Madsenblog

6 Comments

1. leebowman wrote:

   A great documentary, and one in which poetic license was taken on more than one occasion. The important thing in a dramatization is to bring out all of the emotion that the original event inspired, even if it means adding a little shock value.

   Sometimes in editing a film, key dialogue can be left on the cutting room floor, or with digital editing, simply cut short. I’m referring to Behe’s testimony on Day 11.

   Eric Rothschild asks Behe [1:30:00],

   “But you are clear, under your definition, the definition that sweeps in intelligent design, astrology is also a scientific theory?”

   Behe replies,

   Yes, that is correct.

   At this point, the attorney smiles and nods, effectively intimating “Gotcha”

   From the director’s chair, Walczak then chimes in,

   Ya know, when you loosen the rules around what is science and permit the supernatural, permit deities, you are really destroying what makes science so vitally important …

   But testimony did not terminate at that point. Not just NOVA, but virtually all references to Behe’s testimony on the web cut his words short at that point, implying that he accepts astrology as valid science. Nothing could be further from the truth. Behe then went on to say [emphasis mine],

   … let me explain under my definition of the word “theory,” it is — a sense of the word “theory” does not include the theory being true, it means a proposition, based on physical evidence to explain some facts by logical inferences. There have been many theories throughout the history of science which looked good at the time which further progress has shown to be incorrect.

   And,

   … the educated community has not accepted astrology as a science for a long, long time. But if you go back, you know, Middle Ages and before that, when people were struggling to describe the natural world … some people might indeed think that it is not a priori … ruled out … that motions in the earth could affect things on the earth, or motions in the sky could affect things on the earth.

   Rothschild then pulled up a dictionary definition of astrology and cited from it:

   And now the term is used, “The divination of the supposed influences of the stars and planets on human affairs and terrestrial events by their positions and aspects.”

   That’s the scientific theory of astrology?

   Behe:

   That’s what it says right there, but let me direct your attention to the archaic definition, because the archaic definition is the one which was in effect when astrology was actually thought to perhaps describe real events, at least by the educated community.

   Astrology — I think astronomy began in, and things like astrology, and the history of science is replete with ideas that we now think to be wrong headed, nonetheless giving way to better ways or more accurate ways of describing the world.

   And simply because an idea is old, and simply because in our time we see it to be foolish, does not mean when it was being discussed as a live possibility, that it was not actually a real scientific theory.

   Rothschild then referred back to the deposition,

   Q And I asked you, “Is astrology a theory under that definition?”

   And you answered, “Is astrology?
   It could be, yes.” Right?

   A That’s correct.

   Q Not, it used to be, right?

   A Well, that’s what I was thinking. I was thinking of astrology when it was first proposed. I’m not thinking of tarot cards and little mind readers and so on that you might see along the highway. I was thinking of it in its historical sense.

   Is it possible that Rothschild was leading Behe a little at that point? But Behe made clear that he was only referring to astrology in its historical sense, as a once accepted theory.

   And yet, and yet … if you search the web [Behe + astrology], you’ll not see one (maybe one ) instance where Behe’s clarification was cited.

   All of day 11:

   http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dover/day11pm.html#day11pm353

   So to conclude, what was the ’shock value’ that was garnered here? How’s about a PhD Biochemist that holds ‘astrology’ to be valid science? If you searched the world you just might find one, but not at Lehigh University!

   Cheers

   Sunday, August 1, 2010 at 5:56 pm | Permalink
2. Madsen wrote:

   I don’t see that part being especially important…not in the trial nor in the movie…The most important evidence the prosecuters presented was “the smoking gun” aka the fact that they could show that the people behind ID were previously deeply involved in trying to get creationism taught in biology classes…and that a few words here and there had been changed in the various editions of “Of Pandas and…”creationism had been change to ID etc etc.

   Monday, August 2, 2010 at 2:29 am | Permalink
3. leebowman wrote:

   I don’t see that part being especially important…not in the trial nor in the movie…

   It’s not directly relevant to the trial issues per se, but indirectly it’s extremely relevant to the integrity of ID. Here we have a credentialed and outspoken ID proponent from within the scientific community, andextremely rare occurrence, and one who has been slapped with a bald faced lie regarding his scientific leanings.

   Astrology is a joke. But even Behe’s Wikipedia page states, ” During cross-examination Behe even stated that the definition of ‘theory’ as he applied it to intelligent design was so loose that astrology would qualify as a theory by definition as well.” Behe made clear that he did NOT accept astrology as valid science under provisions that would embrace ID (teleology), and only referred to it in a historical sense, i.e. that it was once considered valid science.

   In the sense that his credibility was impinged by that misrepresentation of his views, the case for ID was weakened during (and after) the trial. So yes, it is relevant.

   The most important evidence the prosecuters presented was “the smoking gun” aka the fact that they could show that the people behind ID were previously deeply involved in trying to get creationism taught in biology classes … and that a few words here and there had been changed in the various editions of “Of Pandas and … ”creationism had been change to ID etc etc.

   Agreed, with regard to the board’s actions and motives. But remember, they were not true ID proponents.

   Journalist Lauri Lebo admitted, “[Buckingham] had been told that intelligent design was a good compromise between his religious beliefs, is what he told me. And Alan Bonsell told me that, too – and what the courts will allow. They were both very clear on that, that this is their compromise even though they believe in creationism. This would, this would, sort of bridge the gap for them.”

   I am in full support of the Court’s ruling in part one, violations of the Establishment Clause and violations of the ruling in Lemon v Kurtzman.

   The copy and paste changes to the ‘Pandas’ manuscript was an editing change to conform to the Court ruling in Edwards v Aquillard. While that book did make some Creationist oriented statements ” … already intact fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, wings, etc.”, the current ID synthesis does not make that prediction.

   Also in the film, the Narrator states in the opening narrative, ” Proponents of intelligent design claim that many features of living organisms are too complex to have evolved entirely through the natural process of evolution, as Charles Darwin proposed. Instead, they claim, some aspects of those organisms must have been created, fully-formed, by a so-called “intelligent designer.”

   ‘Fully-formed’ does not abide with the ID postulates, since nothing in the data (the Cambrian is a possible exception, still not fully resolved), points to that conclusion. While the phrase ‘already intact’ appeared in ‘Panda’s’, it was the author’s opinion, not one embraced by ID proponents. And instead of the term ‘designer’, intelligent ‘agency’ is proposed, which could be any entity OR mechanism capable of directed (intelligent) causation.

   So while enjoyable, I feel that the film took a somewhat biased view (not surprising) of the relevancy of the trial with regard to ID. And to that end, I firmly disagree.

   Tuesday, August 3, 2010 at 2:53 am | Permalink
4. Madsen wrote:

   At the end of the day Behes credibility doesn’t stand or fall with what he said, or meant to say as he himself stated, during the trial. He may hold a Ph.D. in biochemistry, but that doesn’t necessarily make him credible in any way in regard to his scientific integrity…heck…we have a guy here in Denmark who’s a professor…and a holocaust denier. To say Behes is part of the scientific community is like saying Mugabe is part of world politics…Behe is marginalized because he practices what can at best be described as pseudo science. If we were to teach ID in school, we should also teach biorythms, homeopathy, crop circles, ufology and crystal healing…these fields are not science, but neither is ID.

   John E. Jones III ruled as he did because it’s obvious to all that the ONLY reason the schoolboard wanted ID to be taught in science classes, is because they see the concepts of evolution to conflict with Christian dogmas…and saw ID to be the perfect vehicle (a Trojan Horse if you will) to sneak creationism into science classes where it certainly doesn’t belong. Separation of church and state is important, and the schoolboard didn’t respect that.

   Tuesday, August 3, 2010 at 10:35 pm | Permalink
5. leebowman wrote:

   “At the end of the day Behes credibility doesn’t stand or fall with what he said, or meant to say as he himself stated, during the trial.”

   It does if his words are misquoted in a medium that is world wide. What if someone misquoted a high profile person (let’s say Obama) as saying that he enjoyed having sex with his Labrador Retriever, and it was repeated over and over the Net and Wikipedia, with no rebuttals or retractions, could it simply be regarded as insignificant? A biologist accepting astrology as valid science (if true) would be regarded in no better light.

   Do a search on three words: ‘dover’ ‘astrology’ and ‘behe’. ~ 19,000 hits. If you check out the hits, you’ll see that virtually all of them are promulgating lies to discredit him. Or could some of those hits be clarifications on what he said? Add the word ‘archaic’ (the term he used to place astrology in the historical sense). I got 669 hits. And even out of those 669 hits, only a few actually contained the word ‘archaic’ within (Google sometimes ignores an added search term). You may see a few of my comments there, as I have defended him on this point since trial, although my remarks are generally ignored.

   “[Behe] may hold a Ph.D. in biochemistry, but that doesn’t necessarily make him credible in any way in regard to his scientific integrity”

   The public knows little regarding the ‘integrity’ of a working scientist. In Behe’s case, what they hear essentially are words of high profile speakers like Barbara Forrest and Eugenie Scott, widely quoted by the NY and LA Times, Scientific American, and many other venues. So what little they have to go on is highly biased, and frankly skewed (false).

   This is ‘quote-mining’ pure and simple. I’ll give one more example where Behe was quoted out of context. In a rebuttal argument to the ‘bad design’ arguments of ID critics, Behe wrote:

   As a public skeptic of the ability of Darwinian processes to account for complex cellular systems and a proponent of the hypothesis of intelligent design, (1) I often encounter a rebuttal that can be paraphrased as “no designer would have done it that way.” A classic example is the backwards wiring of the vertebrate eye. (2) If no intelligent designer would have done it that way, the reasoning goes, then a blind, purposeless mechanism must be responsible, with natural selection being the prime candidate. This is a negative argument, reaching its conclusion in favor of the sufficiency of unintelligent processes by ruling out intelligence, which depends critically on our ability to differentiate useless from functional features. That ability has been severely called into question by the recent work of Hirotsune et al.(3)

   The modern molecular example of poor design is pseudogenes. Why litter a genome with useless, broken copies of functional genes? It looks just like the aftermath of a blind, wasteful process. No designer would have done it that way.(2) Yet Hirotsune et al (3) show that at least one pseudogene has a function. If at least some pseudogenes have unsuspected functions, however, might not other biological features that strike us as odd also have functions we have not yet discovered? Might even the backwards wiring of the vertebrate eye serve some useful purpose?

   The peril of negative arguments is that they may rest on our lack of knowledge, rather than on positive results. The contention that unintelligent processes can account for complex biological functions should, to the extent possible, be supported by positive results, rather than by intuitions of what no designer would do. Hirotsune et al’s (3) work has forcefully shown that our intuitions about what is functionless in biology are not to be trusted.

   But when quoted on the net, it’s always this one sentence, given as an example of uttering an ‘argument from incredulity’, rather than a set of arguments refuting the ‘poor design’ canard. Here ’tis, and it’s always given as a simplistic creationist view.

   ” “The peril of negative arguments is that they may rest on our lack of knowledge, rather than on positive results”

   This one sentence gets ~ 400 hits, add a word from the next sentence, ‘contention’ and it drops to 25.

   Bottom line IMO, is that Behe is demeaned continually as a credible scientist, often by quote mined phrases.

   Wednesday, August 4, 2010 at 5:52 am | Permalink
6. Madsen wrote:

   It does if his words are misquoted in a medium that is world wide. As I said…Behe is a proponent of a pseudo science….that’s what he’s known for and thats what earns him his low level of credibility…Behe didn’t manage of express himself unequivocally in the trial…bad for him.
   Again…the reason Behe is not respected nor credible as a scientist is because of his support to ID…Behe is not respected nor credible, and ID is not regarded as a science NOT because of quote-mining or anything like that…ID is obviously just creationism in disguise…most people can see that, and that’s why Behe is not respected and ID not accepted as a science…ID proponents should stop being dishonest and just admit ID = creationism…

   Wednesday, August 4, 2010 at 3:20 pm | Permalink

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