Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> The title says a revolution is happening. What's the opposite of a 
> scientific revolution? (Or should we just call it an "America"?)

  Pseudoscientific revolution?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Thu, 21 Apr 2011 17:12:02 -0400, Warp wrote:

> Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> The title says a revolution is happening. What's the opposite of a
>> scientific revolution? (Or should we just call it an "America"?)
> 
>   Pseudoscientific revolution?

I wouldn't even give it that much credit.  That puts it on par with 
homeopathy.  It's even lower than that, because it doesn't even pretend 
to be scientific (homeopathy isn't scientific, but it tries to pretend to 
be).

I'd call it an 'anti-science revolution'.

Jim

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> On Thu, 21 Apr 2011 17:12:02 -0400, Warp wrote:

> > Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> >> The title says a revolution is happening. What's the opposite of a
> >> scientific revolution? (Or should we just call it an "America"?)
> > 
> >   Pseudoscientific revolution?

> I wouldn't even give it that much credit.  That puts it on par with 
> homeopathy.  It's even lower than that, because it doesn't even pretend 
> to be scientific (homeopathy isn't scientific, but it tries to pretend to 
> be).

  What do you mean? ID does pretend to be scientific.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Thu, 21 Apr 2011 17:43:34 -0400, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> On Thu, 21 Apr 2011 17:12:02 -0400, Warp wrote:
> 
>> > Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> >> The title says a revolution is happening. What's the opposite of a
>> >> scientific revolution? (Or should we just call it an "America"?)
>> > 
>> >   Pseudoscientific revolution?
> 
>> I wouldn't even give it that much credit.  That puts it on par with
>> homeopathy.  It's even lower than that, because it doesn't even pretend
>> to be scientific (homeopathy isn't scientific, but it tries to pretend
>> to be).
> 
>   What do you mean? ID does pretend to be scientific.

I was thinking of something else (but of course I can't remember what 
now).  You are correct that ID does try to pretend to be - I guess I'm 
having a problem with "scientific" being combined with "religious belief" 
and that's what led me to say "anti-scientific" - as I see 'religious 
belief' as being antithetical to 'knowledge'.

Jim

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> I was thinking of something else (but of course I can't remember what 
> now).  You are correct that ID does try to pretend to be - I guess I'm 
> having a problem with "scientific" being combined with "religious belief" 
> and that's what led me to say "anti-scientific" - as I see 'religious 
> belief' as being antithetical to 'knowledge'.

  The whole idea with the "intelligent design" movement is to mask the
fact that it's simply repackaged creationism, by removing all mentions
of "God" and other theistic claims. In other words, ID attempts to be
a "legit" scientific objection to the currently established hypotheses
and theories on the formation of the universe, life and its diversity.
The idea is to try to circumvent the annoying limitation in the US
that theism and creationism cannot be taught as part of science, by
simply maskerading it. Of course they aren't fooling anybody. Everybody
knows that the ID movement is simply a repackaged version of creationism,
with all mentions of theism artificially removed.

  It's actually such a well known fact that even the ID movement itself
is in part kind of starting to abhor the use of the very term "intelligent
design", and instead they are changing it to a "teach the controversy"
movement. I wouldn't be surprised if in a few years the whole "intelligent
design" term dies off, and is renamed to "teach the controversy" (or
whatever fancy term they come up with), just to avoid the stigma.

  Or in other words, it's simply an attempt to get creationism past the
hurdles of lawmaking and legal courts and into the schools, as well as
an attempt at sabotaging the teaching of evolution.

  Seemingly this tactic is somewhat effective seeing how anti-evolution
legislation is being proposed, and even passed, in more and more states
of America.

  In principle, if they succed, it could not only sabotage the teaching
of evolution, abiogenesis and even cosmology, but could possibly cause
a chain reaction with all kinds of other fields of science. After all,
if one pseudoscientific hypothesis is taught at schools in order to "teach
the controversy", what stops other pseudoscientific hypotheses from doing
the same? Perhaps homeopaths, faith healers, anti-vaccination people and
germ theory denialists will start demanding to "teach the controversy" to
medical students, holocaust denialists and conspiracy theorists will start
demanding to "teach the controversy" in history class, flat earthers will
start demanding to "teach the controversy" in geography class, and so on.

  In the worst case scenario the whole schooling system could get sabotaged
to a catastrophical point. Science, technology and progress would suffer
enormously.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 21-4-2011 1:01, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> On 4/20/2011 3:26 PM, andrel wrote:
>>> But there's a reference to intelligence and design. "This protein could
>>> not have evolved", even if found, does not imply "someone designed it."
>>
>> But in all likelihood it would imply that it's presence would be easier
>> explained by assuming it was designed. By someone, something, a
>> committee, or a mad scientist.
>>
> Sadly, you can make a similar argument with the bridge analogy. That
> bridge, since there is no way it could stay up if you removed certain
> things, "could not have been designed", so it must QED be a natural
> formation. The only reason we don't hear people making this sort of
> moronic claim is purely bias. In both cases, the correct answer is, "We
> don't know what scaffolding may have existed, which allowed it to
> evolve/be built." In either argument, lack of understanding of how it
> could have formed doesn't prove the assertion that one or the other
> solution is true. Only finding, a) in the case of DNA, a species that
> still has part/all of the precursor, b) figuring out how such a
> precursor might have happened, or c) in the case of a bridge, watching
> someone build a similar one, gets you any place. What doesn't get you
> any place? Postulating that some invisible architect, alien, god, or
> otherwise, simply "inserted" the whole, complete, design into the genome
> (or dropped a complete bridge in place), without themselves using some
> sort of scaffolding to do it. Frankly, it doesn't matter if they used
> mental scaffolding and then just sequenced the gene from that, or
> anti-gravity beams, to lift the rocks. You still need some sort of
> "process" to get the result.
>
> ID's central premise, sadly, is that it just "poofed" into being. Hell,
> even the ones arguing "front loading", fail to grasp that any such
> "master genetic code", to avoid breaking the organism fatally, while
> inserting new features, has to take clear steps, in which it replaces
> parts of the system, only as possible, before reaching and end result.

I know it would be hard to find a sensible way to construct something in 
such a way that it could not have been evolved. Precisely because your 
bridge example is a known pitfall (and the paragraphs above therefore 
effectively a strawman argument). But simply the fact that you believe 
it is not possible does not mean you have in any way proven it to be so. 
Man and nature are often more inventive than either of them would have 
though.


-- 
Apparently you can afford your own dictator for less than 10 cents per 
citizen per day.

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On 21-4-2011 4:37, Darren New wrote:
> On 4/20/2011 15:26, andrel wrote:
>> That there are proteins (etc.) that didn't evolve by natural selection.
>
> OK. Let's grant that that is the actual hypothesis.
>
>> even weaker that their presence is easier explained by design than as a
>> result of natural selection. (hijacking Occam's razor).
>
> Designed by whom? An naturally-evolved creature? Who then selected that
> protein unnaturally? As soon as you say "naturally-evolved aliens might
> be the intelligence" then you've broken your hypothesis.
>
> Seedless grapes and bananas were evolved by natural selection. It
> happened to be humans doing the selecting, but it was natural selection
> and evolution.
>
> So again, even if you find a protein that you think could not have
> evolved naturally, then you have to prove that nobody who is naturally
> evolved created it.
>
indeed

-- 
Apparently you can afford your own dictator for less than 10 cents per 
citizen per day.

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On 4/21/2011 15:30, Warp wrote:
> start demanding to "teach the controversy" in geography class, and so on.

http://www.joeydevilla.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/teach_the_controversy_t-shirt_designs.jpg

I'm sure you've seen that stuff.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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Le 2011/04/21 17:14, Jim Henderson a écrit :
> On Thu, 21 Apr 2011 17:12:02 -0400, Warp wrote:
>
>> Orchid XP v8<voi### [at] devnull>  wrote:
>>> The title says a revolution is happening. What's the opposite of a
>>> scientific revolution? (Or should we just call it an "America"?)
>>
>>    Pseudoscientific revolution?
>
> I wouldn't even give it that much credit.  That puts it on par with
> homeopathy.  It's even lower than that, because it doesn't even pretend
> to be scientific (homeopathy isn't scientific, but it tries to pretend to
> be).
>
> I'd call it an 'anti-science revolution'.
>
> Jim

How about:
Pretend-science
Moron-science
Jackass-science
Unscience

Take your pick.

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On 21-4-2011 7:06, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Thu, 21 Apr 2011 00:26:31 +0200, andrel wrote:
>
>>> And what is the hypothesis? That a particular protein didn't evolve? Or
>>> that some intelligence actually created that protein?
>>
>> That there are proteins (etc.) that didn't evolve by natural selection.
>> Or even weaker that their presence is easier explained by design than as
>> a result of natural selection. (hijacking Occam's razor).
>
> No, that's not correct.  Just because something can't be explained by
> evolution (assuming it were found) doesn't mean ID is how it occurred.

In it's purest form ID does not give an explanation what did happen if 
it wasn't evolution.

> What it means is we don't understand the process by which it occurred.

yes

> Leaping to the conclusion that it's ID because it isn't evolution is a
> poor application of Occam's razor (at best) and lazy rationalization (at
> worst).

See above. you are again assuming you know what the alternative should 
be. That almost everybody publicly defending ID shares your assumption, 
indeed moves them into the camp of easily proven to be non-scientific. 
My whole point in defending that ID in the form stated above can be a 
scientific hypothesis is that you have to forget about all the people 
that claim God did it.


-- 
Apparently you can afford your own dictator for less than 10 cents per 
citizen per day.

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