Prof Denied Funds Over Evolution Evidence

radarsat1 writes "The Montreal Gazette today reported that a professor at Montreal's McGill University was refused a $40,000 grant, allegedly because 'he'd failed to provide the panel with ample evidence that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is correct.' Ironically, the grant was for a study into the detrimental effects of intelligent design on Canadian academics and leaders." From the article: "Jennifer Robinson, McGill's associate vice-principal for communications, said the university has asked the SSHRC to review its decision to reject Alters's request for money to study how the rising popularity in the United States of 'intelligent design' - a controversial creationist theory of life - is eroding acceptance of evolutionary science in Canada."

Have you heard the gospel?

[Anonymous Coward]

FSMism is the one true belief! Of course he can't prove evolution is correct, any Pastafarian knows how the world (and midgets) truely came to be.

http://www.venganza.org/ [venganza.org]

Re:Have you heard the gospel?

[pnewhook]

And what the hell do Finite State Machines have to do with anything ?

Quote from a play nobody else has ever seen

[Marxist Hacker 42]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA! I GET IT! HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA! I think.....- No Man the Barbarian.

Still, this should be easy to rectify, right? All you have to do is send them several books full of the evidence for evolution as it is currently understood- thus proving the point that ID should be banned from Canada.

But that's the problem with the whole debate, isn't it? ID can take the complexity of life and the structure of the universe itself and explain it in terms anybody who has ever been to church can understand. Biology can't. Which is sad.

Re:Quote from a play nobody else has ever seen

[mrscorpio]

ID can take the complexity of life and the structure of the universe itself and explain it in terms anybody who has ever been to church can understand. Biology can't. Which is sad.

No, what's sad is the plethora of churchgoers who apparently can't be bothered with an explanation more complex than "Humans are humans and dogs are dogs because jebus said so."

Religion has always been the solution to questions science couldn't answer (see Greek mythology). Such as it is today, the problem is we have the answers,

Re:Quote from a play nobody else has ever seen

[Marxist Hacker 42]

And the majority of people on the planet have IQs less than 110 (See the definition of the Intelligence Quotient if you don't believe me) so what else is new? That's the danger of democracy for you.

Re:Quote from a play nobody else has ever seen

[mrscorpio]

"Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried."
-- Winston Churchill

Re:Quote from a play nobody else has ever seen

[Marxist Hacker 42]

That's just trolling. Even if we were all insanely intelligent, there would still be a majority of people under 110 IQ. By definition, 100 is the median IQ, therefore claiming that there is a majority of people with an IQ below X (where X is an IQ larger than 100) is meaningless. The more important question is that of the capabilities of a person with an IQ of 100.

Exactly- and I say those capabilities do NOT include comprehending the evidence for evolution at this point in time. Maybe someday- but not no

Re:Quote from a play nobody else has ever seen

[Mattcelt]

I hold firmly to the idea that a civilization is only advanced to the point where its average person (or a group of average people) can recreate a concept.

That said, the problem - since the beginning - with Evolution is that fanatics have tried to use it as evidence that there is no God. ID is a social manifestation of Newton's Third Law, where the fanatics on the other side are trying to prove there is.

I have yet to see any evidence whatsoever that ID vs. Evolution is anything but a religious debate. Evolution may be sound scientific principle, and ID may not be - but it doesn't matter a whit, because this debate isn't about science. It's about whether or not there is a God.

This seems a horrendous misapplication of intelligence and faith to me. There should be no debate - Evolution is not inconsistent with the existence of God. If everyone treated it that way, there would be no need for ID.

Re:Quote from a play nobody else has ever seen

[vidarh]

That said, the problem - since the beginning - with Evolution is that fanatics have tried to use it as evidence that there is no God. ID is a social manifestation of Newton's Third Law, where the fanatics on the other side are trying to prove there is.

I can honestly say that I've never discussed religion with anyone who claimed evolution was evidence that there is no God. I'm an atheist myself, and I don't see evolution that way.

HOWEVER, an understanding of evolution for many lessens their belief in god, because it is yet another explanation that lessens the need for the ultimate "catch all" explanation for "unsolved" mysteries, and as such it's an important fight for many of those that strongly believe.

ID is about Adam and Eve, not God

[SimHacker]

Evolution isn't inconsistent with the existence of God, but it certainly IS inconsistence with the particular set of fairy tales that evangelical Christian religions want to teach in schools.

Intelligent design is not about teaching God in schools, it's about teaching Christian Fairy Tales in school. Anybody who tells you that ID has nothing to do with Adam and Eve is a liar or an idiot. When the Discovery Institute talks to evangelical Christian audiences, they certainly do link the two. It's just when

Re:Fairy Tales

[SimHacker]

There's a big different between telling fairy tales to children, and teaching them as facts, to children and adults.

Is it really that grown-up Creationists actually don't believe in Adam and Eve themselves, but they just want their kids to believe in it just like they believe in Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny? Isn't it cute the things that kids will believe when adults systematically lie to them?

Moulton believes that intelligent design should be taught in schools:

My position on Intelligent Design is that it should be taught in the Engineering Curriculum, so that our engineered products are intelligently designed.

[...]

It would astonish me if you didn't believe in teaching the principle of intelligent design when designing systems that mimicked the dynamics of the real world.

Moulton is being intellectually dishonest and taking a page from the Discovery Institute's play book, by trying to divert the conversation away from the real topic, and pretending to misunderstand the meaning of the words, and constructing a straw-man argument instead.

Moulton, can you answer a straightforward question without pretending to misunderstand and weaseling out of addressing the topic? Do you believe in Creationism or not? Yes, you know what I mean, and no I'm not talking about "creativity", and yes you've already made that "joke" of misunderstanding me twice. If you still can't answer it directly, I'll have good reason to assume that you do believe in Creationism, because of your evasiveness on the subject.

-Don

Re:ID is about Adam and Eve, not God

[SimHacker]

Certainly I'll provide a pointer. Just look at Moulton's earlier replies to my postings. That's what I was talking about.

In general, the ID people try to exploit the inherent ambiguity of the term "Intelligent Design", because it could be interpreted as meaning many positive things. But the fact of the matter is that they have defined the term to mean one thing in front of Evangelical Christian audiences (Creationism), and another thing in public (Science). It's that flip-flopping meaning of the term th

Re:Quote from a play nobody else has ever seen

[ch-chuck]

Amen (ahem) - Ideally people would realize the two different areas of science/physics and religion/metaphysics, but they're easily confused for reasons including the fact that you can't make a metaphysical point without using a physical analogy. We often say, "they're buying their head in the sand" like an Ostridge, where in fact Ostridges don't *REALLY* do that, but YOU GET MY POINT. Even Jesus used parables, and told people he was using a parable so DONT TAKE IT LITERALLY but we have these literal churchgoers and schoolboard members burying their heads in the sand, so to speak.

Likewise, science can't prove everything, such as why there is anything at all, what is the meaning of life, love, etc which leaves plenty of room for metaphysical beliefs.

More precisely

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

It's not just the existence of God that people are arguing for. Christian fundamentalists would be horrified to be told that God exists but doesn't intervene in human affairs, for example.

What's at stake, according to the fears of the ID/creationist crowd, is the specific idea of a God who deliberately created humans as they are and who issued a set of documentation with them which constitutes morality. In other words, it's about the nature of humanity, which they see as distinguished from other animals by a spark of divinity. Chimpanzees, they might say, are amoral -- without resourt to the supernatural, how can we logically require animals 98% similar to chimps in their DNA to obey a code of morals?

Before you can use reason you have to address fears. You could try pointing out that humans were decorating graves and writing theCode of Hammurabi long before the Bible was written and won't suddenly revert to animalism if they abandon the 20th-centruy movement to take the entire Bible literally.

Re:More precisely

[ShakaUVM]

Humans are 90%+ similar to most animals on the planet, IIRC.

However, humans are the only beings capable of meta-examining one's impulses, and choosing among (or denying them). This is the fundamental basis for ethics, and the very real line that separates us from animals. I'm quite sure that someone like a Jane Goodall could have some example of primitive meta-cognitive thinking in apes or dolphins, but nonetheless, I feel my statement holds true.

>>In other words, it's about the nature of humanity, which they see as
>>distinguished from other animals by a spark of divinity.

Some people might call this division between man and animal "a spark of divinity". I don't. You can call it what you will, but the division is actually more real and profound than people who always quote the "we're 99% the same as chimps DNA-wise" would let on. Comparing percentages of DNA being similar is a misleading statistic, by the by. We're very genetically similar to most animals on the planet. The devil is in the details, after all.

I'm a Christian, but I'm also not a fundamentalist. I believe in the primacy of reason, and feel that fundamentalists in general are irrational, and give Christians a bad name. I also find it aggravating that places like Slashdot tend to lump all Christians together under one label.

>>It's not just the existence of God that people are arguing for. Christian
>>fundamentalists would be horrified to be told that God exists but doesn't
>>intervene in human affairs, for example.

Sure, and I disagree with fundamentalists on this point. If they are spared from some natural disaster, they claim it was God that intervened to save them, but if they died, it would be part of his great plan. I think it is contradictory to claim that God would establish a natural order and then routinely violate it. I personally don't believe in fate, though I do thank God for any beneficial things that happen in my life -- why not? If God intervenes, I'd suspect it would be on much more a limited basis than what fundamentalists claim, who say things like "God provided me with my wife". Well... what if she didn't want to be your wife? Does that make God some kind of pimp? No. The notion is completely contrary to free will, self-accountability, and right and wrong.

>>You could try pointing out that humans were decorating graves and writing
>>theCode of Hammurabi long before the Bible was written and won't suddenly
>>revert to animalism if they abandon the 20th-centruy movement to take the
>>entire Bible literally.

20th century movement? Some people consider it simply reactionary on the part of Christians to now treat Genesis as allegory, now that evolution is on the scene. But as far back as the church goes, there are different camps treating the creation story as allegory or fact -- long before the evolution argument ever arrived. St. Augustine considered the creation story as allegory, for example, and he lived around 400 AD. He pointed out that there are two creation stories in the bible, that contradict each other in the exact order of the "days" (they basically go backward).

However, there is a lot to be said for the existence of a Christian church regardless of other factors. Examining the differences in states which are Christian and those that are militantly secular shows a much greater respect for the individual in the Christian states. While most atheists are also humanists, it is only the Christian humanists that seem to really believe in what they are saying. The USSR was established on humanist principles, and, well, produced the biggest mass-murderer of all time, Stalin.

Re:Quote from a play nobody else has ever seen

[aichpvee]

Wait a second there, buddy. How is it "fanatics" who are the ones trying to use evolution as proof that there is no god. What proof has there EVER been that there is one? Seems to me that "no god" is the moderate, sensible position and only a fanatic would claim otherwise without extensive proof.

Re:Quote from a play nobody else has ever seen

[slashdot_commentator]

How is it that Evolution "proves" there is no God? At "best", it can show there is a set of physical laws which can explain the genesis of the universe without requiring the direct interventions of a Supreme Being. But evolution cannot "prove" there was no God involved with "starting" the mess, or those set of physical laws could have come about without him/her/it.

You cannot really "prove" there is a God. But you cannot "prove" there is no God. In fact, Atheism is a form of belief system. It starts wit

Re:Quote from a play nobody else has ever seen

[Mastema262003]

This is an interesting but almost completely incorrect point. While evolution itself does not preclude the possibility of the existence of a higher power (read: god, advanced aliens, pantheon, superintelligent AI, etc. . .), science DOES in fact have a great deal to say about the folly of the worship of such an untestable entity. From the small, but non-zero possibility that such an ungrounded belief will cause people to fly airplanes into buildings, strap bombs to themselves, or engage in the mental and ph

Re:Quote from a play nobody else has ever seen

[Thangodin]

ID is part of a strategy called The Wedge, which was leaked in a memo from the Discovery Institute. The Wedge strategy is to undermine the naturalistic approach to understanding the world in favour of a supernaturalistic interpretation. There is a major problem with this: a supernaturalistic world view precludes the practice of science. The chain of cause and effect is broken because at any point one can claim that God intervened and rendered your data meaningless. This is precisely the strategy of pseudo-scientists, frauds, and psychic con-men when they fail any scientific challenge to their claims--they assert that hidden causes of a psychic or supernatural nature intervened to render the tests meaningless.

The battle between ID and Evolution is a defence of science. If creationists intentionally put God in harm's way to advance their cause, then God will bear the brunt of the scientific argument. This happens only because creationists deliberately define God in such a way as to conflict with well established scientific facts--as an Interventionist Creator. They do this with a specific political agenda in mind. The outcome of this for moderate religionists will be one of two defeats. Either their religion will come to be held in ridicule and contempt, or the creationists will win the argument and America will fall into decline and ruin as it loses its scientific and technological competence. The second defeat would be much worse than the first, because then, an external power, probably an atheistic one, will get to sing the tune their descendants dance to.

In the late 60's conservative think tanks came up with the Silent Majority, the moderate bulge which did not take part in the radicalism of the 60's. This in turn became the Moral Majority. A large proportion of the population still sits silently and allows ignorant demagogues to speak for them, even though they do not actually share the view of that extreme fringe. They simply have not taken the time or effort to understand what they really believe, or the consequences of those beliefs. Unfortunately, the vast majority of so-called believers no more understand their faith than they do science.

So, to all those self-proclaimed moderates out there, quit wasting your time arguing with atheists and wake up to what's being said in your name. It's your ass that's going to end up in a sling. Christianity is being hijacked for political purposes, corrupting both politics and religion. There's a great line in Hannah and her Sisters: "If Jesus could hear what was being said in his name, he would never stop throwing up!"

We really don't care what you believe, as long as you don't try to peddle bullshit to children too young and naive to know better. There is such a thing as the truth, and truth happens to be on the side of the evolutionists, with as much certainty as human beings are capable of (and yes, the Bible too is the work of human beings--it has our greasy finger prints all over it.) At one time Christianity meant an allegiance to the truth, which is why so many Christians became scientists--they preferred to get their knowledge first-hand from nature, rather than passed from hand to hand to hand ad nauseum through scripture. If Christianity has not sunk to the depths of invertebrate relativism, prove it!

We're waiting...

Re:Quote from a play nobody else has ever seen

[Tackhead]

> > ID can take the complexity of life and the structure of the universe itself and explain it in terms anybody who has ever been to church can understand. Biology can't. Which is sad.
>
> No, what's sad is the plethora of churchgoers who apparently can't be bothered with an explanation more complex than "Humans are humans and dogs are dogs because jebus said so."

Yes, but what's saddest of all is that unlike my ape-descended friends who haven't caught onto the scientific method, the difference between dogs and humans is that dogs learn from their mistakes.

Sounds like he's being a suck.

[Lev13than]

The SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada) is not a backwaters school board stacked with religious fundamentalists. It is a mainstream, government-monitored agency that hands out almost $300mm per year of social sciences funding. Only 40% of applications get approved. In this case, it looks like they were justified in rejecting his application. Indeed, it looks like Alters is being a bit of a publicity-hunting suck. From another source [canada.com]:

Eva Schacherl, a spokeswoman for the council, said Wednesday the multidisciplinary committee was not convinced the proposal's scholarly approach was sound or that it would provide objective results on the question.
"I just want to underline that it is not correct to suggest that the funding proposal was not accepted because the council or the committee had doubts about evolution," she said.
"We understand the way the committee's comments were transcribed or written down or summarized could have misled him and we really regret that the note sent to him gave the impression that the committee had doubts about evolution. That was really not what the committee intended."
Schacherl noted the council has funded other research projects on evolution and gave $175,000 to Alters last year for a three-year project on concepts of biological evolution in Islamic society.

In short, just because you have the right idea doesn't mean you automatically get funding for a flawed study.

Re:Sounds like he's being a suck.

[acroyear]

If their original letter had left out the following:

"Nor did the committee consider that there was adequate justification for the assumption in the proposal that the theory of Evolution, and not Intelligent Design theory, was correct."

I would have taken this correction just a little more seriously.

But that sentence is what the rejection letter said, and no amount of "we didn't mean that" is going to fix their mess. If they didn't want to come across as a anti-evolutionary idiots, they shouldn't have writte

Re:Sounds like he's being a suck.

[jheath314]

The line was misinterpretted, plain and simple.

What the line was interpreted to mean:
"We don't think evolution is adequately justified, and don't see what's wrong with intelligent design"

What the line actually means:
"The Professor didn't do a good enough job of backing up *why* evolution is scientific and intelligent design is pseudo-science; as it is his paper really just makes this a tacit assumption. Since this question goes to the heart of the issue investigated by the grant, it is not unreasonable to insist that the difference be explained clearly by the applicant."

IMHO, the Professor is hyping the misinterpretation of the committee's rejection in the hopes of generating an instinctive backlash in secular-minded Canada.

Re:Sounds like he's being a suck.

[darthlurker]

Have to agree after readong another another article [canada.com] on the same story. The guy was turned down for his study. Not because there isn't ample evidence that evolution is "correct" (whatever the hell that's supposed to mean). But because it wasn't felt objective results could be obtained.

Here's the SSHRC committee's response (from the mentioned article) for his study titled: "Detrimental effects of popularizing anti-evolution's intelligent design theory on Canadian students, teachers, parents, administrat

Re:Quote from a play nobody else has ever seen

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Facts don't exist. What is fact and what is fiction changes depending upon whom you are talking to. Thus, in a world where most human beings have IQs below 110- evidence is just somebody telling you something when you trust that somebody, and lies are just somebody telling you something when you don't trust that somebody.

Re:Quote from a play nobody else has ever seen

[flimflammer]

I can state without a shadow of a doubt, it's an absolute fact that I have two testicles.

Re:Quote from a play nobody else has ever seen

[mjm1231]

Um, that isn't a fact. It is a highly dubious opinion. Check about halfway down this page [freeinquiry.com] for the facts. We very much do have the technology to create such 3d images, and can replicate the level of 3d detail in the shroud easily using techniques which were common in the 12th century.

Re:Quote from a play nobody else has ever seen

[hazem]

If a miracle were broadcast from Time Square on New Year's Eve with irrefutable scientific proof that it could not possibly have occurred without a supernatural explanation, people would still refuse to believe in it.

What you're describing is impossible by definition. A miracle is by definition something that cannot be proved scientifically - and therefore needs a supernatural explanation. Once you have irrefutable scientific proof, it is no longer a miracle but simply a phenomenon.

Saying "irrefutable sci

Re:Quote from a play nobody else has ever seen

[bunratty]

You seem to misunderstand the debate between Darwinists and Creationists. The Darwinists are not saying that Creationists are wrong, or that Intelligent Design did not happen. They are simply saying there's no scientific evidence to support those ideas. Without scientific evidence, Creationism and Intelligent Design are not science and should not be taught in a science classroom.

Likewise, scientists should not insist on Darwinism being taught in churches, and bibles should not have labels about evolution, because those concepts are not religion and should not be taught in a church.

Re:One qualification

[bunratty]

Sure there are darwinists [wikipedia.org]. I am a darwinist who is not a biologist. There are also biologists who are not darwinists.

Re:I find it funny

[AlterTick]

No matter. If I'm wrong, nobody loses anything. If I'm right, you lose for eternity. I can't wait to see the stupid look on your faces then. Maybe you can ask a professor to forgive you or something. Or maybe you can sit at the edge of Darwin's grave and ask him.

Ah, the smug self-satisfaction of someone who thinks they've got it all figured out. I can't wait to see the look on your face when you realize that all the evolutionists, atheists, "baby murderers", and godless commies ended up in the same place you did after death, because [god/life/the universe] isn't some petty game of punishment and reward, but rather something much more complicated and beautiful than a fairy tale concoted by mortal theocracies to scare children.

Re:I find it funny

[vidarh]

No matter. If I'm wrong, nobody loses anything. If I'm right, you lose for eternity. I can't wait to see the stupid look on your faces then. Maybe you can ask a professor to forgive you or something. Or maybe you can sit at the edge of Darwin's grave and ask him.

This is called Pascals wager, and it's flawed for a long list of reasons:

• You assume that you believe in the right God. What if the muslims are right? The Jews? The Mormons? Latter day saints? Hindus? Or perhaps you should have believe in the Norse gods, or the gods of some alien race we don't even know about.
• You assume that if there is a God that this God has is true to its word, and isn't a sadist bastard kid who decided to to have some fun with that cool new "make your own universe" kit he bought at the corner.
• You assume that whichever deity you end up in front of will treat you better than someone who doesn't believe (whether or not it's the "right" deity). For what you know being an atheist might be safer - you have no way of correctly estimating the odds of pissing off a deity based on belief in the wrong deity vs. pissing it off based on not believing.
• You assume that whatever "paradise" you assume you might end up in will actually be _your_ idea of something that is better that whatever the alternative might be.

In other words, you're trying to rationalise your belief based on assumptions that you have no basis at all for making.

Personally I take the view that if I'm wrong (I'm an atheist) and I find myself in front of some deity after I die and that deity is unable to accept me for what I am, then that deity is a fascist bastard and certainly isn't worthy of being worshipped - there's no way I am going to be bribed into behaving a certain way to appease some hypothetical oppressive sadist being. I live my life the way I do because I believe it is the right way to live, not looking for rewards.

Re:Quote from a play nobody else has ever seen

[Phroggy]

I'm a Creationist, and I think ID is crap. ID has nothing to do with science, it's a philosophy that says life is too complicated to have happened by chance and therefore there must have been supernatural intervention (God, FSM, etc.). I don't really have a problem with someone believing that, but it's not science, and should not be taught in a scientific context in schools.

And yet I do believe that God created the universe and everything in it less than 10,000 years ago. Furthermore, I believe that the search for evidence supporting this hypothesis is scientific, and this is a topic that is appropriate for public education. Learning how to interpret scientific evidence within different presupposed frameworks (i.e. the old-earth/uniformitarian/evolution view vs. the young-earth/catastrophism/Creation view), seeing how the same facts can be made to fit in both models even if you believe one of the models is wrong, is a good exercise, because it can help you recognize bias.

Again, "Intelligent Design" as it is currently being promoted is a load of nonsense.

Re:Quote from a play nobody else has ever seen

[Daniel Dvorkin]

There's a big difference here. The law is decided by people (and not just lawyers and politicians, at least ideally -- you know, that whole "we the people" thing?) and it says, and means, whatever people decide it says and means. If enough people decide that they don't like the law as it is, it changes. Ultimately, law is nothing but codified opinion.

OTOH, evolution just is. Your belief in it, or lack thereof, makes no difference whatsoever to its reality. And one of the most incredibly frustrating aspects of the evolution vs. creationism argument (and in general, the never-ending struggle between science and pseudoscience) which often makes scientifically-minded sorts come across as arrogant and short-tempered, is that we get really, really tired of dealing with people who just can't seem to get their heads around this distinction.

Re:Quote from a play nobody else has ever seen

[quantax]

The only claim I can see of the IDers that is vaugely testible is that God exists and Chaos doesn't. Aside from that basic, they seem to accept every bit of evidence evolution does.

I would actually argue this is exactly where ID shows itself to no longer to be a real theory. Part of the definition of a scientific theory is that it can be proved wrong in some manner, and once such is fulfilled, that theory could be discounted. So I ask these ID proponents, show me how one could go about disproving the exi

Correction

[XorNand]

...rising popularity in the United States of 'intelligent design'

I'd say "formally rising" and now "waning". The ID people have been quietly nursing their wounds since U.S. District Judge Jones, really put them in their place last December. The opinion he wrote was extraordinary lucid and well-reasoned. If anyone here hasn't read it, I would highly recommend it. It is anything but a dry legal document.

Re:Correction

[Dance_Dance_Karnov]

Whatsamatta with you, you say we all have to read it and no link? I have rectified this. http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2005/images/12/20/kitzmille r.pdf [cnn.net]

Re:Correction

[hehman]

Don't want to read a 139 page PDF document? Skip to the delicious summary on page 136, including these choice quotes:

The proper application of both the endorsement and Lemon tests to the facts of this case makes it abundantly clear that the Board's ID Policy violates the Establishment Clause. In making this determination, we have addressed the seminal question of whether ID is science. We have concluded that it is not, and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents.
[...]
To be sure, Darwin's theory of evolution is imperfect. However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions.
[...]
The breathtaking inanity of the Board's decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial.

Re:Correction

[Tim Doran]

You're absolutely right, the opinion was a beautiful piece of work and a huge relief to those of us who think ignorance is NOT a desirable state for society.

Unfortunately, the mainstream media feels compelled to provide a "balanced" story including both sides of an issue, even when a little basic research would prove one side utterly wrong. This means ID has been given far more respectful treatment in the press than it has deserved, and gained credibility as a result (not unlike the Swift Boat liars in the last presidential election).

I do think the press has given its head a shake on the topic of ID though - the NYT ran a front-page article [nytimes.com] on the "missing link" fossil discovery announced today. I suspect 6 months ago they'd have buried the story on page A24 to avoid angering the creationists.

Another correction

[cyber-vandal]

Traders throughout the world discovered the origin of spices a long time ago.

Yay!

[jim_v2000]

"...study how the rising popularity in the United States of 'intelligent design' - a controversial creationist theory of life - is eroding acceptance of evolutionary science in Canada."

$40,000 was saved from being wasted on a useless study. Too bad that doesn't happen more often.

Why so?

[jfengel]

I don't suppose it's any more useless than the rest of the studies done in the sociology department. (And that may be enough to stop right there.)

I consider it kind of an interesting question: is the US Intelligent Design movement having any effect on Canadians? I imagine that Canadians, at least, would like to know if they have to worry about encroaching creationism. And if there is, to begin to have a direction in which to fight it.

The professor considers the board's refusal evidence of what he was trying

Exactly

[roman_mir]

my first thought was, HA, this is a stupid study. What is the difference how intelligent design affects our thoughts on evolution? Then I realized that this is what social studies are all about, some Phd or whatever is sitting there and coming up with ideas for his/her funding for the next year. Obviously nobody really cares about this except for this individual (he has plenty to gain from it.) What is more interesting what other totally pointless 'studies' are conducted in this way and paid for by our

Re:Yay!

[gobbo]

$40,000 was saved from being wasted on a useless study.

Do you have any idea how much of your daily life is impacted by government and bureaucratic policy decisions? I didn't think so.

Policy makers who are acting in good faith (OK, maybe that's rare, just to be cynical) rely on studies like this. It is anything but useless, it's crucial.

Before anyone sputters about it not really being about science, well, it isn't supposed to be. It's about social power. ID isn't about science either: its express goals

He was on the radio this morning....

[kietscia]

This researcher was on CBC radio this morning and one of the fun things that came out was that by denying his application the funding board simultaneously saved $40,000 and actually proved the central hypothesis of his research; obviously ID is having a detrimental effect.

alternately...

[YesIAmAScript]

Perhaps he did a lousy study, it wasn't worth $40K, and it was rejected because it was incomplete and not because of any opinions about ID.

Thus proving nothing about his central hypothesis.

Has anyone actually read the study to try to make this decisions for themself?

Full Text of Rejection Needed

[SeanDuggan]

I'm holding opinion until we see what the actual criteria for rejection were. I could see this as a situation where the letter said something along the lines of, "We found that you did not do sufficient work to establish your definition of evolution when surveying the people." The researcher, of course, would like to have a groundswell of earnest defense from reactionaries, so he rephrases it to sound like the government is advocating ID. In all the noise and hubbub, the government cuts its losses and pays him off rather than spend tons (metric tonnes, I'm sure) of money defending themselves.

Re:Full Text of Rejection Needed

[n9uxu8]

Amen! I've seen plenty of grant applications with great titles that inevitably show that either the author has no idea how to write a grant to properly convey his ideas/requests or that he is a complete idiot and, while able to identify hot-button issues, couldn't design a decent research plan to save his life.

In this case, I would think that it is at least possible that the grant app didn't seem worth $40k to the review board (more due to the former rather than the latter judging by the PIs standing in t

Rising popularity

[Have Blue]

The popularity of intelligent design is not rising in the US. The volume and rate at which its supporters, a group which remains fairly static, are speaking are rising.

Re:Rising popularity

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

"The religious right" is a very nebulous term. The official stance of the Catholic church, the Anglican Church, and most other major protestant churches is that evolution does happen and that the bible cannot be interpreted literally. The fact that a significant number of people who belong to these organized religions disagrees with their church or is presented as so doing is very interesting. My personal opinion is that there are a significant number of people in the US who reject evolution on religious

What controvercy?

[amightywind]

So it looks like a someone fullfilled their fudiciary duty and decided not to write a $40,000 check to a McGill professor to lavishly sponsor a pointless study. And the controvercy is?

I don't get it

[Luscious868]

I'll never understand the intelligent design versus evolution debate. The two seem to me to have nothing to do with one another. Evolution is a valid scientific theory based on physical evidence and intelligent design is more of a philosophy that really can't be proven one way or another. Further, they aren't mutually exclusive. If there is a God, why couldn't he/she/it have used evolution as the means to design life? Clearly, if there is a God that's exactly how he/she/it went about it.

Re:I don't get it

[whoever57]

I'll never understand the intelligent design versus evolution debate. The two seem to me to have nothing to do with one another. Evolution is a valid scientific theory based on physical evidence and intelligent design is more of a philosophy that really can't be proven one way or another. Further, they aren't mutually exclusive.

Well, it seems that you don't know what the ID promoters are putting forward. Supporters of ID see it as in conflict with some of the central tenets of evolution. They don't see it

Re:I don't get it

[necro2607]

Yeah, what "God" is going to want to sit around and come up with all these weird ass creatures all day long? Why not "write" a procedural "program" to design all that for you? Actually, this is starting to sound like that upcoming game Spore [wikipedia.org]...

Re:I don't get it

[bill_kress]

Religious fundamentalism (on the rise in the US) doesn't accept that is possible. It asserts that god formed Adam out of clay and actually used his breath to fill Adam with life. Because the Bible is the Only Truth, no other is possible.

These are the same people (different bodies I suppose) that murdered progressive people who suggested that the earth might be round, or go around the sun.

Just because the times have changed, don't believe for a second that all the people have.

Re:I don't get it

[roman_mir]

What you are missing is that ID is USING this artificial fight against Evolution to gain followers.

The whole point of ID was to create this debate.

[Chris Burke]

Your viewpoint is common among those Christians who appreciate science and aren't aware of the fundamentalist political motivations for ID. My father, for example, put it in more or less the same terms: "Intelligent Design" just means that evolution occured, and that it occured was God's will. From this view, where science is the "how" and God is the "why", "Intelligent Design" is just putting a name to the concept and shouldn't affect one iota the scientists doing evolution research (whether those scientists are religious or not), because it makes zero new scientific claims.

Of course creating a word for the harmony that can exist between science and religion is not the reason ID was created.

The whole point of Intelligent Design is to be an alternative to evolution, to replace it with a theory that (very) superficially* does not seem to be religious in nature. ID is supposed to discredit evolution, and leave open the possibility of Creationism, and to even allow Creationism (its nature covered by the thin veneer ID offers) to be taught in public schools without violating the 1st Ammendment.

ID was created to destroy the "heretical" teaching of evolution, and as such people with views like yours (and mine, and my father's) are diametrically opposed to the true supporters of ID. It is the thin end of the wedge intended to drive fundamentalism into our schools and "secular" scientific teaching out.

ID is a political movement with political goals, and a rational attempt to reconcile ID's statements with the scientific facts of evolution is contrary to those goals. So while I agree 100% with your view, you must take great care in using "Intelligent Design" to describe it, because you will be misrepresenting yourself.

* ID proponents may tell you that ID does not necessarily mean the Christian God or any other god did it, and maybe it was space aliens. They're lying to conceal ID's religious basis. The whole argument of ID is that something like the human brain could not have developed from natural processes, so some other intelligence must have made the brain. By ID's central hypothesis, that other intelligence could not have arisen from natural processes. Simple induction tells us that however long the sequence of Designers, the original Designer must therefore be supernatural. Everyone intuitively understands this, especially the fundamentalist backers of ID, but they have to pretend not to in order to avoid that annoying Separation of Church and State.

Communication problem, explained

[0xABADC0DA]

So-called intelligent design is a belief in creationism opposed to knowledge about evolution. Thus, ID is fighting against knowledge which is why their arguments are of the form "but the eye is too complex, prove it evolved. oh you can't and btw where's the missing link?". So how do you fight belief? By mocking it of course, hence the "flying sphagetti monster". Both approaches are similar in that they basically just insult the other side's core principles.

If you really want to fight their belief then c

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

You and your like minded friends are wrong about Christianity. Christians do not have to take everything in the Bible literally. Fundamentalist Christians do, but then they end up having to interpret too in order to explain the apparent contradictions in the Bible. They also ignore how the Bible was written and passed down over the centuries. Read "Misquoting Jesus".

Anyway, Time is a dimension of the Universe - the creation. So God, the Creator exists outside Time. Mix in some Chaos theory and deny ran

Re:Perspective

[XanC]

My bad; I hadn't read it in long enough that I misunderstood you.

But I don't think it's necessarily true that the physical creation of man and the spiritual creation of man are one and the same. Did every early hominid have a soul? Who knows. It's certainly possible that event took place 6,000 years ago, with Adam and Eve, where the chronicles begin.

I'm a little rusty on this, but in Genesis, doesn't Cain run off and join "the others"? Seems to suggest that there were hominids already running around

Re:I don't get it

[barawn]

but Christianity and evolution are.

Somebody better tell that to this guy [wikipedia.org]: he seems to think [beliefnet.com] that there's no incompatibility there.

Only a small minority of Christian religions believe there's any incompatibility between the two, and they tend to be a little bit loony overprotective about the literal wording of the Bible (why, I have no idea: it's not like the words have a unique, unambiguous meaning - and it's not like the people at the time even had the words to write down some of the concepts).

One being th

The earth is flat!

[miffo.swe]

Its things like Intelligent Design that makes me understand why some cultures have vaned and dissapeared troughout history. By denying straight thinking and bending things backwards you can really stop progress and then another culture comes in and takes over. I find myself seeing this alot today with idiotic things like Intelligent Design, patent laws and IP ownage. The list is long but current denial of scientific theories like evolution and global warming takes first price.

China has it really laid out for them in the future thats for sure.

Viva His Noodly Appendage!

[Guysmiley777]

Viva the Midget!

Viva Pirates!

http://www.venganza.org/ [venganza.org]

What theory?

[Hard_Code]

Since when is Intelligent Design/Creationism a "theory"? It doesn't even deserve the reputation as theory. Theories are rational, testable and predictive. ID/Creationism is fantasy. Evolution can offer predictions about the natural world. What can ID/Creationism "predict"?

Re:What theory?

[barawn]

What can ID/Creationism "predict"?

Actually, what's often overlooked is that the intelligent design arguments are providing testable and predictable theories.

They're saying it's impossible for certain systems to have arisen by chance. They usually give examples of various complicated biological systems, etc.

That's a falsifiable statement.

Unsurprisingly, the examples given are usually falsified.

Re:What theory?

[Phroggy]

Since when is Intelligent Design/Creationism a "theory"? It doesn't even deserve the reputation as theory. Theories are rational, testable and predictive. ID/Creationism is fantasy. Evolution can offer predictions about the natural world. What can ID/Creationism "predict"?

First off, I was surprised to discover that Creationism and Intelligent Design are so different.

Creationism starts with the idea that God created the universe and everything in it about 6,000 years ago, and there was a worldwide Flood arou

ID vs. Darwin vs. Creation

[DesertWolf0132]

Hold on for a moment while I calm the spasms of laughter...

Ok, first, the study for which he applied for the grant was flawed. ID does not in any way claim that evolution did not happen, only that it may be the method through which an intelligent entity created us. To study the effects of a belief in a socialogical sense one must first understand the real belief, not the view of the uneducated on the topic. ID offers evolution as one of the possible methods of Intelligent Design. I will grant here that much of ID is conjecture and more hypothesis than theory. Creationists of late have been twisting ID to fit their view that nothing evolved but was created. The grant therefore should have studied Creationism and its negative effects on the study of evolution. True ID still allows for the study of evolution and Darwin's theories. It merely attempts to give an explanation of the catalyst for it. Anything that calls itself ID but eliminates evolution is Creationism.

Now before the Creationists and followers of Darwin on this site try to have me drawn and quartered, I personally withhold my opinion. I merely wish to state that parties on all sides of this debate are fond of not taking the time to understand each other's arguments.

Let the flaming by those who don't take the time to read my entire post begin...

Re:ID vs. Darwin vs. Creation

[vidarh]

ID does not in any way claim that evolution did not happen, only that it may be the method through which an intelligent entity created us.

Repeat that as many times as you'd like, but fact is a significant part of intelligent design proponents use intelligent design specifically as a tool to try to spread doubt about the validity of the theory of evolution.

Trying to pretend otherwise is either ignorant or dishonest. Which are you?

Re:ID vs. Darwin vs. Creation

[Enigma2175]

What's sad is that DesertWolf offers a reasonable response and the Slashdot community mods him down as 'Troll'. Instead of hiding behind your mod points, stand up and offer a rebuttal!

I agree. That is totally uncalled for and I hope it gets reversed in metamod. I am an athiest that thinks all religion is fantasy but to mod a post as a troll just because you don't agree with the poster's beliefs is close-minded and childish.

Re:ID vs. Darwin vs. Creation

[CDS]

To study the effects of a belief in a socialogical sense one must first understand the real belief, not the view of the uneducated on the topic.

To study the effects of a belief in a socialogical sense, one must first understand the view of the uneducated (also known as "the masses") on the topic. The "real belief" -- also known as "from the point of view of the scholars who study the belief" only peripherally comes into play here. The sociological effects of a movement rests FIRMLY in the viewpoint of t

Re:ID vs. Darwin vs. Creation

[idsofmarch]

Now you're just moving the goal posts and twisting the argument to make both sides appear unresonable, while you can stand in the middle taking the slings and arrows of both sides as you attempt to instill reason and compromise.

All heroic posturing aside, the Intelligent Design adherents want to break the back of evolution's credibility by calling it a 'theory' knowing that this will make evolution appear less valid than other scientific theories. This helps to instill a confusion between theory and law, b

Re:ID vs. Darwin vs. Creation

[idsofmarch]

I like that your post is about how people who have differing points of view and insult each other and then you write this: "to sum up for those who didn't feel like reading through the big words with more than one syllable..." So, with this little nugget we get to see how easy it is to fall into that trap I guess.

My point was, ID and Creationism are the same thing that are made to appear diferent. ID then tries to subvert Evolution by playing on people's ignorance about the subject and their faith. ID is

Bush did it!

[Arandir]

This is all Bush's fault! Oh wait... this is in Canada. Well it's STILL Bush's fault, dammit!

To the 5-second flamers

[Anonymous Coward]

To all of the flamers out there who are bashing the committee without knowing anything about the Canadian grant system...

This has absolutely nothing to do with a person's religious or scientific views. It has everything to do with the fact that someone applied for a grant that has no justification. He submitted an unprepared request for a grant. period.

In the same way, if I submitted a request for a grant to study "the effect that the knowledge of the theory of gravity in Canada had on the leadership of the United States" it would also be denied. Without having both proof and possible linkage, it's not a valid request.

Bottom line, is that this is nothing more than an otherwise insignificant person trying to get some press. Same as the guy who tried to patent the wheel in australia... Just trying to get some attention, and by the previous comments, it looks like it may have worked.

Another casualty to cultural war

[B. Pascal]

Hello all:

I like to point out that the MAIN issue in the article has been lost due to the North American cultural war between Evolution and Intelligent Design. Sparked by this event, there will be many posts made to debate whether evolution is correct or not. Yet, at the end, these posts will all be irrelevant to the main issue. Here is the summary of the article I read:

"A funding request for an academic study has been denied by a review board, due to, and I quote, 'he(the professor of the study)'d failed to provide the panel with ample evidence that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is correct.'"

Reading the article, it seems that the author has tried to put the issue into the context of an ongoing debate between evolution and intelligent design. That debate is absolutely irrelevant here. What is this article about? It is about the professor of a study not providing enough support in his proposal for funding. The board may very well acknowledge that evolution IS correct, but for the purpose of due academic diligence, the review board decided that NOT ENOUGH evidence has been provided to support "a theory acknowledged to be correct".

Reading this article more in details, the research study in question has little to do with the science of evolution itself. The title of the study is "how the rising popularity in the United States of intelligent design" - a controversial creationist theory of life - is eroding acceptance of evolutionary science in Canada". This is a cultural study: it's about how a controversial theory and the effect it has on the Canadian scientific community. In short, this is a study about people, not about evolution...

Finally, I like to point out that the rejection message was read in front of a public lecture... As a graduate student, I applied for funding and got rejected all the time. Yet, I have never heard of a rejection letter being read in public before... It sounds as if the focus has been shifted, the public roused, and attention redirected to a direction that is, ultimately, irrelevant to the main issue. (picture of many people, flaming torches, and pitch forks in mind...)

Cheers.

B. Pascal.

Community standards are more important

[dada21]

No Child Left Behind and various other laws make education a nationally standardized mess of differing opinions. With more Federal money being thrown at what should be a local issue, we're going to have more problems like this than ever.

I'm not fond of any public funding, grants, guaranteed loans or any form of research, but I am also not the kind of person to push my opinions on people I don't know. I am frustrated that my future kids would have to learn subject matters that are outside of my belief system. I believe that if a family wants to teach their children creationism, they'd choose a school that teaches it. If they want to teach evolution, the same would be true. That is more important than shoving every kid of every family into a common thinking (indoctrination).

Why the debate, anyway? What do you care what people you don't know, will never meet, and have no direct contact with teach their children? How does the standard I set affect you, even if you're 2 communities over?

Learning is about basic math, basic reading and writing, and basic discipline. It isn't about higher science or sex ed or history or foreign languages -- that is for the individual to decide if they want it as an elective that will affect their futures.

The more we shove people into the same mold, the less we'll be able to compete in the world. Variety is the spice of life, including in education, faith and science.

Cargo Cult Science

[Ranger]

The blurb was poorly worded, so I went and read the story. And it didn't make much sense either. Intelligent Design is just Creationism dressed up in scientific clothing. Lots of pseudoscience proponets try to dress up their ideas under the guise of science. As the late great Richard Feynman so aptly called it Cargo Cult Science [brocku.ca]. They talk the talk, but when they attempt to walk the walk, they can't.

For years Johannes Kepler [wikipedia.org] tried to make his observations fit his theory that the planetory orbits corresponded to the five perfect solids. He took the courageous step to reject his pet theory because it was wrong and came up with his three laws of planetary motion. They fit his observations better and made actual predictions. It was, it is testable.

The fundamentalists are trying to make their observations fit their 'theory'. Except they have no observations and a theory that is mere window dressing. The problem is most Christians forgot God was a metaphor and are trying to interpret their flavors of the Bible as absolute fact and history. You can still be a devout Christian and understand evolution and accept it happened (I'm not a Christian). By rejecting Creationism they don't have to reject their entire faith. That is to say they don't have to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Why SSHRC funding?

[Yaztromo]

A bit of background for those who are not familiar with some of the common academic research funding bodies here in Canada.

SSHRC [sshrc-crsh.gc.ca] is for the funding of Social Science and Humanities research, which includes things like literature research. A good friend of mine who is working on her Ph.D. in English has an application in for an SSHRC grant.

NSERC [nserc-crsng.gc.ca] is for the funding of scientific and engineering research.

There are a few critical points to understand about these two funding organizations:. NSERC has way more money than the SSHRC. Scientific and engineering researchers typically have no problems getting the funding they need, whereas social science and humanities researchers can have a really hard time getting anything from the SSHRC. The SSHRC just doesn't get much money, and has to be stingy in doleing it out to ensure they get the best bang for their buck.

As such, it is entirely possible that the reason for the SSHRC denying this grant would be because the grant application was simply incomplete.

From my perspective as someone who has lived in three Provinces (and who has been to all the rest, with the notable exception of Newfoundland), Intelligent Design is a complete and total non-starter here in Canada. If it weren't for /. and exposure to US-based news services, I doubt I'd even have heard about it. There is no political movement here to stop the teaching of evolution in schools, no court cases, nothing. To most Canadians, it's just another of those idiotic ultra-conservative American things that occurs from time to time, and not something the vast majority of Canadians want any part of.

While I personally think this research would be interesting, it is quite possible that the SSHRC has more pressing areas of research to handle, such as the serious social problems in native communities. With only so much money to go around, there are inevitably going to be very worthy projects which get rejected for funding. The trick for a researcher is to look elsewhere for the funding they need to get their research completed and published.

Yaz.

The Easter Bunny Proves Intelligent Design!

[SimHacker]

The Easter Bunny is the best proof yet of intelligent design! What other explanation is there for rabbits laying painted eggs on Jesus's birthday? Obviously that proves the existence of God, and supports the story of Adam and Eve.

-Don

The fatal flaw in ID

[jbr439]

ID claims that humans, the Earth, the universe, etc are much too complex to be the result of one or more accidents. Such complexity could only be the result of the intervention of a master architect or intelligent designer, if you will.

The problem with this is that it only pretends to solve the question by introducing an extra level of indirection. The logical followup question is never asked: how did a being as complex as the one that designed the universe come into existence?

If life, the universe, and everything are too complex to have come into existence by accident, then almost by definition, the designer, which is at least as complex and most likely even more complex than his/her/its creation, could not have come into existence by accident. And so by applying the principle of ID (complexity above a certain level requires an intelligent designer), we unavoidably come up with the notion that our designer has a designer of his/her/its own. Applying ID again, we see that our designer's designer has a designer of her/his/its own. And on and on we go ad nauseam, resulting in an infinite number of intelligent designers.

Ain't ID fun?

This guy saved the Canadians some money

[kindbud]

Obviously, he got his answer to the question "Are American ID fanboys affecting the conduct of science in Canada." It's a resounding YES. And he didn't spend any government grant money to find out.

'intelligent design' - a controversial blah blah

[xant]

'intelligent design' - a controversial creationist theory of life

Look, dumbshits. It's not a theory. And it's not controversial, it's just wrong. How about this, more accurate description:

'intelligent design' - a wrongheaded piece of creationist propaganda

Re:Que Nelson from the Simpsons:

[TommyBlack]

In other news, a professor was denied a grant to research the potential effect of a meteor striking earth, because he had failed to provide sufficient evidence that the theory of gravity was correct.

Re:Que Nelson from the Simpsons:

[Citizen of Earth]

"What happens if a big asteroid hits Earth? Judging from realistic simulations involving a sledge hammer and a common laboratory frog, we can assume it will be pretty bad." -- Dave Barry

Re:So,

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Wrong way around- if he doesn't worship at the altar of ID, AND doesn't prove his basic assumptions, he's denied funding. (the basic assumptions of ID being unproveable of course, gives you the meaning of the word Irony).

Religion is Religion...

[Penguinisto]

...no matter whose altar you worship at.

It's just as easy to turn scientific theory into dogma as it is to accept the words of clergy, no? Either way, it runs counter to science when any scientist refuses to question his own store of theories and facts from time to time.

/P

Churchill said it already

[vlad_petric]

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter. Winston Churchill

Re:It seems to me...

[geekoid]

Belief in God is not a theory, it's not even a hypothesis.
Where as Evolution was a hypothesis, moved onto theory, where it is tested and predictions are made.
Point in fact, the debate is around theory of evolution through natural selection. Evolution is accepted.

So if you want to believe in God, then fin but it is NOT a theory. If it was a theory, thenfaith would no longer be required and independent will comes into question.

Of course if you believe in God, then you must beklieve in ID.
Or does your god just

Re:It seems to me...

[drinkypoo]

Of course if you believe in God, then you must beklieve in ID. Or does your god just hang around and not effect ther universe in any way?

An omnipotent, omniscient God is capable of utilizing laws of physics (which he, of course, would have put into place) in order to create a starting condition that will use evolution to create precisely what he wants.

Kind of like playing the game of Life. Gliders are for chumps, though, at this scale :D

Re:It seems to me...

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, you stupid fucking dumbass. Science isn't kindergarten sports where everyone gets a cake and a medal no matter where they finish. Sience isn't about being fair to all viewpoints, it's about being correct. Creationism isn't even a coherent theory, it's wild guesses based on a 2000 year old book written by middle-eastern tribesmen. It is not science, and thusly, real universities don't bother with it.

Re:It seems to me...

[curunir]

Why can't more people think like you do? And by think, I mean actually think about it as opposed to just blindly following what they're told by their religion.

What I've never understood about ID is why they believe that God wouldn't be smart enough to use evolution. Compare evolution to what's described in the Bible and evolution is much more "intelligent". It's a system that's capable of adapting to almost any challenge thrown at it without any intervention on the part of God.

Which brings me to what I've always wondered about Christians/Catholics...why do they have such an insistance on believing in a literal interpretation of the Bible? To me, the Bible seems to be more of a historical political document aimed at unifying the Roman empire, rather than an exact historical accounting. As such, the events/stories/wisdom contained within it are delivered in a fashion that facilitates internalizing its messages, lessons, etc. Yet to suggest this to people who are deeply religious usually results in a response equivalent to if you had told them that God does not exist. I've rarely seen anyone capable of separating the bible from their faith in God and Christ.

Can anyone explain why the two are so inexorably linked in most people's minds? Why are most people incapable of believing that there is a God, who created all of us by an ingenious method (evolution) and sent his son to Earth to impart the teachings necessary for us to live together peacefully and with a common morality. That is really the core philosophy of Catholocism/Christianity, not the literal events of the Bible.

(thus endeth the rantings of someone who was raised Christian but could never fully express his faith until he was able to look past the inconsistancies of the bible and recognize that the bible was written by men with agendas and that true faith in God comes from within, not without).

Re:It seems to me...

[oh_my_080980980]

"Which brings me to what I've always wondered about Christians/Catholics...why do they have such an insistance on believing in a literal interpretation of the Bible? To me, the Bible seems to be more of a historical political document aimed at unifying the Roman empire, rather than an exact historical accounting. As such, the events/stories/wisdom contained within it are delivered in a fashion that facilitates internalizing its messages, lessons, etc. Yet to suggest this to people who are deeply religious u

The Vatican and evolution.

[Savage-Rabbit]

Just so I clear this up I believe in evolution, however, I also firmly believe in God, I see no reason why both theories cannot co-exist, even the vatican support this view.

I know that it is popular to hold the Vatican up as an anti Scientific organization which is unfair because it's attitude to science has radically changed since the 16th century (Just for example: Gregor Mendel the genetics pioneer was an Augustinians monk). The modern Vatican is in no way shape or form a staunch supporter of intelligent

Re:I know I'm gonna get flamed but...

[Chris Burke]

Whether Darwinists want to admit it or not, there are gaping holes in the theory of evolution you could drive a truck through. Even Darwin himself admitted this. He freely admitted that evolution could not explain complex organs like the eye.

Fortunately evolutionary science didn't stop with Darwin.

Eyes

[alexo]

The Evolution of Eyes [origins.tv]

Re:I know I'm gonna get flamed but...

[Oligonicella]

Point by point, oh foolishly self-ignorant one:

Intelligent design, when ... as evolution is.

Not even close. Evolution is a fact. The various hypothesis as to how it functions are layed out in a format that can be examined against the evidence available as to their validity. Furthermore they can make projections, like say, if humans create new carbon-based chemicals, the biota will adjust in time to consume them. Guess what? Nylon ingesting bacteria.

... there are gaping holes in the theory of evolution you could drive a truck through

Mighta helped if you offered one, but I'll make do. Evolution basically states that organisms will change over time. We have literally tons of fossil evidence which explicitly supports this idea. If you have further thoughts, you might at least make them less vague.

He freely admitted that evolution could not explain complex organs like the eye.

Why, oh why do creationists keep trotting out lies like this? Not only did he not say that (provide complete context, not quote snippets), we currently have on this planet various life forms which exhibit the states of the eye's evolution. In fact, we have various life forms which show that the eye is not only capable of being evolved, it is capable of being evolved in a number of ways.

My point here is NOT to advocate ID, or the dismissal of Darwinist theory.

Uh, bullshit. If that were so, you wouldn't have made the false claim about the lack of evidence, for instance.

When you continue to insist you are right about something you can't prove, what you have is not a theory anymore - it's a religion.

Excellent, you've just described ID. Since there is emperical evidence for evolution, arguments against its very existence reek of a religious point of view that holds a book written thousands of years ago as being more correct than one's own eyes.

I personally believe that the answer to this is somewhere in the middle.

Just for your edification, there is no middle ground between goddunnit and the world works with its own mechanisms. Not in any manner that can be examined at least. And that is the fundamental deciet of the ID'rs, that the "theory" of ID can be examined. A noteworthy point is that they are incapable of coming up with a manner with which it can.

But it's just a theory - I could be wrong.

Much like ID, not it in a scientific sense. You are wrong because of your refusal to examine the evidence and frame a logically sound, yet falsifiable hypothesis. No more.

Re:Please tell me

[windowpain]

You are simply wrong. To imply that the universe we are in is some kind of "testable result" of intelligent design is misinformed at best, pathetic and dishonest at worst.

And you are wrong about theories. A theory absolutely must make testable predictions. A theory that does not make a testable prediction is unfalsifiable. By definitition a scientific theory must be falsifiable.

What you need to understand is not some concise definition of theory but a comprehensive definition of falsifiable. This snippet fr

Re:Please tell me

[windowpain]

The Big Bang theory predicts that the early universe was a very hot place and that as it expands, the gas within it cools. Thus the universe should be filled with radiation that is literally the remnant heat left over from the Big Bang, called the "cosmic microwave background radiation", or CMB.

The existence of the CMB radiation was first predicted by George Gamow in 1948, and by Ralph Alpher and Robert Herman in 1950. It was first observed inadvertently in 1965 by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey. The radiation was acting as a source of excess noise in a radio receiver they were building. Coincidentally, researchers at nearby Princeton University, led by Robert Dicke and including Dave Wilkinson of the WMAP science team, were devising an experiment to find the CMB. When they heard about the Bell Labs result they immediately realized that the CMB had been found. The result was a pair of papers in the Physical Review: one by Penzias and Wilson detailing the observations, and one by Dicke, Peebles, Roll, and Wilkinson giving the cosmological interpretation. Penzias and Wilson shared the 1978 Nobel prize in physics for their discovery.

The rest of the story is at NASA's Cosmolology 100 [nasa.gov] site.

For a fascinating and very readable book-length account read Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe by Simon Singh.

Re:Please tell me

[jjohnson]

Thank you for the apology.

To say that evolution requires an insane amount of chance to occur is to misunderstand the mechanism by which evolution is currently thought to occur. I understand why you would say this, since superficially it appears that evolution says that 100 dice were rolled, and they all came up sixes. To carry the analogy out, natural selection is like rolling 100 dice, setting aside all the ones that came up sixes, and rerolling the remaining dice, continually removing the sixes and rero

Re:ID is not Creationism

[pudge]

>> Well, the problem is, you're wrong. :-)

Not at all.

Well, no, you actually are wrong. You said ID is something, as opposed to something else, and you were wrong, as I showed by quoting an authoritative source on ID.

It's one thing to say that ID != creationism. But to say that ID excludes creationism -- or at least, is so dissimilar from it that it excludes a literal interpretation of the Gensis account -- is, simply, false.

When you say "creationism is not ID" you are clearly talking about your own