twisting in the wind, even the halfwits at Discovery Institute must realize that no sane school board will ever trust them again.

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Editor, Red and Black Publishers
www.RedandBlackPublishers.com

  
"Rev Dr" Lenny Flank



Posts: 2560
Joined: Feb. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 07 2007,17:16   

Hey Paul, are you back from Rome yet?

(snicker)  (giggle)

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Editor, Red and Black Publishers
www.RedandBlackPublishers.com

  
IanBrown_101



Posts: 927
Joined: April 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 07 2007,18:01   

Quote ("Rev Dr" Lenny Flank @ Aug. 07 2007,17:16)
Hey Paul, are you back from Rome yet?

(snicker)  (giggle)

Maybe those local savages tied him up, what with Italy being such a wild place with no internet capabilities....

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I'm not the fastest or the baddest or the fatest.

You NEVER seem to address the fact that the grand majority of people supporting Darwinism in these on line forums and blogs are atheists. That doesn't seem to bother you guys in the least. - FtK

Roddenberry is my God.

   
"Rev Dr" Lenny Flank



Posts: 2560
Joined: Feb. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 07 2007,18:13   

Quote (IanBrown_101 @ Aug. 07 2007,18:01)
Quote ("Rev Dr" Lenny Flank @ Aug. 07 2007,17:16)
Hey Paul, are you back from Rome yet?

(snicker)  (giggle)

Maybe those local savages tied him up

And I bet they're CATHOLICS !!!!!!!!!!!!

;)

--------------
Editor, Red and Black Publishers
www.RedandBlackPublishers.com

  
JohnW



Posts: 3217
Joined: Aug. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 07 2007,19:06   

Quote ("Rev Dr" Lenny Flank @ Aug. 07 2007,17:15)
Quote (Albatrossity2 @ Aug. 06 2007,07:37)
Perhaps they don't really have a coherent marketing strategy for this thing, but that would be surprising, since marketing is definitely their strong suit.

I'm still sticking with the hypothesis that this thing was designed (pardon the pun) to serve as their textbook for "teach the controversy", and was written BEFORE "teach the controversy" died a gruesome death in Kansas and Ohio and Georgia.

Now that they are stuck with a "textbook" that they can't teach, they're just trying to sell it to somebody, anybody, to recoup the losses.


After the way they left the Dover Dolts twisting in the wind, even the halfwits at Discovery Institute must realize that no sane school board will ever trust them again.

If I was more of a conspiracy theorist, I'd think that nothing causes contribution checks to be written faster than another court defeat at the hands of a pinko judge (like, ahem, Bush-appointee Jones).  And as the book was ready to roll anyway, and there's bound to be some school district somewhere which is dumb enough to use it...

I'm not a conspiracy theorist, and this scenario assumes the IDiots and iDIots know what they're doing, but still...

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Math is just a language of reality. Its a waste of time to know it. - Robert Byers

There isn't any probability that the letter d is in the word "mathematics"...  The correct answer would be "not even 0" - JoeG

  
stevestory



Posts: 13407
Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 07 2007,19:51   

If Ahmanson's still funding these incompetents, he's a little slow on the uptake.

   
Jkrebs



Posts: 590
Joined: Sep. 2004

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 07 2007,21:05   

Some of us think that EE was written with the intent of fitting closely with the Kansas science standards of 2004.  The strategy in Kansas was to teach more evolution, the strengths and weaknesses of evolution, etc., and the standards mentioned many of the points being covered in EE.  If the creationists had kept control of the state BOE and the 2004 creationist standards had stayed in place, I am confident that the DI would be hawking EE to Kansas school districts and science teachers as we speak.

  
"Rev Dr" Lenny Flank



Posts: 2560
Joined: Feb. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 07 2007,21:08   

Quote (stevestory @ Aug. 07 2007,19:51)
If Ahmanson's still funding these incompetents, he's a little slow on the uptake.

Well, he is.

Slow on the uptake, I mean.

I assume that he's still writing checks, though -- he accounts, all by himself, for around 25-33% of DI's previous budgets.  If he closed his checkbook, I'm sure we'd have heard all about it by now.

I assume he's still writing checks for the whole anti-gay-marriage thingie, too --- and that whole project is just as dead and buried as ID "theory" is.

--------------
Editor, Red and Black Publishers
www.RedandBlackPublishers.com

  
Bob O'H



Posts: 2564
Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 08 2007,04:31   

I'm no sure if a round of applause for Lenny is appropriate, so I thought this would do instead:
(shrug)
(shrug)
(shrug)
(shrug)
(shrug)
(shrug)
(shrug)

Bob

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It is fun to dip into the various threads to watch cluelessness at work in the hands of the confident exponent. - Soapy Sam (so say we all)

   
Albatrossity2



Posts: 2780
Joined: Mar. 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 10 2007,10:32   

OMG - There has been another Paul Nelson sighting on this board just now.
Quote
19 guests, 12 Public Members and 0 Anonymous Members   [ View Complete List ]
>Albatrossity2 >VMartin >Louis >IanBrown_101 >k.e >Paul Nelson >heddle >oldmanintheskydidntdoit >Bob O'H >Shirley Knott >Raevmo >ppb

I hope he weighs in soon and lets us know the names of the reviewers for EE!

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Flesh of the sky, child of the sky, the mind
Has been obligated from the beginning
To create an ordered universe
As the only possible proof of its own inheritance.
                        - Pattiann Rogers

   
IanBrown_101



Posts: 927
Joined: April 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 10 2007,10:40   

Yay, Paul managed to get out of that backwater hellhole of....Rome.

Maybe he'd like to talk to us about the issues raised?

[EDIT] D'oh, Paul Nelson done run away with his tail between his legs left again.

--------------
I'm not the fastest or the baddest or the fatest.

You NEVER seem to address the fact that the grand majority of people supporting Darwinism in these on line forums and blogs are atheists. That doesn't seem to bother you guys in the least. - FtK

Roddenberry is my God.

   
Bob O'H



Posts: 2564
Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 11 2007,03:00   

Bugger, there goes my theory that Paul Nelson and k.e. are actually the same person.

Bob

--------------
It is fun to dip into the various threads to watch cluelessness at work in the hands of the confident exponent. - Soapy Sam (so say we all)

   
silverspoon



Posts: 123
Joined: May 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 13 2007,17:39   

One month and counting and still no Q & A discussion on the Explore Evolution web site.

It looks like the “scientific discussion” promised on their site is as fruitful as their super secret ID lab experiments.

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Grand Poobah of the nuclear mafia

  
Steviepinhead



Posts: 532
Joined: Jan. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 14 2007,15:14   

Brave, brave Sir Paul!

Still doing as the Roamins, do I guess: roam on, dude!

  
Timothy McDougald



Posts: 1036
Joined: Dec. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 14 2007,21:03   

Earlier in the thread Paul and I were discussing fossils relevant to the reptile/mammal transition:

Quote (Paul Nelson @ July 20 2007,15:57)
There's no problem with scaling up or down in illustrations so that anatomical features can be seen.

Not telling the reader that one is making some skulls very much bigger, and others much smaller, however, or failing to provide the dimensions of the actual fossils -- that's problematic.  This is especially the case with extinct groups (e.g., therapsids), where the reader will have no frame of reference.



Later Paul says:


Quote
The passage in question refers not to any claim about linear increase in size, but to the practice of depicting fossil taxa on the same scale (in illustrations), without informing the reader that the actual specimens vary considerably in size.


Here is what the footnote I asked Paul to supply says:

Quote
Some authors do include the scaling ratios they use, leaving it up to the audience’s mathematical skills to calculate actual comparative size. Other authors use a scale legend line, and it’s up to the reader to notice that the same length line that represented 2 cm in Picture A represents 10 cm in Picture B. Still other authors simply put “Skulls not to scale,” somewhere in the caption. Unless students read the fine print and do the calculations, they are often left with a very misleading impression of the similarity of the animals in these alleged sequences.



So, Exploring Evolution contradicts Paul on both of the claims he made. Which is what I call ironic...

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Church burning ebola boy

FTK: I Didn't answer your questions because it beats the hell out of me.

PaV: I suppose for me to be pried away from what I do to focus long and hard on that particular problem would take, quite honestly, hundreds of thousands of dollars to begin to pique my interest.

   
Dr.GH



Posts: 2333
Joined: May 2002

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 14 2007,22:56   

Jo que, I have been given access to the topic text.  I have not read much yet, nor have I had time to read all the comments.  But I will do so I promise.

Soon, very soon.

--------------
"Science is the horse that pulls the cart of philosophy."

L. Susskind, 2004 "SMOLIN VS. SUSSKIND: THE ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE"

   
Wesley R. Elsberry



Posts: 4991
Joined: May 2002

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 16 2007,14:42   

Meyer in the Boston Globe

Quote

Nothing 'pseudo' about text's scienceAugust 16, 2007
THE AUTHORS and I are puzzled by Sally Lehrman's characterization of the Discovery Institute's biology textbook "Explore Evolution" as "pseudoscience" in her Aug. 9 op-ed "Understanding evolution is crucial to debate." After all, we describe the main evolutionary mechanism much as Lehrman herself does as "natural selection acting on random mutations." We also explain evidence and arguments for the creative power of this mechanism, basing our treatment on current and classical sources in evolutionary biology. How is that pseudoscience? Perhaps Lehrman judges our book pseudoscience because we also describe current scientific criticisms of evolutionary theory. Perhaps she is unaware that skepticism about the creative power of natural selection and random mutation is common in peer-reviewed scientific literature and in the scientific community. No less an authority than the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences published a recent paper stating: "Natural selection based solely on mutation is probably not an adequate mechanism for evolving complexity." "Explore Evolution" not only tells students about such skepticism, but offers the evidential basis for it. But it does so alongside a thorough discussion of the strengths of evolutionary theory. That isn't pseudoscience, that's good science education.

STEPHEN C. MEYER
Senior research fellow
Discovery InstituteSeattle


--------------
"You can't teach an old dogma new tricks." - Dorothy Parker

    
dhogaza



Posts: 525
Joined: Feb. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 17 2007,16:56   

Wow, that is one weasily dishonest statement by Meyer.  Not a hint that the "controversy" within science has nothing to do with the "controversy" creationists conjure up.

  
stevestory



Posts: 13407
Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 17 2007,20:00   

This whole Exploring Evolution project is depressingly dishonest. These guys won't stop lying. They have to get creationism into public schools and they will tell any lie it takes to accomplish this.

   
"Rev Dr" Lenny Flank



Posts: 2560
Joined: Feb. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 20 2007,16:19   

Quote (Wesley R. Elsberry @ Aug. 16 2007,14:42)
Meyer in the Boston Globe

 
Quote

Nothing 'pseudo' about text's scienceAugust 16, 2007
THE AUTHORS and I are puzzled by Sally Lehrman's characterization of the Discovery Institute's biology textbook "Explore Evolution" as "pseudoscience" in her Aug. 9 op-ed "Understanding evolution is crucial to debate." After all, we describe the main evolutionary mechanism much as Lehrman herself does as "natural selection acting on random mutations." We also explain evidence and arguments for the creative power of this mechanism, basing our treatment on current and classical sources in evolutionary biology. How is that pseudoscience? Perhaps Lehrman judges our book pseudoscience because we also describe current scientific criticisms of evolutionary theory. Perhaps she is unaware that skepticism about the creative power of natural selection and random mutation is common in peer-reviewed scientific literature and in the scientific community. No less an authority than the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences published a recent paper stating: "Natural selection based solely on mutation is probably not an adequate mechanism for evolving complexity." "Explore Evolution" not only tells students about such skepticism, but offers the evidential basis for it. But it does so alongside a thorough discussion of the strengths of evolutionary theory. That isn't pseudoscience, that's good science education.

STEPHEN C. MEYER
Senior research fellow
Discovery InstituteSeattle

Well heck, let's invite Meyer in here to discuss the matter.

Since, it appears,  *Nelson*  doesn't have the ping-pongs for it . . . .

(snicker)  (giggle)

--------------
Editor, Red and Black Publishers
www.RedandBlackPublishers.com

  
IanBrown_101



Posts: 927
Joined: April 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 21 2007,05:03   

Huh.

--------------
I'm not the fastest or the baddest or the fatest.

You NEVER seem to address the fact that the grand majority of people supporting Darwinism in these on line forums and blogs are atheists. That doesn't seem to bother you guys in the least. - FtK

Roddenberry is my God.

   
Wesley R. Elsberry



Posts: 4991
Joined: May 2002

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 21 2007,05:37   

They don't seem to realize that talking up "debate" while maintaining an empty page supposedly for the purpose of showing off "debate" just makes the whole thing look that much phonier.

--------------
"You can't teach an old dogma new tricks." - Dorothy Parker

    
Bing



Posts: 144
Joined: Mar. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 21 2007,12:50   

Quote (Wesley R. Elsberry @ Aug. 21 2007,05:37)
They don't seem to realize that talking up "debate" while maintaining an empty page supposedly for the purpose of showing off "debate" just makes the whole thing look that much phonier.

Well that and asking participants to email in comments.  With all the forum software available they're asking participants to email comments??

Quote
"We will review them and address them on these pages."


So much for the lightly-moderated non-edited version that we all hoped Nelson and the Disco boys might provide.  I know that was a stretch but today I'm an optimist.

Anyone care to bet on where all the email to that address goes?  I'm saying straight to "deleted items" and purged on the close of Outlook.

  
Wesley R. Elsberry



Posts: 4991
Joined: May 2002

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 21 2007,13:42   

Well, I think the general expectation among those of us who have been watching the DI CRSC antics for many years now is that incoming email will be scrutinized and those items that match well with their "paradigm" will be passed, and those items from the screaming opposite end of the spectrum. Comments that bring up the (rather glaring) deficiencies in coverage of topic will silently disappear.

I'd love to be surprised, though.

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"You can't teach an old dogma new tricks." - Dorothy Parker

    
Dr.GH



Posts: 2333
Joined: May 2002

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 21 2007,15:38   

Quote ("Rev Dr" Lenny Flank @ Aug. 20 2007,14:19)
Well heck, let's invite Meyer in here to discuss the matter.

Since, it appears,  *Nelson*  doesn't have the ping-pongs for it . . . .

(snicker)  (giggle)

More like marbles, or BBs

--------------
"Science is the horse that pulls the cart of philosophy."

L. Susskind, 2004 "SMOLIN VS. SUSSKIND: THE ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE"

   
hooligans



Posts: 114
Joined: Jan. 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 22 2007,15:40   

Latest Paul Nelson sighting:
Quote
21 guests, 9 Public Members and 1 Anonymous Members ? [ View Complete List ]
>hooligans >oldmanintheskydidntdoit >Richardthughes >Erasmus, FCD >Arden Chatfield >Leftfield >Stephen Elliott >Hermagoras >Paul Nelson


are you ready to discuss anything Paul?

  
"Rev Dr" Lenny Flank



Posts: 2560
Joined: Feb. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 22 2007,17:48   

Quote (hooligans @ Aug. 22 2007,15:40)
Latest Paul Nelson sighting:
 
Quote
21 guests, 9 Public Members and 1 Anonymous Members ? [ View Complete List ]
>hooligans >oldmanintheskydidntdoit >Richardthughes >Erasmus, FCD >Arden Chatfield >Leftfield >Stephen Elliott >Hermagoras >Paul Nelson


are you ready to discuss anything Paul?

Well, Paul . . . .?

(sound of crickets chirping)



Just as I thought --- all mouth, no balls.  (shrug)

--------------
Editor, Red and Black Publishers
www.RedandBlackPublishers.com

  
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