RSS 2.0 Feed

» Welcome Guest Log In :: Register

Pages: (9) < 1 2 3 [4] 5 6 7 8 9 ... >   
  Topic: IDC Advocates Speak, Experiencing TARD Benders< Next Oldest | Next Newest >  
khan



Posts: 1554
Joined: May 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 22 2009,12:03   

Quote (k.e.. @ Feb. 22 2009,12:53)
Jesus, West is a piece of friggin' work.

A lying steaming pile of work, couldn't lie straight in bed.

A weaseling little shit no balls preacher/theocrat.

Why doesn't he just come out and say Darwin and Evolution is an athiest conspiracy and that he's defendin' Amerika's gods; guns and oil.

And he's an anti tit gay.

I went to ERV and clicked on those 'mens news' links.  

Eeeeew!

--------------
"It's as if all those words, in their hurry to escape from the loony, have fallen over each other, forming scrambled heaps of meaninglessness." -damitall

That's so fucking stupid it merits a wing in the museum of stupid. -midwifetoad

Frequency is just the plural of wavelength...
-JoeG

  
Amadan



Posts: 1337
Joined: Jan. 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 22 2009,12:37   

Video of an anti-ID song???


You have got to track that down for us to see.

--------------
"People are always looking for natural selection to generate random mutations" - Densye  4-4-2011
JoeG BTW dumbass- some variations help ensure reproductive fitness so they cannot be random wrt it.

   
carlsonjok



Posts: 3326
Joined: May 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 22 2009,12:55   

My Evening with the Discovery Institute - Part the Fifth

Note:  My comments/editorials will be in red.

Myth 6 - There is no connection between Darwin and social Darwinism

>    Evolutionists are papering over the real historical record.

>    West shows a cartoon of Darwin kicking two men, labelled "laissez faire" and "eugenics", out of his house.  We always hear that Darwinism led to Marxism, but apparently it is also responsible for unrestrained capitalism. Evolution really can do anything!

>    These people haven't read Darwin and (to audience) have you? He asks for a show of hands. I only saw one or two go up.

>     West brings up the recently released book "Darwin's Sacred Cause".  He acknowledges that Darwin was an abolitionist and, in a strange aside, mentions that Wilberforce was also an abolitionist.

>    He admits he hasn't read DSC completely, but found it odd that they didn't discuss Darwin's comments, in Descent of Man, about the mental faculties of "men of distinct races" or Darwin's statement of the break in evolution between the Negro/Australian and the gorilla. (I assume here he means the aboriginal Aussies)  West says Darwin thought they were closer to monkeys than white men.

>    West played an audio of someone reading a statement of Darwin's about asylums, vaccinations saving 1000s allowing them to propogate.  The audio included something about anyone who knows/breeds domestic animals knows this is injurious.  Okay, they are trying to hang eugenics on Darwin.  I assume someone out here has the real quote and it shows, in situ, something different?

>    He puts up a quote that I think included the phrase "bear bad effects" and then complains because people don't read further where they would see a comment about it being okay because natural selection still works.  More Darwin = eugenics. Darwin scholars, any comment?

>    He talks about (but doesn't show) a comment from the end of Descent of Man that says (to paraphrase) man is still like an animal in a struggle for existence and if he wants to evolve higher he must remain subject to severe struggle.

>      West puts in a plug for his book (Darwin Day in America, I assume) and talks about the link of the eugenics movement to evolutionist  Cauthorn who was at Princeton and a head of the NAS. Remember the NAS that bed of atheism!!!!

>   Most questions about eugenics were not raised by scientists, but the Catholic Church.  Okay, maybe a few scientists.

>    Kansas SBOE - evolutionists removed criticisms of eugenics and the Tuskegee syphilis experiments from the science standards.  West implies they are hiding something and asks "Who are the real extremists?"  Albatrossity or Jack Krebs, care to comment regarding the real reason?

Myth 7 - Modern Biology and Medicine would collapse without evolution

>    The Scientist 19(16):10 (2005) - Phillip Skell interviewed scientists about if they use Darwin. Almost all said no.  Also asked if they used it was it integral or superfluous.  He found the latter.

>    Is ID a science stopper? No. Minnich and and Axe show that isn't true.  Interesting that John didn't mention Behe.  Poor Mike doesn't even get respect from his ideological compatriots.

>   He showed a Washington Post article from 6/24/2007 by Rick Weiss about junk DNA.  Dembski predicted 10 years ago that junk DNA may not be junk after all.  An email was sent to Weiss pointing this out but no response was ever received Darn liberal media!  I expect that there was plenty of scientists that were saying that we'd find functions for what was previously considered non-coding DNA long before Dembski ever made his "prediction". But, West leaves the audience with the impression that the discovery that there are functions for "junk DNA" just happened in 2007 and Dembski was ahead of everyone else.  FWIW, the idea that Dembski predicted this reminds me of a comment about someone running around the block to get to the front of a parade that already left without him.

>     He quotes Guiseppi Sermonti that Darwinism is just political correctness.  Isn't Sermonti the person behind that crank journal Rivista?

>    West closes with Darwin's "fair result" quote and suggests we should follow that approach.

That is the end of West's formal talk.  I'll have a summary of the Q&A and a few personal comments later tonight.  Then, during the week, I'll get to Casey Luskin. And tits!

--------------
It's natural to be curious about our world, but the scientific method is just one theory about how to best understand it.  We live in a democracy, which means we should treat every theory equally. - Steven Colbert, I Am America (and So Can You!)

  
Jasper



Posts: 76
Joined: Mar. 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 22 2009,13:08   

Quote (carlsonjok @ Feb. 22 2009,13:55)
>    Kansas SBOE - evolutionists removed criticisms of eugenics and the Tuskegee syphilis experiments from the science standards.  West implies they are hiding something and asks "Who are the real extremists?"  Albatrossity of Jack Krebs, care to comment regarding the real reason?

Jack Krebs responded to this on PT when West first made the accusation in 2007:
Quote
The Board was not “deleting” this statement. The Board was replacing the entire set of standards written by the IDists with the standards written by the duly-appointed committee, and we on the committee never even considered a sentence like the one inserted by the IDists. We didn’t edit or revise the old ID standards, deleting this and adding that - we just ignored the ID standards and went back to the standards we were writing before the ID folks were allowed to take over.

There are two things about this that upset me. The first is the implication that we on the committee and on the state Board, because we are “evolutionists,” are somehow supportive of the above “violations of human dignity” but don’t want students to know about them. This is insulting, and shows how low the DI will go to stir up divisive and hateful emotions.

Secondly, this illustrates again that the ID movement has no shame in abusing the educational system for their own purposes. It should be clear that if the topics mentioned belong in standards of any kind, they belong in social studies standards, not science standards. Throughout this whole affair, and repeatedly in other states, the anti-evolutionists are using the educational system as a convenient vehicle for their cultural agenda, and our children don’t deserve this.

  
Wesley R. Elsberry



Posts: 4991
Joined: May 2002

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 22 2009,13:26   

Notes of John West's talk:

Quote

Positive: From uniform and repeatable experiments, we know that intelligent causes produce certain kinds of highly ordered complexity (specified complexity)


West ignores the fact that the stuff he is talking about here concerns ordinary design inferences and does not speak at all to justifying the rarefied design inferences that they wish people to adopt. IDC has contributed nothing to understanding the former, and has no basis to urge the adoption of the latter. There is no "positive" case here for IDC.

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

    
Dr.GH



Posts: 2333
Joined: May 2002

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 22 2009,13:34   

Quote
"With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.

The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, if so urged by hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with a certain and great present evil. Hence we must bear without complaining the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind; ..."


Darwin, C. R. 1871. "The Descent of Man" London: John Murray. Volume 1. 1st edition, Chapter V.

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

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

   
carlsonjok



Posts: 3326
Joined: May 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 22 2009,14:03   

To everyone who is responding to fill in the gaps in my knowledge, I have only one thing to say:



--------------
It's natural to be curious about our world, but the scientific method is just one theory about how to best understand it.  We live in a democracy, which means we should treat every theory equally. - Steven Colbert, I Am America (and So Can You!)

  
Schroedinger's Dog



Posts: 1692
Joined: Jan. 2009

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 22 2009,14:11   

Quote (carlsonjok @ Feb. 22 2009,21:03)
To everyone who is responding to fill in the gaps in my knowledge, I have only one thing to say:


That's so gay! But I'm okay with gay, so carry on..

--------------
"Hail is made out of water? Are you really that stupid?" Joe G

"I have a better suggestion, Kris. How about a game of hide and go fuck yourself instead." Louis

"The reason people use a crucifix against vampires is that vampires are allergic to bullshit" Richard Pryor

   
carlsonjok



Posts: 3326
Joined: May 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 22 2009,15:20   

Quote (Schroedinger's Dog @ Feb. 22 2009,14:11)
That's so gay! But I'm okay with gay, so carry on..

Since you are French, this one is for you.



--------------
It's natural to be curious about our world, but the scientific method is just one theory about how to best understand it.  We live in a democracy, which means we should treat every theory equally. - Steven Colbert, I Am America (and So Can You!)

  
bystander



Posts: 301
Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 22 2009,15:25   

What was the crowd like? Was it a sellout? Was the crowd pro ID?

  
ERV



Posts: 329
Joined: Sep. 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 22 2009,16:03   

I have no idea.  75 people?  100?

I couldnt even guess on the split-- Lots of kids came to say hi to me, but some were OU kids, some were Trinity kids, some were nice older people, some were bitter ass Trinity fogies trying to suck up.  I dunno-- 50-50?  Lots of people clapped after the evilution song, and when Casey announced the academic freedom bill was dead, but lots of people started praising Jesus at the end of Caseys speech.

*shrug*

  
carlsonjok



Posts: 3326
Joined: May 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 22 2009,16:18   

Quote (bystander @ Feb. 22 2009,15:25)
What was the crowd like? Was it a sellout? Was the crowd pro ID?

The room capacity was stated at 173 and I'd estimate it at 2/3 full. So call it 100-120.  I didn't get a sense of the breakdown between pro and anti.  For the most part, everyone was well behaved and respectful.  Well, there was this one chick.......

--------------
It's natural to be curious about our world, but the scientific method is just one theory about how to best understand it.  We live in a democracy, which means we should treat every theory equally. - Steven Colbert, I Am America (and So Can You!)

  
ERV



Posts: 329
Joined: Sep. 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 22 2009,16:20   

Quote (carlsonjok @ Feb. 22 2009,16:18)
Quote (bystander @ Feb. 22 2009,15:25)
What was the crowd like? Was it a sellout? Was the crowd pro ID?

The room capacity was stated at 173 and I'd estimate it at 2/3 full. So call it 100-120.  I didn't get a sense of the breakdown between pro and anti.  For the most part, everyone was well behaved and respectful.  Well, there was this one chick.......


  
dnmlthr



Posts: 565
Joined: Mar. 2008

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 22 2009,16:26   

Quote
For the most part, everyone was well behaved and respectful.  Well, there was this one chick.......

Like this?


--------------
Guess what? I don't give a flying f*ck how "science works" - Ftk

  
khan



Posts: 1554
Joined: May 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 22 2009,16:26   

Quote (ERV @ Feb. 22 2009,17:20)
Quote (carlsonjok @ Feb. 22 2009,16:18)
 
Quote (bystander @ Feb. 22 2009,15:25)
What was the crowd like? Was it a sellout? Was the crowd pro ID?

The room capacity was stated at 173 and I'd estimate it at 2/3 full. So call it 100-120.  I didn't get a sense of the breakdown between pro and anti.  For the most part, everyone was well behaved and respectful.  Well, there was this one chick.......


Cool.

:)

--------------
"It's as if all those words, in their hurry to escape from the loony, have fallen over each other, forming scrambled heaps of meaninglessness." -damitall

That's so fucking stupid it merits a wing in the museum of stupid. -midwifetoad

Frequency is just the plural of wavelength...
-JoeG

  
Lou FCD



Posts: 5455
Joined: Jan. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 22 2009,16:31   

Quote (ERV @ Feb. 22 2009,17:20)
Quote (carlsonjok @ Feb. 22 2009,16:18)
 
Quote (bystander @ Feb. 22 2009,15:25)
What was the crowd like? Was it a sellout? Was the crowd pro ID?

The room capacity was stated at 173 and I'd estimate it at 2/3 full. So call it 100-120.  I didn't get a sense of the breakdown between pro and anti.  For the most part, everyone was well behaved and respectful.  Well, there was this one chick.......


We <3 Abbie. How could we not?

--------------
“Why do creationists have such a hard time with commas?

Linky“. ~ Steve Story, Legend

   
utidjian



Posts: 185
Joined: Oct. 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 22 2009,18:33   

LULZ! Good pick for a pic Abbie.

Too bad that series never made it.

-DU-

--------------
Being laughed at doesn't mean you're progressing along some line. It probably just means you're saying some stupid shit -stevestory

  
ERV



Posts: 329
Joined: Sep. 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 22 2009,19:03   

It wasnt really like that.

I was just bitching at Casey/TrinityAsses for like 5 minutes.  If I had known what post he was referring to (I had my laptop, I should have looked it up to refresh myself), I would have totally River Tamed out.

  
ERV



Posts: 329
Joined: Sep. 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 22 2009,19:06   

OH!  Bright side!

Im going to be presenting at our big OK Americans United meeting again this year on the Academic Freedom bills-- And it will be recorded and available on the interwebz!  So even though I didnt get my 'academic freedom' point in, it will actually be available soon to a larger audience.

Tits might make an appearance.

  
Amadan



Posts: 1337
Joined: Jan. 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 22 2009,19:45   

You see, that's the difference.

The creos have been trotting out the same arguments for 200 years now.

The rest of us keep abreast of things.

--------------
"People are always looking for natural selection to generate random mutations" - Densye  4-4-2011
JoeG BTW dumbass- some variations help ensure reproductive fitness so they cannot be random wrt it.

   
EyeNoU



Posts: 115
Joined: Mar. 2008

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 22 2009,20:12   

Quote (Amadan @ Feb. 22 2009,19:45)
You see, that's the difference.

The creos have been trotting out the same arguments for 200 years now.

The rest of us keep abreast of things.

Some keep two.......

  
Amadan



Posts: 1337
Joined: Jan. 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 22 2009,20:20   

Maybe they just want to keep us in suspense.

--------------
"People are always looking for natural selection to generate random mutations" - Densye  4-4-2011
JoeG BTW dumbass- some variations help ensure reproductive fitness so they cannot be random wrt it.

   
ERV



Posts: 329
Joined: Sep. 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 22 2009,20:44   

So 'someone' from Seattle is leaving threating (ie you better shut up) and sexist comments on Caseys Butthurt thread.

Who here is good with IP addresses?  I can only get the city.

  
Gunthernacus



Posts: 235
Joined: April 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 22 2009,20:53   

Quote (simmi @ Feb. 22 2009,04:46)
You never know, Casey might be into:




--------------
Given that we are all descended from Adam and Eve...genetic defects as a result of intra-family marriage would not begin to crop up until after the first few dozen generations. - Dr. Hugh Ross

  
ERV



Posts: 329
Joined: Sep. 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 22 2009,21:14   

Quote (ERV @ Feb. 22 2009,20:44)
So 'someone' from Seattle is leaving threating (ie you better shut up) and sexist comments on Caseys Butthurt thread.

Who here is good with IP addresses?  I can only get the city.

Never mind.  The troll is a high school kid.  How sad.

  
argystokes



Posts: 766
Joined: Jan. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 22 2009,21:33   

Quote (ERV @ Feb. 22 2009,19:14)
Quote (ERV @ Feb. 22 2009,20:44)
So 'someone' from Seattle is leaving threating (ie you better shut up) and sexist comments on Caseys Butthurt thread.

Who here is good with IP addresses?  I can only get the city.

Never mind.  The troll is a high school kid.  How sad.

A high school student in Seattle? Better not be one of my kids!

--------------
"Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?" -Calvin

  
carlsonjok



Posts: 3326
Joined: May 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 22 2009,21:40   

My Night with the Discovery Institute

John West - Q & A Session


I am going to dispense with my previous formatting and convention of putting my own comments in red to differentiate them. I didn’t take very good notes during the Q&A, since I was up in line to ask my own question.  Thus what follows is almost completely from my recollection of the Q&A and anything attributed to West should be considered as heavily paraphrased.  

The Q&A session was interesting. Not because of the questions asked so much as how John West conducted himself.  On the face of it, he conducted himself with collegiality.  However, his treatment of questioners was, below the surface, poor.  For one thing, the volume on his microphone was considerably louder than that provided for questioners.  He used this to his advantage by drowning out/cutting off  questioners mid-sentence. This allowed him to control the landscape. Second, he tended to equivocate a bit on hard questions.  His answers were nominally related to the question they never really definitively answered them (at least not to my satisfaction YMMV).  When pressed on a point in a follow-up, West consistently used the same tactic. He would go on the offensive and ask the questioner a “do you still beat your wife” question.  For our foreign friends who may not recognize that phrase, this is a question for which there is not a correct answer.  At least not one that the person answering can influence the audience with.

The first question was from a college student named Tyler, who asked why this is being presented by a political scientist rather than a biologist.  My first inclination was that it was a weak question.  However, West seemed to stumble on the question and struggled to search for an answer. The only memorable part of West’s answer was a statement that you don’t need to be a biologist to recognize that Lynn Margulis questions Darwinism.  Once again, they trot out Margulis as their ally. I have to wonder if she really would find common cause with the Discovery Institute?  And, in retrospect, it was an interesting question making the point that ID is more a political movement than a scientific endeavor.  Good job, Tyler.

The second question was none other than the infamous Abbie challenging West on his use of the New Scientist article “Was Darwin Wrong?”  It seemed like Abbie was trying to explain the real premise of the article, but by virtue of the louder volume of his microphone West managed to drown her out (at least it seemed this way from where I was).  Abbie did manage, without West’s interference, to make the point that the article is available for anyone to read online and suggested people should read it for themselves. West agreed.  I wonder how many people in that room will actually go out and read the article? I am guessing few and guessing further that West is counting on it.

There was another question, but I remember nothing of it because I was on-deck and was checking my notes.

My question was intended to point out West’s use of equivalences while he was decrying their use against him.  The question was this:  In your talk about Myth 2 you said that ID, like evolution, was not built on religious premises. Yet you spent Myth 4 linking evolution to “evangelical atheism”, Myth 5 claiming that biology teachers are indoctrinating students in atheism, and Myth 6 calling the Kansas SBOE “extremists”. Which is it? Do you believe that evolution is science or religion?  He said science and that he wasn’t referring to all teachers.  He also said that their personal beliefs shouldn't matter, only their science. I followed up with the question that, if their personal beliefs shouldn’t matter then why does he make so much effort to link evolution to atheism?  It was at this point he asked the “are you still beating your wife” question. The question he asked me was “do you think it is fair that Barbara Forrest can question Bill Dembski motives but no one can question her motives.”  It is here that I ducked into the punch.  The question is set up so that there is no “acceptable” answer. I can either say the it is okay to apply different standards thus “proving” the need for Academic Freedom.  Or I can answer it is fair to question her motives, thus enabling their evolution=atheism equivalence.  I wanted to answer that I thought Forrest’s objections are informed by her view of science rather than her atheism.  But, I started out with the preface “You need to understand where she is coming from.”  At this point, West cut me off with “You just proved my point!”

In retrospect, that would have been his answer no matter how I answered.  As I walked back to my seat, Abbie whispered something in my ear that I wish I had thought of.  There is no way to honestly answer an “are you still beating your wife” question and come out looking good to the audience. That is why West uses those questions.  He isn’t interested in a academic exchange of ideas, he is only interested in scoring rhetorical  points.  These types of questions are only win-win for him if the other person tries to answer honestly.  The only way to respond is to turn the question back on him.   The answer I should have given to his question is “Are you referring to the same Bill Dembski that said that intelligent design is the Logos Theory of St. John’s Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory” and then walk away. But, as I have said elsewhere, my thing is LOLCats, not culture war. If I had Google and 5 minutes, I could have icanhascheezburgered West within an inch of his life.  But I didn't.  

So, in summary:

ME



JOHN WEST



ABBIE



ME AGAIN



--------------
It's natural to be curious about our world, but the scientific method is just one theory about how to best understand it.  We live in a democracy, which means we should treat every theory equally. - Steven Colbert, I Am America (and So Can You!)

  
ERV



Posts: 329
Joined: Sep. 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 22 2009,21:45   

I wanted to say that Dembski quote SO BAD, but youre right, Wests volume (grabbed Carlsons arm as he walked away with the 'right answer', just in case he didnt know it, because I didnt know it was Carlson :P )

  
Henry J



Posts: 5786
Joined: Mar. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 22 2009,22:01   

Quote
If I had known what post he was referring to (I had my laptop, I should have looked it up to refresh myself), I would have totally River Tamed out.

Never find Serenity that way...

Henry

  
carlsonjok



Posts: 3326
Joined: May 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 22 2009,22:01   

Quote (ERV @ Feb. 22 2009,21:45)
(grabbed Carlsons arm as he walked away with the 'right answer', just in case he didnt know it, because I didnt know it was Carlson :P )

'tis true. I told her in advance what I would be wearing, but apparently wasn't specific enough for Abbie to ID me.

The real me.



What Abbie was looking for



--------------
It's natural to be curious about our world, but the scientific method is just one theory about how to best understand it.  We live in a democracy, which means we should treat every theory equally. - Steven Colbert, I Am America (and So Can You!)

  
  266 replies since Feb. 17 2009,12:28 < Next Oldest | Next Newest >  

Pages: (9) < 1 2 3 [4] 5 6 7 8 9 ... >   


Track this topic Email this topic Print this topic

[ Read the Board Rules ] | [Useful Links] | [Evolving Designs]