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J-Dog



Posts: 4402
Joined: Dec. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 11 2014,16:28   

Quote (Texas Teach @ Mar. 11 2014,16:18)
Quote (Lou FCD @ Mar. 11 2014,16:03)
Quote (Wesley R. Elsberry @ Feb. 27 2014,11:13)
The DI ENV is pushing an article by Stephen Webb that supposedly "schools" Stephen Meredith on IDC and "occasionalism".

Anybody else see the problem in Webb's thing that I do?

     
Quote
They then test their hypothesis by calculating the probability that a specific set of causes can create new biological forms.

lulz, as if cID theoristsists have ever actually calculated anything, ever.

I'm sure some of them calculated how much money they could make off the rubes.  That's kind of sciency, right?

FTFY! :)

Quote
'm sure some ALL  of them calculated how much money they could make off the rubes.  That's kind of sciency, right?


--------------
Come on Tough Guy, do the little dance of ID impotence you do so well. - Louis to Joe G 2/10

Gullibility is not a virtue - Quidam on Dembski's belief in the Bible Code Faith Healers & ID 7/08

UD is an Unnatural Douchemagnet. - richardthughes 7/11

  
Wesley R. Elsberry



Posts: 4991
Joined: May 2002

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 11 2014,17:59   

DI EN&V:

 
Quote

But there's one problem: Bruno's execution, troubling as it was, had virtually nothing to do with his Copernican views. He was condemned and burned in 1600, but it was not because he speculated that the Earth rotated around the sun along with the other planets. He was condemned because he denied the doctrine of the Trinity, the Virgin Birth, and transubstantiation, claimed that all would be saved, and taught that there was an infinite swarm of eternal worlds of which ours was only one. The latter idea he got from the ancient (materialist) philosopher Lucretius. Is it any surprise, then, that, as a defrocked Dominican friar denying essential tenets of Catholic doctrine and drawing strength from the closest thing to an atheist in the Roman world, he might have gotten in trouble with the Inquisition? Yet a documentary series about science and our knowledge of the universe fritters away valuable airtime on this Dominican mystic and heretic, while scarcely mentioning Copernicus, the Polish guy who actually wrote the book proposing a sun-centered universe.


and

 
Quote

Neil deGrasse Tyson does include a few hedges. While wandering the streets of modern-day Rome, he admits that Bruno wasn't a scientist and that his view of a sun-centered solar system was a "lucky guess." And during the animated dramatization of Bruno's sentence, the dark and menacing judge finds the brave Dominican guilty not just of being a Copernican, but of various theological trivialities which are never otherwise mentioned or explained. Despite these hints at nuance, not one viewer in a thousand could miss the real message: Christianity has been the enemy of science, and its henchmen tried to kill off the first brave souls who ventured a scientific thought.


From the Cosmos narration by Tyson:

 
Quote

Giordano Bruno lived in a time when there was no such thing as the separation of church and state, or the notion that freedom of speech was a sacred right of every individual. Expressing an idea that didn't conform to traditional belief could land you in deep trouble. Recklessly, Bruno returned to Italy. Maybe he was homesick, but still he must have known that his homeland was one of the most dangerous places in Europe he could possibly go. The Roman Catholic Church maintained a system of courts known as the Inquisition, and its sole purpose was to investigate and torment anyone who dared voice views that differed from theirs. It wasn't long before Bruno fell into the clutches of the thought police.


The DI complains that Bruno wasn't killed for his views on cosmology alone. But the point that Tyson clearly laid out in Cosmos was that disagreeing with "traditional belief" could be, and sometimes was, fatal. I don't see any workaround for the lead-up that Cosmos *actually* used, rather than the one the DI would like people to think that they used. People could, and did, end up paying the ultimate penalty for expressing views that were not entirely compatible with "traditional belief". And the grounds upon which death could be served up were sometimes incredibly narrow. Regardless of whether the DI thinks Bruno was a negligible non-entity in the history of science or not, his death stands as a significant event in the annals of religious intolerance, just as Cosmos rightly pointed out.

Well, we've long known that the DI couldn't be troubled to read things for comprehension that they critique (see here for details), but now they can't even watch a TV show?

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

    
Cubist



Posts: 559
Joined: Oct. 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 12 2014,16:09   

Quote (Texas Teach @ Mar. 11 2014,16:18)
Quote (Lou FCD @ Mar. 11 2014,16:03)
Quote (Wesley R. Elsberry @ Feb. 27 2014,11:13)
The DI ENV is pushing an article by Stephen Webb that supposedly "schools" Stephen Meredith on IDC and "occasionalism".

Anybody else see the problem in Webb's thing that I do?

     
Quote
They then test their hypothesis by calculating the probability that a specific set of causes can create new biological forms.

lulz, as if cID theoristsists have ever actually calculated anything, ever.

I'm sure some of them calculated how much money they could make off the rubes.  That's kind of sciency, right?

Economics and psychology are sciences. Game theory is… not really a science in itself, but a branch of science. [nods sagely]

  
Dr.GH



Posts: 2333
Joined: May 2002

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 22 2014,10:45   

DI EN&V:

Quote
An important part of what we do at the Center for Science & Culture is correct the inaccurate portrayal of intelligent design in scientific publications and the mainstream media.


It isn't as if they had anything else to do- like science.

Quote
Throughout the book, ID "evangelists" come across looking weaker and more manipulative than the atheists.


Finally they admit that ID is just theology.

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

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

   
Quack



Posts: 1961
Joined: May 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 22 2014,11:45   

Quote (Wesley R. Elsberry @ Mar. 11 2014,17:59)
DI EN&V:

   
Quote

But there's one problem: Bruno's execution, troubling as it was, had virtually nothing to do with his Copernican views. He was condemned and burned in 1600, but it was not because he speculated that the Earth rotated around the sun along with the other planets. He was condemned because he denied the doctrine of the Trinity, the Virgin Birth, and transubstantiation, claimed that all would be saved, and taught that there was an infinite swarm of eternal worlds of which ours was only one. The latter idea he got from the ancient (materialist) philosopher Lucretius. Is it any surprise, then, that, as a defrocked Dominican friar denying essential tenets of Catholic doctrine and drawing strength from the closest thing to an atheist in the Roman world, he might have gotten in trouble with the Inquisition? Yet a documentary series about science and our knowledge of the universe fritters away valuable airtime on this Dominican mystic and heretic, while scarcely mentioning Copernicus, the Polish guy who actually wrote the book proposing a sun-centered universe.


and

   
Quote

Neil deGrasse Tyson does include a few hedges. While wandering the streets of modern-day Rome, he admits that Bruno wasn't a scientist and that his view of a sun-centered solar system was a "lucky guess." And during the animated dramatization of Bruno's sentence, the dark and menacing judge finds the brave Dominican guilty not just of being a Copernican, but of various theological trivialities which are never otherwise mentioned or explained. Despite these hints at nuance, not one viewer in a thousand could miss the real message: Christianity has been the enemy of science, and its henchmen tried to kill off the first brave souls who ventured a scientific thought.


From the Cosmos narration by Tyson:

   
Quote

Giordano Bruno lived in a time when there was no such thing as the separation of church and state, or the notion that freedom of speech was a sacred right of every individual. Expressing an idea that didn't conform to traditional belief could land you in deep trouble. Recklessly, Bruno returned to Italy. Maybe he was homesick, but still he must have known that his homeland was one of the most dangerous places in Europe he could possibly go. The Roman Catholic Church maintained a system of courts known as the Inquisition, and its sole purpose was to investigate and torment anyone who dared voice views that differed from theirs. It wasn't long before Bruno fell into the clutches of the thought police.


The DI complains that Bruno wasn't killed for his views on cosmology alone. But the point that Tyson clearly laid out in Cosmos was that disagreeing with "traditional belief" could be, and sometimes was, fatal. I don't see any workaround for the lead-up that Cosmos *actually* used, rather than the one the DI would like people to think that they used. People could, and did, end up paying the ultimate penalty for expressing views that were not entirely compatible with "traditional belief". And the grounds upon which death could be served up were sometimes incredibly narrow. Regardless of whether the DI thinks Bruno was a negligible non-entity in the history of science or not, his death stands as a significant event in the annals of religious intolerance, just as Cosmos rightly pointed out.

Well, we've long known that the DI couldn't be troubled to read things for comprehension that they critique (see here for details), but now they can't even watch a TV show?

Hear hear!

--------------
Rocks have no biology.
              Robert Byers.

  
Wesley R. Elsberry



Posts: 4991
Joined: May 2002

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 22 2014,14:38   

There seems to be quite a number of people who joined the DI in criticizing how "Cosmos" included Giordano Bruno in their script.

I'll repeat what I've transcribed from "Cosmos".
 
Quote

Giordano Bruno lived in a time when there was no such thing as the separation of church and state, or the notion that freedom of speech was a sacred right of every individual. Expressing an idea that didn't conform to traditional belief could land you in deep trouble. Recklessly, Bruno returned to Italy. Maybe he was homesick, but still he must have known that his homeland was one of the most dangerous places in Europe he could possibly go. The Roman Catholic Church maintained a system of courts known as the Inquisition, and its sole purpose was to investigate and torment anyone who dared voice views that differed from theirs. It wasn't long before Bruno fell into the clutches of the thought police.


NCSE's Peter Hess had a Facebook comment almost immediately that "Cosmos" had passed on anti-Catholic lies, and followed that up with a blog post on NCSE's "Science League of America" blog. Hess makes essentially the same erroneous claim  as the DI did:

Quote

But Cosmos makes Bruno out to be a martyr who died heroically in the defense of early modern science, and this is a role he certainly did not play.


Hess also makes this statement:

Quote

Unfortunately, the series premiere risks squandering that opportunity through a combination of misleading history and reliance on an antiquated narrative of inevitable conflict between science and religion—and the Catholic Church in particular—that simply is not borne out by the facts. A generation of careful schoarship has given us a nuanced and sophisticated understanding of the long, rich, and complex relationship between religion and the sciences. This latest Cosmos reflects none of that historiography, presenting us instead with what is quite literally a cartoon version of the life story of someone who was not a scientist. Missing were the stories of Catholic astronomers such as Copernicus and Galileo, Protestants such as Brahe and Kepler and Newton, or Fr. George Lemaître, proposer of the Big Bang.


This statement carries a message I've seen in various other places since. While decrying a lack of nuance on the part of "Cosmos", it casts the "conflict thesis" in curiously either-or fashion. While I didn't come away from my viewing of the episode with the understanding that "Cosmos" promoted a "religion is always in conflict with science" concept, that is exactly what Hess is arguing above, and others have joined in that. How else could particular examples be posed as a counter? And at least for the first two examples Hess cites, Copernicus and Galileo, I think on the whole those provide more support for a conflict model than not. Copernicus self-censored his work, arranging for posthumous publication of his heliocentric model, and while Darwin's delay is still a matter of dispute among scholars, I am pretty sure everyone is down with the idea that Copernicus's delay was a product of his fear of the Inquisition. Where Copernicus offered his heliocentric model while still alive, he was careful to cast it merely as a mathematical exercise that made certain calculations in astronomy easier, and certainly it wasn't offered as a statement of cosmological truth. Galileo's case did involve the Inquisition more directly and was entirely based on statements in science, where Galileo was forced to recant his heliocentric views, forbidden to develop them further, and lived out the remainder of his life under house arrest.

Hess states:

Quote

The relevant question about this unfortunate affair—in the context of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey—is whether Bruno was executed for his scientific or for his theological views.


Well, Hess and others would like "Cosmos" to have cast it that way, but the transcript I made says otherwise. Hess proceeds with an apologetic that is common in this discussion, that of the various charges the Inquisition laid against Bruno, his cosmological claims were small potatoes; other charges carried more weight. I think that one can dispute the idea of "weight" here: all of the charges were considered to be heresies subject to the same penalties. There might be differences in how often the Inquisition imposed penalties when each charge was laid, but that doesn't really bear on the outcome when a defendant was deemed to be guilty and unrepentant. The notion that one can cleanly separate out the causes of the Inquisition's action in the Bruno case seems to me to be wishful thinking. (In part, that will be down to the general secrecy under which the Inquisition operated. Part of the US constitution is a reaction to the techniques used by the Inquisition and other courts: citizens have the right to confront their accusers, a right that the Inquisition is notorious for denying.) The Inquisition thought the cosmological claim of Bruno's to be serious enough to pursue as heresy.

P.Z. Myers picked up my transcript and agreed with my take on the Bruno affair and "Cosmos". Josh Rosenau of NCSE posted a blog post taking Myers to task, essentially repeating Hess's claims and citing other essayists who agreed with Hess. One of those, Thomas MacDonald, does appear to have found certain exaggerated statements in the "Cosmos" transcript, which he rails against with vehemence. Rosenau, though, quotes MacDonald himself engaging in hyperbole when it suits him:

Quote

Bruno was no friend of science. He was a disturbed mystic. Stanley Jaki, who translated Bruno’s rambling, nonsensical The Ash Wednesday Supper, has suggested that if the Inquisition hadn’t burned him, the Copernicans would have. He did nothing but harm the progress being made by actual scholars and scientists, and arguably laid the ground for the harsh approach to Galileo.


Why does MacDonald pass along Jaki's comment without reproving Jaki for hyperbole? After all, it is documented that the Inquisition tortured people and condemned people to death (though they insisted that secular authorities carry out those sentences). Is there any evidence that "the Copernicans" did anything more intemperate than insult people? Not that I know of. Nor does MacDonald note Jaki's relation to the Roman Catholic Church: he was a Benedictine priest. This by itself doesn't obviate an opinion, but it does indicate that the source has a motive for finding a victim of the Inquisition to have been a bad person.

And that is an unseemly outcome of this entire flap. A man who was imprisoned, tortured, and ultimately executed for disagreeing with authority is being vilified all over again by people who appear to be desperate to excuse a particular instance of action of the Inquisition, all the while also stating their general rejection of the methods of the Inquisition. Unsatisfied with the physical demise of Bruno, they persist in attempting an intellectual assassination at this late date. Others who think that there is something worth telling about this bit of history are reviled for a lack of nuance, or that they are necessarily adopting an extreme stance that religion is always and everywhere in conflict with science. It seems to me that an obstinate refusal to acknowledge an episode of religious interference in the matters of scientific inquiry does no favors to those who would like to see some comity between religion and science.

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

    
Dr.GH



Posts: 2333
Joined: May 2002

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 22 2014,16:53   

What Wes said.  :D

   
Wesley R. Elsberry



Posts: 4991
Joined: May 2002

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 23 2014,01:20   

I found Jaki's translation of Bruno's "The Ash Wednesday Supper" online. It appears to me that Jaki did do good service in annotating the translation with many notes clarifying various of Bruno's allusions. That is useful, for both the classical allusions that are no longer a commonplace of education and the references to current events and personalities from Bruno's time that have failed to be carried forward in general histories. As to whether the work deserves the dismissive assessment that Jaki himself is claimed to have applied to it should be left to the reader. I'm going to excerpt a bit that I found interesting.

 
Quote

THEME OF THE FIFTH DIALOGUE

The fifth dialogue is attached (I swear) for no other reason than to prevent our supper from being concluded in so sterile a manner. First, there is presented the most convenient arrangement of bodies in the ethereal region, showing that what is called the eighth sphere, the firmament of the fixed stars, is not in fact a firmament, so that those bodies that are seen there through their brightness should be equidistant from the center; but rather, that many [stars] may appear close to one another, though they arc, both in depth and width, farther away from one another than they are from the sun and the earth. Second, that there are not only seven wandering bodies [planets], just because we have recognized only seven as such; rather, there are for the very same reason innumerable others, that the true philosophers of old called, not without good reason, aethera, [17. See note 13 to the Fifth Dialogue.] which means runners, because they are bodies which truly move, and not imaginary spheres. Third, that such motion proceeds necessarily from an internal principle as if from its own nature and soul; with such truth many dreams are dissipated both about the active influence of the moon on waters and other kinds of fluids, and about other natural things that seem to have their principle of motion from an outside cause. Fourth, a stance is taken against those doubts that proceed by most stupid reasoning from the gravity and levity of bodies; and it is proved that all natural motion approaches a circular one, either about its own or about some other center. Fifth, it is shown how necessary it is that this earth and other similar bodies should move not with one but with several different motions. And that those bodies should consist of neither more nor less than the four simple [elements], these being United in one compound. And it is stated what these motions of the earth are. Finally, it is promised to supplement with other dialogues that which seems to be lacking in the completeness of this philosophy. And one concludes with an oath of Prudcnzio.


It seems apparent that Bruno's conjectures came closer to the mark in astronomy than in chemistry. I'm going to allude to and even quote Charles Darwin:

 
Quote

False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure long; but false views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, for everyone takes a salutory pleasure in proving their falseness; and when this is done, one path toward errors is closed and the road to truth is often at the same time opened.


It seems to me that the Roman Catholic Church's enforcement of Aristotelian views of cosmology gave false facts a currency long past when they would have otherwise have been disputed and abandoned.

One of the resources Rosenau pointed to in his article was an exchange between a critic and a "Cosmos" script writer. And one of the most interesting things I found there was, in fact, in the comments on one of the series. A commenter named "West" inverts the common critic tactic of minimizing Bruno's stature as a thinker and asserts that Bruno carried far more influence than many today are willing to credit him for.

 
Quote

Look, it's not Bruno vs. Digges, but both complimenting one another. And while it's true that Bruno wasn't a lone wolf in theory, in practice, nobody so publicly carried the torch of so-called "Copernicanism" than Bruno.

I might add that...

1) Bruno's great intuition not only greatly influenced Bacon and the experimental method only a couple of decades after his death (per calling upon a reliance on observation of the physical world as a based for further investigation);

2) he singlehandedly resurrected the study of the quantum world for the first time since antiquity and Democritus (note, he was concerned with the cosmic "minimum" and "maximum", and largely devoid of spiritual considerations (albeit written in poetic verse), as we see in his Frankfurt trilogy, written in his latter years;

3) he routinely engaged in what 20th Century quantum theorists would call "thought experiments" (i.e., lacking suitable instruments to explore the smallest constituents of matter, such as quarks or strings and things, just like Bruno, yet nobody care to claim that luminaries such as Heisenberg, Pauli, or Schrodinger are "unscientific");

4) Bruno used his through experiments to generate relativity theory 300 years before Einstein, sans the E=MC2 formula (a critical component, indeed, but Bruno clearly understood a communicated the essence of it);

5) on the whole, Bruno's thinking was clearly driven by the "holographic paradigm" centuries before holograms were discovered, or before Karl Pibram and David Bohm suggested any holonomic theories or notions of an "implicate order" (note that this idea was rife in Bruno's writing, and can be seen in statements he commonly makes, such as "everything is in everything else");

6) Bruno laid out the basis for historical dialectic, which Hegel discussed, albeit in his own way, but he was entirely conscious of Bruno and wrote about him; not to mention the fact that according to leading experts in semiotics and mass media, such as Umberto Eco, rightly identify Bruno as the pioneer in those fields;

7) heck, the guy was even a huge influence on Moliere, and it appears he was a strong influence on Shakespeare (and might have even met young Shakespeare during his stay in England in the early 1580s. Many scholars think the character of Propero in The Tempest is based on Bruno).

So then, why is Bruno so overlooked given the unprecedented scope and scale of his contributions?

Well, aside from the fact that moderns tend to be specialists who think in 'either/or terms vs. both/and sensibilities, history doesn't seem capable of digesting figures such as Bruno, who wasn't a master of any given area of thought, but rather, he functioned as a masterful sewer of the seeds of great thought. We tend to hand out the blue ribbons of historic recognition to the guys and gals who cross the finish line with their theories, whereas guys like Bruno--the people who made the race possible in the first place, get overlooked.

I'd like to think this is changing, and perhaps we'll see a long-overdue reassessment of Bruno per objective studies of "The Nolan" and his work/influence by capable historians such as Hilary Gati (vs. fanciful, speculative and highly distorted works by historians such as Francis Yates, who mostly betrayed her own orientation in her outdated works on Bruno, or even worse, the apologists for religious polemics, who continue to burn Bruno with errant scholarship more than 400 years after they literally burned him at the stake).

In any case, the most amusing thing about the obsessive need to insist that Bruno wasn't "scientific" just because he didn't have telescopes at his disposal is that nobody ever even bothers to discuss whether or not Copernicus was "scientific," yet what instruments was he using?

In fact, unlike Bruno, Copernicus waited until he was on his deathbed before daring to suggest that the Earth revolves around the sun. Moreover, he made this suggestion on briefly in his final book--giving his scant attention--and underscored the fact that this was merely an idea or theory and thus, he wanted to make it clear that he was not actually claiming that this was literally the case. In addition, even as he timidly suggested that the earth might revolved around the sun, he preserved the idea of celestial spheres--the notion that the planets swirled around us in some sort of crystalline layers.

Well, Bruno not only had the good sense to say this was all preposterous, but he criticized Copernicus for not having the courage to say so because, unlike those who still fail to give Bruno his due credit. Bruno gave Copernicus credit for knowing better, yet fearing to tell the truth. Bruno never lacked for such courage, just as he never lacked for vision.

Therefore, isn’t it high time he gets the credit he deserves No, not as some sort of be all and end all of science, but certainly as the greatest "sewer of the seeds" of the modern world--no more or less than this, which is quite a statement in itself.

Perhaps the problem is as simple as this: The world has yet to catch up to Bruno’s all encompassing thinking. Until less reductionist writers and thinkers start re-reading Bruno, he very likely will continue to be labeled as "just an atheist," "just an occultist," "just a philosopher," "just a Hermetist," "just a heretic," "just a poet," "just a dramatist," "just a difficult guy," "just a guy with a few good hunches and lucky guesses," etc., etc., etc. Too bad, since there's still so much to learn from this revolutionary thinker.

For that matter, some people might start asking themselves, gee, how exactly does a guy like that make so many correct guesses that turn out to be verified centuries after his death? Plus, if my head head was full of all of a perception of reality that the small-minded people of my own time couldn't remotely understand, might I get a little cranky, too?


I can't speak to the accuracy of "West"'s contribution here, but many of these points are checkable in principle: where "West" asserts that someone cited or discussed Bruno, we should be able to confirm or deny that claim based on the record. If those scholarly citations check out, it would be a major blow to the story being spread now that Bruno was an insignificant figure in intellectual history, whose current notoriety is entirely meant to foster anti-religious and specifically anti-Catholic sentiment.

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

    
Quack



Posts: 1961
Joined: May 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 23 2014,02:12   

Quote
It seems to me that the Roman Catholic Church's enforcement of Aristotelian views of cosmology gave false facts a currency long past when they would have otherwise have been disputed and abandoned.
Without a time machine, it is too late for us to do anything about it, but Enlightenment rightfully should have taken place much earlier and the world today would have been quite different.

Although it seems likely that none of us would be here now. Probably some other badass jerks instead.

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Rocks have no biology.
              Robert Byers.

  
Bob O'H



Posts: 2564
Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 23 2014,16:52   

Quote (Wesley R. Elsberry @ Mar. 22 2014,14:38)
There seems to be quite a number of people who joined the DI in criticizing how "Cosmos" included Giordano Bruno in their script.

Including several historians of science. Thorny C. has a guest post up about the problems with the cartoon, which makes the point that the Bruno story (like a lot of stories take from history) is being re-interpreted to fit into a
This betrays a mis-understanding of what the historians (at least) are complaining about:
Quote
And that is an unseemly outcome of this entire flap. A man who was imprisoned, tortured, and ultimately executed for disagreeing with authority is being vilified all over again by people who appear to be desperate to excuse a particular instance of action of the Inquisition, all the while also stating their general rejection of the methods of the Inquisition. Unsatisfied with the physical demise of Bruno, they persist in attempting an intellectual assassination at this late date. Others who think that there is something worth telling about this bit of history are reviled for a lack of nuance, or that they are necessarily adopting an extreme stance that religion is always and everywhere in conflict with science. It seems to me that an obstinate refusal to acknowledge an episode of religious interference in the matters of scientific inquiry does no favors to those who would like to see some comity between religion and science.

If you want to actually know why historians of science are criticising Cosmos, Becky Higgett summarises the issues: turning history into parable "it doesn’t exactly sit well with claims to champion evidence-based knowledge". The historians of science I'm reading (the ones who actually study the period) are saying that what was done to Bruno wasn't "religious interference in the matters of scientific inquiry", for example
 
Quote
But the truth is that Bruno's scientific theories weren't what got him killed. Sure, his refusal to recant his belief in a plurality of worlds contributed to his sentence. But it's important to note that the Catholic Church didn't even have an official position on the heliocentric universe in 1600, and support for it was not considered heresy during Bruno's trial.

On top of that, his support for Copernican cosmology was the least heretical position he propagated. His opinions on theology were far more pyrotechnic. For example, Bruno had the balls to suggest that Satan was destined to be saved and redeemed by God. He didn't think Jesus was the son of God, but rather “an unusually skilled magician.” He even publicly disputed Mary's virginity. The Church could let astronomical theories slide, but calling the Mother of God out on her sex life? There's no doubt that these were the ideas that landed Bruno on the stake.


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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)

   
k.e..



Posts: 5432
Joined: May 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 24 2014,09:49   

Quote (Bob O'H @ Mar. 24 2014,00:52)
Quote (Wesley R. Elsberry @ Mar. 22 2014,14:38)
There seems to be quite a number of people who joined the DI in criticizing how "Cosmos" included Giordano Bruno in their script.

Including several historians of science. Thorny C. has a guest post up about the problems with the cartoon, which makes the point that the Bruno story (like a lot of stories take from history) is being re-interpreted to fit into a
This betrays a mis-understanding of what the historians (at least) are complaining about:
 
Quote
And that is an unseemly outcome of this entire flap. A man who was imprisoned, tortured, and ultimately executed for disagreeing with authority is being vilified all over again by people who appear to be desperate to excuse a particular instance of action of the Inquisition, all the while also stating their general rejection of the methods of the Inquisition. Unsatisfied with the physical demise of Bruno, they persist in attempting an intellectual assassination at this late date. Others who think that there is something worth telling about this bit of history are reviled for a lack of nuance, or that they are necessarily adopting an extreme stance that religion is always and everywhere in conflict with science. It seems to me that an obstinate refusal to acknowledge an episode of religious interference in the matters of scientific inquiry does no favors to those who would like to see some comity between religion and science.

If you want to actually know why historians of science are criticising Cosmos, Becky Higgett summarises the issues: turning history into parable "it doesn’t exactly sit well with claims to champion evidence-based knowledge". The historians of science I'm reading (the ones who actually study the period) are saying that what was done to Bruno wasn't "religious interference in the matters of scientific inquiry", for example
 
Quote
But the truth is that Bruno's scientific theories weren't what got him killed. Sure, his refusal to recant his belief in a plurality of worlds contributed to his sentence. But it's important to note that the Catholic Church didn't even have an official position on the heliocentric universe in 1600, and support for it was not considered heresy during Bruno's trial.

On top of that, his support for Copernican cosmology was the least heretical position he propagated. His opinions on theology were far more pyrotechnic. For example, Bruno had the balls to suggest that Satan was destined to be saved and redeemed by God. He didn't think Jesus was the son of God, but rather “an unusually skilled magician.” He even publicly disputed Mary's virginity. The Church could let astronomical theories slide, but calling the Mother of God out on her sex life? There's no doubt that these were the ideas that landed Bruno on the stake.

Gee so he really was a scientist then? Or has virginity evolved? Actually there are still people who believe that the same god exists as in the 1600's but now Satin wears a top hat with the merikan flag painted on it. The biggest threat to fundies are other fundies. What to do? Declare victory, make peace with honor, give the swamp/desert  back to the commies/ragheads and retreat home to print more Bibles. If they think belief is rational then why do they bitch so hard? The thruth is they know its a lie.

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"I get a strong breeze from my monitor every time k.e. puts on his clown DaveTard suit" dogdidit
"ID is deader than Lenny Flanks granmaws dildo batteries" Erasmus
"I'm busy studying scientist level science papers" Galloping Gary Gaulin

  
midwifetoad



Posts: 4003
Joined: Mar. 2008

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 24 2014,13:04   

I read that as merkin flag. That would be some Satan.

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Any version of ID consistent with all the evidence is indistinguishable from evolution.

  
Freddie



Posts: 371
Joined: Oct. 2009

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 31 2014,10:04   

Over at EN&V, on March 28th a clear and unambiguous prediction is made!!!



And now, the reality as of March 31st ...



Must hurt to be wrong so much of the time.

I see the execrable "God's Not Dead" managed to scrape $9m.  Wonder how that will turn out for them next weekend.

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Joe: Most criticisims of ID stem from ignorance and jealousy.
Joe: As for the authors of the books in the Bible, well the OT was authored by Moses and the NT was authored by various people.
Byers: The eskimo would not need hairy hair growth as hair, I say, is for keeping people dry. Not warm.

  
Dr.GH



Posts: 2333
Joined: May 2002

(Permalink) Posted: April 01 2014,12:09   

O'blury has an April Fools post up.

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014....11.html

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

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

   
Glen Davidson



Posts: 1100
Joined: May 2006

(Permalink) Posted: April 01 2014,13:17   

Quote (Dr.GH @ April 01 2014,12:09)
O'blury has an April Fools post up.

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014.......11.html

Once again, she shows that, while ideologues are a fine unintentional source of humor, their intentional "humor" equates with nails on the chalkboard.

Glen Davidson

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http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p....p

Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of coincidence---ID philosophy

   
Dr.GH



Posts: 2333
Joined: May 2002

(Permalink) Posted: April 01 2014,16:28   

"Scientists Find Imprint of Universe That Existed Before the Big Bang"


http://news.sciencemag.org/physics....ig-bang

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

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

   
Freddie



Posts: 371
Joined: Oct. 2009

(Permalink) Posted: April 01 2014,17:09   

Quote (Dr.GH @ April 01 2014,16:28)
"Scientists Find Imprint of Universe That Existed Before the Big Bang"


http://news.sciencemag.org/physics....ig-bang

Had me fooled for the 1st few paragraphs at least!

"Doug Neidermeyer, a cosmologist at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York."

LOL

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Joe: Most criticisims of ID stem from ignorance and jealousy.
Joe: As for the authors of the books in the Bible, well the OT was authored by Moses and the NT was authored by various people.
Byers: The eskimo would not need hairy hair growth as hair, I say, is for keeping people dry. Not warm.

  
Sealawr



Posts: 54
Joined: Feb. 2008

(Permalink) Posted: June 02 2014,12:37   

Uh-oh.

The Discovery Institute can't be too happy abou this.  Not all publicity is good publicity.

http://crossexamined.org/top-20-....logists

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DS: "The explantory filter is as robust as the data that is used with it."
David Klinghoffer: ""I'm an IDiot"

  
OgreMkV



Posts: 3668
Joined: Oct. 2009

(Permalink) Posted: June 02 2014,14:00   

So, biocomplexity has published a shiny new article by Jon Wells: http://bio-complexity.org/ojs.........2014.2

The title is: Membrane Patterns Carry Ontogenetic Information That Is Specified Independently of DNA

From some reason the attack gerbil thinks that this is the downfall of evolution: http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014.......01.html

Quote

Papers like this show that when freed from the "central dogmas" of neo-Darwinian evolution, a theory of intelligent design can open up promising and fruitful avenues of research and thinking in biology.


Yet, the paper has zero mention of "intelligent design". Neither word, singularly or in combination appears in the article ("design" appears ONCE in the reference list.

Now, here's the question. Since this article is supposed to be supportive of ID, where's the mention of ID?

JoeG needs to get on the stick and explain to Wells that an article just can't be supportive of ID without mentioning ID. I mean, Joe has spent months explaining that no paper describes how random mutation can produce ATP Synthase, therefore, evolution can't explain ATP Synthase.  So, without explicitly mentioning ID, Wells (and Casey) have utterly failed.

Shame though, I'm sure it's a fine article. However, much like Meyer, there's no research in it. It's a review paper. And the use of metaphor to explain himself doesn't exactly show that he's intending this for a scientific audience. I'm sure that actual developmental biologists understand the issue without referencing how the US Post Office does things (page 6, third paragraph).

I'm not a developmental biologist, but a few things he quotes from other authors appears mostly correct. Of course, surely without meaning to, he destroys one of IDs objections to evolution.

Quote
After transcription, RNAs from many eukaryotic genes
undergo alternative splicing. Recent studies estimate that
transcripts from approximately 95% of multi-exon human
genes are spliced in more than one way [289?291]. By
intervening between transcription and translation, alternative
splicing generates RNAs with sequences that differ from DNA
sequences [292]. The differences are functionally significant.
In humans and other animals, alternatively spliced transcripts
are expressed in tissue- and developmental stage-specific ways
[293,294]. Among other things, they regulate physiological
Ontogenetic Information in Membrane Patterns
changes [295], neuronal development [296], and stem cell
pluripotency [297]. Alternative splicing is essential for the
transition between epithelial cells and mesenchymal cells
[298,299], and it produces enormous diversity in membrane
proteins, including ion channels [300,301]. With alternative
RNA splicing, cells make thousands more RNAs and proteins
than are encoded in DNA sequences. One immunoglobulin
gene in Drosophila melanogaster generates more than 18,000
protein isoforms through alternative splicing [302].


Hey guys, you wanted a mechanism that produces variation... your boy, Wells, just handed it to you.

Finally, what we see here is just a continuation of the god of the gaps. Since evolution can't explain the patterns formed in membranes, then it must be the designer... except we're not sure enough to say "designer" anywhere in the article.

And I'm fairly confident that the Central Dogma of molecular biology (as I taught it in 9th grade) is not the entire story of how proteins are formed in cells.  But that's the issue that Wells has.

And we have what appears to be a quotemine from Sean Carroll.  
Quote
Sean B. Carroll wrote in 2005 that evo-devo focuses on “toolkit
genes”—developmental genes that are common to a wide
variety of multicellular animals but controlled by different
genetic switches “that integrate inputs from other tool-kit
proteins acting a bit earlier in the embryo.


What Carroll says in the books is
Quote
You might ask, where do these patterns of tool kit proteins A, B, and C come from? Good question. These patterns are themsevles controlled by switches in genes A, B, and C, respectively, that integrate inputs from other tool kit proteins acting a bit earlier in the embryo. And where doe those inputs come from? Still earlier-acting inputs. I know this is beginning to sound like the old chicken-and-the-egg riddle. Ultimately, the beginning of spatial information in the embryo often traces back to asymmetrically distributed molecules deposited in the egg during its production in the ovary that initiate the formation of the two main axes of the embryo (so the egg did come before the chicken). I'm not going to trace these steps - the important point to know is that the throwing of every switch is set up by preceding events, and that a switch, by turning on its gene in a new pattern, in turn sets up the next set of patterns and events in development.


What's interesting is that between the first quote that Wells uses and the second part of that quote (starting with "the important point; which Wells incorrectly capitalizes), is that wells inserts a comment from page 90.  The paragraph that I posted from is entirely on page 116.

Basically, Carroll has dealt with all the issues Wells has in this article and did it using evo-devo nearly a decade ago.

Wells summerizes his position on evo-devo as follows
Quote
Thus the rules for generating animal form are
found in DNA: “In the entire complement of DNA of a species (the genome), there exists the information for building that animal.” The “evolution of form is ultimately then a question of genetics” [426]. So I would argue that Carroll’s view (like Davidson’s) is a variant of Neo-Darwinism, and thus false.


Yep, that's a powerful article there dude. god of the gaps, hand-waving, and the rest.

I may take a deeper shot at this one, but I'm not really interested in wading through his 440 references for quotemines. And they may all be very minor.  But it's clear that he just ignores the entire area that would make the claims of his article moot.

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Ignored by those who can't provide evidence for their claims.

http://skepticink.com/smilodo....retreat

   
Doc Bill



Posts: 1039
Joined: April 2007

(Permalink) Posted: June 27 2014,21:00   

There's probably a Dembski thread somewhere but I was too lazy to find it.

Big news!  Dr. Dr.'s long-coming book, "Being as Communion" is being published in August.

$140 hardback
$31 paperback

I guess this is his Templeton book that's been in the works forever.

The write-up on Amazon tells us that it will be another piece of shit from Dembski - a non-technical treatment of yadda.

Yeah, of course it's non-technical.  It's 200 pages of bafflegab.

Rocks are information and clams gots legs and cats still can haz no cheeseburgers.

  
Henry J



Posts: 5787
Joined: Mar. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: June 27 2014,22:00   

$140 for a package of bird cage lining? That sounds kind of steep.

Henry

  
Cubist



Posts: 559
Joined: Oct. 2007

(Permalink) Posted: June 27 2014,23:40   

$31 for a paperback? Sheesh. Is this thing supposed to be a college textbook, or what?

[after checking the publisher's website] Hmm. If you buy it direct from the publisher, Ashgate, you can get the hardback for $98.96 (regular price: $109.95), or the paperback for $31.46 (regular price: $34.95). Some of the endorsements of this book come from names that may be familiar: Michael Egnor, and Rupert "Morphogenetic Field" Sheldrake.

I think I'll wait on this one.

  
Doc Bill



Posts: 1039
Joined: April 2007

(Permalink) Posted: June 28 2014,10:57   

Fools!  You are all fools!  Why do I waste my time with this narrow-minded foolish lot?

Louis, oh, Louis, why have you forsaken us?

Don't y'all get it?  Dembski's book changes Everything.  He's found a way to unite bafflegab with flapdoodle.  The paradigm shift will change the zeitgeist as we know it!  Deepak will lie down with Oz and the Hambo will reign over the next two thousand years!

Hey, I'm getting ready.  I'm taking my clothes off right now!  Take me, Dr. Dr., take !

  
sparc



Posts: 2089
Joined: April 2007

(Permalink) Posted: July 13 2014,03:36   

EN&V declares William Dembski "A Rock Star of the Intelligent Design Movement".
I am looking forward hearing Dembski's versions of the greatest christian "rock" albums which you will finde here and  here.
Dembski may already have had some influence on Christian Texas Rockers "Redefining the Fall" and their album "Redefining the Fall". You can listen to them at http://www.redefiningthefall.com/....all.com.

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"[...] the type of information we find in living systems is beyond the creative means of purely material processes [...] Who or what is such an ultimate source of information? [...] from a theistic perspective, such an information source would presumably have to be God."

- William Dembski -

   
Henry J



Posts: 5787
Joined: Mar. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: July 13 2014,16:02   

Listen to them? Listen to them?!?!!!11!one!

Well, that's one way to convince skeptics of the existence of h3ll...

Henry

  
KevinB



Posts: 525
Joined: April 2013

(Permalink) Posted: July 14 2014,09:47   

Quote (sparc @ July 13 2014,03:36)
EN&V declares William Dembski "A Rock Star of the Intelligent Design Movement".

Well, if he goes round trashing hotel bedrooms, even the Cornell School of Hotel Management won't let him hold "conferences".

  
sparc



Posts: 2089
Joined: April 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 05 2014,11:41   

Over at UD we have a first hand report from the DI's cruise to Alaska:
 
Quote
kf 15, Thanks for the welcome. I am a long time follower of ID, beginning in the 1980s with Denton’s Evolution, A Theory in Crisis. Over time I’ve become convinced that the modern neo-Darwinian synthesis is seriously deficient, especially when it comes to macroevolution.

My original response to jerry was succinct because I thought the points I made had been made here many times before. I was summarizing and synthesizing with a view to discussion of the worldview implications. As many here have also experienced, I find that the biggest obstacle to ID acceptance is metaphysical, not scientific.

I was fortunate enough to be on the recent Alaska Discovery cruise and my head is still buzzing with concepts like “design triangulation” (Paul Nelson). Fascinating stuff!

What I found equally interesting, though, is Stephen Meyer’s remarks about the direction of Discovery’s Science and Culture research. He believes that the basic argument against neo-Darwinism has been won in the peer-reviewed literature, though not in the popular literature such as Cosmos. He based this on recent articles by people like Koonin and Shapiro, plus the formation of the Third Way group. The math is simply overwhelming standard evolutionary explanations.

Meyer said ID proponents should focus more on using design principles to elucidate biological systems and guide research efforts. In other words, the negative argument has taken hold against evolution, so now is the time to make more positive arguments for design.

Paul Nelson, I think, made the point that while the other side has the power, prestige, and money, ID has something even more powerful: truth. Eventually, it will win out. I hope he’s right!


PS Re the comment about atheists liking the dark, John Lennox had an apt comment. Asked to reply to Stephen Hawking’s statement that faith in God is for people who are afraid of the dark, Lennox replied, “Atheism is for people who are afraid of the light!” :)
 
Quote
41 jerry August 4, 2014 at 9:35 pm
 
Quote
I was fortunate enough to be on the recent Alaska Discovery cruise and my head is still buzzing with concepts like “design triangulation” (Paul Nelson). Fascinating stuff!

Sounds like it was very interesting. When was it? I assume there will be another one next year.

 
Quote
44 anthropic August 5, 2014 at 2:51 am

Jerry 41, it really was quite a trip. Great lectures by John Lennox, Ray Brohlin, Paul Nelson, John West, and Stephen Meyer. And Alaska is the one place in the world where I love to cruise. Glacier Bay, ziplining in the rainforest above Ketchikan, fishing in Sitka, high tea at the Empress Hotel in Victoria — just special.

One thing I got from this trip is that leading ID proponents aren’t just smart & well educated, they are genuinely good people. Nobody was too important to talk with ordinary people such as myself, and a warm, friendly atmosphere was maintained throughout.

I think they got some very positive feedback and may well do it again. At least, that’s what John West seemed to indicate. Whether that will be next year I don’t know.

Of course, my daughter and I now have filthy colds, which frequently happens after cruises no matter how many times you sanitize your hands. But it was worth it!

 
Quote
53 kairosfocus August 5, 2014 at 7:04 am

Jerry:

Pardon, but the OP is on the attitude problem in the face of pivotal evidence. That’s why I made sure to highlight a summary of a key infographic and a video in which Meyer makes the point that typically the merits are being dodged by objectors.

I am pretty sure we will not persuade ever so many people, but the interesting issue is, why in the face of the issue on the merits.

Perhaps I am old fashioned to say this, but I think there is such a thing as an individual duty of care to face evidence and come to terms with evident truth regardless of what is the ideology of the day. In my day, that was Marxism, when I was a student, and I openly stood up to the marxists . . . eventually, all they could do was to threaten me and try to turn a crowd on me.

Backfired.

And in that regard the most remarkable thing about this thread is the utter silence on FSCO/I and the inference to design in that light. If there were ironclad rebuttals the usual champions of the anti-ID cause would be here blazing away with full 15″ broadsides on rapid fire. The silence on the pivotal merits is indeed confirming the point Meyer made to Anthropic et al on that cruise . . . the gig is up on the merits, THERE IS NO EVOLUTIONARY MATERIALIST MECHANISM THAT ADEQUATELY — PER CANONS OF INDUCTIVE REASONING — ACCOUNTS FOR THE FUNCTIONALLY SPECIFIC COMPLEX ORGANISATION AND ASSOCIATED INFORMATION IN CELL BASED LIFE.

The only empirically and analytically credible causal explanation is design; not, design of the gaps but design as empirically and analytically well warranted cause, familiar from our own experience of the world manifested in a reliable sign.

And, if I am wrong on this, let us simply hear the answer from the Darwinists and fellow travellers on the merits.

KF
 
Quote
56 anthropic August 5, 2014 at 7:24 am

Jerry 52, you make some excellent points. One of the central problems we face is that the vast majority of people have a very superficial level of knowledge about evolution. Thus, they have no clue that there is even a debate. At most they’ve heard that you must believe in rational science or irrational religion.

On the cruise I mentioned to my son-in-law about the presentation on how cetaceans cool their testes to keep their sperm viable, a big task for something that keeps them inside the body. A special system pumps blood up to the fin, where it is cooled, and then down to the testes. Remarkable, and, of course necessary to build in the putative transition from land critter to sea critter.

His response was a dismissive, “well, of course they have such a system, otherwise they wouldn’t survive!” For him, the fact that neo-Darwinism explains survival of the fittest means it also explains arrival of the fittest. He doesn’t doubt the creative powers of evolution, no matter how outlandish the claims may be, because he already has an explanation at hand.

We have a long long way to go…
(emphasis mine - to highlight cruise related parts)

preaching to the choir ...

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"[...] the type of information we find in living systems is beyond the creative means of purely material processes [...] Who or what is such an ultimate source of information? [...] from a theistic perspective, such an information source would presumably have to be God."

- William Dembski -

   
Bob O'H



Posts: 2564
Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 05 2014,12:11   

This is good news
Quote
Meyer said ID proponents should focus more on using design principles to elucidate biological systems and guide research efforts. In other words, the negative argument has taken hold against evolution, so now is the time to make more positive arguments for design.

OK, he might have mis-judged how well it's taken hold, but looking for positive evidence would be welcome.

--------------
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)

   
stevestory



Posts: 13407
Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 05 2014,13:02   

Quote

What I found equally interesting, though, is Stephen Meyer’s remarks about the direction of Discovery’s Science and Culture research. He believes that the basic argument against neo-Darwinism has been won in the peer-reviewed literature, though not in the popular literature such as Cosmos. He based this on recent articles by people like Koonin and Shapiro, plus the formation of the Third Way group. The math is simply overwhelming standard evolutionary explanations.


as usual, the question becomes, delusional, or liar?

   
sparc



Posts: 2089
Joined: April 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Aug. 05 2014,15:08   

EN&V display photographs from the trip.

--------------
"[...] the type of information we find in living systems is beyond the creative means of purely material processes [...] Who or what is such an ultimate source of information? [...] from a theistic perspective, such an information source would presumably have to be God."

- William Dembski -

   
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