Dawkins and Coyne: One side can be wrong

Frame that sucker and post it on the wall of every school superintendent in the country.

Uh, nothing was wrong with Bush's timing. You may think the content of his statement was wrong, but his timing was simply the function of the reporter asking him the question. If the timing is bad, blame the reporter, not Bush.

(From nearly 2/3 of way down the article)
Re "Evolution is a fact: as much a fact as plate tectonics or the heliocentric solar system."

But don't Creationists deny plate tectonics, too?

Henry

But don't Creationists deny plate tectonics, too?

Uh, nothing was wrong with Bush's timing. You may think the content of his statement was wrong, but his timing was simply the function of the reporter asking him the question. If the timing is bad, blame the reporter, not Bush.

See also PZ Myers article.

"So Bush has never refused to answer a question, or sidestepped one, when it wasn't convenient to supply an an answer?"

The fact that he could have avoided the question still does not make it his timing. Besides, if he had, all you liberal f*cks would be complaining about that...

Re "Evolution is a fact: as much a fact as plate tectonics or the heliocentric solar system." But don't Creationists deny plate tectonics, too?

Kent Murkier = smug creep. Back to your hole, morlock.

So, why are we so sure that intelligent design is not a real scientific theory, worthy of "both sides" treatment? Isn't that just our personal opinion? It is an opinion shared by the vast majority of professional biologists, but of course science does not proceed by majority vote among scientists. Why isn't creationism (or its incarnation as intelligent design) just another scientific controversy, as worthy of scientific debate as the dozen essay topics we listed above? Here's why. If ID really were a scientific theory, positive evidence for it, gathered through research, would fill peer-reviewed scientific journals. This doesn't happen. It isn't that editors refuse to publish ID research. There simply isn't any ID research to publish. Its advocates bypass normal scientific due process by appealing directly to the non-scientific public and - with great shrewdness - to the government officials they elect.

If ID really were a scientific theory, positive evidence for it, gathered through research, would fill peer-reviewed scientific journals. This doesn't happen. It isn't that editors refuse to publish ID research. There simply isn't any ID research to publish. Its advocates bypass normal scientific due process by appealing directly to the non-scientific public and - with great shrewdness - to the government officials they elect.

http://lovebingo1.blogspot.com/2004/11/elephant-...

"It's good to see how more and more scientists are standing up to defend science. I believe we should thank George W. for his ill-timed remarks."

Dawkins has been saying this for many years and has a very long history of standing up for evolution.

"When two opposite points of view are expressed with equal intensity, the truth does not necessarily lie exactly halfway between them. It is possible for one side to be simply wrong." is one of my favorite quotes of his.

More can be found here :)

http://www.simonyi.ox.ac.uk/dawkins/WorldOfDawkins-archive/index.shtml

While this is generally a decent article - even if it says nothing new! - I think that at one point the writers fall for a logical boobytrap:

If complex organisms demand an explanation, so does a complex designer. And it's no solution to raise the theologian's plea that God (or the Intelligent Designer) is simply immune to the normal demands of scientific explanation.

Ultimately, I think this is begging the question. ('An argument begs the question when it assumes any controversial point not conceded by the other side'). What Dawkins seems to be doing here is asking that the reader accept an argument against the existence of a God outside of physical laws which is premissed upon the impossibility of such a being: in fact, despite what Dawkins maintains the 'theologian's plea' is a logical solution to the problem he raises, it's just not germane because the question of whether there is a God who himself is outside of natural laws is immaterial to issue at hand. What is critical is whether there is evidence for actions of such a God which actually bypass physical laws and cannot be accounted for by appeal to 'the normal demands of scientific explanation' (hint: there aren't). Whether God Himself is testable or whatnot is beside the point.

ID has no place in the science classroom, not because a God outside the dominions of physics is logically impossible or nonexistent but because even if such a being exists there is - so far (?) - no evidence that His actions have ever caused anything to happen outside of the world of physics. Dawkins' conclusion that

Either ID belongs in the science classroom, in which case it must submit to the discipline required of a scientific hypothesis. Or it does not, in which case get it out of the science classroom and send it back into the church, where it belongs.

is right, but not for the reason he gives at that juncture.

The rest of his points are fair play, needless to say!

I love how evolutionary proponents/atheists talk about scientists defending "science," as opposed to intelligent design, meaning that intelligent design isn't science. This is wrong considering that macro evolution isn't science. It is a theory, which hasn't been proven, yet many scientists whose funding depends on this theory of evolution have done a good pr job making it sound as if it is fact. It is far from fact. Intelligent design shows amazing examples of the enormous gaps in the evolutionary theory, gaps that the majority of staticians and physics experts today agree are too large to even pretend they could ever be bridged. If you filled the state of Texas with silver dollars, 4 feet deep, dropped a man somewhere in the state, had him blindfolded, and asked him to pick up the one silver dollar with an X marked on it, 3 times in a row, that is the probability of the first step of evolution occurring. And you people really believe that your theory is a fact! Amazing. It takes more faith to believe in the theory of evolution that it does to believe that some entity directed things like molecules, DNA, etc. And lastly, answer this question. If natural law says that things move towards disorder, breaking down if not kept up, how is it that everything was brought into order in the first place. Evolution is errant from the beginning, skipping right over a very simple natural law.

Nate

This is wrong considering that macro evolution isn't science. It is a theory, which hasn't been proven, yet many scientists whose funding depends on this theory of evolution have done a good pr job making it sound as if it is fact.

— Nate

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